White Lightining

Episode 1: Hard Knock Life

The suns morning rays danced across the surface of the water. The water in the harbor was as clean and clear as any other part of the ocean. 13 year old Jophiel found peace here, he would often come here after the matrons at the orphanage would beat him. The saddest part about living in an orphanage was that Jophiel wasn't an orphan at all. Jophiel was conceived after a 16 year old girl was struck by a lightning bolt came with child. This led to persecution of the girl and ruined her reputation among her people. Then the moment Jophiel emerged from the womb everyone in the room was struck with a stroke of lightning. Everyone who witnessed this was conceived the boy was cursed either by some kind of storm magic or a demon. This child shamed the girl even to look at so she sent him away to be cared for by others. If only it was that simple, if only he was that fortunate.

Their was in fact something otherworldly about Jophiel. As a toddler his hair grew and was colored stark white, but that was not the most unsettling thing about the boy. It was his eyes. Within his iris his eye color appeared jet black except it looked as if lightning was dancing back and forth within the iris of his eyes. To most people it was an intimidating thing to behold. No matter where he went he was treated with distrust and contempt just for looking different. Never being wanted by anyone made Jophiel cynical and distrustful of those around him. He was bounced from place to place until the sisters of the church of Mydrocyl took him in despite his appearance, and their belief was that if he did have any demons in him they would beat them out, and oh did they beat him. That was not all they did, they taught him how to read and write, they taught him mathematics, and the worlds histories, but most importantly they gave him a name, Jophiel. Jophiel is translated from the angelic tongue to mean "the beauty of god". He was gifted this name because the matron sisters said he was one of the most beautiful little boy that they had ever seen. They loved his hair and his eyes. They argued that he must have been touched by some celestial power at birth.

They found out soon after that only Jophiel's looks were angelic. The boy was a rebel, he acted out and was a troublemaker. No matter where he went he never felt like he was welcome because he looked different. This led to him resenting the world. This mattered little to the matron sisters, his angst was not an excuse so when Jophiel would step out of line a matron sister would beat him back in. Young Jophiel hated the orphanage but being there gave him quite a few skills, one of which was him being an excellent escape artist. He would often get locked in his room as punishment and would find creative ways to escape. Weather that would be coming out of the window and scaling the side of the orphanage, or picking the lock on his door and use stealth and misdirection to sneak past the matron sisters. His rouge skills were on par with someone twice his age and more importantly in the orphanage Jophiel learned to fight.

Jophiel was not a big kid so the older ones would often try and bully him. The problem with this was that Jophiel didn't know how to back down, so he had more than a couple scars for fighting kids bigger than himself. But through his trials and struggles Jophiel had grown to be quick on his feet both literally and metaphorically and he had the backbone to stand up to anyone.

He was down by the pier early this day because he ran away again. This time he was looking at three days of isolation, which is basically being locked away in your room, for blacking another kids eye, for stealing his food. He sighed as he looked out over the ocean. He just wanted to go, He just wanted to take off into the world and let the winds of chance take him everywhere. Jophiel knew that his life this simple life in this port town was not his calling. He just knew his happiness would be found out their, in the world living day to day, staring danger and mortality in the face with a smile and a shine in his lightning ridden eyes.

Jophiel sighed with despair because all the high hopes he had had already been beaten out of him. He just knew he would grow up here in Azul, probably get a job as a dock worker, or a fisher man and probably die here an old man, alone. The thought of that was enough to bring tears to his eyes. Angry with himself for letting his emotions take hold, he wiped them away and stood up from the dock post he had been sitting on, and dusted himself off. The action was more psychological than physical. He had beaten himself up, he was ready to get his head back on straight.