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S O N . O F . H E P H A E S T U S
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22 | male | heterosexual
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▹ hair color | blond
▹ eye color | green
▹ height | 6' 1"
▹ build | buff / athletic | .
A B I L I T I E S
Pyrokinesis - The ability to mentally generate, control, and manipulate fire. Colton has never experimented with his supposed powers, though he has...melted things in the past, burnt his handprints into bed frames, but he's always ignored when sparks jump from the tips of his fingers. Fire feels...natural to Colt, he can remember staring into bonfires in the past, watching the flames jump and leap into the sky, higher and higher the longer he watched. It wasn't good, to be different, so he stopped staring at fires, learned to temper his anger and remain as cool as possible.
Calokinesis - Colton has always run warmer than most people, he's like a walking, living, breathing furnace. It comes naturally to him, and it has made summers out in the country when he was working on the farm brutal. He's melted his fair share of tools in an aggravated, hazy accident, but as he's aged he's learned to keep a tight lid on his emotions to try and control it. The result is warmth spread across his entire body, natural to Colton, but surprising for others.
Master Inventor & Engineer - Inventing and building runs in his blood, Colton has always been brilliant when it came to repairing or building things, scraping things the rest of his family deemed unusable to create something new. If you have something broken and you're thinking of throwing it out, he's the person to go to. There's a small sense of pride in every creation, knowing that he could be useful to others makes him happy.
High Intelligence - His therapist once suggested when he was younger that the reason Colton was so scared of everything, was because he was so smart. It was posed as a logical affliction, anyone who could look at a scenario and know all the ways it could go wrong would be smart enough to be terrified of the bad outcomes. His mind has always worked too fast, sometimes faster than Colt can even register the whirlwind of what-if's and maybes. He tries to look at everything from every angle, pick apart a perspective until he understands, and above all else, considers the worst case scenarios.
S T R E N G T H S
Physical Strength - Growing up on a farm, Colton's been lifting thing's twice his body weight for as long as he could remember. His physical strength often feels like the one thing he truly has going for him other than his mind, especially since his stamina is abysmal.
Adaptability - Colton can think fast on his feet, he likes to compare sticky situations to puzzles, if he can just line up the pieces correctly he can solve the issue. It doesn't matter what sort of puzzle he's dropped into, if there's a solution he can find it.
Innovative - Retired tractor parts, scrap metal, old battires, whatever he can get his hands on, Colt can transform to fit his needs.
W E A K N E S S E S
Fear - For as long as he can remember, fear has ruled his every waking moment. It still is there, lingering in the back of his mind like smoke caught in his lungs, rattling every breath he takes and filling his mouth with the rancid taste of bile. Recent event have made it possible for Colton to overlook most of his fears, but he knows it can't last forever.
Self-Doubt - Every choice he makes is laced with doubt, and those doubts are often enough to keep him up at night.
Kindness - Colton was raised to be kind, no matter what. His Pa has remarked that too much kindness could be his downfall.
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P E R S O N A L I T Y
respectful.... | .... dependable .... | .... innovative .... | .... integrous
H I S T O R Y
nyctophobia;
an extreme and irrational fear of darkness or night.
Colton was born the same day a volcano erupted on Anatahan, in the Northern Mariana Islands. He cannot dwell on what he scarce remembers, so the fact that his mother passed in childbirth has been something that has only ever sat at the back of his mind, a constant and compelling reminder that his life had started with death. He had been adopted quickly, before any of the oddities that would mark Colton as being different started to fully manifest.
He grew up on a farm, with two brothers and three sisters, a loving mom, kind dad, and Colton was...terrified. Of everything. It started off small, the inability to sleep without a nightlight filling the dark crevices of his room, the darkness outside jarring him into fits of fear that seared hand prints into the alabaster wood of his crib. His parents called a priest, but there was no demonic entities to explain the oddity of their adopted son. Colt was odd, but he was brilliantly smart, and so the strangeness was eventually pushed away. They loved their son as if they had given birth to him, they'd chosen him, and so what if he ran a little warmer than their other children? Colton was theirs, and they were content.
He, was not. His fears didn't start and end with his childhood. His fear of darkness kept him up as night, twisted his dreams into nightmares where a boogie man chased him through the slick and black streets of their town, menacing laughs echoing off the old brick roads. To Colt, fear wasn't about what made sense. Fear was about possibilities. Not things that happened, things that might, that could, even if it seemed impossible. His fears started with the darkness, but they grew until he was scared of the bath, scared of bugs, scared of heights, scared of living.
phobophobia;
an intense and irrational fear of experiencing fear or panic itself.
His parents argued when he was ten, going around and around for days. His mom wanted to take him to see a professional, his dad believed their faith would be enough to see Colton through his trials and tribulations. The rest of the family watched on, quiet and confused, until finally his mom took him and left. They were gone for three weeks, in which he saw a therapist for the first time and was able to begin giving voice to all the fears that coiled around his throat like wire, and then his dad came begging for forgiveness. They returned home, and once a week, every week, they'd take Colton together to therapy.
His fears became more manageable as he got older, each living nightmare was still there, sticking to his skin with all the persistence of oil, but over time Colt found other things to help steady the tremble of his fingers, one of which being, as his mom called it, tinkering. His brother's had laughed until he fixed the families tractor using bubble gum, and parts of a dissembled lamp. From there, Colton flourished. He was still scared more often than not, but it was like something clicked for him, and he shifted the gears of his brain from fear to focus. He'd stay up late into the night, his room overflowing with light, building little robots, drones, and a small handheld, digital music player shaped like a cube.
Despite his father's wishes, and the the beliefs of the rest of his siblings, Colton never quite found himself following their chosen religion. He attended church on Sunday's, feeling each time as if he were having an out of body experience. He didn't understand the concept of a God who would allow so many evil and cruel things to transpire, but for him mom's sake he pretended, reading the sermons and praying at night before bed. Colton grew up in the country, where faith was unanimously revered, and he allowed the customs to be imparted onto him. He grew up to be kind, respectful of women, a perfect gentlemen, honest to a fault. He didn't play any sports, the fears outweighing the rewards, but Colt was smart enough that he didn't need a sports scholarship to attend college, his teachers had noticed his brilliance, and that had been enough for him.
pyrophobia;
an intense and irrational fear of fire.
Colton doesn't remember much about the day it all fell apart, he'd come back to visit from college for the first time in close to three years, and he'd been so excited to see his family again...but there was fire licking up into the sky, fluctuating the air with it's heat. He'd stood there for a long moment, terrified of the flames, of the fact that none of his family were outside, their truck was parked in it's usual spot. They were all in the house. He remembered the moment of clarity, of refusing to abandon his brothers and sisters, beneath a blue sky in the middle of the afternoon, his tragedy unfolded, and the only thought he could think in that moment was... not my family.
There is a moment when a person will walk into fire, knowing full well they'll get burned, but it doesn't hurt. When you're prepared for pain, pain loses power. Only...the fire didn't even burn him. His parents bedroom was on the first floor, he got them out first, ignoring his mom when she begged him not to go back in, because how could he leave his siblings in there? The fire didn't burn, but the smoke choked him, every breath making his lungs feel raw like an open wound. It billowed down the halls as it swallowed the cries of his sisters, flames curling around their door hungrily. They'd screamed when he burst in, smoldering and choking, but Colt got them out.
The sirens of fire trucks screamed in the distance, he couldn't see their lights from outside with the sun beating down on him, but his job wasn't done. For the first time in his life, there wasn't an ounce of fear in his heart when he charged back into the burning house. All Colton cared about was getting his brothers out, was making sure his family was safe. He didn't care what happened to him, not anymore. The fire licked at his ankles, melted his boots, seared the fabric of his shirt into his skin, but it did not burn him as he took the stairs two at a time. In the end, all of his resolve meant nothing. The fire got to his brothers before he could, and the Shepard family shrunk by two.
There isn't a single recognized medical term or widely accepted name for the fear of being unafraid.
(def.) fear of the inverse of courage; a psychological state where a person is afraid of what it
might mean to be courageous or free from fear.
Tragedy feels a lot like a house fire. There are days were it is stifling with it's heat, where you feel as if you are suffocating with every lung full. Though, if you really wanted to, you could learn how to hold your breath as you made your way through the smoke left in its wake and you could keep going. And sometimes, sometimes, you could grow something beautiful from the ashes that were left behind. If you were lucky. Colten wasn't sure if he was lucky, it didn't feel like luck when they put two small coffins in the ground, it felt cold and cruel.
He does not return to college. He helps his dad rebuild their home, he helps on the farm, he loses himself to the grief of loss and pretends that the shaky grasp he had on his faith his entire life hadn't slipped from his fingers at some point between the fire, and the funeral. Colton lives one day at a time, and while everyday gets a little easier, sometimes he still wakes up gasping, choking on smoke that isn't there, and seeing what fire can do. His father finds him in the shed, surrounded by blueprints of things he will never get the chance to build, his dreams for the future crumpled up in the wastebasket in the corner. He hadn't felt afraid since the fire, but old habits died hard, and light filled every crevice of the old, small barn.
"You'll waste all your potential here." The rich timber of an unfamiliar man's voice cut through the silence of the night, making Colt whip around with wide eyes and tensed arms. They lived, to put it eloquently, in the middle of bum fuck nowhere. The idea that a stranger would stroll up to their property was preposterous...and yet here was a man that Colton had never seen before.
"Who the hell are you?"
The man's lips twitched with the faintest hint of a smile, as if he'd said something that was part of some inside joke. "You're a lot like your sister." The man didn't answer his question, simply gave an idle comment that made Colt draw short, brows furrowing in confusion. "How do you know my sister?" There was a tinge of protectiveness in his voice, his entire body growing tense and too warm. The man waved him off casually though, still smiling faintly. "Your actual sister."
Time seemed to freeze like the top of a lake in winter, curling impossibly in on itself as Colt stared at this unfamiliar man...and then it all clicked, all at once. He knew he was adopted, everyone in his family had dark hair, brown eyes, and a paler parlor. Colt was the only one with blond hair, green eyes, and naturally olive toned skin. He was taller than his father, and shared no visual similarities with his mother. He knew he was different, knew he never quite fit the mold of the Shepherd family, but he hadn't ever thought he'd see himself in the face of another man.
"Surely you didn't think someone like you could be produced by a mere farmer?" There was an indistinguishable edge of pride in the man's tone that Colton has never heard in his adopted father voice. He opened his mouth, but no words came to him, and so the man closed the distance, sliding a letter onto his workbench with a wry smile, scarred knuckles glinting in the florescent light's overhead. He looked up after reading Camp Athens, but the man was gone with the same mysterious silence he'd appeared in.
The letter was detailed, and he'd made up his mind before he'd even finished reading it. Colton couldn't go back to college, but he couldn't stay home and sit in his grief either. He left his own note for his family, and left before the night was through. He wasn't scared anymore.
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hexcode . | . #A64017 ........ faceclaim . | . Austin Butler ........ creator . | . Sleepy Tani |
