Blood, sweat, and tears. Those were the elements, if one could call them such, that the Outpost of Norr Bay was built on. Of course most ten arc old boys wouldn't care about such legend, or myth, or what have you.
Hookor was not most boys. In fact, he was so far from most boys, that one could make an argument that he was no boy at all. But he was. He was a blue boy. He could thank his Eidisi mother for that. That blessing and curse. Blessed with a thirst for knowledge, a hunger to know. Cursed to mockery, mockery for being different. Hookor, even in his childhood, would try to find the silver lining. The curse was merely a tool one could learn from. Always learning. In enduring the mockery, there was observation to be had. They feared him. Feared his difference. They made themselves feel better by making fun of his skin. This was their own weakness.
Such thought, such insight. No, Hookor was not most boys.
Horace Crook knew his boy was different. Not the powder blue hue of his skin, that was obvious. No, Horace knew his son was different, far different, on the inside. He was what many might call a "book worm". Always with his nose buried in a tome, rifling through pages long after his eyes should have closed out the candlelight. But Horace knew he needed more. A young boy, who would become a man, needed more than book learning to make it in the world. So Horace taught him. Taught him the things a good father would teach their boy. How to fish, how to chop wood, and of course, how to forge. It was quite ironic that the thing which Horace was best at, smithing, was the one skill that Hookor did not take to. Try as he might, Horace would never get Hookor to raise a hammer. The boy would learn, understand the skill, but then would simply collect the data, and head up from the furnace house to the Outpost Estate, and into the library. His employer, the Baron, was generous to him, and kind to Hookor. The Blue Boy spent hours and hours in the Estate Library...learning. Soaking in knowledge like a sponge took up the sea.
Hookor had many memories from Norr Bay. It was the only home he knew for most of his young life. At the age of ten, however, Hookor was several years away from the worst day of his life, the day his father passed. No, now the memories were that of reading and running. Running with Horace from the Smithy to their two bedroom house. Running from the local boy thugs who chided and mocked "The Blue Boy".
And such was the setting for the stories that would form the novel that was Hookor's past...
