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Jarek, age 29, always had the energy and build to make a promising sailor for the prosperous orcish Rabhartach family, but those traits were overshone by his enthusiasm for animals--such as the enormous ever-mutating "domestic chimeras" that his other parents had been breeding and refining for the last few decades. And then there was his twin (well, step-twin), Thimb, born the same day to a gnome somehow connected in his father's polycule. The exact association of their parents was never as important as the facts: they were the same age, had many of the same problems and interests, and she had the best ideas and he could climb just about anything even with her on his back.
They both received the surname Riptide, a common simplification of Rabhartach for people who found orcish consonants difficult. This admittedly separated them somewhat from the richest part of the family, but still had a decent cachet, especially with their growing business in magical materials carefully collected from the unpredictable chimeras.
(AND NOW THE CONCLUSION)
While Jarek's upbringing was greatly enriched by the influence of gnomes, humans, and elves, his grandmother made bloody sure that he at least had a proper grounding in the Rabhartach clan history and the primal might that had seen them to safety and prosperity on the water for so long. Though he might not have always paid the most attention to tales of his ancestors, pure repetition guaranteed that when Jarek runs, climbs, hauls, wrestles, he cannot help but repeat his grandmother's mantras in his head: steady as the tides, swift as the squall winds, be as unyielding and flowing at once as only the sea can be... possibly something about the dark of the moon? But those mantras add focus and discipline to orcish fury, and--far more excitingly--his family knows how to draw power and peace from their reverence of the creatures of the sea, whale and crab and shark and turtle, and Jarek is pretty sure that he is on the verge of learning to make this kind of bond with the chimeras.
While the chimera ranchers are well-known to a portion of Brilight's populace, Jarek is better-known in his corner of the city for his efforts during the summer storms a few years back, when tidal floods broke through some protective walls and threatened to wash whole blocks away. He might not have been able to fight the hurricane, but he dove into the overflowing streets again and again for days, hauling trapped civilians and precious supplies to safety. Maybe the brine was in his blood after all, or maybe it was to be expected after his years of fierce competition in the Open Trials of Kord (district bronze medalist in the triathlon three years running!), but Grandmother Zanowa gave him a tusky smile and said he'd made Rabhartach proud.
But Jarek didn't take the second chance to join his family of sailors, not when there was so much to be done on the ranch and Cid was halfway through molting and Romin was probably going to give birth and/or lay eggs soon. Which felt like the right choice, right up until the day Thimb caught a stinger in her vitals, and in a panic of getting her to safety and getting Cid penned up again and keeping the rest of the herd safe and settled, he'd broken that beam he kept meaning to replace and brought a half-ton of steel rods down on himself from the loft like a swarm of javelins. When he awoke again, and had been assured that his twin was alive as well, he had time to consider his failure. It was one thing for Thimb to be caught by surprise, working with the chimeras' chaotic biology, but Jarek knew he'd got himself killed through blundering foolishness. He is still a bit surprised that they went to the expense of reviving him--unlike Thimb, with her unique expertise and sharp mind, he knows he's easily-replaced muscle. He wonders sometimes if this is just karmic balance for saving neighbours in the storm, and he feels the cosmic prod to get to work again serving people more important than himself.
