There was a time when he would go to the swing set and would sit, barely moving, for hours at a stretch. It was a nice little playground, shrouded with thick bushes and spindly trees. Hidden from the streetlamps and forgotten by the Kine of the city, he could still play freely in the darkness. The grasses were high and the fence destroyed by questing branches, but the old metal didn't creak too loudly and the stress points of the jungle gym equipment were still intact.
He lay at the top of the rusty slide, his feet halfway down the twisted shaft, hands clutching the hold bars. The stars were clear in the sky here. It was quiet. Even Ara, their Priest, didn't know about the place. He was free in this childhood picture. He could be someone other than himself. He could even be the one they named him for...the bumbling one that Pere and Scout had said was cute. Joxer...the not-so-Mighty.
Memories of life before the pack were small. It wasn't that he was old, not compared to the others...it was just that there didn't seem to be any reason for holding onto memories when they were not a part of his nightly existence. They withered and he forgot to water them. He giggled softly, there wasn't much to remember. It was better this way...he could remember what he made up instead. The hero of stories and destroyer of the midget monkey people...or was that the reality and the childhood in the woods being raised by wolves...or the orphanage on the moon...or perhaps the mother who was addicted to heroin...the fantasy? He forgot...the pictures all ran together like wet paint. It was unimportant.
He was Joxer now. Not very mighty, not very bright. The others still accepted him. They didn't leave him to fend for himself like the past did. He wouldn't forget them.
