Bootstraps had always known his parents growing up even though the both of them were slaves. Strangely enough however, Bootstraps was not a slave – rather he was a free boy due to a bureaucratic mess-up. As a free child, Bootstraps went to schooling with all of the other Mer with their tribe’s local schoolgroup. Unlike the other free children though, from his earliest memories, Bootstraps had an incredibly easy time at school. His instructors were always very lenient with him, giving him freedom to do whatever he wanted. There seemed to be no agreement between any of his instructors to give Bootstraps what was essentially a free pass, but the kid didn’t worry too much about it, opting to take advantage of the benefits.
Bootstraps did know why it happened though, and made full use of it to make as many friends as possible. Everyone else enjoyed interacting with him in hopes of getting in on the secondhand favoritism. It made for a real fun time for Bootstraps, and he grew into a dependent old Mer slowly but surely. He was even allowed four slaves, whom he would tutor on a whim. His school had no rules and were yielding in physical and emotional support. They gave him total freedom to engage in whatever sort of relationship he wanted. Even though he was supposed to be learning skills to be used in the future, he was taught of nothing, was told to serve no master and he was trained in no art.
When he was eventually to be taken to his job, he always assumed that he was going to be an undertaker. There was no real reason why he suspected it beyond the occasional rumor that he was given an easy time so that he wouldn’t take revenge on the instructors’ graves. With little real logic supporting him becoming an undertaker, Bootstraps was not surprised when he found out that his role was to be a warrior. And he did know when he was later taken to the local Mer warrior camp to be a warrior.
The older Mer that brought Bootstraps from his family to the camp had no clue why all of the instructors were so lenient with the kid. He was supposed to be a warrior after all, not some wuss with zero discipline or Bootstraps. Quickly, Bootstraps proved himself to be a massive idiot who didn’t pay attention to people at all. He was punished with increased scrutiny in his training and was told not to do anything for anyone, which didn’t delight Bootstraps. The young kid had always had many friends, and though he was prone to causing accidents in everything he did, always wanted to do stuff.
Lack of motivation made Bootstraps end up working less and less at his training, learning as little as he could about all things warrior. He was determined to be an idiot reliant on other people and soon enough found out that he had zero aptitude at the warrior job that he was supposed to do. Bootstraps, as he had discovered, lacked the talent for destruction, mayhem and carnage. Inevitably, he was put to less and less use in these fields as his time at the warrior camp passed, as without the prospect of leaving this foreign warrior camp, Bootstrapsfelt less and less useful.
Bootstraps was determined to work in no one’s best interests, and after being in the warrior camp for uncountable arcs, was forbidden to speak to others. It was figured that something must be done to limit his proximity to all the young, talented warriors and he was soon sold into mining life. His new supervisors took away all of the young boy’s previous rules, and forbade him learning anything new as day in and day out he was expected to mine for his mining organization.
This was not very exciting to the by now older man, and Bootstraps was determined to be as crappy as a miner as possible. Though he quickly found that he loved and excelled at mining, doing anything to help the company that he was working for made Bootstraps disgusted. After being taken care of all of his life, from school to the warrior tribe, Bootstraps was now forced to be a free worker and he hated it. The only job that he did properly while mining was his self-assigned one to siphon materials and contribute as little of his free time as possible to helping others.
As of Vhalar 719, no one has yet freed Bootstraps and he’s continued to be a miner. And the same old mining life continued.
