Nekane

NAME [Nekane Itzel Ibarra] MEANING [Sorrow Shadow Valley] GENDER [Cis-Gender Male] SPECIES [TEIFLING]

HAIR [Golden Brown] EYES [Brown] HEIGHT [6'3"] BODY TYPE [Lean but strong]

A skilled mechanic, Nekane has always preferred working on fixing things up rather than speaking with his family. Though he is close with his younger sisters, he still does not feel entirely like family to them.

He was thirteen when he lost his leg in an accident. He would never admit to his family how he broke it so badly, but he worked to fix it. The prosthetics that were given to him by the doctors were never quite enough. Instead he spent hours alone trying to perfect a prosthetic that could feel, despite warnings that he was playing god.

Families are complicated things, and the Ibarra family is no exception.

In pursuit of a son to carry on his title, Asier Ibarra pushed his wife Arantxa to have child after child. Many of them did not make it past childhood. Three tiny coffins burried in the garden with beautiful headstones that matched carefully with names carved delicately. Sendoa, the first lost son. Petri the second son. Nerea the first lost daughter.

The first to grow was Terese. She was beautiful even as a babe and grow up pretty and spoiled. Her mother's favourite by far for being the first not to break her heart.

Osane was next, with a lame hand. It was decided early on she would join the first three children. Instead, she grew and grew. While her body might not be beautiful, her voice was. Both Asier and Arantxa claim her first words were sung rather than spoken. Her music has given her an ego.

Heartbreak followed with the sixth child, Nikole born with her umbilical cord wrapped around her throat. Luken lived until four, falling ill. Zoirrone was the eighth, her heart too weak for the love offered to her.

Number nine was Miren. Breeched, but she was pulled out quickly. Scars on her feet attest to the work the doctors did to save her. An unnaturally beautiful save for the mean look in her eye.

Twins Alaia and Koldo were sickly at birth, born too early to truly make it. Both mother and father did everything within their power to keep them living from one day to the next, but they were barely skin and bones by the time their souls ascended.

Irati was barely born, early as well. Her fingers were barely formed, but still grasped her mother's finger. She was mourned harder than the others.

Number thirteen, the devil child. Somehow the penis was all that Asier could see at first. This child would be the son he needed. He was certain of it in the early days. The strange lumps on his feet would heal and they would remove the tail before he grew too large. The nurses refused to work with the child, marking him as a demon born from Asier's desperation. It wasn't long before his desire for a true son took over and Nekane was named as his father's Sorrow, a Shadow of what he should be.

Sadly instead of son next, twins Bereizi and Edurne were born as numbers fourteen and fifteen. They were pale girls, with dark hair and eyes that also scared the nurses - and worse still they frightened Arantxa.

Mother, mad with the pain of birthing child after child, the terror of losing ten of children, walked into the woods. They never found her, and despite this, Asier never remarried. He buried an empty casket beside her children and mourned her. He has looked for another son to hold as his heir, hiding Nekane when he is able.

The family is far from perfect, but who is?