February, 1991

Erik toured his new foster home with a disinterested air. He couldn't remember if this was his eighth or tenth, and he didn't much care either way. The one thing he did care about was nestled safely at the bottom of his knapsack. At the moment, all Erik wanted to do was blow past his latest foster father and get down to the nearest lake before they all thawed out for Spring.

"Is good?" The heavily-accented German was both bitter and sweet to Erik's ears.

"Es it okay," he retorted back and relished the surprise on the older man's face. Had the new foster parent not read past the words "disruptive," "aggressive," and "violent" and gotten to the less interesting facts about Erik? It certainly would have explained why he kept calling him Mr. Eisenhardt instead of his preferred surname of Lehnsherr. The teen vowed to legally change it the first chance he was able, but until then he just snapped it whenever someone called him otherwise.

The older man, Werner, offered Erik a curt nod and informed him in his native tongue that lights out was no later than nine in the evening. He eyed the teen up and down once more, and shuffled away when he was finally satisfied by whatever he was looking for. Erik snorted at his retreating back. As if he was going to leave the ice just because the sun went down.

Erik turned on his heel to take in his new bedroom. He didn't take stock of anything other than the fact that there was a bed. It was all he would need the room for, he figured, seeing as he planned on spending the majority of his time practicing on the lake.

At the thought of the lake, Erik made quick work of sliding off his knapsack and undoing the leather straps. He flipped open the top, and sifted through a handful of clothes and basic toiletries until he pulled out the first object he was eagerly seeking: Ruthie's silver bracelet. He clutched it tightly in his hand, touching his closed fist to where his own pendant rested on his chest, before he carefully set the bracelet back into the pack. He then reached back in and pulled out a pair of worn, poorly handcrafted ice skates. They were ill-fitting and bought used, but Erik was still proud of them.

He had worked hard to scrape together enough money to buy them for himself. It had taken months of shining shoes, walking dogs, and the occasional theft to get the minimal amount he needed in order to purchase them. It had turned out he was still a few marks short of what he needed, but the shop owner took what little Erik had to offer, claiming they were never going to sell anyway.

Erik held the pair in the air, studying a scuff on the heel of one. He carefully placed the right one atop the bed, licked his thumb, and vigorously scrubbed at the mark until his skin burned from the friction. He studied it once more, annoyed to see it was still there. There wasn't much to be done about it anyway, and he was wasting precious time, so Erik carefully put them back in his knapsack and slung the bag over his left shoulder. He walked out the front door without so much as a grunt to indicate where he was going.

It was with great restraint that Erik didn't run the distance to the lake, and it was only because he didn't want to tire himself out before getting the chance to pull his skates on after so long. So, he paced himself as he walked along snow embankments and bare trees. He shivered underneath his wool sweater, but opted against pulling out the jacket he hastily stuffed into his knapsack.

Finally, after several minutes of enduring achy teeth and wind-whipped cheeks, Erik came upon the frozen lake he had seen when he was being dropped off at Werner's home. Erik gleefully slid down a snow-covered slope, and quickly pulled on his skates. They were big and they were ugly, but they were his and now he could finally teach himself to properly skate on ice.

The next few days were filled with injuries ranging from the minor chapped lips and bruised bums to skate blade gashes and sprained fingers. But it didn't take Erik long to pick up the basics. And when he felt comfortable enough, he incorporated a stick into his personal training process. Then as winter began to fade away, he threw in a round stone too.

When spring swooped in, Erik thought his fist-fighting skills were getting rusty again.

TBC...

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