[ Leaving things better than you found them, that's a good motto.

He sets his drink down and thumbs the handle as Molly asks more about him, quickly trying to figure out how to soften the story for someone he doesn't want to scare away, then wondering why on earth he feels like he should. ]

I swam. I was training for the Olympics but the coach I had worked me like a dog, from sunrise until quite literally sunset, but there's only so much strain the body can take before something snaps. Turns out, that was the muscles in my leg and hip. I didn't have enough fat on my body and the ligaments were wearing away at themselves with nothing else to burn off, so one evening I felt a terrific pain in my leg and almost drowned.

[ He hitches up a smile and a shrug, trying to lighten the imagery. ]

Another coach who happened to be at the pool saw what happened and pulled me out when mine wouldn't, Vandren was the one who helped set me up with physio. He saw how bad I was.

[ Fjord genuinely thinks, in hindsight, Uk'otoa would have let him drown that night. ]