#ftashes: acceptance

[fromtheashesrpg]

ACCEPTED // COVE ST. CLAIR

District Four – Victor - Virginia Garder FC

Age: 16 District: Four Victory Year: 24th Three Strengths: Devoted, charismatic, ambitious Three Weaknesses: Ignorant, hot-headed, dependent

TW: Death, child murder, underage drinking, underage sex (implied), underage pregnancy, miscarriage

Their Arena:

A hotel and spa. The spa was located in the basement, while the hotel stretched ten floors and had a restaurant on the ground floor. Initially, there were no people around other than the tributes. The cornucopia was located at the reception of the building, and while there was no way to get outside, it seemed the property was surrounded by miles and miles of woodland.

Biography:

Cove St. Clair was a born charmer. The youngest of the children of District 4’s mayor, she was a true standout among them. She was the only girl, the only blonde, the only difficult baby; so clingy she could never be left alone, the only one that seemed to deliberately trick her parents into giving more and more of themselves to her. She was this overpowering force in their lives, someone who took all a person had and kept it to themselves, needed it.

Cove was born after the Hunger Games had already started, she never knew any different than a yearly sacrifice being required. However, she was right there as the tide started changing on Career tributes. The wealthier Districts, One and Two, had their own Academies to train volunteers for the Games. And then District Four followed, their Academy less prestigious, their training less effective. But Cove lost herself in the pride and excitement of it all. She was always starving for attention, wanting to be more than she was, wanting to be praised and adored more than she was. Becoming a Career seemed a perfect idea.

The blonde grew up a popular girl, the mayor’s daughter that could win over anyone with a flutter of her eyelashes. She used it to her advantage and gained people around her that complimented her, knowing that none of her friends were really her friends, but still being too dependent on them for her own good. At fourteen, she fell head over heels for a boy that was a little older than her. At fifteen, she followed her then-seventeen-year-old boyfriend into the Games as a volunteer, despite being told she shouldn’t and despite pleading from her family to wait.

The Capitol loved her, as expected. Cove had grown up around strict social norms, knew how to play an audience to her advantage, having spent her entire life being watched. What she hadn’t expected was how completely unprepared she was for the Games. Cove had grown up in a bubble of love and feigned praise, of adoration to lift others’ social statuses. When she entered the Arena, all the work she’d done come crumbling down as she realized that, well, she hadn’t done any work to prepare. And it terrified her.

She’d made a pact with her boyfriend: they’d either die for each other or they’d die together. As she stepped foot in the hotel and spa that was the Arena that year, that changed. Cove was a terrified little girl who’d been way in over her head, and she knew it wasn’t a promise she could or wanted to keep. But she didn’t tell her boyfriend that, of course she didn’t. Instead, she stuck with the Careers as they hunted down other tributes, going from room to room of the hotel to lure them out.

Then she had her first kill. The other Careers had become suspicious of her, had seen she wasn’t as dedicated to the cause as they were. So they made her kill a twelve year old. With the bloodied knife still in her hand, Cove panicked and fled, leaving behind her boyfriend and showing him where her head was at: she wasn’t going to stick with him. She hid in room after room after that, knowing the Careers’ system of trying to find tributes, and using it to her advantage until she couldn’t anymore.

When there were five tributes left, it was announced that the hotel would be closing, but that the spa would still be open for business, and everyone would need to head down there. The Gamemakers were narrowing the hunting ground, hoping for an exciting finale. And that they got, with Cove kicking off the final act by murdering another young child in the locker room. The two career tributes left at that point, her boyfriend and the girl from District One, took care of another tribute, leaving just the three of them. Cove was bloodied, bruised and broken. She was panicked, irrational, unprepared. She took a swim in one of the pools, desperately trying to wash off the blood and longing for the feeling of the seas of District Four. That’s where the District One girl got her.

Cove was nearly drowned by her, but then the water suddenly turned red. Cove thought she’d been stabbed now, that that was the end, but it wasn’t. The District One girl’s grip loosened on her, the girl turned paler and paler, then drowned. She’d been quite literally stabbed in the back, by none other than Cove’s boyfriend. Cove’s furious, heartbroken boyfriend who Cove thought had turned up to save her, but instead, he wanted to kill her himself.

He dragged her into a sauna, locking her inside as he turned up the heat. He’d be the Victor, and his last kill would be dragged out and legendary. She pleaded with him, cried, banged on the door to no avail. He stared at her through the window on the door, watching her as the room got hotter and hotter. Then, Cove turned to the one thing she knew, wrapping others around her little finger. She whispered to him, ‘one last time, please’, convinced him that she just wanted a last kiss before she died. That she’d betrayed him, that she wanted to make it right before he rightfully became a Victor. He opened the door. She beat him to death with one of the sauna rocks, her hand burning in the process. Cove kept her life, being the last one standing.

She was adored in the Capitol after that, the tragic Victor with her lost lover. The whole thing was played off as a tragedy, like fate just hadn’t favoured these star crossed lovers. No one acknowledged Cove’s trauma, she was just another pretty dress up doll now. It was a role she could disappear into, lose herself in now that even her parents didn’t recognize her for herself anymore. She tried to be more independent, relying on and idolizing her boyfriend had only given her trouble. First, she went into the Games, then, he tried to murder her, then, a few days after leaving the Arena, Cove started bleeding. She’d been pregnant during the Games, she found out, the baby being her boyfriend’s. But now that part of her she’d somehow killed too, a miscarriage. It seemingly broke Cove even more than the Arena had done.

Now, Cove spends her days partying around the Capitol, trying to be and stay numb. She still manipulates others where she can, still gets whatever she wants without as much as a tantrum. But it doesn’t satisfy her anymore, and she’s not sure if she wants it to. She stays away from others emotionally, afraid of being dependent again, she knows she loves too much and too quickly, so she just doesn’t love at all. She’s one of the better Victors, she’s told, she does as she’s told and never makes a fuss. There’s just not much left in her, not the bubbly energy she once had, not the misguided fighting spirit that got her in and out of the Arena. Cove is just there to look pretty, and she’ll play the part if it means she’s left alone.

PENNED BY LIGHT

[fromtheashesrpg]

ACCEPTED // ASH ROWAN

District Seven – Tribute – Tom Holland FC

Age: 15 District: Seven Three Strengths: Acrobatics, intelligence, problem-solver Three Weaknesses: Amoral, cynical, manipulative

TW: Child abuse, neglected

Reaped or Volunteered: Voted in by his District

Biography:

Growing in Panem didn’t make things any easier.  The shadows of the hunger games always haunted his family in one way or another.  Unconsciously, his parents focused on his older brothers because they would reach reaping age first. If they had paid more attention, they would have probably for they noticed there was more to Ash than meets the eye.  For example:  he always displayed a great intelligence and skill to work with everything related to wood crafting.  The fact they lived in a district that prides in providing lumber and paper for the capitol as well as a strong desired for attention from his parents made him go the extra mile, but it didn’t work as well as he expected. His parents centered his attention on the older kids rather than him.

Yet, in a district were there strength was value over smarts didn’t make things easier for him.  Every morning he got up to work chopping woods at 4 am.  His uncle firmly believed that ‘hard-work’ makes a man; that means that he had to basically hunt his own food by collecting fruit and hunting in the woods.  Ash was the youngest member of the woodchoppers’ crew; this made him the target of mockery and bullying from their side.

Ash is way too proud to admit he is craving attention from adults because he knows well, he is not the ideal kid adults expect because of his attitude.  Ash had the habit of overanalyzing things around him and expressing his opinion wittily.  He seems to have a natural ability to make quick-come backs as well as smart answers to everything that is thrown at him.  Obviously, not many people like this.

Contrarily to what you may assume about him, he doesn’t see himself as someone intelligent even though he has great solving-problem skills as well as an excellent memory. In fact, he saw it like a burden and hides it from the rest because when he was younger, many people (those include his teacher as well as classmates) didn’t like the fact he was a ‘know-it-all’.   Things were no different at home even though he displayed his intelligence since he was very young.  His parents were busier taking care of his brothers to notice how brilliant the kid was.

Ash would never admit it aloud but there is nothing more than he desires than a little bit of attention.  It took him a lot to place himself on his parents’ shoes because he thinks it’s unfair they focused their attention on his brothers rather than he because after all, he had the same chances to die than his brothers did. However, he kept everything for himself because he didn’t want to look like a fool.  In his mind, he wants to keep what little dignity is left in him because he didn’t like people to know what his life has been.

PENNED BY JOE