Shiv Stewart {d1}

{ Shiv Stewart

{ District 1
{ Thirteen
{ Female

{ appearance

Coming out of her awkward pre-teen years, Shiv still sports a youthfully round face topped with the mischievous smirk characteristic of that one girl who makes certain that everyone else is painfully aware of their own flaws and shortcomings. Her light hair and lighter eyes — blonde and blue respectively — are a trademark of her District One heritage, in case someone wasn’t alerted to her career upbringing by the way that she carries herself. Despite long, gawky-looking limbs, Shiv glides wherever she goes with the elegance of a queen and the arrogance of someone who has achieved five times what Shiv herself has.

Her lank lends itself to above-average height for her age — at five feet, five inches, Shiv is able to look down upon the majority of her peers, boys and girls alike — and her slenderness gives the girl the agility and speed of an acrobatic career. Half a decade of training has ensured that what little mass she has is lithe muscle, allowing her to dance like a snake while she spars. Though Shiv lacks the forked tongue that would identify her as such, there is something decidedly serpentine about her lopsided smirk, though it lacks true malice. More likely, its appearance indicates some juvenile rendition of conniving — a prank or a ploy to put down or humiliate her peers.

Matching Shiv's straw colored hair and blue eyes is fair skin, largely free of freckles save for a handful dotting her nose. Her cheeks are often tinged with a light pink and, as she sunburns with relative ease, the tops of her ears tend to match whenever she spends too much time in the sun. This, of course, is not often; when she can, Shiv prefers training indoors, as she's partial to air conditioning.

{ personality

As an only child of fairly well-off, workaholic business people, Shiv Stewart has lived something of a pampered life, and it comes through in her personality. Never wanting for anything and never needing to share has developed Shiv into something of a self-entitled brat. Spoiled endlessly by parents who would rather hand her some new toy than actually be bothered to give her attention themselves, Shiv had a relatively lonely childhood. She became the child that none of the other parents really wanted their kids to play with, so she spent most of her time by herself.

For this reason, the majority of Shiv's role models have been the current tributes from her district, and for this reason, Shiv grew to be more and more atrociously behaved. After all, the characteristics that mark a popular tribute — ferocity, treachery, disregard for others — make for a rotten child. Some years, when One's females died earlier on, Shiv locked on to other career girls, or even sometimes the boys. Where the young girl lacked an older brother to follow around and climb trees with, she had a Dru Charlesburg to emulate (to Shiv's chagrin, her aim strayed left a few inches; for the sake of her neighbor's vision, it was probably for the best that this was the case.) When she lacked friends, it was alright by her because that made her just like Zinnia Yaren — she could pretend that she'd killed some, that the others had all wandered away.

Through the years, the habit never truly fell away; watching the older girls as they dominated their respective arenas had molded her so thoroughly that when she started training, she fit very neatly into the career girl schema, and excelled. The new experience of interactions with large groups — particularly in a competitive setting — gave Shiv something of a social focal point: she decided that she would be the best at everything. Since her training started, she's always done whatever it took to win sparring matches, foot races, target practice — whatever. Shiv doesn't fight fair, and if she can do something to sabotage her opponent, she'll do it without hesitating. Though she's grown up a little, she's still something of a brat; she doesn't cry when she doesn't get her way anymore, but she still sometimes does when she loses.

{ history

Destined by parental indifference to be that kid who terrorizes the neighborhood, Shiv Stewart has a long track record of bullying those around her. When she was little, it was less subtle: a push here, a shove there, a black eye for the girl who was using the toy house when Shiv wanted to play. As she grew a little, it remained blatant but increased in complexity; she hit them with sticks in lieu of swords because they were playing Hunger Games and she was supposed to win, convinced them to try out a wrestling move and then bit them on the arm when they'd willingly let her pin them, cut them with the rock she'd found just to prove that it was sharper than theirs (which she would proceed to cut them with as well.)

She started training for the Hunger Games the year that District One finally had a new victor, and her absent parents were supportive of their daughter being a Career. Or, they were supportive in the sense that they were glad she'd taken to it, rather than actually showing up to any of her training. They were glad that she'd be out of the house more, so they wouldn't have to feel bad for leaving her to entertain herself — not that they'd ever really felt bad about that; after all, they'd bought her plenty of toys to play with.

With such inattentive parents, Shiv was seldom reprimanded for anything. The only clear instance of punishment that she can remember was the time that she'd nearly put the neighbor boy's eye out with a particularly sharp stick. Six-year-old Shiv was devastated to have her television privileges revoked for a week — after all, there were only three tributes left so the Games would be ending and she'd miss the finale! In retribution, Shiv climbed to the highest shelf in the pantry and ate all of the sweets, in the hopes that she'd throw up that night, perhaps to distract her parents from the fact that she wasn't allowed to watch TV. When morning came and she hadn't gotten sick, Shiv simply flipped on the television set anyhow and glanced over at her parents, who were pouring themselves coffee before work. They hadn't even noticed, hadn't even remembered her punishment. Though she was only six, it was the last time that Shiv took her parents seriously.

{ codeword
odair