veala "the cow liberator" jones | d5f | 8th games | fin

Yeah, you heard that right. 'The Cow Liberator'. I came up with that myself, yanno? Nothin' sweet, nothin' fancy, definitely something used t'mock me by the narrow-minded of the district to try and get under my skin without knowing that that very title is the armor on my skin, the crown on my head, the halo above my...head...

Where was I?

Oh, right, right. You're wonderin' how I got that nickname, aren't ya? Well, lucky for you, you've come to the right place and the right gal. So sit down, make yourself comfortable, and I'll tell you all about it.

See, it all started with my dear old mama and pops. Mama was great, lovely woman, beautiful too - yeah, I got all my looks from her, as you can clearly tell, not a drop of the old man shining through these veins (and thank fuck for that), but even the great Capitol scientists haven't figured out the sciences of reproducin' without men or whatnot even though some old science books from before the war claim that it's theoretically possible. I don't know for certain, I haven't read a book since I was ten, okay? Last time I saw one of those fuckers, actually. Pops and the stepwhore aren't really ones for readin, yanno?

Shit, I'm gettin' sidetracked again, ain't I? Yeah, no, mama was great. Lovely woman, beautiful, smart, the whole nine yards. She really only had two flaws from what I could tell; fallin' head over heels for my pops, and lovin' me more than she loved herself. That's why she trusted pops with her secret that she was a rebel informant, right alongside them Westbrooks and Lees and al-Amins and the whole lot of em, and that's why she gave herself up to keep me safe just like the whole lot of em too. Not that pops cared all that much, dirty bootlicker that he is. But, well, even gettin' someone like my mama apparently ain't enough for some men. That's how he ended up with the stepwhore and things one and two in the first place, eh?

But where it really began was pops himself, yanno? Insisted on giving me an industry name, and apparently Veela was his mother's sister's daughter's cousin's niece's name or somethin' like that and apparently I deserved the honor of not even bein' the first Veala Jones to walk this earth, but the second or fifth or whatever. He gave me that name, and the kids always used to liken me to the cows because before I grew into my mama's beauty I was an awkward lil thing and hell hath no fury like a nine year old who senses weakness. So between him and my so-called peers, and it's no wonder that I found more kinship amongst animals than I ever did people.

So that's where we were, one fine day just on the right side of the spring equinox, yanno? Just me, myself, and I, doin' my best to make my pops disappointed and the stepwhore embarrassed of my entire existence, or what they always said when I talked about my true passion, yanno? Well fuck me sideways if I think there are better ways to go out and get our meat than raisin' it for the slaughter? Like what did cows ever do to us other than produce a milk that reminds these old sons of bitches what it's like to suck on their mama's teat? Does that read of "slaughter-worthy" for ya?

And look, I may be stupid but I ain't dumb - I knew that not many people agreed with me. I knew that I was doin' this partly for attention and partly to make pops and his stepwhore the laughingstock of the district (and serves him right that dirty no good traitor). But on that fine spring day at the end o' March, somethin' just snapped, yanno? I didn't want to be the crazy girl who talked about the rights of cows for the rest o' my life. Nah, that was ridiculous. I wanted to be someone who did something to follow my beliefs and liberate the cows from the horrors of the butchers, just like my mama fought the Capitolist pigs - no, sorry, that's an insult to pigs, the stepwhore must be rubbin' off on me - the Capitolist bastards to bring about freedom for me and whatever whelps I might spawn in a good five or ten years from now.

So that night, after the overlords and butchers and murderers and the devil herself and her no good husband went to bed, I did it. I snuck out, I went to each and every farm I could find, I
kicked the asses of a few noble but misguided farmhands, and I freed each and every damn cow that I could. Shoot, there must've been hundreds by the time the sun came up and the masses realized that their poor innocent meat sources were running amok to their freedom! It was beautiful. For the first time in their lives, those poor magnificent animals knew what it was like to live without a yoke on their necks. Oh, it must have been glorious.

Sure, the bastards in white didn't like that very much. They found me soon enough - and hey, in their defense I wasn't subtle about it - my "cow lover" title had finally been upgraded and I was gonna tell the world about it, damn the consequences - and locked me in the slammer for a couple of months, but yanno? It was worth it. I'd made a difference. I know for a fact that so many cows got freed that it was impossible to round them all up again. Somewhere out there, those lovely dears are living their best lives, away from a short and brutal end in the slaughterhouse.

And hey, if I have to take their place? Then so be it. Reapin's tomorrow, I'm eighteen, pops probably took out the most tesserae he could to feed thing one and thing two, the Capitolist bastards don't like me - and shoot, I may be bad at math, but even I can do simple addition.

Doesn't matter tho. I've already won. And who knows? On the grandest stage of them all, maybe I will again.

After all, Five is known for their ability in conquering animals...