Rebuilding Hope (Open.)

Quietly analyzing the rain-shadowed area around her, Kiar ignores the constant pattering of the rain on her head. Wearing only a well-worn shirt and pants, some would wonder if she was cold. However, she was content with wandering the empty streets and paths of District Twelve, enjoying the absence of other people. She meandered through the rows of houses, which were closer to huts than houses, until she found herself in the less populated area of The Seam. There were a few old, abandoned buildings, and some that weren't quite abandoned. Passing behind one, she paused as she heard a voice, just the faintest of noises coming from the other side of a fence. Why anyone would have been able to afford a fence, especially in The Seam, was beyond her, but some of the older houses came with such luxuries. Silently, she stopped and reached up with both hands to grab the tops of the fence, pulling herself up in an attempt to see what lay beyond it.

She raised an eyebrow as she saw it was a boy, kneeling on the ground and gazing at what looked like a rose, though it seemed to have been burnt. Puzzled, she dropped to the ground, then gave herself a running start and leapt up, grabbing the top of the wooden posts and hauling herself over it. She tumbled over the top but quickly got her feet under her, landing with a faint thud on all fours. Cautiously, she stood up, ready to run if there was need.

Blue-gray eyes swept over the boy in front of her, taking in his red eyes and hunched shoulders. He had been crying, it was plain enough to see, but the reason why was a mystery to her. That was of course unless.... Kiar looked at the burnt rose that lay on the ground in front of the boy, thinking how defeated and sad it looked laying there, its petals tattered and blackened. Turning her gaze back to the boy, who hadn't taken his eyes from her during that time, she gestured at the flower. "It's a shame such a beautiful flower was destroyed, what happened to it," she took a quick look around her, "To here?"

Focusing her eyes back on the boy before her, she waited as he was silent. Kiar knew that if she pushed him for an answer before he was ready to give it, it would end up causing him to refuse to talk to her. "They did it, those damned Peacekeepers." The boy's stuttered reply made her pause, but she knew that the so-called 'Peacekeepers' could be rowdy and highly disrespectful to the citizens of District twelve, and she supposed all districts in turn. Her moment of hesitation was short lived, and she returned to looking at the burnt flower, which was now being carefully lain in a small hole and buried. It's a grave... she realized, he's laying the rose to rest in a grave, he must have cared for it and this garden a lot.

Her gaze returned to his face as he began to speak again, telling her of how a drunken Peacekeeper had burned down his garden and the house it lay behind. She growled softly under her breath, feeling a hatred well in her, a hatred that was directed at the person who committed such unwarranted destruction. She hoped that something terrible had happened to that fool of a man. What if there had been someone in the house, or an animal. Did the man not care. She shook her head, glad she hadn't been there at the time or she may have done something foolish in order to stop the Peacekeeper and ended up being flogged. Her blue-gray eyes glittered harshly in the shadow of the burned shell which was once a house, and the rain that fell on the burned ground at it's base. "I hope that idiot got what he deserved," she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for the boy to hear if he wished, "I hate people who think they can do whatever they wish, no matter how it affects others."

She turned her sharp gaze to the boy's face, gazing at his eyes. He had obviously been terribly pained by the loss of this place, but she wondered if he had done something about it, foolish or not.