Ciara Vilitray, District Four

'{ Ciara . Alia . Vilitray }'
(KEE-rah . ah-LEE-ah . vihl-ih-TREY)


fhios ag aon duine cén uair a bheidh réaltaí lámhach talamh

'{ eolas bunúsach / basic info

Uaireanta, dar liom mé éan le sciathán briste
Ag amanna dread mé mo anois agus éad nuair a bhí mé
Ach nuair a thógann eagna ciúin rialú
Ar a laghad tá fuair mé scéal atá gan aon duine a dúirt

I am the keeper of the lighthouse. With seventeen years whispering in my wake, I am young but proud, raised by the salty winds and swelling sea. District Four is a home to me, despite the fact that I don't fit in at all with other people. It doesn't matter. Long nights sleeping on the hard wooden floor of the highest story in the tower with the stars twinkling just out of my reach and the waves quietly shushing the world in the background have molded me into a true citizen of the ocean district. I think my parents worry for me, sometimes, because I treat the lighthouse like my home. They don't understand. I love it up in the tower and out on the beach. The crowded hallways of school far from the beautiful music of the ocean are no place for me. I need to live in harmony with the waves- it just feels wrong to spend my life any other way.


'{ dealramh / appearance

D'fhoghlaim mé deireadh a rá
Déanfar Cibé rud a bheidh ina
D'fhoghlaim mé a ghlacadh
An maith, an droch-agus breathe

Maybe it's the way she purses her lips whenever she's dissatisfied that keeps Ciara looking like a child. Or perhaps it's how her eyes are always wide and filled with wonder, as facinated by the world as a little girl just learning how to play pretend. She prances through life as if it is little more than a dream, arms always extended as if she is ready to just float right off into the sunrise. Laughter always hangs sweet on her lips and youth whispers through her hair when she runs barefoot across the long stretches of white sand, leaping and twirling and laughing as if she owns the very ocean (and some say that maybe she does, for it sometimes seems like the sun only shines with its greatest brilliance when she is smiling), limbs flying out to greet the wind as one would embrace their best friend.

Or maybe it is a quieter youth, the kind that clings to secret smiles and cursive writing practiced every night under the flickering candlelight. Perhaps it holds to her face only because she seems to always feel joy, softening features which refuse to be made old. No, Ciara has never been the type to harden or become suddenly cold- she is like a ray of sunlight breaking free of the clouds just after a storm, warm and full, freshly cleansed by the raindrops and ready to illuminate the world. She's only seventeen and her goals never wander farther than the lighthouse, making them the only exception to the rule that there's no such thing as dreams come true in Panem. Yes, it must be the hope that is always in every movement, in every smile and laugh and dance, that nourishes Ciara's youth.

Ciara's locks fall well past her shoulders, a light shade of brown like the beach when it's wet. Snarled and often frizzy, it is not uncommon to find grains of sand among her windswept strands. Her mother is always fussing over how unkept it looks, forcing Ciara to wash it and comb it as often as she's home. Sometimes, when they're going to some sort of event in the district or the Reaping, she curls her hair, making it look shorter and nicer in color than it really is. Ciara doesn't like it that way- it feels too bouncy and unnatural, like trying to paint the sand yellow instead of leaving it its natural pale brown. Many people say they don't like her hair the way she often wears it, but Ciara simply responds that she loves it exactly the way it is. It makes her match the shores where she spends most of her time, she says, and nothing could please her more than that.

Her eyes are always wide with facination or wonder, two disks the color of storm clouds approaching on the horizon, tumbling over the ocean in their anger. A beautiful shade, really, if one would look close enough to see past their ordinary first appearance. Framed by long lashes, though pale, they look always alert, always eager to learn more, though never from you. No, her excited, beautiful, wondering gaze is never on you. Only the sea can hold her attention for longer than a second. Her eyebrows arch above her eyebrows and are almost constantly raised up as she laughs and dances and plays on the beach. School is the only place one would see them otherwise, drawn together in confusion or concern or both.

Ciara's nose is always a shade of pink and peeling from the hours she spends out in the sun. It is long and thin and turns up at the very point, with a tiny little moon shaped scar on one side from when a fishing hook got caught there during her earlier years of life. Ciara's mother hates her nose. It's the first thing to burn when Ciara goes out onto the beach, so she always relates it to her child's wild behavior. "Why can't you just be more like your brothers and sisters, Ciara?" she'll ask some afternoons when Ciara comes home barefoot with sand in her hair and a handful of shells. Because my brothers and sisters are all prim and perfect, and they hate the lighthouse, Ciara will think, but she never says so outloud.

It's true, though. When lined up next to her siblings, Ciara can be immediately identified as the odd one out, despite being one of eight. The eldest, Concepta, is nineteen, beautiful in all ways possible and already having had several men ask her father's permission for marraige. The second eldest, Aidan, is a born Career, always training, with several scars all over from "accidents" in a fight. After Ciara there is Aingeal, sixteen, another Career who is small but fierce, who can always be found in her training outfits with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Cody, fifteen, the braniac who has big dreams, always wearing nicely pressed outfits and never without a book in his arms. Aoife, fourteen, who's probably the most popular in her grade and is always dressed in pretty clothes with just enough make-up on, and her twin Caitlin, who is yet another Career, already deadly in knife training, with several scars across her face. Aran, thirteen, the boy who's incredibly strong and an excellent fisher. And finally, little Cliona, twelve years old, who's imaginative and funny, yet always well dressed, almost like an adult.

And then there's Ciara, whose hair is always a mess, whose outfits are worn and wrinkled, whose face is always sunburnt or too dry. Ciara, who wears necklaces and bracelets made of seashells, whose lucky charm is a green piece of seaglass she found in the sand, who is free of scars or battle wounds because she does not train as a Career like the majority of her siblings. Yes, Ciara cerainly sticks out in her family, and yet she never makes an effort to change herself for them.

Ciara is determined to be her own person until the end.


'{ pearsantacht / personality

Mar gheall ar cé go maith linn
Chun a fhios cad atá ar an saol fuair sé beartaithe
A fhios ag aon duine más rud é go mbeidh réaltaí lámhach talamh

Ciara's grandfather used to say that saltwater flowed through her veins, her hair was made of spun sand, and the light of the lighthouse would remain eternally trapped in her eyes. What he meant was that Ciara belonged with the ocean. She's meant to be a part of it. And he never could have said something more true - Ciara loves the ocean and the lighthouse more than anything else in the world. She'll spend weeks days hours running along the sand and through the lighthouse, often spending nights in the crumbling building as the gentle waves sing her a beautiful lullaby. It is completely impossible to imagine Ciara in a different district. She just belongs under the screaming gulls on burning sand. It's who she is. The ocean is a part of her, and Ciara is a part of it.

Sometimes, it seemed like Ciara's grandfather was the only person who ever really understood that. Ciara loved her grandfather. He was an old sailor who knew the winds and waves like no one else did, a true man of the sea. Her grandmother died before she was born, but Ciara's grandfather always spoke of her fondly, so Ciara thinks it's fair of her to love her grandmother, too. She misses them both with all her heart - after her grandfather died, she felt very alone in the world, like the last person who had ever understood her was gone. In her perch in the lighthouse, one can find a picture of her grandparents next to her sleeping bag, among other oddities.

Despite Ciara's love of the ocean, she won't wade any farther than up to her waste. One of her siblings once threw her into the deeper water as a joke and she surfaced shrieking and clawing at the seafoam, her eyes wild. They had dragged her out and promptly she collapsed on the ground, sobbing. No one can figure it out - Ciara used to love swimming as a little girl, but now she hates the very idea of it. Sometimes she yells after awakening from nightmares, and they're all about tall, dark waves and not being able to breathe. At this, her parents will exchange a glance, but they always tell her to just go back to bed, tucking her back in as if she is seven rather than seventeen.

That's another thing about Ciara. She never acts her age. She leaps and laughs and spins as if she will remain forever young, always a little girl at heart. She still believes in luck and magic and wishing upon stars, and she eats candy and ice cream without a second thought. As the third eldest, her parents are always trying to get her to grow up, but Ciara remains stubbornly youthful. All they can do is sigh and hope that she matures when she graduates and has to go into the hard, cruel world that she seems to be completely blind to at the present.

Ciara is like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, like a good dream among a sea of nightmares, like a blooming flower after the fire. She's always smiling, always bright, always satisfied. She loves to hope and dream, and enjoys making other people laugh. Ciara's heart has always been full - she'll love anyone who gives her a chance. Her bright attutitude seems contagious everywhere except at home, where it is seen as immature and odd. Her siblings, especially Concepta, often make fun of her, but Ciara doesn't seem to take much notice. Some people think that Ciara has found the key to true happiness. But her family knows the true source of her happiness - the lighthouse.

Ever since she was a little girl, Ciara has been facinated with the lighthouse. Filled with all kinds of 'treasures' she finds on the beach, it's Ciara's real home, where no one will criticize her and there are no siblings to outshine her. She welcomes everyone into the building, though few actually come. People see her disappear into there often, though, and then she can be heard singing and playing her mandoline near the top and singing in her eerie, echoing voice. Sometimes, if one passes by the lighthouse at night, they can hear her playing her favorite song, an almost scary toon sung in a crystal clear voice, accompanied by the whooshing oceans and the whispering breeze.


'{ stair / history

Na laethanta a mhothaíonn sé naive a chur ar do chreideamh i dóchas
Chun aithris a dhéanamh ar leanbh, titim ar gcúl ar an sneachta
Toisc é sin nuair a bheidh mar thoradh ar eagla go hiondúil dall tú
Ach anois Déanaim iarracht chun anailís a dhéanamh faoi

Ciara was born third in her already large family, and it seemed like her parents were always too busy for her. Her mother was fussing over Concepta and her father caring for Aidan. They eventually had to have Ciara's grandfather move in to help out with the children, which basically meant care for Ciara. That's when their bond really began - when he held her in his arms feeding her a bottle and then sang eerie sailor songs as lullabies until the tiny thing fell asleep. Sure, Ciara spent time with her family. Her mother would occasionally rock her and it was her father who got up in the middle of the night to feed her. But it was Ciara's grandfather that made silly faces at her and tickled her and encouraged her to begin making sounds.

Ciara's early childhood seemed to be filled with crying babies. Just when one seemed to get slightly less annoying, her parents brought back another one. At least it wasn't crowded - Ciara's parents were fairly rich due to her mother inheriting a comany that rented out boats to fishers all over the district, so they lived in a mansion near the shore. It was her father who inherited the lighthouse, and he continued to tend to it despite their wealth. Ciara's grandfather continued to care for her, and her first word was "Papa", referring to her grandpa rather than her father. Ciara's grandfather became her best friend. As she grew to love the ocean and the lighthouse, he supported her completely. When she was five, he began trying to teach her how to play the mandoline, his favorite instrument. Her grandfather loved all the Vilitray children, of course, but she was his favorite.

Ciara doesn't remember much about when he died. She can't even remember her parents delivering the news to her. She does remember that he drowned after his boat got caught in a storm, but not much more than that. Long days of sorrow and tears followed. Even at the age of six, Ciara understood that her grandfather was gone forever, just like her grandmother. She understood that he'd never take her to the beach to play or laugh at her silly stories. The one person who had taken care of her, who had understood... was gone.

It took a long time for Ciara to heal, but eventually, she did. Now that she was alone, however, she better recognized her family's disapproval of her. They didn't like how wild and odd and obsessed with the lighthouse she was. In the beginning, Ciara tried to live up to their expectations. But it just wasn't her and eventually she gave up, knowing she'd never be good enough for them.

It was at the age of twelve that Ciara asked her father permission to take over duties at the lighthouse. After nights of begging, her father finally reluctantly agreed. Ciara was overjoyed - the place she loved more than anywhere else finally belonged to her. And she took excellent care of it, spending whole nights there and guiding the ships in danger away from the shore. Her family had never seen her more happy, and yet they couldn't help but hate the lighthouse for stealing her away from them and making her even more foreign.

To this day, Ciara continues to care for the lighthouse and live in her family's dissatisfaction. The Vilitrays do their best to keep her under control - after all, they can't afford to ruin their reputation. They want Ciara to be more like them.

But the keeper of the lighthouse refuses to be tamed.


'{ eile / other

An bhfuil an téad liom siúl ag caitheamh tanaí?
An bhfuil an saol breá liom titim i?
An bhfuil an meáchan ar d'intinn
A éan dubh trom caged taobh istigh?

Odair