FINISHED :: Eight :: Jon Wolfe

[/font]O H A N N E D D A R D J O U R - W O L F E[/center]

[/font]I S T R I C T E I G H T[/center]

[/font]I G H T E E N[/center]

[/font]A L E[/center]

[/font]E T E R O S E X U A L[/center]

[/font]N W A N T E D , I N V I S I B L E[/center]



Spare me your judgements and spare me your dreams
Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams[/i]
I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind
***

[/font]P P E A R A N C E[/center]

They look at him and then turn their heads away. The bastard son, they call him, for lack of a better term. But he thinks of himself as a King. And even though he may have thought those days were over – ended with the development of a new world; of Panem – always they will remember him for being the piece that never fitted. In the jigsaw of the Wolfe family, he is pushed to the corner of the decorated and polished box, described as being too roughly hewn, not dazzling enough. But as he is pushed aside he is raised above them, to sit in his Throne, away from such a childish Game as jigsaw. Skin all too pale, like he basks in a never ending winter that exists inside him, that burns cold and furious, constantly, a blizzard that will eternally chill his very heart to the extent that he seems sickly for such a strong young man.
A canvas case that never leaves his grip bulges with objects, and it proves his strength much more than the lean muscles that snake over his legs and torso like roots over the ground do. It is stained the same mourning grey that clouds his eyes, concrete dusted over water. The refractions of such orbs light up the shadowed circles around them. He keeps in his bag, as he does in his eyes, the things, the secrets, he needs – the things he has acquired. The things his mother would not give him, and so he took himself.
He walks firm and elegant as a Wolfe should – they are the Royalty in District Eight, the Coldhouse their castle

[/i] – and yet, still the bag crashes almost audibly against his crooked knee. Broken three times, he used to boast, when hurting himself was little more than another Game. His feet turn slightly inwards, his steps have the gasp and sigh of an old man’s along the gravel of his District kingdom. But despite this hindrance, a blend of childhood accidents fighting with his “siblings” and birth, though who can really say if it was the latter? Jon seems always poised between the planning and execution of escape; suspended in the split second before flight. His hexagonal, bristled jaw is set with resolute muscle and his shoulders are hunched, and Jon flexes his eyebrows into a frown constantly. From beneath the glossy amber-brown hair curled by fidgeting fingers, his eyes flit as fast as hummingbirds from spot to spot. Combining his posture with this shady habit, it seems like he is about to take off at any second.

Jon Wolfe treats clothing like a uniform. After all, it is only fitting for a King to be recognized, even if recognition comes without acknowledgement. A harsh contrast to his skin and eyes, he prefers the regal charcoals, creams and burgundies of a Northern monarch to the tangerines and turquoises that his less liked “sister”, Sarita, seems so in love with. Long sleeves, with furs and gloves, dominate his dresser, though compared to the clothes the other Wolfe children are spoiled with it is still quite a meager collection. Not that the self-named Lord Wolfe cares – his domain is less in material possessions and more in brainpower and cunning the others do not own. And the best way to remain cold and composed, reflexes still and waiting as ice while his sight still flickers rapidly between places only he can make sense of is through physical reminders of his power. For a king’s discipline over himself shows his discipline over other people. And so even in the sweltering heat of District Eight’s late summer, some of the heavy snow that would thaw from around the Coldhouse and reveal the damp, shivering heart within would remain, hidden by the wrap of Jon’s tactful choice in clothing where no one could tell him he is wrong. King Jon is never wrong. When the ice hills melt and disappear, Jon has his own pale mountain ranges left on his forearms. The craftwork of a bone-handled knife that remains sheathed in his bag all through the short days of his life, raised scars in an even whiter hue than the rest of his body remind him of his power. This Wolfe is a fighter, accepting that he is unwanted, but reigning nonetheless.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]

[/i]
And I'm on my knees, and your faith in shreds, it seems
***[/right]

Corrupted by the simple sniff of riches blown
I know you have felt much more love than you've shown[/i]
And I'm on my knees and the water creeps to my chest
***

[/font]I S T O R Y [/center]

Even as a baby, Johann Jour never fitted. His parents dwelled in the most impoverished part of District Eight, reaping no rewards from their hard labour – whatever they could find – except sore muscles and sorer emotions. It seemed, when Lydia Jour learnt she was pregnant that bitter April, unusually cold even for a Panem Spring, a blessing had been sent to her by Ripred himself. Eligible for funds from the Capitol government, to make the baby strong and healthy and suitable for the Games "heroic work that all the Districts do for the greater good", their life would pick up, for sure. While Lydia caressed the small bump of her belly for those first few months with ever-increasing love, however, her husband had other ideas. A true supporter of the old ways, selfish, wealth-driven and as corrupt as a Southern King, he saw it as only right to take the reward without the burden. How can killing an unborn child for oneself be a crime? They weren't even sure of the gender, and with the poor care they got in a farming District, they couldn't be sure if Lydia would live through it, either. It wasn't really murder. Was it?

But Lydia was adamant it would be a girl, and so his defense was invalid. She claimed, and this was something Sparrow truly despised about her, she had a feeling, as did all the women of her bloodline, about these sorts of things. No doctor was needed to confirm her inkling: they would have a daughter – Aresha – and she would be a Queen. Even with their minute amounts of personal property, preparations were made. A nursery room, a corner of their less-than-modest home, was daubed in pinks and oranges, the Capitol funds all invested into "feminine" books and toys. This was one of the only things Sparrow could take control of. Even if he would not get the heir he desired, he would make a bride worthy of a prince one day. As Lydia became even weaker with the strain of a rapidly developing child, plans were full steam ahead.

And then it all came crashing down.

As the hired midwife, as qualified as a shepherd's daughter could be but terribly nervous still, exclaimed the cliché "It's a boy!" Lydia almost wished childbirth had killed her as it felt like it had. For the first time, even in her physical and psychological fatigue, she thought maybe, maybe her husband could have been right. All he investments into their daughter's future were wasted. Unreturnable Capitol bonds were spent. It was embarrassing, too humiliating for words, too unbearable for such an overwhelmed woman as her. That January's frost should have only added to their joy and celebrations, they should have come home to a boiling pot of water for lamb broth and with a bubbly baby girl, but everything had been demolished all at once. But what were the couple to do? Kill a baby now?

For the first few weeks, Johann – as he was named for Sparrow's father, who would have been proud of an unexpected son – lived quite contentedly. However, his mother was resigned and almost always silent, and his father could not delight in his gender for fear of hurting her. Even though insde he was bursting to. It was all becoming too much, too quickly. Money was scarce, to the brink of starvation, worse than it had ever been, and the adults knew wordlessly that they would be much better off without the little boy who had ruined the lives he should have filled with glee. It was always should have. Johann never lived up to their expectations. As well as this, the half-crazed Lydia was developing a new theory so that she could cling to the last scraps of hope that maybe they had had a girl after all.

The idea of changeling children had existed in Panem since before the Dark Days. Swapped at birth, the true born babies were stolen straight from their mothers and replaced with demon children from the Underworld. The new children grew up knowing as little as the parents, but sought to make the family life a misery through just demonic instinct. That must be what Johann was for. To Lydia Jour, there was no way this boy was hers. She had had a feeling. An ingrained sensation that came down her family line. There was no way she could be wrong.

And how do you get rid of a baby straight from the fiery pits of Hell?

With ice, of course.

In the road in front of their house, under the canopy of a leafless, gnarled tree, Lydia began to dig a grave. Barely two feet long, it could just be a hole to relieve oneself in; no one paid her any attention. The snow was beginning to fall heavily again, giving her even more of a shelter for the terrible crime she was committing. But was it really a crime? She was just banishing a tortured soul back to where it came from. The demon child had to be frozen, for the good of everyone, and not just her sanity and her wellbeing. The cacophony of chaos that this baby may potentially cause could be reduced to a harmony of peace once more, little more than a sweet Song of Ice and Fire. She would be doing everyone a favour. Clawing at the snow with her fingernails, she watched them change from pink to red to white to blue in synchronization with the January sunset. Sparrow had been right, had always been right, but he didn't know she was doing this. And there, in the tendrils of darkness at the beginning of the night, she thought no one knew. Johann was silent and peaceful, wrapped in cream cloth that didn't stand out against the snow banks, Lydia in a cloak that seemed to reflect the night sky above.

The Changeling baby only started to squirm and whimper when she swept the crumbs of snow back over his little feet. Should she have started with his head? Of course she had never done this before! She hissed to him desperately, urging him not to wake her sleeping husband or any neighbours. She brushed snow over more quickly, gasping at how the intense cold sent rockets of pain up her own numb fingers, wishing that the screams threatening to escape her throats as well as her son's would come out silent and undetectable. Johann broke first. The baby boy, now awake and terrified even without understanding what was going on, let out all his noises of distress, fatigue and hunger in long, breaking wails. The demonic sounds that echoed from somewhere deep within this troubled child only backed up Lydia's ideas that the child was a Changeling, a hellborn nuisance. Lights flickered on lethargically in the houses that had them, matches striking in chorus were followed by the dim roars of fireplaces in others. Everyone could see what Lydia Jour was doing. Everyone could see that Lydia Jour was burying her baby son alive.

District Eight has never been famed for its quality Law Enforcement, for its ability to stop all offenders at once. There has never been cause for huge squad missions, only small scale acts of rebellion or petty crime. The Peacekeepers of the District had grown lazy, perhaps that was why Lydia was so unworried by any attention that she committed this act in a public street, even by night and in silence. However, the armoured jackets and electrified rods had filled her vision within minutes of Johann's outburst. Strong, rough hands gripped her, dragging her away, while others scrabbled into the loosely packed slow to rescue the freezing baby. Sparrow burst from the house and, not knowing why she had been taken, made to fight the Peacekeepers off. They had no right! he had said, they had no right taking his wife from him! Stern and old-fashioned, Lydia was his, and he attacked the man holding her so roughly without thinking. In one swift movement, he found himself lying on the ground, one eye punctured by an armoured knuckle, and screaming after her for all he was worth. The mother was thrust into a Peacekeeper vehicle and taken away.

For the good of the child, Johann spent the next few months of his life in the intensive care section of a Community Home. It wasn't much, but the doctors and Peacekeepers feared his internal organs were damaged by the cold in unthinkable ways, and if the news got out that Lydia had succeeded in what she strived to get, riotous feelings would circulate. The people would want to see her punished here, in this District, and not taken away to a high security Capitol prison and put to sleep calmly with a needle. It was only when Eddard Wolfe came looking for a baby, betrothed to a pregnant Caroline but still seeking a son of his own, that Johann was finally given the opportunity to be part of a family, not isolated or unwanted. Jon Eddard Wolfe, as he was renamed on adoption, was going to be a King.

Eddard loved Jon much more than Caroline ever did. Brought to the Coldhouse just as his half-brother Robb entered the world, he was always put second. "He isn't my son, or yours, Ned, and our children must come first." But Eddard felt so differently and would often retort "You may not think so, but he is my son. Ignore him if you will, but at least for as long as I live, Jon is a Wolfe." If only he could have known that not even by Jon's eighteenth birthday, his life would be brought to an abrupt finale. In a factory accident, Eddard's head was sliced clean from his shoulders – clean in that, when the blood came gushing waterfall-like from between his shoulder blades, even a King's executioner would have admired the handiwork

[/i] – none of the children could see the body, but Caroline was so drowned in her own grief, it seemed her icy heart had thawed out and the melt streamed from her eyes in neverending floods. Jon knew better than to take this opportunity to warm up to his "mother". In fact, as well as her, all his other half-siblings froze towards him as well.

All apart form Aria.

From the moment Aria was old enough to say "Jon", the boy knew he loved her. She looked more like her father than she did Caroline, and that was enough to persuade Jon that she would be an outcast, like him. They needed each other. Playmates in every situation, Aria alone knew several of the secrets Jon hid from the world. Not enough to betray him, for Jon didn't know who he could trust – even her, but just enough to let her know she could trust him. They play fought together with sticks, and occasionally knives, if they could snatch them from the Coldhouse kitchen, Jon knew Aria Wolfe would be his Queen.

And so was life in the Coldhouse. Under the reign of a cold, widowed Queen, Jon Wolfe waited in his own royal position to seize power. Two months older than Robb, he was next in line. Eddard had called him his son, had given him his name and the Wolfe name. Power would be his.[/size][/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify]

[/i]
Rain down, rain down on me
***[/right]

Look over your hills and be still
The sky above us shoots to kill[/i]
Rain down, rain down on me
But I will hold on, I will hold on hope

[/font]E R S O N A L I T Y[/center]

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[/i]
But take the spade from my hands and fill in the holes you've made
***[/right]

But plant your hope with good seeds
Don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds[/i]
Rain down, rain down on me
***

[/font]T H E R[/center]

Bah. This is gross xD For Charade's District Eight Game of Thrones plot. Omg if the coding doesn't work I'm going to cry. That is all.

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