EDEN, DISTRICT ONE

“AFTER THE WAR WE SAID WE'D FIGHT TOGETHER.”
I guess we thought that's just what humans do.

AGE . Pretty sure it's seventeen.
GENDER . I'm a girl.
DISTRICT . District One.
OCCUPATION . Troublemaker, is usually what The detective calls me.
SEXUALITY . I like the menfolk.
TALKING . laurel
DOING . c o p y r i g h t *
DEEP THOUGHT . p h o t o g r a p h
HEARING . bad at naming colours
OTHER . sad widow


APPEARANCE .

“LETTING DARKNESS GROW”
As if we need its palette and we need its colour.

She never really thought of what she looked like before, until she didn't actually know. Who really knows when they aren't going to anymore, though? No one thinks that one day they'll wake up in the morning and just won't know anymore. So that first day she woke up to sunlight streaming through blinds in a sharp way, one of the first things they gave her was a mirror. Well gee, thanks. A clear face of any make-up, not even any smudge marks. There's a smattering of small, beige freckles that dot her nose, and almost to under her eyelids. Her skin isn't pale, it's tan, almost a golden, olive colour. Something tells her that she would have painted that face with something, call it woman's intuition, whatever. There's pots of things on the small table in front of her with the mirror attached. She's in a room for a girl, but it's still so sterile. No mistaking it for anything but a hospital room. At least they tried.

With a sigh, she picks up a brush and gets to work with defining her features. One of those being a stick of black eyeliner that she uses to outline large oval eyes that sit an appropriate distance away from each other, and are light chocolate brown in colour. Over them sits arching eyebrows, underneath a forehead that only looks larger with her bangs gone. The only thing is, she doesn't quite recognize them. They hold a lightness to them that corresponds with a deeper darkness to create a mixture of madness at the core. She doesn't feel mad though, she doesn't actually know what to feel at the moment to be quite honest. Done with the eyeliner, she takes a mascara wand and applies it with an expertise she didn't know she had until she held the tube in her right hand. Disquieted, she leaves the make-up alone, an uncomfortable feeling of completeness taking her heart and squeezing at the liner. Right away, she has something to say that she doesn't like about her face, her eyes. They're wrong. They don't belong to her, they belong to a girl with a past.

She slides a hand along her cheekbones, sharp things, they could take someone's eye out. her whole face is rather angular, she notes. The girl in the mirror. A sharp jawline as well, with a pointed nose. Lips that almost seem to big for such a smile face, and small teeth to live in them. She runs a tongue along the lower ones, and then the top. Two of them are pointier than the other ones, but something tells her that it's normal. When she tries, she can touch the tip of her tongue to her nose, an important feat. Everything about her face is sort of pointy and weird to create something small and oddly pretty. Her ears are rather large, and they stick out about two centimetres away from her head, but not enough that she looks like a total dork. It's exotic really, and looks familiar for all the wrong reasons. I've seen a similar face, but not in the mirror. The wisp is gone before she can catch it again, although a hand ghosts along her cheekbone in detached recognition once again.

The fingers of the girl in the mirror are long and thin. They feel small and bendy, like they were made to fit into a larger hand. When she squeezes her hand into a fist really tightly she can feel and hear the bones crack. Her nails are all carefllu clipped to a safe length, probably by a nurse. On her right hand, facing outwards and along the side of her pointer finger are three words, 'FOUND IN LOVE' all in capitols and in black ink. When she rubs at it, nothing comes away because the ink is under the skin. Her brain supplies the word, tattoo. She has a lot of those it seems, but she'll look at them later. Her left hand is busy running through long hair.

There is a whole lot of it. At first it reminds her of raven feathers, all sewn together to create a headdress. All layered, yet styled so simply that it's obvious she never really ever did much with it other than maybe brush it to the side every now and then. It's incredibly dark, as if most of her life has been spent inside. That, or it was from a bottle. It's shaggy, and right now it's messy like she just woke up. Maybe because she had. Uncertainly, she brushes her long hair to the left, hating the ugly feeling of not knowing why it's right, just having the innate knowledge that it is. She kneads her hand through her hair again, liking the feel of it. It's silky, and soft, freshly washed the day before by another nurse. Where her hand skims through, the hair is disgruntled and then quietly settles, thin strands forming a thick bond.

Her eyes travel down a thin neck to an even thinner frame. She's muscular, the girl in the mirror. She's not thin because she is naturally. She's just a small person all round, all long limbs, but only reaching up to the height of five feet and five inches. A small chest too, well that's a let down. Experimentally, she cups her boobs in each palm, getting a feel for them. There's a pink scar underneath the left one that she feels with her hand, but otherwise nothing is abnormal. I'm gonna call them Nate and Brendon. Further down on the left side, there is another tattoo. She knows she has a lot, because her nurses don't have any. They must be weird then. She's not altogether sure what any of them mean either, because some of them are just pictures, and other ones are words that obviously mean something, but she doesn't know what.

Reading upside down and in the mirror shouldn't be easy, but it comes easily enough to her. The words are swirling and black along her rib cage, and they say words that she's not sure if she understands at all, or ever could. 'In this fearsome pilgrimage unearth a crusader's heart' The tattoo is disconcerting to her, an analytic mind that she didn't know that she possessed calling the tattoo the mark of a huntress, or a warrior. Whatever it means, she can can feel each rib under a layer of skin and fat. She's healthy, they've kept her fed well here while she was out.

She gets to work looking at her other tattoos now, impatient to see what the girl in the mirror did to her nice little body. There's two other lines of print along the bones of both of her lower arms. They're in a different language, but when she reads the words, she finds herself understanding them with no difficulty, as if someone ingrained it into her head. 'Jetzt und immer die Segen von der Vater und bleibst Unschuldig bis Er kommt' 'Now and always have the blessing of the father and remain blameless until the end.' Whoever she was, the girl in the mirror was very serious, all these meanings far too much for the girl on the stool to understand. She shuddered slightly after reading the phrase, knowing that it should have meant something very important to her, but not knowing what at all. What father did she want blessings from, and why should she carry blame in the first place?My body is an etch-a-sketch for someone else. A canvas that didn't know it's self.

It's like someone left a map for her, telling her to follow, but the directions are all mixed up like a puzzle that she can't solve. There's a sword on the inside of her arm, and a girl on the other. She doesn't know if the girl is meant to be her, or to be someone else. There's another girl on her lower back, lifting up a big green fist, a strong woman. She doesn't know who that's meant to be. A stone on her ankle, and a gun on her hip, with an invisible holster. Then swallows signifying something else she isn't sure about. There's a lion that looks a bit like a sun should on her left elbow. She doesn't know any of it. She doesn't even know the face in the mirror, let alone her own name.

She doesn't know why sometimes the pinky on her right hand clicks, or why she has ink enveloped by her skin. She's not sure if the pale birthmark that sort of resembles a bird if you disregard the extra wing means anything. I don't even know my last name, and you expect me to know why the hell I have the ink I do?

Abruptly, she stands and moves away from the small desk with the mirror, across the room. It's a small room, but there is a chair by the window, a bed, the closet, the desk, and a lot of beeping and humming machines. Apparently, they were keeping her alive. On the chair is a small pile of clothes, presumably what she was wearing when she showed up here. It was in the spring apparently, because there are black skinny jeans, relatively new because they still hold their colour, and a dark grey tank top with a knot at the bottom to keep it from riding up. On the front in scrawling silver pen it says, "May your feet serve you well, and the rest be sent to Hell." then an assortment of jewelry, but the one thing that stands out the most is a silver ring. Five rings bound together by a chink, to be perfectly exact. Each ring looks like a circle of fragile bones. It's the only thing she actually chooses to put on out of the assortment, and a copper bracelet that simply reads, "Sherlock."

PERSONALITY .

“STRIPPED TO THE WAIST”
We fall into the river.

It's so sterile, all of it. ever since she woke up here, it's stricken her how neat it is. Even the timetables are neat. I eat breakfast, I go to therapy after, lunch, memory stimulus, dinner, free time, and then lights out by ten. Everything is so organised, and just so well run, that she almost feels like she's in a prison. I'm not, I'm in the rehabilitation section in the hospital of the first district of Panem. They told her that at first she was in intensive care, and then they moved me to the long term ward where she was in a coma for two months. Now she's in the rehab section, because unluckily for me, I don't know who in the nine levels of hell I am. Fun, ain't it?

"Eden? Eden, are you listening?" She jumps a little in shock, still not used to hearing another voice other than my own in her head. They said that'd be normal for a while after, that she'd forget things, or remember things, and that she'd be a basket case. They call this the rehabilitation section, but if we're going to be honest, it's a mental hospital. The thing is, I belong here, because I am mental. She's a girl with a penchant for scissors and hair styles, she's done everyone's hair in this entire hospital two times over, and they still won't let her go be a moderately well functioning member of society because Eden is 'prone to episodes.' Every now and then she'll blank out and forget everything all over again, she'll think she's just woken up again, and won't even remember what they call her here.

"Eden? Are you with me?"

Eden, they call her. It's a little joke apparently, because she's difficult to break into, but she's am apparently lovely when you get to know her. As well as the fact that before they named me, they called me gorgeous. Now she's just Eden. Well, not just Eden. She is Eden, the girl born again, not knowing who she is. The girl with the only clue in her pockets, a couple of scissors, and a roll of bandages. They tell her that she must have been a hair stylist, maybe before, but now it brings her no joy. She had to throw herself into learning something else instead. They tell her she was a sculptor, that when she does hair, it looks lovely, but she became frustrated, she wasn't meant for it. I have been here for a year.

"How are your studies coming along?" She have been here a year and some odd months that she slept through. Since awakening, Eden has begun something else to keep her from joining the sad mentalities that live here. She has been learning to be a nurse, to assist in surgeries, and to heal minor injuries. she finds a weird sort of joy in it, in the blood and the fixing of it. An odd sort of solace. They tell her that she can become a surgeon, a crazy sort of brilliance digging it's way out of her stores. She din't have to relearn reading or her maths, she knew everything to easily, she was brilliant and lovely from the get go. That's why they think she's so sad, such a sad thing, to not know who you are. I don't really mind.

It can be disconcerting, but she isn't bothered by things that might badger at others. She has no regrets, or wishes because she does not have a past, it is like her mind has been completely wiped clean. I am a fresh canvas. Once they had Eden stand at an easel, to see if she had been an artist, and she hadn't. That was what they found out through that line of thought, because the only thing she could produce from her brush were lines of poetry, that she swore she made up.

Darkness kissed by the sun leaves only heat and tendrils
Windows and sills
The frames of a criminal clear and cold
Always bold
Stare with a depth that draws out truth and kills the lies
Beguiling eyes
Gleaming with the ilk of knowledge in pasts and presents
Half-moon crescents
Nails ripped from lack of obscurity
Waning purity
Bleached by moon’s shine, and honest things
Heart swings

Frames that hold the heart in check
Sloping neck
Black and burned by life’s cold gleam
Broken seams
Sit upon a cold grey desk’s edge
Brow’s ledge
Windows to the soul safe behind glass
Thoughts mass
Folded politely, a gentle girl
Wild curls
Unused and uncalled, a lonely soul
Young fole

So they decided that maybe she couldn't paint, but she could write, so they gave her a pen and paper and told her to write more poetry. She didn't, in fact, she began to write a love story about a girl named Kiera, and a boy with no name. The story never really ever began or ended, and that sent the nurses into a flurry. They set about searching the data bases for a Kiera, but nothing was found, like her name had been wiped from any criminal activity check ever. So there they found that neither writing or painting would ever stimulate the reaction they so very much wanted from Eden's brain. They won't, I know it. She had spent hours herself, trying in vain to figure out who she was. All they knew about her wasn't very much.

That meant that she might become anyone she liked. She had a lovely body, she could become a movie actress, and star in things like Fenn Klardie. Or with her athlete's body, she could become a Peacekepper, and help serve Panem, they so often reminded her. She could open a hair salon, but that sounded boring. She was learning nursing, so even with her lack of knowledge of recent events, she could make an excellent Peacekeeper, they so often said it to her that she began to believe it was her only ticket out of the hospital.

They found that once Eden put her mind to something, she was likely to accomplish it. With a fierce determination, they would see a little red hat bobbing down the hall, and before they knew it, Eden had done something again. Whatever it was, they could never tell right away if it was spectacular or awful, whatever it was, it was a masterpiece. She had a way of doing things that no matter what the outcome was, be it terrible or incredible, it was always magnificent. A perfectionist, and an overachiever, they quickly classified her as such. She always thought that was better than being an underachiever anyway, and it did not bother her. She found that most things did not bother her, whether this was a result of her memory loss, or what her personality had always been was something none of them could say. Eden was an enigma.

She wasn't something to pinpoint, so much as an answer to a question that nobody knew they were asking. Not something to be overlooked, but not something to look at too much, lest they lose something valuable. It turned out that Eden was also a rather successful pick pocket as well. I can't help being bored. Give her a rubix cube and it wouldn't take her very long to figure it out either. A careful sort of brilliance lurks inside her, one that should be partnered with an egotistical outlook, and a soft spoken cruelty. People have been taken aback by the snide remarks that will pop out of her mouth without notice. They don't see the heavy cloud of sarcasm resting between her lips whenever she speaks, or the distaste for the clothes that they try and supply her with, carefully cutting up old shirts, and shortening jeans.

"I think, Barb, that my studies would be going much better if I could get more practice." As of yet, she'd only had dummies and small procedures to work on, nothing to really challenge her. She needed a challenge. She could feel the world turning sour around her as her impatience grew, her need to achieve great things turning the hospital into a playpen for pranks, no fear for consequences. Then eerily quiet afternoons, where no one knew where she was, only to find her up on the roof, sitting on the ledge. Calm as you please, she'd be reading a book, not one to fear great heights, not one to really hold a lot of fear inside her at all. In social situations, she was fearless as well, almost oddly. They began to notice small things. She didn't mind walking through the hospital at night in complete darkness, found complete happiness in holding a giant spider in the palm of her hand. It was wrong. I was wrong.

So more tests. More and more, until they finally found what they were looking for. At first they tried the heart area, uncertain as to where the thing that was blocking her fear might be coming from, then the nervous paths, and finally, the brain. I told them it'd be the brain, and then they poked and prodded me to see why I wasn't afraid about that. It made the most logistical sense because that was where she had gotten her injury, in the brain. With careful searching, they finally found what they were missing before, when they had looked at her head time and time again. When she had injured her head, not only had the memory section of her brain become seriously injured, but the Amygdala was completely destroyed. It turns out that the Amygdala is the section of the brain that most scientists of Panem believe that fear is born. No Amygdala, no fear. That's alright though, Eden was pretty sure that she must have been born sensible.

"You know we can't give you field clearance yet, hon." She knew very well. They were afraid she'd jump off a building, or let herself get stabbed to death because she had no fear. But just because one has no fear, it does not make them stupid. Eden knows that she can't fly, and that she should stay away from creepy people in dark alleys. The cooping up has made her into an irritable young lady with an excitable personality. All she really wants is to be let go, to be let out of the womb, per say. She feels like a child, with all she wants to see, all the things to see, the people to meet, the history to trace back to a mother and father. She knows she had a set, everyone does. If they tell me soon one more time, I won't wait any longer. I'm tired of waiting, I want to see the world.

HISTORY .

“COVER YOUR EYES"
So you don't know the secret.

Only once has Eden truly slipped away from her calm demeanor and shown herself to be a normal teenager. Once, when she was experiencing an emotion, that she couldn't quite pinpoint on her therapist's map, she knocked over her chair and ran down the hallway. She didn't stop running until she reached the yard. When she reached the yard, she began to climb the fence, until they pulled her down in a tangle of limbs and swear words. It's because they wouldn't leave her alone, they kept telling her she had to remember. Well, what if she couldn't? She came to the conclusion that she didn't really have to. they told her that she was afraid, she told them that she couldn't be. After that, they made her have daily workouts to get rid of her nonexistent stress. She hated running on the treadmills though, because she wasn't going anywhere. She wanted to run, and run, and run, and never look back. Not be so very stuck like she was.

They tell me that I have to remember, but I can't. Everything, every pieced together memento that she has are like shards of broken glass all jostling for a broken attention at once. When she grasps at one for too long, it cuts her, giving her nothing short of a migraine. She can't remember, Only mismatched things, like how she once wore two different socks, and it might have been cold that day. Nothing from the accident. They tell her that they found her looking like she was dead inside a training center, a throwing knife clutched tightly in her left hand. So they pronounced her a career and gave her the best treatment they could, as was the rule with careers. One never knew if they would grow up to be the one to bring pride to the District.

She woke up sometime later, some time much later, and then she became a permanent resident of the hospital. There isn't much to tell that hasn't already been told. Nothing but the sporadic glimpses her brain tries to give her, like the scratchy old tape of past arenas that the hospital keeps. She knows that she had been going to see someone that day, or someone had sent her to do something. Whatever it was, she had a purpose, she knows. They say they found her covered in blood, and not all of it was her own, but that's okay because she can't remember who's it was. it could have been a family member, or a cherished friend, but she can't say herself, she can't remember. No matter what, she don't think she'll ever remember again. Her doctor just says she needs a serious stimulant, and then it will all come rushing back, like a dam breaking. Everything they've tried so far has failed.

Now she is sitting on her sterile white bed, in a room she has lived in for a good year now. Her meager things are packed into an old suitcase, and she's wearing a coat. She's to go live outside of the hospital. In exchange for a job working for Panem, she will be given a comfortable apartment on baker street, close to the Peacekeeper's office. She's to act as a secretary to a man called The Detective, and his friend, Vests. Obscure names. They piqued her interest as soon as she was told them. The staff keep coming to see her, to tell her that they will miss her, and not to be afraid. But she isn't afraid, she can't remember how to be afraid, and it's like they keep forgetting that. She's the one with the brain injury, the only with an excuse to forget such an important thing.

Sometimes she thinks she can feel a different thing, a pulling of the heartstrings, like someone is shouting at her, talking to her across a great difference. As if they are trying to call her, to get her attention. But she can't recognize the name they are shouting, and their face is all blurred out anyway, like the sharpied books in the reading area. Eden is pretty sure that she should know her, in a way that isn't always natural. She thinks this girl should hold the key, but she doesn't know how to reach her when she can't even say what she looks like, or understand what she is trying to say. She's interested in this curiosity, this shouting inside that has been growing in sound since she awake. Everyday it gets louder, the yelling and shouting, like someone is banging on a thick glass wall. You can't hear it, but you can see it.

She supposes that she will miss the hospital and the people inside it. They are the only people she has ever known, and probably Barb and Karen in particular, two nurses that dealt with her case specifically. They almost became like mothers to her, when she was just waking up and so very, very confused. Sometimes she still was confused, what then. What if she woke up and she didn't know where or who she was? It would be interesting, very interesting. She can't really complain, not since she's been begging to get out for a good month. She'll have a stable job, and get to work beside a bright young doctor, and an incredibly sharp mind. The only thing is the dull pain somewhere behind her heart, telling her that she'll miss everyone. It's silly and sentimental, and she is not a sentimental girl. But she read in a book this year, that the reason anything ever hurts is because it's important. so the feeling of leaving was important,. and the hospital and everyone inside too. They were all important to her.

Every now and then, she thought she was remembering something, and she would wait patiently for it to surface properly. She had a retinue of images that stomped through her head on a regular basis to say hello. she had one little memory in particular that she couldn't seem to drop.

A little girl and a little boy were sitting quietly together each beside a pile of books. The books were mostly bound with cloth, and it smelt very dusty in that room. There was grime on the glass windows, and a silence to the air that the two of them were almost afraid to break. Between them were two juice boxes, and an old chipped plate with exactly two and a half cookies left on it. When she looked up, she saw that he was reading a book on Skullcap. It was a herb of some time. When she looked down, she saw that she was reading a book by a man called Hemingway.

And that is all that she ever remembers. She doesn't know which Hemingway it was, no matter how many times she rereads his works. She doesn't know who the little boy was, or where that room was, just the knowledge that she was comfortable there, and happy to be alone with he boy. She had been happy to have him to herself, she knew. But she didn't know why. Sometimes she can't help thinking that maybe there was a girl there, and not a boy, but she can't think of why she wants to replace him with a girl. Why a girl always seems to be popping up, because the one clanging away inside isn't Eden, she knows that. It's someone much more important to her.

Sometimes they called her a gargoyle, reminiscent of the ones who sat on the corners of the roof and watched over the district. This was because of her ability to sit and watch for hours and hours, not even a flicker of emotion showing across her face. The people that she would meet soon would not know her nicknames, or would not like to trace the colours on her skin like the little boy in D4 loved to do. She wasn't afraid, no, not at all. Just a sense of sadness at the leaving, but a sense of eager excitement at leaving the nest. She was always meant to fly, and now that her wing had been healed as much as possible, they were going to let her loose.

ANYTHING ELSE ?



OUT OF CHARACTER .

FACE CLAIM .
EMMA WATSON • EDEN

OTHER CHARACTERS ?
Click!

I, ELEGANT .
Have not used this space to actually write something in a long time. Please treat this one kindly, but don't treat her like she's made of spun glass. She's fierce as a coming storm, and deliciously wounded as the aftermath.

CODEWORD . odair