Rye Harrington // District Nine [CBD1]

Rye is tiny. That's the first thing you'll notice about her, and mostly the only thing anyone ever does.

- Growth stinted by malnutrition as a baby
- Delicate bones with 11 breaks
- Scant 4'7" yearning for that last inch
- Too big eyes, sharp ear tips, and stringy hair

Rye is what polite people would call 'needy', and what impolite people would call that 'clingy annoying midget'. The truth is that Rye does need extra care.

- Can't digest most normal foods, gluten
- Poor eyesight but excellent hearing and a body that is lean as a bowstring
- Able to put on stringy muscle easily, and loves to compete.
- Runs through the factories after school, dashing with messages from one person to the next for a pittance

Of course, if she falls, it's all over - her bones will break, her sight will dim, and if no one hears her tiny cries, she's like to starve overnight. She's acutely aware of this danger, and yet her desire to be involved in her community - to ferry gossip or payment or notices - far out paces the risks.

Rye was born almost a month early in a district with meager medical facilities. Her lungs were barely able to process the air, and she spent the first year of her life in that tenuous place between life and death. Her mother's mental illness prevented her from caring for her fragile daughter. She was fed intermittently, always formula. It was a poor start to life, and Rye has felt the ramifications of it all her years. She grew up in her grandmother's rundown house with her unstable mother and aging grandma. Rye knows there is a better place for her in this world, not just in the factory alleys.

300 on the nose!