Autumn Agresta / District Eleven

Autumn

the death of beauty as we know

She takes a deep breath, preparing herself, before quiet fingers ghost over the scarred wooden frame of the rounded mirror and then press it back so she can see her face in the reflective glass. Her eyebrows pull together tightly. It's just as she suspected. Her starved features have sunken further into her skull, cheeks hollow indentations on the sides of her face and skin pulled tight over her sharply sculpted bones. Her wide brown eyes are pressed too far back, thick fringe of lashes brushing against the sockets slightly. She never considered herself to be pretty but the girl in the reflection looks horrific, a skeletal image that blinks and moves the same way she does. That can't be me. She draws away and presses her lips together. It can't be.

It hadn't seemed to matter what she looked like until recently, as the Peacekeepers scour through the district and pluck children that they deem "mistreated" away from their families, casting them into an already overcrowded orphanage. They don't seem to understand that the whole damn district is mistreated. But Autumn couldn't afford to worry for the whole district - only for herself. And her appearance just screams starvation to the point where she hides her bony limbs under loose clothing, dumping auburn waves over her face in order to avoid being looked at too closely. The fact that she often wears the same outfits over and over again, however, cannot be helped. She is grateful that they are at least somewhat nice articles of clothing - a few fades jeans that's knees are permanently stained by mud and some very loose tops - as opposed to the rags she sees others wearing. Be grateful, a voice inside her whispers, and she knows it's right. There are a large amount of children less fortunate than she. But she can only muster up one thought in response.

I'm hungry.

keep on fighting one died from burning

The walk out into the fields is a long one, with the sun beating down and burning the pale skin on her cheekbones and the back of her neck. Her feet kick up tiny clouds of dust that only seem to thicken the hot air, and she coughs into her sleeve. She hates this district. She wasn't made for slaving away in eternal summers, kneeling down in the cracked and dry earth and pulling out the thorny weeds until her palms are scraped raw and her bones ache in exhaustion. She's not strong like the others, every facet of her delicate in it's own pathetic way. But she pretends she's better, for her grandmother.

A pair of Peacekeepers, snowy uniforms blinding in the burning sunlight, march past and her eyes dart over to them before she ducks her head downward. She's a good, obedient, Capitol-fearing girl. Too quiet and meek for rebellion. Some people call her cowardly and there are some days when she would agree with them, but more often than not she scoffs and tells them they're better off without her. The Peacekeepers eye her fleetingly before moving on, and relief courses through her veins. She may be delicate but fear is not common for Autumn - she only feels it around the Peacekeepers and fire.

But as Autumn gratefully sinks into the shade of the tall golden grasses she realizes that there are a handful of things she's willing to stand up for. Her grandmother is at the top of that list. After all, the old woman is the reason Autumn comes to work in the fields every day. The small shack she calls home is probably the second. Autumn and her grandmother earned that rundown home, slowly and painfully, penny by penny. No one will be taking that away from her any time soon. And the third is probably the guitar hidden beneath her rickety bed frame, the instrument having been passed down through generations. Her father began teaching her how to play when she was very little, and sometimes when others from the district gather together at night for the small "festivals" they hold to celebrate the harvest, she pulls it out and plays.

She'll be called selfless, worthless, and a coward, but she'll be damned if she ever lets someone tell her she can't play guitar.

kindly could you re-evaluate autumn's animated growth

Autumn's never been rich, but as she ducks through the crooked doorway into her shack and wraps a thin arm around the old woman trying to boil some soup on a stove that only works half the time, she can't help but remember a time when she was more fortunate. Her muscles ache with exhaustion as she drops into the curve of a nearby chair, closing her eyes lightly for a moment. Images pass beneath her eyelids like an old movie, and she can suddenly see her father lifting her up from under the armpits and spinning her around, and then her mother, pulling her into her lap. A sharp pain of fresh sorrow tears through her chest and she's forced to open her eyes again, struggling to rearrange weary bones and move over to help her grandmother cut up the vegetables.

Five years ago. That's when the angry, hungry flames licked up the walls of her home, blackening all that they touched. She was at her grandmother's house when it happened but she can still imagine her parents' final screams echoing up into the night sky as people gathered in a helpless ring around the house. No one could save them - the smoke was too thick, the air too blistering hot. She was twelve years old then, a wispy little thing, and she can still remember that night clearly. She doesn't remember ever truly sleeping, just listening to her own sobs.

She started working in the fields after that. She had no choice, really - her grandmother was too old and broken to work in those hard conditions. And it's been the same routine ever since. She can't complain, for people are mostly very kind to her, and she is loved dearly by her grandmother. The old woman works to give to the needy, which Autumn never understood. They're already poor enough without feeding others, aren't they? But it makes her grandmother happy so she lets her. This is why she doesn't question it when an hour later, after slaving over that pot of soup, her grandmother leaves with several steaming bowls and returns empty handed.

odair