Kyler Milfoil (D4)

“You’ve got a swimmers body, boy!” This was something Kyler heard all too often from his father. And it was true. From his early years, Kyler has always been on the thin side. Not overly lanky or sickly, just thin. Standing at an even six feet tall (6’), and one hundred sixty-five pounds (165lbs) Kyler blends fairly well with the majority of the youth in his home district of 4. What muscle he has comes from genetics, or training he has received. If you were to see him standing in front of you, the first thing after his face that you would notice would probably be his hands and feet. Both are accented by long digits (toes and fingers), which allow him to be a gifted climber and swimmer. On top of this, these fingers are scarred and crooked; crooked by genetics and multiple breakages, and scarred from years of practice weaving with fishing line and nets. He has a healthy semi-squared jaw line, and a slightly protruded brow.

A healthy glow always seems to be in Kyler's skin, which he inherited from his father, a naturally tan skinned man himself, and from years of outdoor activity. A pair of emerald green eyes that are admittedly a little wide-set than normal accents his perma-tan skin. If there is one “perfect” aspect to Kyler’s face, it’s his nose. It’s straight, reasonably sized, and centered perfectly between his eyes. Kyler always seems to have a small amount of acne going on, particularly on his round chin and on his forehead close to his hairline.

He has fairly straight teeth, with exception of a slight overlap in his top front two teeth, and his canines have emerged above the rest of his, resulting in a slightly vampiric look. One the topic of his mouth, Kyler has one flaw that most people are not aware of. He has a slight lisp, as he is missing the front right part of his tongue due to a wrestling match with his older brother Gill that got a little out of hand. The left side remained intact, and he has full use of his tongue, but a chunk is missing, which makes sticking his tongue out a little awkward at first. His crooked teeth are often over-looked by his deep dimples that appear when he lets loose a legitimate smile or laughs.

He has brown hair that if it gets too long starts to get curly, thanks to his mother. For the most part he keeps it fairly short, just short enough that it stays in control. A small amount of chin hair is always present. It’s not stiff enough to be stubble; it’s more of a peach fuzz. Also on his face, like most people, are his eyebrows. They are a light brown color, and are fairly symmetrical, starting fairly thick even with the inside corner of his eyes, and tapering down the farther out on his face you get. As a precaution and habit he modeled from his father, Kyler shaves the hair off his arms, legs, chest and armpits in an effort to make himself more aerodynamic.

As far as clothing goes, Kyler is most frequently in a pair of jeans and a white long sleeve t-shirt. When not in this, he wears t-shirts and tank tops a lot. He has three of each, mostly handed down from his dad. He has also been known to wear shorts, especially when he goes to help his father at work.t If you were to catch Kyler out at night, we would be in jeans, almost guaranteed, and a sort of track jacket that he came by at the Career school. It's mostly black, with a red four over a fish and a trident, symbolizing his district. He also owns a single black hooded sweatshirt that he wears every so often.

Kyler has always been a gifted swimmer. Since the time we was little, he has always felt more at home in the water than anywhere else. Because of this, his lung-capacity has increased significantly over time, as has his breath control. What he lacks in brute strength, and he does lack brute strength, Kyler more than makes up for what can best be described as “swift-ness”. “Swift-ness” is being light on your feet and moving quickly. He isn’t an Olympic caliber sprinter, but is one of the fastest runners and swimmers in the District 4 Academy. Also this lightness has made climbing and moving around silently a huge strong suit of Kyler’s. His time in the water has had his hearing worse. He isn’t deaf, but his hearing is not as acute as an average person. His vision has never been extraordinary, he can see well enough to function and fish, but sometimes reading things can be a struggle. He should probably have glasses, but he never bothered to mention this to his father. His smell and taste however have been sharpened. He could smell the spray of a skunk from close to a quarter of mile away, which has kept him from consuming bad fish on more than one occasion. If there is one skill that Kyler tries desperately to hide, it's his ability to sing. His father was a gifted singer, and genetics favored Kyler by giving him this gift as well. He attempts to hide it whenever possible, thinking that singing is girly and emasculating.

As far as personality goes, Kyler is an onion, or a cake, or an ogre (thank you if got that reference). On the surface you see an arrogant, cock kid, who seems to believe that he is truly invincible. The next level down you see a sensitive kid, who cares a little too much what people think. After that, a kid who is insecure in himself, and ultimately lacks the confidence you see in the first layer. At the bottom, Kyler’s personality can be summed up in one simple word: FEAR.

Fear ultimately describes Kyler’s personality. It’s not fear of death, or public speaking, he is perfectly capable and good at both of these. His fear is of something deeper, something that seems to tear at the very fabric of his being. He fears failure, and the rejection of people that inevitably follows that failure. Kyler never wants to be the one to let someone else down. Kyler cares deeply for his family and friends, and if anything were to happen to them because of something he did, it would be unbearable for him.

This fear has lead to a lack of confidence. “Can I do this?” After years of emotional abuse from his drunken father, Kyler has a lot doubt about almost every aspect of his life, except swimming, he knows he’s good at that. Kyler doubts his looks, his abilities and his overall self-worth. He doubts his ability to be successful. This doubt all bottled up leads to an overall doubt in his value to the people in his life.

Doubt in self-value can manifest itself in many ways. For Kyler, it manifests itself in a layer of sensitivity. He tries to gain the affections of others. He selects few people to see this layer, mostly female. He does this to gain their trust because their invested trust means self-value for Kyler. Again, abuse from his alcoholic father, and having to be the role model for five younger siblings forced Kyler to mask this behavior. Which is the outer layer of his personality onion.

The outer layer of the onion, the icing on the cake for Kyler Milfoil is arrogance. A thick layer of (false) confidence masks these other layers for the 15 year old; an arrogance that more often than not draws people to him, as opposed to pushing them away. He appears fun loving and is always joking around. This layer leads him to be bit of a daredevil, loving to push boundaries and see what crazy stunts he can do without killing himself. He is sarcastic and dry a lot of the time, and always seems to have an air about him that he owns the place.

Kyler is an intelligent young man truth be told. He reads well, has always had a knack for arithmetic, and keeps a solid head of common sense about him. He is very intuitive when it comes to people; which often makes him skeptical of people and their motivations. He is polite, but confident, always wanting make an impression. He is extraverted, but perfectly capable of being self-sufficient. As far as the Capitol is concerned, Kyler really could not be more indifferent. Aside from the incident with his brother, they have never done anything to wrong Kyler, so why should he hate them. At the same time, they seem pretty indifferent toward the situation his family finds itself in. Indifference is probably the best way to put his relationship. Indifferent.

Kyler Odin Milfoil is the second born child of Patrick and Lissia Milfoil. There are not many memories that still hang around for Kyler from his first few years. One of the first memories he had was when he was six, and the look on his fathers face as he told Kyler that his mother had just died giving birth to the Kyler’s youngest sibling, his sister Claudia. If you do the math, that means that Patrick was now responsibly for seven children. Even in the fairly wealthy district four, this was not easy. Memories become fairly sparse for Kyler once again, until about two years later.

Kyler had one older sibling, a brother named Parkin, though everyone just called him Park. Park was not a rule breaker by nature, but he saw what Kyler began to see immediately following this event: that the family was struggling to get by. One day Park was leading Kyler, Hannah, and Leslie to school. He sent them inside, saying that would be right behind them. Except he wasn’t. Instead Park sneaked down to the market center and went around stealing different fruit and breads that were there. He got away with this for a long time, before this day. This day however, things did not go in his favor. As he was running from a bakery cart, he slipped and all the food he had been concealing in his shirt spilled onto the ground. Peacekeepers assembled out of nowhere it seemed and hoisted the boy up by his shoulders. Kyler wasn’t there to witness it, but was told later by an older woman who had witnessed it that it wasn’t pretty. Park was taken to the square and tied to post. His shirt was pulled off of him and the Chief Peacekeeper at the time set to whipping him. The man was a little over zealous according the people Kyler asked, and the whipping went farther than it ever should have. Park died of blood loss before they could even untie him from the pole. He had been his father’s favorite son. Since that day, Kyler has not seen his father sober.

Kyler grew up a lot in the years that followed. He learned what he could do to help his father around the house and even at work, helping to repair nets and such if the occasion called for it. Kyler had always been close with his father; so seeing this transformation was devastating for the young boy. His father, though drunk, did teach Kyler one skill that only he could do, and he was paid well for it: bow-fishing. Bow fishing, in the “art” of catching fish by shooting them with an arrow that has a rope tied to it and so catching the fish. Kyler never could understand why this was such a valued skill, but it was so he figured he should learn how to do it. Because of the fact that there were still six children living under one roof plus a wet-nurse that the Capital sent out to them so that Patrick could still work, food was never available in abundance for the Milfoil family. Kyler would often eat smaller portions or not eat at all, in order for his siblings to eat. The wet-nurse would often comment on how skinny Kyler was, saying that he would be easy pray if fate chose him to be in the Arena. Kyler never much liked that old bat, and these remarks did not help at all.

Life was pretty rough, going without meals and so on for about two years. Then Kyler got a big idea. He would volunteer to go to the “secret” career training. He had rumors that they got fed there, which would help lighten the burden on his family. So, without his father’s approval, Kyler began attending the career training sessions. He was not impressive at first, but his skills grew, and his goal of helping his family came true. With him attending the career training sessions, he got fed there and so his family did not need to worry about feeding him as often. It was here that most of the injuries Kyler sustained came from. Broken fingers mostly from boxing or climbing or whatever activity you can think of. But his skills skyrocketed until he was about 13. His name was in the big glass bowl, but so far he had not been pulled out. He continues his training even now, his father having become aware of Kyler suddenly athletic appearance.

Kyler and his father fight on an almost daily basis, sometimes resolving to use their fists instead of words. It’s an unhealthy relationship, but Kyler can hold his own. It’s the younger ones he worries about most. He has been and is being trained to go the arena, but what if either of his twin brothers, both of whom had just turned thirteen was selected? He couldn’t bear the thought of it. They were scrawny too, and had no particular skill at all. If they were selected, he would volunteer, he was sure of it. Hopefully it would never come to that.