D3 // CASSANDER SULLIVAN [DONE]

name Cassander Gawain Sullivan
age Seventeen
district Three
gender Male
occupation A Knight.

But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn
And I've been a fool and I've been blind
I can never leave the past behind

( A P P E A R A N C E )

Brown eyes peer forwards. They were dark brown and were often mistaken for black. They balanced on the edge of darkness, and it seemed to any onlooker that they spiralled into the depths of those shadows. And it did. Black sat at the centre of these eyes, but it did in most. The only difference was that it seemed to stretch away from the centre, as though it was being pulled at all sorts of angles. Yet even in all darkness there is a light. A fire burns within the depths of my gaze, it flickers and dances with every emotion and dream that I conjure. A long time ago it was not there. It had once been replaced by coldness. Not the cruel kind of coldness, but the kind of icy edge that came from fear. A long time ago there was never a flame within my eyes.

I call it joy, real true joy. The kind of happiness that can only come to those who know it. It is something I always try to keep a hold of. I love the warm feeling that greets me whenever I smile. That sweet twist of my lips. I have smiled so much and so often that at the age of seventeen crinkles already caress the sides of my eyes. And that harsh look that seems to spark from the very centre of my eyes softens. I look friendly; I look like someone that can be spoken to with ease. A smile always seems to play at the edge of my lips, and I feel tempted to always draw it into a fully-fledged grin. Sometimes I feel as though I am tempting fate when I smile, because it never seems to be at the right time.

I always receive scowls and scornful words form my siblings when I smile. To them it is as though I do it too much. They don't see me as serious, they don't see me as the kind of person to add purpose to every order and demand that I may have to give out. No matter what I say or do a smile is always not too far behind. And it infuriates everyone around me. Sure people don't mind the smiling, but sometimes you just have to stop smiling and take what is in front of you with the utmost importance. People loose respect for me when I am always smiling, they just don't listen. It is awfully hard to respect a joker.

That light that seems mostly forgotten is the kind of flame that keeps me going. It owns me and it is the reason I am who I am. Without it I am positive I would be like all the rest of my brothers and sisters, cold distant and cruel. I’m not a cruel or harsh person. I am not them. Humour always seems to balance within the confines of my eyes. I always try to keep it there, no matter that situation, no matter the problem. Everyone needs to laugh; everyone needs that tiny bit of joy in their life because without it we would all be lost. Some people try to search for it, but they never find it. It isn’t something you can simply get. You are born with it and you have to nurture it, most people just forget, those people make up my family.

I am sure that I must have fallen into the wrong family. The people that surround me are so much unlike me that I feel alienated. They are like sheep; they are all the same, every single one of them. Each of them likes to think they are really different; some of them like to pretend they are leaders, but on the outside they look exactly the same. They have nothing that makes the stand out, I feel trapped in this heard of black sheep –and I say that because they are all so dark on the inside. They are all so cruel and sunning that none of them can possibly be white. Then you see me. The odd one out, the white sheep in a flock of black and you can see the difference in me it is as obvious as that.

Every now and then I will hesitate. Every once in a while I will stand in my room and just stop. In my room, standing opposite my bed there is a mirror. It is as tall and grand as any and it takes up a hell of a lot of space. It is entwined with black –the very colour that seems to dominate my family, a swirling pattern that rings the entire frame. It holds a diamond in each corner and in each diamond sits a chess piece –each corner with the exact same one, the exact same colour and style. A knight.

My father gave it to me for my sixth birthday. It isn’t something that most kids want for their sixth birthday, but I would never day say anything, for fear of what he would say to me. It sits in my room where it has since the day I got it. And every day I look at it and every day my own reflection looks back at me. A lot has changed since the first time I looked into its depths. A long time ago black seemed to stain the skin under my eyes. Nights up on nights of sleepless nights had built up a wall in me. It had built up that blackness that seemed to pull down at my eyes. Now the nights seem to slip by far too quickly and I sleep through the whole night. When I look into the mirror the black stains have faded to the point where they don’t exist and they only show signs of flickering back into existence every now and then.

My head reaches the top of the mirror. I was tall, scraping a good foot over six feet tall. But then most wannabe career boys were tall. And if they weren’t they were not expected to last that long. Sometimes it wasn’t up to you whether or not you succeeded, sometimes it was about whom you came from and how you looked. Being a winner, being the strongest and toughest general came to those who had the body and the shape for it. I had that body. I was tall; I had long legs and strong muscular arms. Muscles rippled along my chest and across my back, they were as hard as iron, but they weren’t too big. I had tried to work myself up to making my muscles bigger and better, but it was though they refused to stretch and tear and grow. It was not the kind of body that you could just get. It had taken years upon years of hard cruel and daunting work. I hadn’t been born to be a career wannabe and although I looked like I had now, I wasn’t once. I was unlike most people in district three, I trained, I wanted to be a victor and even though I wasn't in a career district I wanted to be one. I wanted to be able to be called one, I wanted to be a winner.

I will often find myself grazing my fingers across the frame of the mirror. Gently touching one of the two top knights. I found them most intriguing. They were the most complicated pieces in the whole game of chess. They had the most unique way of moving and their power within a game was greatly underestimated.

And after a few minutes of staring I would find myself rasing my other hand and carefully drawing it through my hair. It was an odd habit I had picked up. I did it whenever I was thinking.

I can see no way, I can see no way
I'm always dragging that horse around
And our love is pastured such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues drawn

( H I S T O R Y )

When I was really little and I woke up from a bad dream. Every kids has bad dreams, but I didn’t want them. They would usually be a dream that would make me want to scream. A nightmare that tore into my mind; a raging ball of fury that would pull my fears from every crevice and nook, snagging the worst memories and making them into some monster. Some horrid thing that would make a scream claw its way up my throat. I never did scream. Screaming was for the weak, it was for people who weren’t brave and strong, so I always choked it back down. I would wake up with tears clinging to each of my cheeks. I could never fall back to sleep, and with a sob caught in the back of my throat I would flee my room and escape into the darkness of the house.

I’d always be scared. It was that kind of fear that stayed at the back of your mind and just sat there. It made you look over your shoulder every second and it made you shiver with coldness as though you were being watched. I was scared that whatever terror that chose to haunt me while I slept would get me when I woke. But I would never go to my mum. I would never go to my dad. I didn’t want to talk to either of them. Even though I was shaking and even though I was scared enough that I almost wet myself I didn’t go near them. I never wanted to see the concern or sympathy in mother’s eyes. And I was always, always scared that there would be that tiny little flicker of disappointment in father’s eyes. It was something I could not handle.

When I woke up on those kinds of nights I would slip silently from my bed. My long legs stretching forwards in front of me. I had a high bed. I had to stretch all the way to touch the ground without a sound. But I always did it. I always made sure not even the slightest sound came away from each step that I took. I didn’t want to wake anyone up. I didn’t want to have to explain myself. I much liked the peace that my night time adventures got me. I’d never tell them that sometimes I got scared. That sometimes when I went for my walks I would look in every nook and cranny. I would make sure every door was locked and that there was nothing or no one hiding in all the little places. I don’t think they would understand.

The nights that scared me the most were the nights that I never ended up sleeping. Those were the nights when my brown eyes were stained with red, when the bags under my eyes became that much more obvious and thicker. They became prominent and announced, and they seemed to bleed into my skin and stay there. I was positive that no amount of sleep would ever remove them. I would wonder the house sometimes for the whole night. Endless upon endless laps I would go through; always a continuous circle of the house, always the exact same circuit. It made the night go faster and the night would seem that little less scary.

Then the sun would rise. The light would seep through the curtains that were drawn tightly across the windows. It would be a dull light, but it would always mean morning. And that light brought me protection. Sometimes I would even run out side and stare at the sun as it rose. I would watch the sun split above the horizon a billion colours bursting across the sky. Streaks of all sorts stretching their fingers and touching every bit of the land that they possibly can. I would stand there, and feeling foolish I would race a hand through my thick brown hair. I would hold it there, a silly grin splitting my face and I would feel dumb. I would feel foolish and so incredibly little for being so scared.

So shake him off, oh woah
I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

( P E R S O N A L I T Y )

Now nothing scares me. I’m a tough wannabe career boy that has faced everything that there is to face in district three. I’m reckless and brave and sometimes my own courage becomes stupidity. When my father was killed everything seemed to change. The family was thrown into chaos and there was disorder everywhere. I didn't much mind it because for a while people actually listened to what I had to say and it didn't matter that sometimes I smiled when we were supposed to be serious, because no one cared. They were all too wound up with their own problems.

I'm not sure they know who I am. They see me as a smiling idiot. Someone that no one can seem to take any notice of. When they do it is always for the wrong reasons, always a mistake, the wrong answer. Anything really, that is bad, anything that means they can turn around and snap at me. It could be an act. I could be secretly crazy, i could be secretly so very different. But no one would know and no one would care. So there is no point in pretending in this life, there is no point in me trying to be someone I'm not because I simply can't afford it. I can't afford the luxury of playing another person's game, of being and acting in a way that is me. I have too much to loose.

I do this all because I have to. Ever since I was a child I've never had a chance to be more then what I am. I got the choice of learning to fight and train. Even though I am no true career I can still believe in that. I can still twist that word in my mind to make myself believe it. I think... I think that maybe I say that because I want to try. I want to try to be someone else, separate the smiling insanely friendly boy away from the brave and reckless one. There not two things that just go together. I wish that sometimes I could just let that smile slip from my face and I can just sit there, I can just let it fall and just simply stare. I don't think anyone would say anything, I don't think anyone would even notice it.

Yet, I truly believe it isn't that simple.

I can't. I simply can't just let it fall for even a moment, because there is nothing in this house that is like me. there is no one in this family that seems to know how to smile. I'm not scared of much -nothing really. But if there is one thing I am scared of it is losing who I am. It is slipping past the part of me that has become that light, the white sheep in a flock of black and I don't want to forget that. I don't want to blend in and become one of them. Joy and laughter are two things that co-exist with one another and without either of them you can't truly be living and those, those are the two things that tell me I am alive. They tell me that the day will be good even if it is not. And no matter what I will smile because it is all I have left to give to my family.

I'm not something to just be used. I don't want to be a piece in someones game. I want to fight stubbornly and bitterly to prove to everyone that I am not. But in the end it will make no difference. In the end I can fight and I can say that I will play no part in this game because no matter what I say I will. I will play my part because I have to, because if I don't I could loose everyone I care for. In the end I will fight, in the end I will just be a knight in a game of chess and I will do it all to protect the people I love.

In all darkness I am that one light and I will burn brighter and stronger until I am extinguished.

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out,
ooh woaaah
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out,
ooh woaaah
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back

( C O M M E N T / O T H E R )

Face Claim is Guntars Asmanis
Shake It Out by Florence and the Machine
Template ripped from the perfect Lalia

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out,
ooh woaaah
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out,
ooh woaaah
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back so shake him off

( C O D E W O R D )

<img src="http://i41.tinypic.com/16h2ibt.png">

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me
I can't escape this hell