Ross Wolfe // District Three [fin]

You don't say anything. You don't move, don't gesture, don't make noise - you simply stand. It's intimidating enough, no need for words to blow away the stony facade you have claimed. A chiseled chin and granite coloured eyes mask the whirling molten thoughts in your mind. Bitter frost clings to your memories becoming more permanent every time you thrust them into the black shadows of your conscious. Surely even a mountain is able to be surpassed with the right tools, but no one has them at their disposal. There are no right tools for your mountain.

Dark matted hair lays tangled on the top of your head, it is almost fluffy but the hardness to your features robs the play from it. A strong jaw bears a quiet determination, and a full set of teeth, ready to persuade that things would be better going your way. Muscles tense in our neck as the points of your canines grind together. They do not give way to flake into powder, but instead creak like an old oak in a harsh wind. Displeased, you wait for the action to be amended.

It is, it always is, and you return to your glacial stance, observing as the world creeps past. So little energy wasted on problems, more to spend containing the searing flashes passing through your mind. No one knows, no one will ever know. Your skin, a paled version of desert sand, covers the ivory bones that hold you in place. Sturdy and steady you stand at a higher height than many, contemplating in raging torrents as they remain in peaceful drought.

Your lips are a damn, clamped shut except when the pressure grows to great and you need to let out some overflow. A finely tuned process, the pressure is diverted with only little in need of escape. No cascades flow over, no leaks, no compromises. Concrete and stable, you hold your ground against the swirling currents inside your own head. They think you are like a bear, large and strong. Believing anger and hunger drive you while claws and teeth enforce.

But they are wrong. You were raised a wolf, cunning and logical. Taught not to trust, to stand and watch while others brought their own walls down. Quiet, you track your prey - a herd of rebellious sheep - who think too much and act too little. Only you are not out to kill, but to observe. As the unspoken alpha you take control, but only as it suits you. Forever you are a lone wolf, by yourself in a place where many do better in a pack, leadership will tie you down - a wolf is not meant to be bound by collar and chain. A wolf is meant to be free.

You have never known money, though understanding of its value never failed to twist your gut at night. Together with your mother you scraped by, scavenging any food you could while the pair of you attempted to make money. Your father was never in your life, walking out of your mother's as soon as he found she was pregnant with you. It wasn't as though he was rich, but he certainly took most anything with monetary value from your mother and ultimately you. Thankfully he had at least left a roof over your head, even if it was a ramshackle one-room place that feels as stable as cardboard.

When your mother explained to you why you lived in such poverty, you grew a cold vengeance in your heart. Most people nurture a spitting fire in their core for one they hate, but you only felt ice. In your eyes, your father deserved no such feelings as fire brought, and instead you nursed a frozen indifference. It took months of careful learning and planning in order to find where your father had gone, time spent coaxing your mother to divulge scraps of information on the man who had harmed your mother - the man who so easily left both of your lives behind.

It wasn't until you had tracked him for a couple weeks that you confronted him. You chose the loudest place on his route home to accost him - an attempt to expose and humiliate him for what he had done to you. The large form you had grown into now loomed over your father in a dark shadow. There were no words you could say to this man that would make him understand, no real words of hurt that would sting him to the core. Ice frosted your glare as you looked at him. "Do I know you?" Biologically attached as you may be, you felt nothing for him. "Could have." You had never spoken much, and this was no different. Your father would not have the satisfaction of hearing you talk about more than necessities, and through short phrases you slowly pieced the picture for him. When his look turned to disgust you hit him.

Five peacekeepers were barely enough to deal with your strength. Three men held you while the other two helped the now bleeding man to his feet. You knew that, for all you had his DNA, he could not be any relative of yours - any man as pathetic as that had no right to claim ties to you. You were taken in for questioning, but your concern for yourself was negligible to the worry you had for your mother. If only for her comfort, you had to explain why you had done what you did. Your explanation left mutters floating around, some of approval and others of anger. It wasn't clear which side they favoured, and a nervous moment crept passed before your punishment was set. You would be sent out of that part of the district instead of being avoxed or sent to the Detention Center, but they would let you say farewell to your mother.

Explaining that you were no longer able to come around this end of the district anymore, your mother was set crying in your arms. You told her to stay in the house, and that you would send money if you could. Eventually you soothed her, and you left with one sad look at the flimsy house that had been your home all your life. With your mother, the only person you had ever really been open with, gone from your life you grew even more silent. Nothing stopped your thinking, but your words are counted and spent with as much severity as the money you painstakingly collect.

Part of the League of Dreamers plot.

Words
460 - Appearance/Personality
628 - History
1088 - Total

Palette 1
Palette 2

Only Dis Adage Is Right