Nolan O'Rourke [District 2]

Nolan Seoirse O'Rourke is a difficult man to miss, and tends to lend himself to being equally difficult to forget.

Given that his son is a medal-winning Olympian, he's become a more frequent presence at the Career training center; even at his age, Nolan is spry, and monstrously strong, and still sporting all of his hair (though these days, he's almost as gray as he is red, in the beard and around the temples). A lifetime of hard manual labor, many athletic pastimes, and now a great deal of activity training fledgling Careers have kept up Nolan's broad, heavily muscled physique.

From a distance, he cuts an imposing figure with a hard jawline, broad shoulders and 6'1" stature. Up close, there's no mistaking the crow's feet and smile lines in his face, or the warmth in his blue eyes. Despite having a brawler's nose (slightly crooked from the number of times it's been broken) and scarred knuckles, more often than not they're offset by a fatherly smile, or the patient expression of a teacher assessing his student.

And, of course, Nolan wouldn't be the proud husband he is if he didn't wear his wedding band incessantly; he wears a simple gold band on his left hand, and never (ever) takes it off.

Nolan is first, and above all things, a husband and a father. Nolan considers his wife McKenna to be the love of his life, and though they've been married for over 30 years now, he still delights in thinking of ways to romance and surprise her. To those who have seen the two of them interact (and Nolan being proud of who he's married to, that's not a short list) it's apparent who wears the metaphorical pants in their relationship... and Nolan likes it that way. (If asked, he freely admits having a weakness for 'badass women'.)

Perhaps unusually, Nolan is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. As well as his wife, Nolan is unabashedly open with his affection for his children; Brody, his only biological child, and the many sons and daughters he's unofficially 'adopted' over the years. Being a father (or father-figure) is central to Nolan's personality and identity, and even now that his son is a grown man (and Nolan treats him as such), he still regards his son as his baby. These days, his 'grandbabies' give Nolan an outlet for all of those paternal urges, not that it's stopped him from taking others under his wing.

By extension of the family he was raised in, growing up with four sisters has instilled in Nolan a powerful sense of chivalry, but also a great deal of respect for women. Having been raised primarily by his mother and sisters, it has made Nolan a very patient, well-mannered gentleman who would just as willingly take on a woman in a fight as hold the door open for her. Though at times he has laid it on too thick (and come across as overbearing), he is unashamed to admit that he's still honing the skill.

On the flip side of this otherwise gentle, paternal man, there is no faster way to wear down Nolan's good nature than slights to his wife or his son. Though both Brody and McKenna are perfectly capable of handling themselves, that sense of chivalry and duty resurfaces with a vengeance. He is, especially, protective of his son after Brody was badly wounded in the line of duty; Nolan was the one who spent the most time nursing and caring for him while he recovered, and having witnessed the pain and suffering that his son endured, has since become especially sensitive to anything that might be perceived as a threat to his child.

Nolan Seoirse O'Rourke was the only son in a family with 5 children, and from the very beginning was surrounded by women who would greatly shape his personality as he grew older. Though his father was insistent on putting a sword and shield in his only son's hands as soon as possible (as was O'Rourke family tradition), he was raised predominantly by his 4 sisters and mother. Though he wouldn't be able to pinpoint the 'when' or the 'how', Nolan could at least say that it was the women in his life who had made a gentleman out of him and instilled in him a powerful respect for the opposite sex.

Like his schoolmates and in line with tradition, Nolan attended the Career Training Academy at the age of 12, immediately taking to the sword and shield. Unlike his predecessors, however, Nolan was of a kinder, more patient disposition and took more pleasure in the sport than the ideals of glory that returning victorious from the Games promised. He quickly shot up from the small, quiet redheaded boy into a young man whose stature rivaled his father's, growing comfortably into his xiphos sword named Milo ('Speak') and a heavy aspis shield named Akouo ('Listen'). As it was with the O'Rourke family, he named his weapons and regarded them with respect; he retired his old friends when his name wasn't called at his final year of the Reaping, though on various occasions over the years he'd be compelled to pick them up again.

Though Nolan had grown up in one of the larger cities of District 2, the bustling city life and its people had never truly been his calling; leaving behind his parents and sisters with well-wishes in their mouths and tears in their eyes, he made his way across the district to take up work as a quarryman. A young man of barely 19, he didn't waste time making his mark among his new colleagues; by now, he had grown into his body and was wired with muscle from years of swordplay and fistfighting. Of the few possessions he had brought with him, one of them included an old family book full of names (birthdays, marriages, children, deaths) and artwork from many generations ago that preceded even the Dark Days.

Several years cutting his teeth as a quarryman went relatively uneventfully. But as was the reputation of government quarries, they had their share of cave-ins. Nolan wouldn't be able to say exactly what had happened, beyond hearing a rumble in the mountain, the sound of rock crumbling and reawakening sometime later being treated by a beautiful blond Peacekeeper medic by the name of Captain Shea. A secondary cave-in; Captain Shea threw herself over her patient, and he blacked out again. His version of the story differs from hers; Nolan regained consciousness first, slowly managing to unearth himself and the medic that had protected him, and had dragged both of them out of the tunnel. Though the Peacekeepers had been adamant about not allowing a civilian to go with their Captain as she was carted off to the hospital, Nolan strong-armed his way into the ambulance, and had sat vigil by her bedside until she woke up 3 days later. Nolan had come away from the second cave-in relatively unscathed, but Captain Shea had broken her back.

Grateful and utterly enamored of the woman who had saved his life, Nolan had pushed and pleaded and appealed his way into the hospital to visit her. Her name, as it turned out, was McKenna. Though the Captain was initially completely disinterested in him, as she was put through excruciating physical therapy and surgery to regain function in her legs, Nolan slowly became a shoulder to lean on in every sense of the word. It wasn't until the Peacekeepers had broken the news that her injury would cause her to be discharged that she allowed Nolan to take her on a date, after months of courting and coaxing and asking.

He pulled out all the stops, called home to tell his sisters about the new love in his life asking how to woo a woman who didn't accept help from anyone, trying every great (and not so great) gesture of romance he could think of; Nolan was nothing if not persistent. With McKenna still finishing her medical degree as part of a deal she'd struck with the Peacekeepers, they had fairly little time together, but it became the best part of his week. Halfway through her final year, McKenna had broken the news to him; she was pregnant.

Nolan had been far more thrilled than she was; it was too soon, she said. They weren't even married, she wasn't sure if she was ready to be a mother, so soon after getting out of the Peacekeepers... He had proposed to her months later as she had stepped off the stage to accept her medical degree. Heavily pregnant, and finally worn down by Nolan's dogged determination to win her love, she said yes.

His only son, Brody, had been born just a few weeks later, blond-haired and blue-eyed and looking so much like his father, it was the first time he could remember crying tears of joy.

With McKenna back to work just a couple months after giving birth to Brody, Nolan had quit his job at the quarry to raise their new son. He would hear his son's first words ('Dada'! 'Mama'! 'No'!), watch him learn to walk, and as he grew bigger and older Nolan would follow the family tradition and put a sword and shield in Brody's hands. It was apparent early on, though, that as much as Brody was the spitting image of his father, he hadn't inherited his patience. Nolan spent all of Brody's Reaping years trying his best to reign in his son's forceful temper, and had been the one to point him towards the Peacekeepers when he was turned down as Tribute for the last year in a row.

Now that Brody has become independent, Nolan has fallen back into a simpler way of life working the quarry and coming home to his wife; though he's content with a honest day's work, the highlights of his days are when his son takes a break from his life in the military to visit home.