Riley Cass | d12 | Finished!

Name: Riley Elizabeth Cass
Age: 16
Gender: Genderqueer(She/Her/Hers)
District/Area: 12
Appearance:

We’ll start with your… Eyes. Yeah, your eyes. You’ve got nice eyes, the same eyes as both of your sisters. The same eyes as your momma, if you remember right. Of course, half the time they’re surrounded by bruises, or cuts down your brow, or all manner of slights. But you don’t care. They’re battle scars, man! You even love to show ‘em off. Over your little button nose, the one Tara’s always callin’ ‘cute’, and those pouty lips of yours. And that haircut! By god, your haircut, the sides of your head shaved down in an undercut, the silky top layer flopping down in your face, or off to the side, when you’re frustrated enough.

You’re built like the fighter you are, short and stocky, even-bodied and well grounded. You’ve almost always got them hands of yours all balled up in fists, knuckles bloodied and fingers stained with nicotine and coal and dirt, and sometimes, that same blood, cracked and dry and dark. You’re never that clean, are you? Always covered in god knows what, always cleaning shit out from under your nails.

Another thing we should really bring up are your clothes. They’re never very clean either, but they’re mostly in one piece, which is what really counts in the end. You like to wear layers, shirts and jackets and those raggedy jeans with the grass-stained knees. And ho boy, we can’t forget the kickers, those steel-toed boots you’re never seen without, with their holes and their muddy leather, those mismatched shoelaces just barely tying them together.

You’re an unusual looking brat, but you like it.

Personality:

Oh god.

Here we go.

Your personality.

You’ve certainly got one of those, that’s for sure, a personality unlike no other. You’re one of those people who doesn’t give a shit, not about anything that’s not top priority. Family is top priority, though it doesn’t have to be just blood. You make your family, that’s how you see it. Next is you. You’re worth a hell of a lot more than to be fucked over, so, well, you don’t let it happen.

You’re pretty aggressive, on that front. You have a lot of anger to work out; in fact, anger kind of runs you. You’re practically fueled by it, and you love nothing more than a good scrap. You’re damn good at it, too. You can kick some ass and you know it; you’ve got confidence in your strut, and you let the world see it. If there’s one thing you can do, it’s make yourself be known, be seen, and damn well be heard.

Another pretty important trait about you would have to be your tendency to bottle things up. It’s probably got a lot to do with why you’re so angry, honestly, since every time you feel anything remotely ‘bad’, you go off and either shut up about it, or punch people until it goes away. You love to scream, too; that’s always a fun little thing, in your opinion, though you almost never do it at other people.

History:

You come into this awful world kicking and screaming, like a real goddamn fighter.

You’re the third of three girls, but not one of your deadbeat parents much cared for you, or either of your sisters. Jamie, she’s the oldest, she’s ten when you come out. Tara’s only six, but she knew much more about raisin’ babies than Momma or Daddy. She kept you going with the assistance of Tara, and the occasional presence of your drunken, crazy Uncle Clyde.

The three of you all did your damnedest to be all that you needed, and though most people would say, ‘it didn’t work’, or, ‘you just need good parents to grow up good’, you don’t believe a lick of it. ‘We ended up just fine’, you often mutter, shaking your head and kicking at the dirt in them steel-toed boots you’re so fond of. Tara doesn’t know how much she agrees, but hey, she humors you, and that’s what counts.

It’s pretty okay, your life, despite the fact that your Daddy dearest sucks down liquor like a fish and Momma just doesn’t care. Like was said, you had your sisters, and you all knew how to live. You knew how to be okay. But eight years into your short little existence, you start to realize, well, damn; drunken, crazy Uncle Clyde has been showin’ up ‘round here more than usual, ain’t he? Huh. And before you know it, you’re on your way to his house, because he ‘ain’t about to let them goddamn lowlifes keep such good little girls in such a dirty old place’.

You punch him in the balls.

You don’t want him mistakin’ you for a good little girl, not even for one second.

Soon enough, you all get used to bein’ with Clyde, and sooner enough, you start to get attached to the old fucker. He’s a funny guy, and you get used to his drinking; he’s a nice drunk, unlike Daddy Dearest. So you do your thing, and he does his, Tara does hers, and Jamie… Jamie’s a little funny. She hadn’t gotten nobody with her for four years, until Tara was born. It had messed with her head, and everyone knew it. She was a meek motherfucker, small and quiet and always anxious. It scared you, but you never thought anything would happen.

Tara was the middle ground. You were a firecracker, quick to explode, and Jamie was a mouse, but Tara was like the tree out back with its shitty rope swing and its shitty birdhouse. She was steady through the storm, tough as hell and there to keep you up. You and her love to roughhouse, sparring out in the front lawn. You’re a good fuckin’ fighter, you are, but you fight dirty. She didn’t. It was split even, really, when she kicked your ass and when you kicked hers, but a lot of ass-kicking went down, that was for sure. You always went inside at the end with bloody knuckles, black eyes, and smiles.

You’re fourteen when the neighbor boy falls in love with you. You tell him the truth. “I’m gay, man, I’m queer, I’m just not like this…” He doesn’t listen. He follows you, fucks with you, leaves you notes and breaks into your house, until one night, you have enough. He’s outside your window, and you spot him. You climb your happy ass out, and though he tries to run, he ain’t nothin’ but a pussy, and you damn well catch up. You beat the shit out of him under that tree in the back yard, with its shitty rope swing and its shitty birdhouse. You break his nose, and his jaw, and he doesn’t tell a goddamn soul who done it, because he knows that if he does, you’ve got plenty of dirt on him, too.

It’s time for the Games again, Games you’ve suffered through for fifteen years. They bothered you, yeah; you don’t like seein’ kids hurt. Tara hated it, she said it always felt like it was gonna be you drawn. Jamie had had the luck to never get there, but it wasn’t the same for those kids, and Tara knew that it could be you. Jamie had had to be the protector, once a year, every year. She couldn’t handle it, she never could. Then came that day, when you ran home early one day after school, while Tara was working, you found her, hanging from that tree out back with its shitty rope swing and its shitty birdhouse.

You hadn’t expected it.

But you weren’t surprised.

The funeral was the worst day of your life. You screamed until your voice was hoarse, you cried and called and hollered, while Tara kept you up off the muddy ground, while quiet tears poured down Clyde’s face, while that shitty wooden casket with your big sister was lowered into the ground. You didn’t speak for days. You only walked around, like you were dead, a walking corpse. Dead like Jamie. Dead like the girl who helped raise you.

It took almost a year to get over it. Your sixteenth birthday rolls around, and she’s not there to celebrate it; but that’s when you know that it’s time to move on. You can’t ever get used to her not being there, but you can learn to be happy. You learn to never let an argument go unresolved, because anything could happen the next day. You learn that family is the most important thing out there, as long as you make it yourself. You learn that not everything is as big as it seems; when something is big, you’ll know.

You learn a lot about yourself.

You learn a lot about the world around you.

Most of all, you learn that you’re a survivor.

And you know, when you leave this awful world, you’ll be doing it kicking and screaming, like a real goddamn fighter.

Other: tl;dr: she’s Gay and she Loves to Punch