Crow Lystrata d5m

Crow Leon Lystrata

13

District 5 Male

Appearance-

As if he was created from the smog itself, Crow looked to be the personification of the environment to which he was born into. Feet that are flat, wide and long serve to be sturdy roots that hold steady for hours. In the dirty factories. From the feet, thin, wiry legs rise into three-quarter jeans. Once the jeans were a deep blue denim, but years of oil, soot and smog turned the fabric into a dirty charcoal, speckled with flecks of ash. Strong calves protrude from the back of the legs, defined from long climbs up the oil rig’s ladders. His Crows torso is also slightly toned. Indents and rivets dot his midsection, painting the terrain of a desolate wasteland, where nothing grows but disdain and pain. Much like his legs, Crows arms are lanky limbs with slight definitions from his many treks upwards. Biceps defined slightly underneath a dirty white V-neck and a black jacket. Washing clothes were not mandatory and was, therefore, ignored by Crow. Who needed to be clean, anyway? No one was clean in this district. With the hood of his jacket always covering his face, Crow would retreat into the smog, enveloped by the darkness where he was born.

His face is where the smog really showed its creativity. Crow’s frame was efficient, taking up as little space as possible, capable of doing everything it was supposed to and nothing more. His face was no exception. Crow’s eyes were small eggs. White with a deep brown yolk; flecks of black dotted within it. His eyelashes were thick, shrouding the rim of his eyes in black as if the smog had reached forth and smeared itself around his eyes. His mouth was a thin pink line. His lips were barely visible when closed and covering the even, teeth set within his mouth. Crow is lucky that despite a reluctance to clean them, his teeth have maintained their purity. His nose and ears small and unassuming. Crow’s cheeks are hollow, with his cheekbones protruding harshly and dusted with an assortment of little ash freckles. His hair is the pinnacle of his smog heritage. Short, thin, wiry strands of hair sit messily atop Crow’s head. Deep black roots finish the smog’s creation. The child of smog and darkness.

Personality-

The efficiency of his physicality has seeped into Crow’s demeanour. His once smiling face has turn to disdain for others in the span of his thirteen years. Crow strives to do only what he needs to and nothing more. He helps his family only when he needs to. When his parents are sick he shall cook dinner, but never treat his family to dessert. He does his homework but never cares to stay behind to discuss his marks with his teachers. This attitude towards life results in his much-desired isolation and ostracism from all. He will rise before dawn and leave home before his parents have woken up and would stalk the street with his black hood until school begins. He would sit quietly at the back of the class staring at workbook, the letters and numbers becoming a confusing, jumbled mess in his mind. When asked to read about the war strategies of the capital Crow would simply ignore the teacher and look out the window into the polluted air that created him. When at last the final bell was rung, like the last cannon in the games, Crow would be the first one out the door. With his hood up he would camouflage himself within the dense smog once more and climb the ladder to his sanctuary on top of the tallest oil rig in the district.

Up atop the oil rig the world is silent. Nothing stirs but for an odd clang of metal and a stray crow flying to be at his brother's side. When it came to friends, Crow had no need for them. He believed that all relationships he had would eventually lead to misery and sadness. Whether by death or betrayal, each person would leave his side one way or the other. Better to feel nothing at all and never try. Even his family, who tries desperately to communicate and engage in his life, are merely pushed aside with an odd grunt. When his mother asks how school was, he would only throw her a disdainful look. When his father asks him for help. He would only ask, "why?" Eventually, they would give up on him and he would have accomplished his goal of complete isolation. Upon the dome head of the oil rig, it is just him and the smog that gave birth to him. He looks below and sees only grey ash floating through the air. The ladder which he climbed disappearing into the abyss. This is what heaven is to Crow, above everything else, above the world and its misery and the peacekeepers and the games. Sometimes the deep clouds would part and he would see a glimpse of light blue or natural light. Then he feels like somehow he would survive the world. He could escape the smog that gave birth to him and the family that aged with him. He would lose his hood and become a blue god, rising and setting with the sun. But until that day arrives he is as polluted as the air his breaths.

The one thing that Crow connects with in this world is animals. When the school bell rings to lunch he would not head for the cafeteria like the rest of the students. No, lunch was not needed for Crow and, therefore, he would not eat it. He would instead head for the library and read about the rich past of district five. Before the factories and the oil rigs and the darkness. When animals would be bred and would run through fenced off fields. Where the air was clean and they would die because that is what needed to happen. What attracted Crow to animals so much was how they do only what is necessary. They drink because it is necessary, they sleep because it is necessary, they kill because it is necessary. A trait that Crow is too familiar with. When he would watch the games in the town square, he would feel torn between who to vouch for: the tributes, or the mutts. Neither wants to kill the other but both need to, and thus brings out true humanity.

History-

 On the night that Crow was born, the smog unleashed a blast of ash that floated down onto district 5. Little black snowflakes dotted across the pavement and smothered Bo and Horner Lystrata's home. The winter was particularly evil that year and the coal fires that erupted within the home only added to the blizzard of soot. Horner never left the bedside as Crow's eldest brother, Falcon, ran to heat more water from the stove and find more towels. When Crow was released into the world, the smog intruded, billowing into the house from the chimney and covered the bedroom in a small layer of grime; christening the boy. Crow, instead of crying, merely stared at his brother. Mesmerised by the older boy, Crow did nothing but crawl after him in his earliest years. He always beamed when Falcon came home from school and when he let him wipe the soot from his fluffy brown hair.

As the years went on, the boys became inseparable. They shared a room they shared food, they shared secrets that no one else would know. On the day of Falcon’s first reaping, Crow woke up to see his brother shed his first tears. On the birthday after, He walked into their room to find Falcon’s first kiss. He found the idea of kissing a girl disgusting but was enamoured by the idea of his brother liking the concept. After the girl had left, Falcon made him promise that he wouldn't tell their parents, and he never did. Two more reapings followed, both days filled with sheer terror and utter relief of the prospect of keeping Falcon for another year. That summer the sky was particularly heavy and filled with grime. Crow and Falcon strode into the town square, glad to be in each other’s company and waving at familiar faces. A crowd began together in the middle of a square where Falcon heard a weak yelp of an old man. The boys joined the throng to find the old man broken on the ground, being relentlessly kicked and whipped by peacekeepers. The man’s belonging were strewn across the ground, drowned in his blood. Before Crow could pull him back Falcon was upon the scum, jumping on one of their backs and knocking him to the ground. Falcon replaced the positions of the old man as he limped away into the crowd. Crow watched helplessly as his brother was savagely beaten. Again and again, Falcon was kicked with iron clad boots and stamped on. And never did their eyes falter from one another.

That night, Crow lay awake to Falcon’s intense screams as the healers tried to mend his broken body. He heard Bo’s coddling and lulling and Horner’s crying. Only when Falcon’s screams turned into whimpers did Crow find sleep. He awoke early. The smog was still pitch black outside the windows and the street lamps were only beginning to waver. He heard no whimpering and the house felt cold and empty. He looked to Falcon’s bed to find it perfectly tidy with a note placed on the pillow. Crow had to read it over three times for the letters to land in the correct places.
“We will see each other again where the sky is blue and the air is clear.”
Crow walked into the kitchen and saw his mother and father slumped on the table snoring. The table was empty, however, save for a crumpled blanket and Falcon's black jacket. Crow grabbed the jacket, put the hood over his head and headed out into the streets to find his brother. All through the day, he looked never smiling or looking at anyone. He climbed the ladder of the oil rig and sat on the dome head. He looked up to find a small glimpse of blue in the parting smog. We will see each other again where the sky is blue and the air is clear.