Velvet Gingham D1 {fin}

                                Velvet Gingham
                                        18
                                     Female
                                  District One 

Like her mother, Velvet is a blond with hazel eyes and full lips, though the parallels with Damask Anglaise-Gingham bother her to no end. She is happy at least to know that she shares her nose and cheekbones with her father, as well as his sense of humor. At five foot seven, she's not the tallest of her brothers and sisters, but she's not the shortest either, but like all of them, she had an athletes build honed from years of running, lifting and the workout regimens that their mother designed.  

She takes pride in her appearance, and her outfits tend to veer towards the higher end of what can be found in district one; in particular she's partial to boots, though most of time she's wearing clothes that she can work out in. Her parents are both fitness nuts on top of her mother being a failed career, so Velvet is expected to look the part. 

***
She’s been designed, or so she feels. Though she would never admit it, she is afraid of her mother, afraid of failure and afraid of what will become of her if she is never reaped. In all likelihood she’d turn out just like her mother, and that scares her more than anything.  But she channels that fear into her training.  Velvet is no-nonsense. She has no time to play games and says exactly what she means, expecting others to do the same. This bluntness has a tendency to alienate her from her peers.

Another reason she finds it hard to make friends is that more often than not she's smacking people upside the head for messing with her younger sisters; generally because of a situation her sisters have caused.  Even though they rarely get along, its been ingrained in her that family comes first. She would do anything for them, even if they are the ones that piss her off more often than not. 

It’s telling that most of what she does revolves around her relationships with her many siblings. While they may not like her, they do tend to have a grudging respect for her ability to mediate. She’s not a peacemaker in the traditional sense however, and her idea of mediation usually involves knocking both parties on their asses until they agree to end the argument.  Non family members would say that Velvet is driven, with an intensity that radiates off of her like a glow. Her siblings would say that she's an angry bitch.  It's difficult for her to relate to anything that isn't related to fighting or killing, and thus she has a tendency to get bored with conversations really fast. 



***
From a very young age, Velvet was groomed to be a career. All of her siblings have been as well, but as the oldest the most pressure to perform and succeed has been on her shoulders the most. Most of her childhood was spent learning how to use the sword, which had been her mother’s weapon of choice in the years gone by. Add that to hours and hours of watching and re-watching dozens of fights from dozens of games, memorizing statistics and coming up with strategies and it wasn’t a childhood that had much time for normality. Even less so when her parents started adopting children just so she’d always have equals to spar with.

Growing up in a household with nine siblings was a hectic affair; more often than not they were at each other’s throats, and worse still, their mother actively encouraged any rivalry that formed between them, insisting that it would prepare them for the eventually of leading a career pack. Their father was willing enough to indulge their mother’s fantasies and got both of them jobs working as trainers at one of the districts career centers. As she entered puberty she grew used to spilling her siblings blood and having her own spilled by them in turn. It’s created a rift between most of them, and she personally only gets along with three of them.

Over the years she's grown distant with her parents as well. More so her mother, who she has come to accept sees her only as an extension of herself.  Her relationship with her father is a bit better, but only because he doesn't push them as hard. When not fencing, training or sparring with her siblings, Velvet usually finds herself having to bail one or more of them out of trouble. Usually her sisters Nylon and Lace or her brother Suede, though all of them find trouble in one way or another.  In her spare time she's learning how to dance, though she's not very good at it and it's something she keeps from her siblings lest they make fun of her.