Bryony Peters // [D6F]

When you grow up next to the open sewer lines at the edge of District Six, it's hard to imagine that you're a princess. Lost? Certainly. Condemned? For sure. But forgotten royalty? That would take quite the imagination to block out the smell of refuse and the slick grime that coated every surface.

Somehow, Bryony, the youngest of the many Peters children, managed just fine.

Maybe it was because she was the youngest, or the prettiest baby with the strangest little chuckle. Maybe it was because by the time she came along she had enough older siblings to be reasonably well cared for, beloved by her teenage brothers and sisters. Maybe it was because by the time she blew out thirteen candles her siblings had moved on with their lives, to dead end jobs and deadend marriages, and so her parents had a little money to spare.

And when that wasn't enough, Bryony discovered that part of the treatment plant a block away was a recycling center. They paid in pennies for cans and metal scavenged around the district, things that could be upcycled into more cans, she presumed. The war had ended a long time ago after all. Surely no one needed weapons any more.

What they needed was more recycling, cleaner plants, treated sewage.

She clipped and hooked her recycling card to her chain wallet and carried a spare mesh bag wherever she went, even to school. If anyone thought it strange that one of the popular girls in the class went dumpster diving during lunch, no one dared to say anything. Bryony's tongue is almost as sharp as the soda can tabs she hoards.

Like any proper princess, she has her retinue. The "Sick Six" have been known to cause some mayhem but mostly it keeps their lunch table tidy. Occassionally Bryony rotates out members, just to keep things fresh, and the number one rule of the club is Don't Fuck The Other Members. One couple she turfed not long before the 7th Reaping pleaded with her, reasoning, "rules are meant to be broken."

"Not my rules. You disrespect me, you go, end of story. Later!"

Her teachers might be surprised to hear that Bryony knows what rules are, given her delinquency. But surely a princess' decree is more weighty than the rules of a smelly, grimy high school. Perhaps they're even more powerful than that, but Bryony hasn't yet had the opportunity to see how far her power extends...