taryn / district 10

Ever since you were a little girl, you've known exactly three things. One, your daddy is the best bull rider in the district - and probably the world. Two, your momma loved you more than anything on the planet. At least that's what Daddy always said, but then why did she leave last April? And three, you're gonna be a mutt tamer one day.

There's nothing you love more than animals. What else would anyone expect from a rancher's daughter? There ain't much more to do in this place than ride a horse or go on a hunt. You could be a farmer, I guess. Plantin' and croppin', I don't know, it just sounds so lame to me.

But there's something to be said about having a mare between your legs, the power of speed at your fingertips. 

And don't even get me started on the ridin'! Whether it's a horse or a bull, you'll never find a better jockey or clown than a Strickland - and you can take that straight to the bank, I promise you that.

That's prolly why Daddy always bets on me whenever I enter a rodeo; he knows he'll always get his money and then some. 

But I guess what I'm really tryna say is that as much as I love ranchin' and being out on Sally Mae, my beautiful appaloosa, I want to do more. I spend year after year watchin' these games, baffled by the next set of mutts they introduce. But I'm so sick of watchin' through a screen! I wanna see 'em up close. I wanna run my hand along their fur, or their scales, or their feathers.

I want make one myself, wanna have my name scroll across that screen when the mutt emerges, ready to take a chunk outta some tributes!

I don't wanna just learn to train them, or tame them. I wanna create them like Ripred himself did with all of us. From scratch, with the breath of life. Doesn't that just sound amazin'? I think I would just be so damn good at it. 

I wonder if Daddy will ever let me out of here to try. Prolly not. Where would he get his money then? The truth is I'm the breadwinner; he just keeps it all for himself.