Rhys Peace - D9

When one's mother is high up in the Peacekeeping retinue, the expectation to follow suit is primal. Rhys is a guardian of all that is just and right in the District, and since the full-force focus on Peacekeeping, there has been few more devoted to their training than him. While his father is more of tactical mind, his mother is the ultimate disciplinary machine. One foot wrong, one stitch loose, and there would be hell to pay. Mentally, physically, emotionally. The poor Rhys is an only child, so his Peacekeeper family legacy weighs on him with every breathe.

It has always been like that. Historically, he was a jolly child. That was, of course, until mistakes were possible. When the innocence of a child could no longer be blamed for any missteps. When, eventually, he would have responsibility. It started at Reaping Age. Twelve. "You can't keep those toys. Do you think soldiers keep toys?" And it continued until the age of sixteen, where he finds himself now. It would be expected that this consistent fear would do nothing but wear the poor kid down. Instead, there's a fire in there. It longs for the freedom from the house, and the ability to make good on the harshness he's put up with. Soon, one day, he'll be able to leave and have his own children, and treat them with the respect that he deserved.

But that's a long way off. Before all of those ambitious goals, he simply wants to have fun. He's a fun-craving socialite, if he gets his way. There's few others that are more the life of the party than him. He looks forward to every birthday, every occasion, just so that he can turn up with a cute outfit and a cheesy grin, schmoozing everyone in sight until he forgets what he goes home to. All that mingling has lead him to meet many various characters. He's had boyfriends since the age of ten, and a hundred acquaintances each day too. All of them seem to fade, eventually. Some get assigned elsewhere, some are horrible (eventually), and some just aren't the right fit for his life. Soon, he finally realised that it's him that doesn't let them in.

There's always something about somebody not willing to bring somebody home that makes for a difficult friend, or more. What's he hiding? They'd likely think of similar. The truth was that he was deftly afraid of being called out in front of anybody else. It's all because his persona at home and his that in which he shows his friends is totally different. The polar opposite, rather. Rhys knows that if he steps out of line with his friends he can just laugh it off. With his parents, it would be rued until he is Reaped, because they'd find some way of punishing him in that way. At least, he thinks that, every day.

Calamity avoids Rhys, thankfully. He's rather undramatic, keeps to himself, and does his duty - and does it well. He's always kept up with his schoolwork, and now his training, and he will always do exactly that. To relinquish the control on his life would mean the end, to him. That's why the Games scares him. They don't spare anybody in District 9. There's no Peacekeeper pass. If you've not made it to the end of your training, you're still going in the arena. You're still a Districter. Rhys can't help but seem himself that way, no matter how uptight his parents are, and how much hubris they hold, he will always be less-than. If not to them, but to the Capitol.

Rhys likes his work, though. He enjoys being the social worker that is required of Peacekeepers, sometimes. But, naturally, he loathes the hardship he has to put people under. The violence. He sees it as unnecessary and ruthless. Needless pain caused in the name of fear, disguised as justice. It doesn't sicken him enough, though. He's hidden that deep within over the years. He doesn't have a choice either way, and he hopes that those that are beneath the baton know that when they've done wrong. But it's never that easy, and his reflection grows heavier each day because of it.

He'll be a tall, dark, and handsome kid when he's older, that's for sure. Everybody says it. His father boasts about it down at the local drinking den. He's just like me, but better he'd say, as though it was some kind of miracle, like triplets, to have a son that looks similar. His mother takes credit, of course. The usual attitude being that it is because of her work and her supplies that he's managed to live a healthy life. It's true to a degree, but to take credit for genealogy is borderline insane behaviour, or so Rhys would believe.

When it comes to his friends, he can be a little abrasive. He depends on others a lot, seeking enjoyment in their presence. If they have an issue of their own, he can rarely sense it. He's usually too busy nestling through his own traumas to recognise somebody else's. Still, when he does catch on, he's somebody one could talk to endlessly. The kind of soul that is open-armed to all that need it. It's come from years of dealing with so much himself that he can now give out the support he'd wished he had in those times. Empathetic to the end, but blind all the same.