Katrian Nixx

Katrian is not the picture of exquisite beauty, nor is she unattractive; like her personality, her appearance is simply a bit offbeat. She is average height, approximately 5'5", though she isn't exactly sure. She weighs less than what would be considered healthy--about 113 pounds--but she isn't yet pushing emaciated. Katrian is, in general, a small girl; small hands, small feet, small ears, but she never seems to be bothered by any of her physical flaws.

Her hair is a medium, dirty blonde and though it's impractical she likes to keep it long. It falls in natural, loose waves midway down her back when she doesn't have it tied in a tangles ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her facial features are delicate, like her mothers, with high, prominent cheekbones, oversized grey-blue eyes and a dainty nose. She doesn't have the patience or money for makeup, but the all-natural look suits her well.

Katrian favors light clothes, simple dresses and tunics, but her wardrobe is limited, so she often wears the same things a few times a week. She doesn't give much thought to being fashionable, but she absolutely detests wearing shoes. When the weather is nice and she doesn't have to walk in town, Katrian can almost always be found with no shoes on her delicate feet. When she has to wear shoes, she prefers sturdy sandals or boots for the winter.

Even though she is naturally quite pretty, Katrian has a variety of scars and flaws, mostly from working with injured animals. Her most prominent scar runs in a thick, jagged line down her left forearm, a result of helping her mother heal a young wild cat. She usually keeps it mostly covered as the raised, off-colored skin sometimes bothers her. Though tending to the wild animals that were sometimes found injured just outside the fence never brought them profit, the Nixx ladies could never bring themselves to leave them for dead. Another of Katrian's more noticeable scars is featured on her right temple--two twin veritcal lines stopping just above her cheekbone where she was swatted by a neighbor's rabid cat. Most of her other scars are innocuous, small marks of childhood mischief or kitchen accidents. In addition to that, Katrian has a smattering of jagged white lines sprinkled across the tops of both feet--from dropping a plate--as well as a medium-sized birthmark just below her right shoulder blade. Most of the time her hair or clothes hide the light brown splotch on her pale skin.

Katrian (pronounced KAY-tree-in) is first and foremost a young woman, possessed of many qualities associated with girls of her age. She is kind and a bit naive, but there is something behind her pale blue eyes that suggests she is so much more than just another young lady from District 5. She exudes a sort of unshakable sadness, the mark of a rocky history. But unlike many others who have suffered similar traumas, Katrian wears her heart on her sleeve. She very openly mourns the loss of her mother, unafraid of what others might call her. In fact, she has often been accused of being weak, but her peers simply do not see the fierce strength that she has buried deep inside.

Beneath her somewhat dreamy exterior, Katrian is very focused when she needs to be. She works hard in school and even harder at her job, taking over her mother's animal clinic. Although she sees the strife around her and the struggles of everyday life, she is grateful to be alive, knowing that other districts have it a lot worse. She often helps her father take care of her younger siblings, the twins Danica and Oliver.

But despite her knack for caring for younger children, Katrian truly excels at caring for animals. Before her death, Katrian's mother had begun teaching her daughter about tending to injured animals and had found that she was a natural. Katrian was a soothing presence, not just to the animals' owners, but to the animals themselves. She learned with ease and gracefully managed unpleasant situations. By the age of fourteen, Katrian's mother had taken her on as a part time apprentice for her at home animal clinic.

For all her compassion and empathy, Katrian is a challenge and a mystery to everyone around her. She is quiet, and though she moves with a sort of ethereal elegance, she has very few friends. With her forlorn gaze and soft-spoken tendencies, people are often put off by her; perhaps they find that her mild depression is pervasive, or perhaps they think her to be simple-minded. However, she is desperately loyal to the friends she does have, almost to a fault. She knows in her heart that if any one of them were picked for the Games, she would most assuredly volunteer to take their place.

Katrian Izabel Nixx was born to Brinna and Pyrus Nixx on a frosty December night. Mother and child barely survived the winter, both sickly and weak. But Pyrus worked day and night to keep the two off Death's door; come that summer Katrian and Brinna had made a full recovery.

Katrian spent most of her early childhood with her mother, being taught her letters and numbers and animals or simply playing little games together. Once Katrian became old enough, just after she began school, Brinna began working as an animal nurse from her home. Mostly she dealt with sick livestock, but she could fix injuries on any animal, wild or domestic. Brinna discovered her daughter's aptitude for caregiving when she was nine years old; Katrian brought home a sick baby rabbit and insisted that the two of them nurse it back to health. Won over by her little girl's pleading eyes, Brinna helped Kate tend to the bunny and after much begging, allowed her to keep it.

Several years went by without any major events. The Nixx family seemed to be doing just fine for themselves. Brinna and Pyrus worked hard to keep food on the table, but never seemed to be too hungry and Katrian was dedicated to her schoolwork. Then Brinna got pregnant again. Katrian was eleven, and delighted at the idea of having a little brother or sister to look after. But nine months later, Brinna delivered a stillborn boy. But there was no time for prolonged mourning, so the family did their best to move on.

Life continued on the way it always had until Brinna got pregnant again. By that time Katrian was fifteen and serving as an assistant to her mother's clinic business. Months went by and Brinna seemed to be just fine. But it was another hard winter, worse than when Katrian was born. When the twins were finally delivered, Brinna was hanging on by a thread. She lived just long enough to welcome the new year before she died of influenza.

Without her mother to run the clinic, Katrian took over the role as primary caregiver. She helped her father with the twins and split her time between school and veterinarian. Now Katrian just hopes that Danica and Oliver will grow up in a more promising world.