Caspian Calder D'Anjou // District 10

A soft, angled shape, Caspian's face has been fully developed. He no longer has the 'baby fat' that he possessed from his childhood. His chin is sharp and angular, with the cheeks curving up to his ears. His chin is free from stubble, not quite yet of the age to start shaving. Moving up to his forehead, the sides of Caspian's face harbor no sideburns. He has no widow's peak. When Caspian frowns, the skin of his forehead crinkles into minute lines.

If one were to call Caspian's eyes dull, they would be spewing out a lie. They are not quite of a yellow color, but rather a browner, softer hue. They may remind one of the sharp, brilliant color you could see at a harvest moon, or a lunar eclipse. You could also say the are a bit darker than the skin of a persimmon. They resemble almonds in a way, both in color and shape, if you really wanted to go that deep into the subject. They are inset, with deep, heavy lids and thick lashes. They do not seem to ever focus on one particular thing; rather the entirety of their surroundings. The skin under the eyes seems bruised, but it is merely a trait embedded in the genes that he possesses.

The fact that Caspian's hair is shoulder length is kind of interesting, considering the fact that he has an obsession with the element of fire. It's caught on fire an infinite amount of times, and therefore the ends are literally singed. In a regular lighting, it takes on the hue of a reddish-brown; but when the sun kisses it, it seems to be aglow with a flame, transforming into a bright, brilliant red. His prefers to keep it messy, and his bangs are almost always swooped to the side, to keep them out of his eyes.

Caspian's nose is not proportional to the rest of his face. From a side glance, it appears normal as can be, but when viewed with the rest of the face, it portrays another story. The nose itself is average-sized, but the bridge has bumps, and is not straight. He has broken it several times over, each time causing it to somehow become even more crooked and jagged. At times it looks grotesque because it's not everyday you see someone with that deformed of a nose.

Caspian's lips might not be the first thing your eyes would want to gaze upon, but when up close, you see that maybe they weren't so bad after all. They are usually chapped from the harsher weathers, but chapped lips are nothing that a bit of saliva from the tongue can't fix. They are tinged with a light pink color, and there is a slight upturn in the middle of each lip. His lips portray a multitude of stories. A playful smile might speak of more than just happiness, just as a frown might be covering up more than just a particularly bad day. His trademark smile is lopsided, with one side upturned in the beginnings of a smile, while the other remains straight and unfazed. Finish this off with a glint of his amber eyes, and you have a dangerous combination that could make any girl do a double take.

Caspian's teeth are not in the best condition. Coming from a lower District, a person who happens to live in one of them probably isn't going to receive the best dental care. He makes sure to rinse his mouth with water, and he picks the excess food from the crevices in between his teeth, but there's really not much else you could do without toothpaste. He often has tooth pains, probably from cavities, and he just has to suffer with the fact of it. There's probably a lot worse out there, like living in the Seam or being a wanderer. Or something.

Prone to loud sound, commotion, and din, Caspian's ears, or rather ear, considering his right is deaf, are similar to an animal's. Oh, not in appearance, dearest readers, but rather in the sense of their/its sensitivity to sound. He was taught at a young age to pick up on small sounds, sounds that might come in handy to know the source of. He later learned that he was shown this in preparation for the Hunger Games; an act that is forbidden to perform, yet many families perform anyways. Caspian's ears lie flat against the sides of his head. The canals leading to the innards of the ear are large, with no hair in the vicinity of them. They are likely to turn a bright crimson-red upon the presence of embarrassment. It is an automatic instinct to cock his head towards the right, in an attempt to hear the sound that is being created by another person.

Shoulders wide and large, your first impression would be that Caspian is a strong and manly person. Well, you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover, should you? As strong and capable as Caspian may seem, he really isn't. Not that he couldn't lift a couple pounds or anything, but you can't compare him to those kids of his age that can lift their own weight. His shoulders are a mixture of reds and browns, branded by the sun during all the time he spends outdoors.

Blanketed with an infinite number of welts, scars, and burns, Caspian's chest is not something you would call a 'sight for sore eyes.' Years of playing with the element fire can cause your body to become layered with welts and scars. His stomach is quite flat and fits with the rest of his body size. He likes to blame it on the scarcity of food in District 10, but he's always been a real skinny kid; high metabolism runs in his family.

At least regarding welts, scars, and burns, Caspian's legs are similar to his chest. Due to the fact that he digests pretty much everything he eats, no weight goes to his legs. This makes his legs pretty skinny, with barely any meat on them not where a cannibal would want to start. Because of his obsession with the element fire, most of his leg hair is burned off or singed at the tips. It grows back again, but then it just becomes burned off/singed again. Rinse and repeat.

Although one to prefer the absence of shoes, Caspian's feet are in rather good condition. The first warm day of the year he shrugs off his shoes and walks around barefoot for the entirety of the spring and summer. The soles are long since callused with the effects of hot cement, rocks, and fire. A teenager of his age might happen to have large feet, and this is the case with Caspian. Say, a size ten. A lot of kids don't have that shoe size, therefore it is hard for Caspian to find a pair of shoes to cover his feet.

Very aloof, Caspian is not a person that makes you feel welcome. It takes a long time for one to get on Caspian's good side; being nice to him would shorten the time length. Whilst working with him in a group, Caspian may seem condescending, as if the whole project at hand is a waste of his time. When speaking of or in the presence of something he dislikes, Caspian will start to rant and rave about said object, continuing on for longer than the average person would care to listen for.

Although he may seem condescending to one whilst working with him for a project of some sort, Caspian is in reality not arrogant. He hates anything that compare him to people, and he sees people as arrogant. He only appears to be rude and egotistic because of his lack of sleep.

Caspian abhors being called a rebel. For he's not really a rebel, he says, but rather one who likes to bend the rules a bit. He tends to steal small things that could hypothetically contribute to the start of a fire. Wood, alcohol, and flint happen to fit perfectly within that criteria. When told to do something, the asker is pretty much just wasting their breath, as Caspian is most likely not going to accomplish the task. It's a remarkable experience to witness Caspian actually doing what he was asked to do.

Although one who occasionally steals materials for giving birth to the element fire, Caspian is an honest person. When asked a question, he will answer truthfully, no matter how embarrassing or degrading the question is. He says that people should start to learn to accept themselves for who they are, and not who other people want them to be. He believes honesty will get you far in life, with people, jobs, and friendships.

Caspian is not one to accept gifts. He feels guilty, like he owes the giver something in return. And Caspian hates being in debt to someone, especially someone close to him. Therefore, Caspian will not take a gift from anyone. He will not give a gift either; he doesn't want the receiver to feel the same as he does whilst under the same circumstances.

Having low trust in others, Caspian would rather take a matter into his own hands rather than give the responsibility to someone else. He feels all people are the same; irresponsible, dishonest, and deceitful. They do not rank high on his list of favorite things. Caspian has lost complete faith in the abilities of his people. He fears they have lost their will to think for themselves, instead taking the easier route and having the Capital brainwash and make their decisions for them.

Open-minded and accepting of change, Caspian can deal with the inevitable truth: things change. Things change for an endless amount of reasons, and you're not going to be able to stop it from happening. So why throw a fit about it, he says. When presented with a sudden alteration of plans or rules, Caspian is very capable of adjusting. He does not become attached to things very often because of this; things come and go in life, and even though he acknowledges this, it still pains him to lose something loved.

Caspian's lifestyle could be compared to a systematic structure. Everything he does is done for a reason, at least in his book, and he does not do something sporadically. He prefers to keep his day simple, with little change, albeit he would greet it with open arms if it wished to enter his days. Everything he does, except his pyromania, is done within good time, and at a slow, tedious pace. It seems every movement he makes has a motive.

And now, dear reader, we've worked our way up to the climax of this portion of the bio. Pyromania did not begin quickly for Caspian; only in the past two years or so has he acquired a sudden interest, love, and passion for the element fire. Why, you ask, have I called fire 'the element fire' throughout the entirety of this biography? Caspian thinks of fire as the most powerful element, as well as one of the most dynamic entities to exist. It destroys most everything, has few weaknesses, and has an automatic aura that speaks of danger, pain, and possibly death. He thinks it deserves a more proper title. He enjoys creating it the most; it symbolizes that a great power can be born of almost nothing more than energy. He knows of the consequences that mixing fire and human skin bring, but yet he still has no fear as he comes into contact with fire and things ablaze with it. He finds his name compared to his obsession quite amusing, as there was once a grand sea named Caspian.

If you knew that Caspian was an insomniac, you would understand and accept why he seems to be constantly in a bad mood. Caspian has had insomnia ever since he could remember things. Sometimes he will go without sleep for several nights in a row, due to the fact that he has no medicine for his condition. His mom had it, his sister had it, and his brother has it. Unaware of this, one reason why Caspian cannot sleep at night is because he rotates the images of his family's deaths in his mind every night. Every night he sinks into bed hoping to maybe get an hour or two of sleep, but he instead succumbs into the photo album of mental images. Images that he will never be able to erase from his mind. Or his brother's for that matter.

Except when dealing with the creation of fire, Caspian generally gives up easily. He thinks that if you can't do something right the first time, then you're most likely not going to get it right a second, fifth, or tenth time. And this applies to people, too. When someone says or does something to him that he doesn't particularly like, it's a bad move on their part because he pretty much just placed another brick in the wall that separates them.

Caspian and his sister were never quite the closest pair of siblings one could find, but they loved each other all the same. Not having problems with one another, but yet not preferring to spend time with one another, they stay out of each other's hair. Lillian looked just like Caspian, with flowing dark-red hair and amber eyes. Same body build, same personality. But maybe the reason they didn't have a strong connection was because they had nothing to dispute upon, nothing to have a conversation about. And Caspian regrets that the most regarding Lillian, their lack of communication.

Caspian's mother. His least favorite person. She treated him worse than she would a starving dog, giving him all of the household chores and enforcing that he make a trip into the main square of the District for ridiculous things. He was more of her slave than her son, and every day another layer of hatred was added to the wall that divided their lives. He looked nothing like her, which pleased Caspian; he wanted nothing that connected her to him.

Caspian had no qualms with his dad. His dad treated him like his son, with love and guidance. But Caspian's father preferred to let Caspian take the reigns on how he controlled his life, only stepping in when Caspian was in deep in a situation. Then again, Caspian's dad was never home, so that might explain his absence in Caspian's life.

Caspian's brother. Oh, what a great soul to bring into this world indeed. Matthias, only ten, cannot function on his own. He has autism, and a serious case of it at that. Caspian must always keep his eye on Matthias, his only remaining kin. The only one who Caspian truly loves. The one who gives Caspian a reason to wake up in the morning (if he slept at all). The only one to survive the fire, four years ago.

The fire was an accident. You can believe that, right? It was one of those nights, the kind where everything for miles is visible, even in the dim light of the District. Perhaps it was the moon, or maybe it was the light from the huge fire Caspian had created. Face aglow with the soft warmth of the flame, Caspian had it pretty well under control. He had a bucket of water next to him, and there weren't really that many things nearby for the fire to latch onto.

A man, ambling around the houses of District 10, had a recently stolen purchased bottle of alcohol in his grasp.

"Hey there! What are you doing there, boy?
"What's it to you?"
"Feisty one, aren't you?"
"I said, what's it to you?"

The man, in a drunken daze, throws the bottle of liquor into the blaze of flames. And then all hell exploded.

The fire grew in size tenfold; it quickly spread towards Caspian's house, like fingers of a dead soul reaching up from the Underworld. Racing to the house, Caspian realized it was too late. To late to save them all.

But no. He had to try.

Saving his mother was out of the question. Let her burn, he thought.

Saving his father was not necessary. The past couple of years he had been constantly unhappy with life, and had resorted to a life of heavy drinking. Caspian knew that as much as he wanted to save him, it was more important to save another's life tonight.

Lillian and Matthias. Those were the ones he had to save tonight.

Inhaling and appreciating a huge breath of oxygen, Caspian raced into the inferno that was his home. Caspian could not see anything at first; the thick gray haze was all he could see, all he could taste, all he could succumb to. It brought him to his knees. Knowing that the smoke and heat rose, Caspian made his way inch by inch into Lillian's room. And he was not prepared for what he saw.

The whole room was infested with a mixture of smoke, heat, and the distinct taste of burnt flesh. Caspian knew it wasn't his; he had never felt the fire lick his skin. So it had to be Lillian.

"Lillian! Lillian, get on the floor and come to me!"

Silence. Silence is what answered his coughs and splutters that night.

"Oh God no..."

Lillian was gone. Gone, gone, gone.

Tears streaming down his face, he had only one other room to visit: Matthais's. God, did he hope that Matthias still had a bit of life in him. Caspian couldn't bear to live with his whole family gone. Caspian crawls into Matthias's room, coughing and hacking all the while. Caspian even coughed up a loogie reddened with blood at one point.

Inside Matthias's room now, he crawls up into the bed. He can see Matthias's body, wrapped up in the cocoon of the blankets and sheets.

"Matthias? Oh Matthias, please say something..."

"Caspian?" The voice is rugged, choked.

Caspian gasped, grabbed the bundle of sheets, and sprinted out of the house with Matthias trapped in his arms.

He brought him outside, into the small meadow beyond the house. Matthias is still hacking up a storm at this point; Caspian brings him some water in the bucket from a nearby spring.

Now most of you are probably thinking at this point, why would Caspian continue to play with fire? Well, not even Caspian knows. Maybe it's to teach himself how to be safer with it. Or maybe it's to constantly remind him of what he did to his family. Either way, Caspian is stuck with the responsibility of Matthias, and the guilt of his family's fiery demise.

Odair