Artemisa Fei, D10 [new:Thomas]

Misa shifted uncomfortably in her chair, fingers knitting themselves together nervously as the stiff-smiled woman on the other side of the desk gazed speculatively at her. Therapy certainly wasn't something Misa had been interested in, but her parents had insisted after her panic attacks had increased in frequency and intensity, going from inconvenient to debilitating in a matter of weeks.

"All right, sweetie, I just need to do some paperwork before we can get down to business," her therapist said, still looking at her like she was some kind of scientific specimen. "Your full name?"

"Artemisa Alexandria Fei."

"Age?"

"Seventeen."

"All right, you obviously are female and you obviously live in District Ten," the middle-aged lady said, marking something on her clipboard with a flourish. "Now, we're going to start with a simple exercise to see how your sense of perspective works. I want you to look in this mirror and tell me what you see."

A large piece of reflective glass was placed on the table before her, and Misa raised an eyebrow skeptically. "I see me."

The woman nodded, scribbling something on her clipboard again. "Can you go into a little more detail, dear? I promise this isn't pointless."

Really? Because it seems completely pointless to me. Misa gave a huff of frustration, looking intently into the mirror and trying to find something she could talk about.

She was met with the image of a lithe Asian girl with a heart-shaped face. Small features and lofty cheekbones gave her an elegant but delicate appearance that was offset by the scowl knitted between dark eyebrows on a slightly wide forehead. Her lower jaw sat naturally farther back than most people's, giving her the appearance of having a smaller chin. Misa knew that if she were to smile (a rare occurrence) into the glass she'd be rewarded with a set of teeth that had a very noticeable overbite but were otherwise well-cared for. Her reflection's hair fell in waves around her face, the color so black that the fluorescent light in the room made it give off an almost bluish tint, like raven feathers. She had never spent a large amount of time worrying about her hair but she was somewhat obsessive over her hygiene, which meant that the unruly black tresses, while typically not immaculately styled, were always clean. Misa's complexion was clear and even due to religious cleaning, slightly tanned with yellow undertones, lending her face a golden glow as she looked upon her own image.

Dark brown almond-shaped eyes that were almost black stared back at her intensely, their slight upward slant more noticeable when she turned her head to the side. They were large in comparison to the rest of her face, black lashes that were not as long as she'd like them to be rimming them. The prominent figure of her nose sat squarely in the middle of her face, the bridge crooked from where she'd broken it in a riding accident as a child. Misa had never been overly fond of her nose, feeling that it's size was too large in comparison to her small features, but she didn't dwell too much on it. A thin-lipped mouth was set in it's default position of a slight frown, the tan pillows of flesh pursed together in annoyance at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Her ears, small and laying flat against the side of her head, were hidden behind her hair, obscured by black locks.

Misa's gaze shifted downwards to her reflection's neck, swanlike and graceful with slight lines denoting tendons and muscles showing beneath her flesh as she leaned her head to the side. The line of her neck led to rounded shoulders, narrow and constantly positioned in line with her immaculate posture. Even at a slightly diminutive height of five feet, four inches, Misa liked to walk tall.

Her torso was similarly petite, a small ribcage and thin waist that didn't have much of a curve to it. Misa had never really had a feminine figure at her weight of a hundered and ten pounds. There wasn't much fat on her form, but rather lean muscle developed from years of riding and ranching. Her arms were long and languid, leading in a graceful line to hands that were constantly in a state of disrepair, the skin rough and raw and callused. Her fingers were long and might have been elegant but for the chipped, cracked, dirty nails that topped them, the skin around them picked-at and often bloodied as a result of work and a bad habit of pulling at hangnails.

Misa's hips, she decided, were the only thing that gave her a girlish appearance, wide in comparison to the rest of her body and making the task of finding jeans that fit properly on her petite stature nearly impossible. Her legs were short but heavily muscled from all the time she spend on horseback, toned things and calves leading to size five feet that were in almost as poor condition as her hands, all of their time spent wedged into riding boots making them predisposed to ingrown toenails that hurt horribly and looked absolutely awful.

The stuffy, stiff cotton blouse and dress pants that her mother had forced her to wear were getting on Misa's last good nerve as she pulled irritably at the sleeves. She was used to wearing jeans on an almost constant basis, simple shirts and jackets played up with chunky jewelry for school and time off and old flannel button-ups and cowboy boots for work. While Misa didn't loathe dressing nicely, she couldn't shake the notion that this dolled-up girl in the mirror was not an accurate representation of who she was.

"Sorry," Misa said with a shrug, pushing the polished plane back across the desk. "I see me. Nothing else I can say about it."

The woman pursed her lips, scribbling on the clipboard once again. Misa caught a flash of the words "narrow-minded" on the white paper and bit back an irritated snarl. What was the point of this nonsense? Her therapist gazed evenly back up at her, pen poised over the legal pad. "And do you know why your parents wanted you to come to therapy, Artemisa?"

"Because I suffer from severe hydrophobia and claustrophobia, and I have frequent panic attacks." her response was dull and to-the point as she looked back at the clipboard-wielding woman unflinchingly. Misa had never been one to back down from anything.

Honestly, did a diploma framed on the wall and an innate sense of superiority entitle this woman to rummage around in the depths of Misa's head, pulling out psychological issues with long and hard to pronounce names to diagnose the simple fact that she didn't like tight spaces or being submerged in water? She certainly didn't think so. "Look, I'm going to be frank with you. I'm here because my parents are making me come here. I know I'm afraid of water and being trapped in a broom closet, and I don't need a shrink to tell me that. As for the panic attacks, if I can avoid my triggers they aren't a problem. Can we just wrap this nonsense up so I can go home?"

Maybe she was more than a little cold, but Misa really didn't care. She was aware of her own abrasive personality, arrogant, short-tempered, sarcastic, and stubborn, and she was actually rather fond of it. Her intelligence had led to somewhat of a superiority complex in her younger years, an issue that had grown along with her. Misa didn't like being told what to do, and as a rule assumed that she was the smartest person in any given situation she was encountered with.

She wasn't all snarky comebacks and flippant eye-rolls, at least not in her own eyes. Misa believed that her positive traits gave her a bit of redemption in the eyes of others. She had a strong sense of right and wrong that often prompted her to stick up for the underdog, her opinionated tendencies often turning their icy sights on bullies at school or chauvinistic pigs like the idiot coach who had refused to let her join archery club on the basis of her gender alone. She'd shut him up when she shot straight through a glass of water sitting on the other side of the gymnasium, securing her spot as club president in under five minutes (she was the first to admit that her track record as the consummate Feminist of District Ten hadn't made her many friends, but it was great to prove people wrong).

"Why in such a hurry to leave? Have a hot date?" the therapist twittered to herself in amusement, earning a derisive snort from Misa.

"Not hardly. I have better things to do than go looking for love in the idiots that inhabit this hellhole. I'd prefer to make my own happiness instead of basing it on some stupid boy."

Again, something scribbled onto paper and another contemplative glance in her direction. "I see. So, Artemisa, can you tell me a little bit about what led to your phobias? You can just start at the very beginning. Really dig deep for me, okay?"

"The very beginning was a pretty long time ago, but okay," Misa sighed heavily, giving another dramatic eye roll. "I guess I won't be allowed out of here until I give you some insight into my psychological scar tissue.

"My parents own a ranch, see? They always have, ever since I was born, so I'm always riding horses and roping cattle and all that stuff. I have a twin, although she's not really my twin. She's adopted, but we're the same height and have the same birthday and everything. She's a redhead, and I'm well... not, but we act exactly the same sometimes, twin telepathy and everything. Anyway.

"My sister Essence and I came home from school one day when we were eight. She was off doing something else, but I wanted to go riding, so I saddled up and went off without telling anyone. We weren't supposed to go anywhere alone, but I figured I wouldn't be gone that long, you know? I just wanted to go for a little ride and practice my archery for a little bit, nothing big.

"It started getting stormy while I was out, so I turned my horse around and started heading back. I stopped at our well to get a drink, but there was this big bang of thunder and it made me jump. Next thing I knew, I was falling."

Misa shuddered, trying to fight down the panic that bubbled in her chest at the memory. "I was down there for two days before they found me, up to my neck in water and crammed into a pitch black space that was so tiny I couldn't even turn around. After they got me out, my parents stopped letting me go out for a long time. They tried to shut me up in the house and turn me into some kind of Holly Homemaker, but I didn't put up with it very well. I was out ranching again by the time I turned twelve.

"I want to own my own ranch someday, see? Everyone tells me that my grades are too good for that, but it's all I really want. I like animals, you know? They're easier to deal with than people. Anyway, now that you have my life's story, can I leave?"

"Yes, Artemisa, I suppose you can," said the woman, scribbling furiously again on her clipboard. "Hopefully we can make a little more progress in our next session."

"Doubtful," Misa snorted, sprining out of her seat and heading for the door. "See you next week."

The codeword is Odair.

Artemisa is played by Miss Crystal Liu.