Kale Iberis [11]

In contrast to the vast majority of District 11, Kale has very fair skin, dotted with a few light freckles and a light brown birthmark on her neck. Her light brown hair is cut short and asymmetrically, covering a portion of her broad face, though she sometimes ties the back half of it back.

Her eyes are a subdued blue color, always bright and cheerful. Kale occasionally wears her glasses, whose black plastic frames, which, though on the wrong person are the epitome of dorkiness, actually look quite cute on her face.

At 5'6," Kale is average height, with a somewhat stocky build that earns the envy of her rail-thin friends. She's hardly better fed than the others in the district, however; she simply has a more compact bone structure.

Kale typically does not put much effort one way or another into her appearance, sticking with simple, practical clothes. She wears jeans and a lot of flannel in the winter, or short sleeves or a tank top with cargo shorts during the summer, saying that she likes to make use of pockets. On the rare occasion she needs to wear shoes, work boots are Kale's top choice, though she usually just goes barefoot when working in the fields.

Though Kale can look intimidating with her short, choppy hair and stockier build, she is actually a fairly friendly person. She can be a bit awkward when first getting to know someone, and doesn't necessarily go out of her way to make friends, but doesn't reject the people who try.

From an early age, she never was quite like the other children. "A little bit off-beat," her teacher had said when she was five. She was a bit more unusual than the others, yes, but that's how Kale has always liked it.

Two good candidates for adjectives to replace Kale's teacher's use of "off-beat" are brilliant and creative. She is both of these and always was, and has always thought of things no one else thought about, wondered how and why things worked, and seen the world in a different light than the others.

This has always made her and excellent storyteller, and a great partner in deep conversations. She will analyze, over analyze, every aspect of something until she reaches the conclusion that sounds most logical--or most awesome.

Kale loves to laugh and have fun, and typically does not fall into bad moods. Though often taking the cynical standpoint on most issues over the optimistic one, she does so in a lighthearted manner, though it is merely a joke.

For this reason, Kale sometimes has trouble taking things seriously. When joking, she doesn't always know when to draw the line, and sometimes takes things too far.

Though few things truly irk her, Kale hates being judged. She will lose her temper with people who make assumptions about her without getting to know her.

Like many of the children of Panem, Kale grew up with just one parent. Her father Cyprus raised both her and her brothers Basil, the eldest of them all, and Dill, the youngest, from an early age. Kale doesn't remember much of their mother, as Kale was three when she died.

Kale's memories of early childhood contain many adventures around the district with her siblings and neighbors, who were all primarily male. The troupe fought wars, slayed imaginary dragons, and rescued many a damsel in distress--Kale herself was not content to play the role of the damsel; this duty fell to her younger brother Dill or Kale's best friend, a boy her age named Clyde.

Two of their games particularly worried their father. Occasionally, the band of children would play "Spies," reenacting the quote-unquote Dark Days, often supporting the rebel movement, making treasonous declarations of the Capitol. Kale's father did what he could to discourage this game, and eventually it lost favor to their reenactments of the Hunger Games. Though it made the group a whole lot less likely to be taken in the middle of the night, the game made still saddened Cyprus Iberis. There was little he could have done, however, as he was not particularly around--Kale's father had to work fourteen hour days harvesting crops.

As Kale and her neighbors grew up, such games became replaced by school and work in the fields and orchards. By age ten, the only one of her former playmates she saw regularly was Clyde, and only for the fact that they both worked in the orange groves. Though they once were best friends, their relationship was thrown off balance one evening. The two were sitting in an orange tree right after the end of the day was called when Clyde leaned in an kissed Kale, then professed his love for her. Poor Clyde was shut down when Kale told him they were friends, but she didn't think of him that way. In fact, she didn't think of any boys that way.

The two remained friends, but drifted further apart. Kale has since been seeking a girlfriend, though to no avail. At sixteen, she is not particularly concerned with the world. She works five hours a day, five days a week in the orange groves, though doesn't really complain. Her older brother, Basil, has gotten married at nineteen and moved out of their house, which is occupied by Kale, Dill, and their father. Both Kale and Dill take out tessera for the three of them, and though they don't have an excess of food, Kale's father has always done a good job of making sure his children never starved.

Even now, Kale has a tendency to daydream, which can get her into trouble. She cites her imagination as the reason why she doesn't mind work as much as most people, or why living in the impoverished district doesn't bother her very much.