Bentley Swann of the Thirteenth District.

NAME: Bentley Annise Swann
AGE: Seventeen
GENDER: Female
DISTRICT/AREA: District Thirteen

APPEARANCE:

Bentley guesses that her looks are the only reason she's made it this far.

Or at least that's what they all tell her, and when that many people tell her something then it must be true. There are too many things about this world that it hurts too much to understand, so she'd rather just float in her pretty bubble and let everyone else tell her how it is-was-ever-will-be. And float she does, she floats in everything she does because it's easy, and in the end it's all she knows how to do, float and dance. Someone told her once that there was a dance in every step, and she's lived up to it, toned limbs and lithe torso moving her to where she needs to go with the utmost grace. So many years of perpetual movement have left her with a lean strength that would surprise many, long legs able to carry her through every dizzying leap or spin (or brace herself up against a wall for her less mentionable pastime) and willowy arms able to stand up to any cartwheel or front tuck or gymnastic trick that mankind could ever invent. She's tiny even by Thirteen's standards at her five-foot-hundred-pound status, but that's okay, really. When she moves, she's bigger than all of them.

She doesn't understand why people think she's anything special.

She knows she's special because she's got that light inside that only Mama and Alyssa seem to see, but why does everyone else tell her that she's beautiful when all they ever do is look at her instead of look at her? Because they can't really know what she is by just taking in the high cheekbones and smooth skin and pillowy lips, the straight-bridged nose, the almond-shaped dark black-brown eyes with whole worlds behind them if someone cares to look for them, rimmed with lush lashes. When she dances sometimes her hair gets caught in the lashes and makes a thin netted blindfold of mahogany silk, but she hates pulling it up because it makes her feel all trapped and held in in a way that makes her baby bird soul chirp feebly for its freedom. So it almost always falls down her back in mussed waves, think and untamed and drawing glares from every clean-cut official and teacher that looks her way. But it's okay, really. She feels bad for them because they don't have her special light to keep them company after lights out when it's so dark that the night could claim you for its own and never give you back.

Maybe her light is the only thing saving her. Her light and Mama and Alyssa and the music, they're the only solid things in her pretty, fluid bubble world.

And that's okay. Really.

PERSONALITY:

Bentley knows that she's supposed to hold her head up high and not listen to what any of them say (Lyss told her once that she was magic and they were all jealous), but even though she's supposed to be a big girl and close her ears to the whispers and outright statements she always cries when they call her that word. It hurts so much more than slut or bitch or some of the nastier things that Mama tells her a lady shouldn't say. No, that word will never have a parallel, nothing else will ever be enough to send her huddled in a bathroom stall wailing out faint, broken things into the crook of Alyssa's neck. There is nothing else in her pretty world that can break her except for those two ugly syllables.

Stupid.

Mama always looks so sad when people call her that word and she can never get why they don't realize that she isn't stupid, she's just wise in a way that none of them can understand. She hails from a brighter world than they, she doesn't fit here in this dark cave, never-has-never-will, and they will just never be able to deal with the fact that you can't keep a child of the sun trapped under the earth and expect her to be like the rest of the ground-dwellers. They will never understand the sun's language of magic and hope and laughing for no reason that pours over her lips like the rivers she wants so badly to see one day, and she guesses that's okay. Everything's okay because she can't handle it when it's not. She has Alyssa and the music to protect her from the things that would try to tear her down and douse her sun-bright smiles until they go out for good, and Bentley knows that's all she'll ever need.

Sometimes she dances until she can't breathe and can't move and she feels like there's nothing left of her, and it's the most wonderful sensation she's ever felt, better than sleeping in on a Saturday, better than sex (she's had enough of all of them to know what's the best and dancing always wins), more tangible than anything her bubble world has to offer her. She finds her redemption in the beat, hears the divinity in the lyrics, and how could she not throw herself into a tide of something so decadent? Sometimes she can talk Alyssa into joining her but more often than not it's just her in her room with Lord Tubbington watching from her mountain of blakets (she doesn't care that they say she's too old for a stuffed cat because Ophelia made him just for her and he's friends with Dinah and Bentley doesn't want to hear what they tell her can and cannot be), spinning until she can't feel the floor or her arms or anything and she can just float away.

Because floating is what she does. And that's okay.

HISTORY:

Her light has never been something that people understand. There are her special people, Mama and Alyssa and Ophelia, they can see how she radiates in a world that wants to plunge her into the dark until her bubble pops and she'll be lost and broken beyond repair just like everyone else, and they understand. Bentley tells herself that they're all she needs, but sometimes as she's floating along through her waking hours she realizes.

It's hard.

It's hard being the person that no one listens to because they don't think she has anything to say that's worth something. And she's hardly ever mad, but in those moments she wants to shake and scream until they listen because just because she knows that Lord Tubbington is as real as she is and that Santa Claus doesn't need a chimney to get into Thirteen because he's magic doesn't mean that they can take their ground-darkened minds and shy away and mock her glow that she knows they envy. Lyss told her that people are always meanest to the ones they're jealous of, and Bentley can see why they'd be jealous of her. They live in this dark world with no hope of finding a light like hers. They hate her for having something they don't. And that's okay, really.

She's spent her whole life like this, grown-ups telling her she was just special while everyone in her classes called her that word until Alyssa started sending them on trips to the medical center. It's always been her from the beginning, standing by her side and learning to glow in her own, unique quiet way. They've taught each other. Always and everything, they have taught each other.

That maybe it's not the best idea to have conversations with Lord Tubbington where everyone can hear because not everyone understands and it might be rude if they can't hear him as well as Bentley can. That she isn't helpless, that she can cut down anyone she wants to with narrowed eyes and acidic words that crawl uncomfortably over her skin for hours afterwards (she's just not mean. Children of the sun are never bitter) but still make them back off. That the guys will eventually stop making fun of her if she screws them. That together the two of them can sleep their way to the top of the social ladder and come out of it none the worse for wear.

That whenever a sock gets lost in the laundry it's because gremlins took it to swaddle their newborn babies. That it's okay to smile because Alyssa has the prettiest smile in the world and she can light up the world if she wants to. That the cure for a bad day is turning the music up and dancing until both of them forget who they are. That their arms are always open for each other, their ears always ready to listen because no one else will and most of the time they're all each other has. That it goes unsaid that the two of them will be each other's destiny in some way even though Bentley can't define it. She's never been good at putting labels on things.

Ophelia's there too, a kindred spirit who glows just as brightly as she does although people seen to hate her a bit less than they hate Bentley. And that's okay, it really is. Bentley would never want anyone to hate Ophelia, with her pretty smiles and stories of the world Outside that she translates for her because Professor Speks uses words that are too big to fit into her bubble so she just lets them float right through. Ophelia, with her careful fingers that laced Lord Tubbington's form together from one of Mama's old sweaters as a surprise for her eleventh birthday. Yes, Ophelia's there too, and there's that feeling of forever that hums in Bentley's chest, and that's what reminds her that no matter what, she still has a reason to glow.

School's never been easy, but that's okay because there are more important things than chemical equations and knowing all the words to how doth the little crocodile... and knowing what a quadratic is. Ophelia always helps Bentley out with math because she's never understood what that little dash between the numbers means, and it was in the middle of a worksheet one day that she mentioned taking a music class. Bentley's really glad that Ophelia sat next to her that day in math and told her that a dancer like her didn't belong in the world of numbers and harsh reality. The girl with the magic hands and magic words has changed her life, and Bentley will be forever grateful.

She really likes music class even if it's first thing in the morning and she's still a little sleepy when she comes in. People are different in there; they still look at her funny when she talks about the magic and the sun, and sometimes one of them will call her that word, but some people seem to see her light shining just a little bit, which is something that she's never seen, sitting in her bubble and watching the world float by. She thinks that Mr. Wheaton must know what it's like becuase he's way different than the other teachers and she sees a little bit of her same kind of glow in him too and feels like maybe that's why he and Ophelia are such good friends. Bentley has never found people that encouraged her to shine until now, and maybe it's that newfound hope that makes her write out her name in perfect handwriting across the the sheet on the bulletin board outside the music room: Glee Club Sign Ups!

Maybe she won't get to let her light radiate freely all the time, but now she knows that at least for an hour after school every day, she can shine brighter than the sun.

And that's okay.

CODEWORD: Odair

OTHER:

Face Claim is Shin Mina.

Main: 9D5372
Speech: E39B7D

Brittany Pierce in the D13 Glee plot.

Graphic and bio coding by my beautiful South <3