Brazen Lightwood [District 1]

Brazen is everything one could want in the physicality of the citizens of District One. He is tall and well muscled for his age; though he is not the overly beefy size of many a male trainee, he remains an idealized picture of the career tribute. More importantly for his District though, he is quite handsome. With his chiseled Jaw, straight nose and full, pouty lips, he could be easily compared to the classical portrayal of beauty found in the rare old paintings that survived the Dark Days.

His skin is silky smooth from a lifetime of pampering, and his face hardly knows a blemish. His thick, straight hair of dark gold that frames his face often falls just above his brow. He has irises of a deep, gray-blue that he tends to accentuate with his abundance of blue apparel. Though he doesn’t particularly have a fondness for fashion, he has certainly come to enjoy the compliments that come with the items that bring out his eyes.

As with all beauties of District One though, Brazen has not been left without his faults. When he was a child, he actually had terrible scoliosis to the point where spinal fusion surgery was required. With his mother as protective as he was, this kept Brazen home stricken for nearly a year during his social developmental age. This left him with personality defects in addition to the unappealing pink scar that runs the length of his back along his spine. His determination to be as strong as the other boys his age after his recovery was what led him to Career training—that coupled with the fact his cousins were in it as well and his parents couldn’t have him being the odd one out. With that sort of training though comes other damages such as the permanent scar tissue built up in his knuckles and various minor scars from cuts and scrapes when handling blades.

To see him now, one would never guess he had been a sickly and scrawny child. He remains self conscious about the large scar along his back though and to see him without a shirt on, despite his enviable physique, are about the same odds as a District One male like himself has of actually getting Reaped.

Brazen is definitely on the quiet side, though that does not necessarily mean he is shy or timid as others perceive him to be. He is very intelligent and perceptive to the world around him, which is why rather than running his mouth with smack talk twenty-four-seven, as many of his fellow careers do, he listens and analyzes. Despite his physical prowess and the career status bestowed upon him by his bloodline, Brazen’s most powerful weapon is truly his deductive reasoning and intellectual proficiency.

In addition to his softspoken nature, Brazen often has a habit of isolating himself, even in a crowd. His socially awkward tendencies are a result of his sickly early youth and his year in practical isolation during those prime social skill-building years. Having an overbearing, overprotective mother probably didn’t do much to help that either. Unlike the rest of the Lightwood clan, Brazen grew up as an only child. His mother miscarried several times before him, and once he came into this world, she was bound and determined to make sure he lived as well as possible.

Although he had his cousins, most of his childhood was spent at home being spoiled and developing his only child syndrome. While he is certainly capable of showing affection, he never doles out much at a time. He always maintains his distance in some manner, never trusting anyone too much, never giving too much away about himself. Every move he makes, just like his thoughts, are overly calculated and analytical.

Brazen grew up in as a child in one of the most established families of District One. His father was a wealthy man who married a wealthy woman and that was that. It’s not that Brazen is innately spoiled or selfish, but when you live your life with an abundance of money, it’s all you know. It wasn’t until he got older that he realized just how odd it was that his mother was practically a shut in and had tried his entire life thus far to keep him the same.

As Brazen came to this conclusion, their relationship grew rockier and rockier. His father was hardly home enough to mind and when he was, he was usually too drunk or doped up on morphling to get much out of him. Brazen wasn’t entirely sure he blamed his father as he was coming to realize what he had to deal with every time he set foot in his own house.

With the earthquake though, everything changed. Brazen’s father was in one of the buildings that collapsed; his body was never found. Just a few short days later, his not so sane mother took her own life by blowing her brains out as she took a soak in her bathtub. Brazen heard the gunshot just as he walked in the door, coming home for that evening from training. Within a week, Brazen Lightwood’s entire world was thrown upside down. Sure, his mother had been smothering and his father never there, but they were the only family he’d ever known, and there were certainly far worse parents in the District.

Everything in the will and testaments was of course left in Brazen’s name, but unfortunately being a minor at sixteen years old left him “unfit” in the government’s eyes to have access to such estates. Thus, his accounts were frozen and he was forced into being adopted by his aunt. He couldn’t say he wasn’t gracious for her willingness to accept him into her home, but the whole situation was still highly uncomfortable. The Lightwoods were such a tight knit family, and Brazen had hardly been around them at all as a child. Granted, with training, he had gotten to know a few of his cousins better, but adjusting to life in a large family was no easy feat for a boy who would easily, willingly shut himself off from the rest of the world.

FC is Vladimir Ivanov

part of nofo's Lightwood plot