HOLLYN DEVEREAUX ★ D1

HOLLYN DEVEREAUX ★ D1 Jul 20, 2012 21:14:53 GMT -5

Quote

Post by florentine, d4b ❁ on Jul 20, 2012 21:14:53 GMT -5

[presto]

hollyn devereaux
sixteen
district one

[/presto]

"It's alarming, honestly, how charming she can be." - Lana Del Ray

INFORMATION

NAME

Hollyn Devereaux

AGE

Sixteen

DISTRICT

One

OCCUPATION

Career

FACECLAIM

Jac Jagaciak

CODEWORD

Odair

BIOGRAPHY

The mirror holds so much more than slanting cheekbones and wide-set eyes the colour of the sky. It's not the way your skin glows so milky white it is almost translucent, nor the way your features jut sharply from your face. What makes you different is nothing to do with the way you look - because on the outside you are every bit the same as your sisters. Down-turned lips the shape of a heart; cherry lipgloss glazing them with the finest pink. What sets you apart, my darling, is the smile that plays upon them when you need it the most - spreading like a disease with that infectious laugh of yours. Influence. That is all anybody can really see when they look at you - the power you hold simply from existing running through your veins. They can see your money in your fine clothes, but it's not just that. No, it's the way you look at someone and anybody can see the judgement in your eyes. It's the way you flick your hair over your shoulder - and air of confidence that hides everything inside. Lastly, it's the way you are. From your slender legs to your prominent collarbones to the flick of your hair that you can never tame, you are a Devereaux.

It's a losing battle against the mirror, but like the rest of the competitions you never stop fighting. You are not vain, but you act as though you are. Constant scrutiny of every part of your almost perfect body not because you care yourself, but because maybe if you can be the prettiest, the most beautiful, the most elegant or poised or something then maybe she will approve. Like the rest of the things you try to be, you fail. Because you are Hollyn and as soon as you turn away from the mirror, you have torn your skirt sliding down the bannister or dirtied your tights in the garden. And if Mama even notices it's with a disapproving glance and maybe even some quiet comment about how your sisters never behave this way. Just Hollyn. Only you could manage to ruin everything this way, my dear. Only you could try so hard to fit in in a family like this one that you have everybody fooled. Even yourself, because the mirror is backing up the pretences about being a part of whatever this is. But it's all wrong, because the moment you turn your back to the reflection, you become you again. Not striking features and straight white teeth and well-kept locks. Just Hollyn.

Sometimes you get sick of dressing the way Mama wants, Hollyn. How are you supposed to train in frocks and necklaces? And that's when you sneak outside and convince some poor unfortunate friends of yours to come with you. It's all about the attention, isn't it? All of this, everything. The way you act and talk and dress and laugh. That's why sometimes you wear a top you know is just a little bit too low and you dance about pretending not to notice. Yes. And then there are the other things that don't just set you apart from your family but the entire human race. Your eyes. Wide and blue, with long blonde lashes and dark irises you could fall into. The way they look when you begin to lose and fall apart and stumble into a territory you do not wish to be in - that is something quite inhuman in itself, isn't it, Hollyn? Perhaps you cannot see it, but you can feel it. Fire flashing in them, rage, determination, darkness. It's all fun and games until Hollyn starts to lose. And then, all at once, it is war.

. . .

When you are somewhere in the middle of a family like Hollyn's, you don't really have any choices. It's as if you are surrounded by water and you can't quite reach the bottom - there is nothing to do but kick your legs and hope to stay afloat. Sometimes the waves threaten to pull you under, but you fight all the same. After all, you are Hollyn Devereaux. The little girl who was always known for trying over and over no matter how many times she failed. The girl who's eyes darken when she begins to lose any battle. Perhaps it would be easier for you if you worked at one fight at a time, throwing all the right punches. But you don't. This is what happens when you can't help but want to be the best at everything, my dear. The water starts filling your lungs. And that is when you sink. It's not your fault, though. Never your fault. Always a slip of the rules or a unfortunate roll of the dice - this is what it is like to live when you cannot bare to lose. A constant battle against reality, which pushes against your defiant body like a tide.

Nobody can doubt your influence on people, though. You pick and chose at your friends as though they are playing cards - trading them off, backwards and forwards, making a game of it. And for some reason they keep coming back - captivated by your cheery smile and infectious laugh and the daring courage which dances in your eyes. That's what you like to think, anyway. Sometimes you catch yourself wondering if it is nothing to do with who you are at all and more to do with who your parents are and how many bedrooms are in your house. What does it matter? You were never really one for caring what others thought of you, Hollyn.You shrugged of the hands of your mother without a second glance because where she wanted you to sit down and behave yourself you wanted to run free. How can you captivate people if you don't have a chance to show off exactly how much daring you posees? Always trying to prove yourself, in your own way. Attention-seeking. Pushing forwards every tiny success you might happen to stumble upon for one reason. Daddy doesn't give out his attention plentifully, and there are six other children who crave it just the same as you. Maybe that is why you fight so hard. Losing is simply not a choice in the games of Hollyn.

And you do play games, don't you dear? When a contest becomes too much and the ground starts to fall away beneath you? It's true. You cannot handle losing and maybe that is why you do it. Cheat. Kick up a fuss every time something doesn't go your way. But that's just who you are and who you have always been - the child who sulks off in a corner when she misses the target for the twelfth time and still ends up crowded by people vying for her approval and praise. And she gives it out just as sparingly as her own father - because she has watched every moment of her life exactly how to make people work for your attention. You pick and choose who you give it too, just like him. You want them to work for you the same way you work for him and you want them to do it in vain. Why should everybody else win their quarrels with life when you are left alone beneath the sea, the current pulling everything away from you. If you had ever had power, maybe you would be a control freak. You're not, though. To those who are not threat to you, no competition you are pleasant and bubbly and bright. Irresistible. It's only when they start to beat you at your own sad games that your face sets into a determined pout. It doesn't matter that you train in every spare moment of your time, filling your life with swords and arrows and knives because maybe if you're better than your siblings Daddy might spare a smile just for you. No, it doesn't matter at all. Because you never win, do you, Hollyn? You're good, rounded. But that's not what you want - you want to be the best.

Never good enough, and yet always fighting for it anyway. When you were little it was always about hiding pieces of your sisters jigsaws and writing the answers to spelling tests on your hands. Sometimes you even start to believe your twisted versions of the truth. It's funny - if you tell yourself that you what you did was right (you did see her cheating, you did!) you start to think of them as the truth. New memories that never happened form in your mind until you can't tell the difference. You're not a bad person, Hollyn. Just a desperate one. You hide it well enough, too - masked beneath laughter and a smile that can convince anyone that the things you do to win are just a bit of fun.

Dirty tricks are all fun and games because she should have seen it coming. But it's not about the lying, is it, Hollyn, my dear? It's about you and who you are underneath the facade of blushing and showing off. Beneath that cherry chapstick, who are you? Insecure, attention-seeking, bratty little tell tale? Perhaps. But you're also the five year old who stayed up all night making a birthday cake for her Mama. Not because you hoped you would get a few words of appreciation but because you wanted to make her happy. You're the girl who holds the hands of her sisters every year at reaping just a little tighter than they hold yours. Who doesn't breathe a single breath for whatever time it takes for the name to be fished from the bowl and read out to the crowd. Who feels dizzy and shocked and overwhelmed and hugs the sisters she rivals almost every other day of the year. Because under all that, Hollyn, you are good at being kind and caring and sweet. But not the best. Never the best.

. . .

The hallways of this house have always seemed a little too empty for you. Yes, there are six people living somewhere between it's walls, but there is too much distance between them for you. Perhaps not distance in space, although that too is plentiful. No, you are afraid of the distance wedged between you and your siblings. A constant vying for attention, rivalry gone just a fraction too far. You love each other. You can see that every year at the reaping when you clutch each other close and sigh in disbelief. But you fight and squabble and laugh and cry and at the same time there is all this empty space. Maybe it is just the house, after all. What if the ceilings were lower and the draughts didn't sweep over your ankles so? Would it be better then, Hollyn? Would that alone be enough to stop you sneaking out every single chance you find? The answer, plain and simple, is no. Not because you don't wish the nights were just a little bit warmer and the family a little softer, somehow. Just because the only reason you leave is in order to feel more at home when you are there. Like the more time you spend away the more you will feel like this is your family, after all. You love every single one of them more than anything else, and yet you hate them, too. The things you want more than anything - the attention and time of each of you parents - are limited only by your siblings. Because of them you are the self-obsessed, desperate girl clawing for the scraps of attention left behind. And sometimes you are stupid enough to wish it all away.

It doesn't work, because like everything else you do, you are no good at wishing. And then you regret wishing when you stare your sister in the eyes and you end up sitting down on her bed and trying to talk to her out of guilt alone until you are screamed from the room. This is the only time you ever cry. To say you are strong would be a lie, but you have different ways of breaking down to others. When you start to lose it, you grow hard and determined and withdraw all the love you give. Your eyes flash grey and your slender hands curl into fists. It is only when there is no hope left - and for you it is always worth trying one more time - that you cry. The door closes and you sob into the soft linnen of your pillow case. You never really stop to think about where all the luxuries come from. Like the rest of the District, you tend to take them for granted. As your tears sink into the material, you don't consider the poor factory worker in Eight that sewed it with tired fingers. You think of yourself. And when you are quite done you walk lightly down the hallway and knock on Corran's door. Your little sister. The only one in the family who was never really a threat to you. It was like she already had Daddy captured in a way you would never had, and you accepted that. Dear, sweet Hollyn. Never questioning exactly what it was about Corran that made you feel different in her company. Maybe it is the way she looks at you and reads you so easily and perfectly there is no point in pretending. The way she doesn't always return your smiles and fall into your sweet laugh like the others.

With Corran, there is no Hollyn the liar. The part of you that competes and rivals and works hard for the things you will never gain fades just a little. Once, you were uncomfortable with the raw you that your sister brought to the surface, but then you accepted it. You don't talk much in her company. There is no need when she looks right inside your mind and offers you only what you need to know. And then you can leave the room and climb out of your bedroom window even though everybody in the house knows you go to train. You climb out of your window because you are Hollyn and even when everybody else has accepted something, you still cling on to what could have been. You started this business of clambering down the drainpipe when you were eleven years old. It was mainly for the drama; nobody would have noticed nor cared if you had left via the door. But that's always been how you are, hasn't it? Doing things just for the thrill, for the attention, just because. Sneaking off with your friends and then setting a fire at the park if only to watch it burn. To feel the admiring eyes of your peers upon you and just smirk, thinking that if you just keep pretending a little longer, everything you ever wanted will come true. You've never really been good at anything, though, Hollyn. Least of all pretending.