Eira Feyy, District Eight (Finished)

eira . illiana . feyy
i'll :.: keep :.: trying :.: to :.: pretend :.: i'm :.: still :.: okay

. basic info .
I am becoming aware now,
Of what they've done to me.
I've got your ordinary disease

In a family of five living in the most quaint corner of District Eight, it's hard to shine the way I want to. My older sister, Abby (nineteen), still managed too, though. She's one of the most popular performers in District Eight, with her beautiful voice and big, shiny guitar. My parents think she's got real potential - they'll buy her anything if they think it'll propel her forward further, even if it means that we've got a little less for dinner for a while. And me? I get what's left over - her old guitar, her old clothes, her old bedspreads. I have to share a room with my younger brother, Tyler (fifteen), with only an old sheet dividing it in half because Abby needs her own room so she can concentrate. My parents say that I'm only eighteen years old, and I've got my whole life ahead of me, but that couldn't be a bigger lie. We all know they expect me to take over the family business of weaving, cursed to my loom and spinning wheel until the day I die while Abby gets to live out my dreams.

. appearance .
Tomorrow comes and nothing has changed.
Yesterday was a perfect reflection of today.
Do you remember your dreams?
Did they ever look like this?

I've never exactly been what people consider pretty. Not like Abby is, anyway. Mama says that I'm perfect just the way I am, but she's my parent so she's supposed to say that. Others say that I look... meek. Weak. Quiet. Especially compared to my sister, with her bright green eyes and tumbling black locks. Abby's looks just scream confidence, and she'll have suitors lining up for her all the way to the other end of the district when the time comes. As it is, she's caught the interest of many young men already. Yes, she definitely got the good looks in the family. I got what Mama calls the more subtle beauty - painfully thin limbs, milky skin, fine hair. I tend to fade into the background, unnoticed, blending into the stained walls and broken fences of our home all to easily.

Of course, it's all too easy to notice my flaws before anything else. Small eyes with pale lashes, far too pale skin, a strange almost crooked nose. We can't afford a lot of make-up, so my face usually goes unenhanced while Abby gets to draw out her beautiful features even more. And then, of course, there's the fact that I am so thin. It makes sense, though, when you think about it - as my sister's shadow, I must be thin and quiet and nearly undetectable. That's how it is. That's how it's always been, even if I didn't realize it in my younger years of childhood.

And yet, if you look past all that, there are some good qualities about me. My pale face is almost completely free of acne, with only a few beauty marks placed along the line of my jaw. My hair, though thin, is long and a pretty, dark color. It's always been perfectly straight, for as long as I can remember, and the brush runs through it easily enough. My eyes are an attractive shade of dark gray blue, even if they're rather small and set a bit low on my forehead. I've got high cheekbones and hollow cheeks, and my face is slightly too long. My lips are a pretty shade of pink, the perfect size, probably the only really attractive thing about me. But people don't judge beauty by other people's lips, so it doesn't really count. All in all, I'm not ugly, I'm just... ordinary. Nothing compared to Abby, anyway.

People tell me that I look unhealthy sometimes, with snowy skin that only burns and never gets tan, and skeletal limbs. My cheeks are often sunken, and my ribs stand out fairly well. I don't really have curves - my chest is relatively flat. I'm not short but not exactly tall, either, standing at about 5'7". I'm taller than my mother, though my father still has a few inches on me, and he says that at this point if I haven't caught him in turns of height I never will. I suppose that's just as well, though. I'm already strange looking enough, and monstrous height is not another trait I add onto my list of many flaws.

My hands are my pride and joy. They aren't beautiful or soft or clean. They have callouses lining my palms and on the tips of my slender fingers, multiple scars crisscrossing over the backs of them, bitten down nails. But their strong hands that show that unlike lucky Abby, I've worked for what I want in life. I practice in order to gain my talent with the guitar, unlike Abby who got it naturally. If I want dinner, I go over to my loom and earn it. Tyler says he likes my hands better than Abby's small, dainty ones. He says that mine convey me as a fighter, while hers show that she has been spoiled. My hands are the only things I have that are better than her, and I love that far more than I should.

. personality .
I wish I could be there,
As you prepare another blank stare.
Not willing to admit,
You've already become all you could have been.

I guess it's obvious by now that I compare myself to my sister a lot. But how can I not? She's practically perfect (though spoiled), noticed by everyone while I'm easily ignored. I've grown up in her shadow, and let me tell you, that is a cold, dark place to be. I'm always trying to tell myself that it doesn't matter, that it's okay because I actually work for what I want in life and that is a far better way to live than just getting handed it on a silver platter. It's made me strong. But take a deeper look into my soul and you will say the burning envy, that desperate need to be good enough to just be noticed. I don't want to be a hidden disappointment anymore. I don't want to be known as "Abby's sister". I have some admirable traits within me too, and I just wish people would see that instead of being too blinded by Abby's radiance to notice it.

Tyler, on the other hand... well, I suppose we fight and tease each other like siblings normally do, but at least I feel close to him, while Abby is a star I must watch from a distance. He's handsome and very smart, indefinitely holding a bright future ahead of him. I love him with all my heart because he seems to be the only person who admires me just as much, if not more than Abby. Sharing a room (however difficult it is with him being a boy and I a girl) has only brought us closer. I have a flashlight hidden beneath my rusty, creaky old bed, and at night I'll take it out and we'll lift up the sheet that divides and talk to each other for a while. I know it's strange, but Tyler's my best friend. He's the only one who really... get's me.

It might also have to do with the fact that I'm rather socially awkward. I'm always afraid of saying the wrong thing, so I tend to be quiet most of the time, coming off as rather shy. When I do talk to people I am always guarded, wary of a moment when they might possibly look past my meek appearance and see what's really inside. Tyler may admire it, but will they? With each person, I've got one shot at making a name for myself that's not attached to my sister. I don't want to become infamous because of it.

Saying that I love music is an understatement. Even in weaving I find a rhythm, a beat, and maybe that's why I'm so good at it. When I have some spare time I go into my room and write songs. Granted, not good songs, but they sure have a lot better meaning than the cliche lyrics my sister comes up with. I play the guitar, too, and while I may not be a master quite yet, I'm not half bad. Tyler even says so when he listens to me from the other side of the sheet, humming along to my older songs that he actually knows and commenting on the newer ones as he writes. If I weren't so determined to be independent in my music, I might let Tyler write my lyrics for me - he's got a gift for poetry and fantasy writing, not that it will lead him anywhere in this stupid part of the district. No, it's his math skills that will get him to the top, and that's what my parents encourage him to do. Still, at night, I practically beg him to read me the newest chapters of his novels. He's got a real talent - it's too bad he'll never be able to put it to good use.

I hate where we live. I hate, hate, hate it, and I think my siblings do too. On the small pay Papa earns at the factory, we can't really afford much more, but that doesn't make it any more desirable. It's a small house in the quietest, least known part of the district, where everyone seems to be crafted from the same mold and it's absolutely impossible to have a voice. All of us want to stand out and shine, but only Abby can really do so. As for Tyler and I? Well, we have to keep our dreams realistic, however painful it is. I can't sing out my passions - I have to be a weaver. He can't write fantastic stories - he has to memorize equations and hopeful grow up into a more successful future. Both of us most shove away our creativity and greet more practical talents like they are the only things we're good at. They're certainly the only things we're known for, after all.

I like making dream catchers. I'm not sure why - maybe it's just the enchanting idea behind them, or the idea that my real dreams can actually be kept in one place instead of fading away into nothing. Either way, when I can't think of lyrics to a song or just can't get into the music, I make dream catchers. There must be a hundred of the colorful things hanging on my side of the room, from the walls and the ceiling and even the posts of my bed. Tyler says that you walk around you feel like you're in some kind of magic fairyland, and maybe he's right. Maybe that's the real reason I make them - because if I have to greet reality everywhere else, then why not have one place where fantasies can be real.

Sometimes, for me, reality is just too disappointing.

. history .
There was a time when you refused to follow,
Before you learned the beauty of shame
Before you left me behind
To drown in the afterglow

The earliest memory I have is of Abby and I playing tea together out in the back yard. I must have been about four, and Abby six. Believe it or not, we used to be friends, like Tyler and I are now. Real sisters. She had poured imaginary tea into the chipped plastic cup and laughed and complimented me in a fancy accent. That was the first time anyone had ever called me beautiful, or a princess. I guess that, during a time when she wasn't so obsessed with looking in the mirror, she didn't have herself to compare me to like everyone else did. In her eyes, I really could be beautiful.

I followed her around like a puppy. All her friend ignored me, but Abby worked to include me in everything she did. I felt loved by her, and by my parents, who at the time treated us as equals. Tyler got a lot of attention back then, being the youngest, so we pretty much had the world to ourselves. That day, sitting at the banged up bench pretending we were royalty, feels so warm and inviting now. I remember Mama calling us in for dinner as the sun dipped lazily below the horizon, and she and I scrambled to pick up our toy tea set and before racing each other back in, laughing. It was a time when life wasn't perfect, but it was good. Everything ahead of us seemed so bright and hopeful.

But I suppose things change.

It wasn't one of those things that happened instantly, though her learning to play the guitar when she turned eight sure sped things up. Suddenly, Abby was Mama and Papa's little star, and everyone wanted to be her friend. She was beautiful and talented and she would go far - everyone knew it. She invited me to come hang out with her and her friends less and less often, and all of the sudden I was left behind in a darkened world as she strutted off into what had once been our bright future, with only Tyler to keep me company. The tea set lay dirty and forgotten on our bench.

Tyler helped me convince Mama and Papa to let me learn how to play guitar, too, when I turned eight. I guess that's really when I fell in love with music, but I wasn't good right away. Not like Abby. My parents dismissed my passion as a fancy I would grow out of, instead encouraging me to practice more at the loom. That was a talent I didn't want, but it was the one that I was born with. By the age of ten, I was better than Abby and obviously destined to continue my family's legacy. So that was that, then, I suppose. My childhood, all my hopes and dreams, had lasted a grand total of ten years before they were swiftly extinguished.

By the time she was thirteen, Abby was playing on the streets and making good money while I was stuck in my room yearning for the life she had. By then Abby had moved out and Tyler had moved in, and we were struggling with the adjustment. At that time, Tyler had horrible nightmares. He would often sneak over to my side of the room and draw me back over to him, and I would sing him an old lullaby I had learned from our grandmother before she passed away. He told me I had the voice of an angel, and I guess that's what kept my hopes from going out completely. In the darkness of night, it was my little brother who saved me from being consumed by the loss of my dreams.

Time passed, and our sister was becoming more and more of a stranger to us. Consumed by her fame, she only ever talked to us at dinnertime, and even then it was polite smalltalk or casually mentioning one of her many good traits. One day, when I was fourteen, she found my song book. I walked in on her reading a song I had written about hope and fear, based off those nights spent comforting Tyler. Furious for some reason, she screamed at me and threw the book directly at my face. It hit against my nose and I could hear something crack. Next thing I knew, blood was pouring out onto the faded hardwood floor and Abby was staring at me in absolute horror, her face almost as pale as mine. I told Mama I had tripped and hit my face on the bed, to which she responded that I should be less clumsy while Abby watched silently from the corner of the kitchen. My nose never really healed right - to this day, it's still a little crooked.

There's still a speck of blood on one of the page of that song, a memory to me of that fight. Ever since, Abby and I haven't been the same. Our conversations are stiff and proper, our kindness forced. Things between us aren't cold, but their awkward, as if every time I speak to her I'm speaking to a stranger. Maybe I am. It's the same with Tyler - neither of us can really seem to connect with her anymore. She's given up on all of us, determined to never look back. I do, though, sometimes. Starting up at my dream catchers waving in the slight breeze, I remember that summer day so long ago. I remember how she talked to me, how she loved me. But then I think of here, and of now, and everything just feels so wrong and painful. She called me beautiful that day.

She hasn't done so since.

. codeword / other .
I lost the ability to truly shine
I tried to smile for you
I really did

odair

. Her Face: Oona
. Her Song: Reflection, by Unfinished Thought
. Her Purpose: No current plots