Calliope Vann | District 4 {Finished!}

Calliope’s appearance is misleading, standing at only 5’2” tall and barely weighing 110 lbs soaking wet. Her long, straight auburn hair brushes down her back nearly to her waist. She has a bright smile, despite the fact that her teeth seem slightly large for her face. Her skin is lighter than most people’s in District 4 and remarkably clear, save for the occasional mole or freckle across her forehead and back. Her nose is small and turns up a little on the end and her face has a soft heart shape to it. She describes her best feature as her eyes, which are a deep green that sparkle when she smiles. Calliope tends to dress in flowing skirts and lightweight tops or flouncy sundresses in the brightest summery colors she can find. All this give the illusion of a slight pixie of a girl.

However, a love of swimming and growing up in District 4 has given Calliope’s body some tone. While she may not be exceptionally fast or agile on land, she can more than hold her own in the water. She isn’t very strong, only being able to lift about 50lbs.

Calliope always wears her hair down or braids it to the right side of her head, careful to cover her ear and neck. Zigzagging up the side of her neck and disappearing into her hair is a jagged scar. When Cally was only seven, she snuck away from her parents to go swimming and got hit by a boat. The injury left her with a nasty scar and a bald streak into her hair, as well as shearing off the lower lobe of her right ear.

Calliope is extremely outgoing and friendly, hardly ever having a bad thing to say about anyone. She’s easy with a smile and tends to be able to put just about anyone at ease with her gentle manner. This has led her to become somewhat of the “face” of her father’s shop in recent years, a job which she adores since it allows her to meet lots of new people. While she doesn’t seem to have many enemies, she doesn’t have a multitude of close friends either, preferring smaller, more personal groups to large parties. She tends to blend into the background rather easily, her own quiet personality letting the boisterous people take up the spotlight. But it doesn’t seem to bother her. In fact, she becomes embarrassed easily when the spotlight is turned her direction.

People who know Calliope well describe her as a dreamer. She can often be found staring off into space, a small smile on her lips. This has caused her grades to suffer and makes her seem flighty and distracted. Those that take the time to get to know her though, find that she simply has a vivid creative mind and the talent to express it. Her favored spot is down on the beach where she can watch the waves and draw or sing quietly to herself. Over the last couple years, her father’s store has become more and more decorated with the depictions of the ocean and its wildlife that Calliope has made.

The one thing that can make Calliope’s easy-going nature disappear is the Hunger Games. Although she nor any of her family or friends have been reaped, she grew up hearing horror stories of them. Her father’s first love, also her mother’s best friend, was reaped many years ago and did not survive the bloodbath on the first day. Her parents bonded over their grief, and passed on their anger over it to their only daughter. Although she has never had to sign up for tesserae or personally known a tribute, the reaping each year brings forth that anger and fear. The weeks leading up to it sees Calliope’s normally carefree mood become dark and sullen, edging up on irritable, her art and song reflecting it.

Calliope’s life can be described as something beautiful coming out of great tragedy. Long before she was born, her parents lost someone very close to them to the Hunger Games. They grew closer through their shared grief and after some time married. Eventually the fear of losing a child was overtaken by the desire to have one and they brought Calliope into the world. Knowing that as she got older her name would end up in the Reaping, her parents sought to make sure it wouldn’t be in more than the minimum. Her father opened a business, selling the nets he had been making for years. The store flourished and the Vanns quickly became a part of the merchant class of District 4.

Calliope grew up in a loving family, never really knowing hunger or having to work like many of her classmates did. Her father taught her to tie nets at a young age, but she never took too like he did. This left her much more free time, which she used to discover her talent for art. Through the years her talent has progressed from simple abstract landscapes to detailed drawings of people, animals, and scenes she sees in her mind’s eye. Slowly the drawings went from being only kept in the home to decorating to the store to the occasional one being sold.

Growing up in District 4, it was inevitable that Calliope would take a fondness to swimming. She took to it easily, her body better fed and stronger than some of the children her age. Soon she was stealing away to the beach as often as she could, the salt and sand leaving tell-tale crystals in her red hair. However, luck would not always be with her. Shortly after her seventh birthday, Calliope snuck away from her parents and dove into the blue waters she loved. After almost an hour of swimming she surfaced too close to a fishing boat and it struck her with its bow. The blow knocked Calliope out and ripped a gash up her neck and across her head. The fishermen saw the poor girl’s body and pulled her from the water. For nearly a week, Calliope lay drifting in and out of consciousness, fighting off a fever that set in during her healing. Finally, much to her parents’ joy, she opened her eyes and spoke to them. Since that time, her parents have kept a much closer eye on her. Calliope even jokes that that’s why her father hired her to work in his store. Despite this, Calliope hasn’t been as eager to take to the water alone as she once was, though she still swims with others around.