Echo Rivarral, District Four (WIP)

Echo Rivarral
My worries leave me in the form of roses,
Floating away on the shifting blue.
~·~·~·~·~·~·~·~·~

...Basic Information

I was born on June 20th, during the year of the 43rd Hunger Games, making me seventeen years young. I'm a sister to no one, and my papa is the only one who raises me. We live in the less populated part of District Four, in a nice big house on a cliff that looks over the ocean. My papa has always been a wealthy man, and all of that money is well earned, though he always has time for his little girl. I am, like the rest of my district, an expert fisher, though I don't earn all of my money that way. My papa's best friend died in the Games, so I'm not allowed to be a Career, like all my classmates are.


...Appearance

Papa says that I remind him of Mama. He says that she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and that I gained all of her good features. But when I walk down our hall of mirrors, I don't see anyone special. I've seen pictures of my mama, and she was truly beautiful, especially when she laughed. Her eyes would be full of light, and her hair would tumble down her back in chestnut waves. She's even pretty in the one picture Papa has on the dresser by his bed where she's spinning around in the rain. Her make-up is running and her hair is clumped together and looks a lot like a mop as it flies out around her, but she's smiling and somehow that manages to light up the whole photo. I don't think I could ever really compare to her beauty. I'm about as average as one can get.

The red brown locks that twist and curl as elegantly as dancers I got from my mother. While I will not say much about the rest of me, I will admit that my hair is beautiful. It shines with a copper light when the sun's warm rays hit it just right, and is silky and soft to the touch. The spiraling strands grow down to about the middle of my back. I do my best to keep my hair clean and well brushed, yet one will often find a leaf or two hiding under a thin cloak of hair from my wonderful adventures in the forest. I often braid flowers into it, too, using the reflection in the still water of my secret pond. The flowers are often wild (beautiful blooms, yet often hated because of the horrible title 'weeds'), but once a year I will emerge from the trees wearing a crown of large, delicate blossoms with tiny flowers in between them. After my time in the forest, my hair is tangled and frizzy, hardly the beautiful sheet of copper that it had been before I began twirling around and tumbling through the grass.

I have my papa's eyes- the same shade of green as the mighty waves when the sun shines them. People say that the eyes are the window to the soul, and mine are no exception. When I'm happy, they light up with a warmth similar to that given off by the sun. They're surrounded by long, dark lashes that do nothing to catch the tears of heartbreak that glide down my face when a certain day of the year comes around, or when someone's cruel words manage to actually hurt me. And I have the same colored eyes as my papa, the shape is different. Papa's eyes are small and squinted, like he's constantly laughing. I have the same shape as my mama- round and wide, with eyebrows delicately arched above.

My nose is slightly flat near the middle from when I ran into a tree when I was younger. My papa said that he had never heard anyone cry that hard in his entire life- the healer said that it had not been broken, but I keep that flat part of my nose to this day, hardly noticeable unless one is looking for it or feeling it (no one but me has ever felt my nose, thankfully). It moves upward rather abruptly at the end, but I have small nostrils. The skin seems to always be peeling on it from days spent too long in the beautiful summer sun.

I have prominent cheekbones that turn bright red when I am embarrassed or angry. My father will always try to stop it by calling me a tomato, which usually makes me laugh and allows my face to turn back to it's normal color. On one side of my face, there is a noticeable scar that runs down my jaw bone from when a fishing hook managed to find it's way to my face. The doctors say I'm lucky- it could have hit my eye and then I would have been blind. Instead, all that's left is the thick, curving white line that stands out greatly against my tan skin.

My lips are as red as the petals of a rose and just as soft, looking rather unnatural compared to the rest to me. They are thin, though, and a bit small compared to the rest of my face. When I smile, it is usually small and cautious- so different from the pictures of a younger self, who's smile seemed to take up three quarters of her face. I guess that too much heartbreak has stolen my smile, and only my papa can draw a true one out of me. My teeth are relatively straight and white, though I don't and never will have 'movie star teeth', as some of my friends do. I may be rich, but I'm not stupid- there's no way I'm letting anyone take any of my teeth out in order to replace them with those... those bright white pieces of plastic. When I sing, my jaws part widely, so that the music flows out with a power that no one would really expect to come from such an innocent face.

I've always looked younger than I really am- though I am seventeen years old, someone could very easily mistake me for fifteen because of my 5'2" height and the childish features that still linger on my face. And maybe because of the way that I still let my emotions pour out in front of me for anyone to see. I have nothing to hide, really, so why bother? And maybe, too, because of the way my dreams still shine in my eyes. People have tried, but my hopes refuse to shatter. They will remain in their proper places until the day I die.

I'm thin and strong from so much swimming, climbing, and running, and of course, I have the same tan that almost everyone else in the district has from long days spent fishing out in the sun. I sport another long scar on my forearm from diving into the water near a sharp rock (I was and still am extremely clumsy), and have large hands with long, slender fingers and nails that are often jagged from me biting them. My legs are long in comparison to the rest of me, making me a fast runner.

The clothes I wear are usually casual. A t-shirt that is slightly too big, and some jean shorts. I am always wearing a silver necklace- a final gift from my mama. Though many say that I could afford much finer things, in my opinion, the necklace is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. A round heart made of thin silver bands the stretch in curve in a beautiful pattern, with green sea glass placed carefully inside. Papa says that Mama had the necklace custom made- she found the sea glass all on her own. People think it's silly to think that a simply necklace could bring me any closer to my mama, but somehow, it does.

And so it rests close to my heart, almost every minute of every day.


...Personality


Brokenhearted. The official definition is burdened with a great amount of grief, but I dare to disagree. The heart is such a delicate thing- like thin glass. And through that glass we can see that it cradles emotions such as love and heartache, swirling around each other tightly. A feeling as beautiful as love cannot exist with it's opposite threatening, just as joy cannot exist without sorrow. It is hard to accept that fact, for we humans are spoiled things. We wait and wait and wait for joy and love and peace to come to us, and fear the sorrow and pain that is constantly ready to strike. And while some build their walls up high around that fragile thing that rests in our chest to protect it from these kinds of feelings, I chose not to.

And I will forever pay for my horrible mistake.

There cannot be heartache without love (or at least something close to it), and I have been fooled into thinking I felt love at least a dozen times. Whether the love was real or not, the end of it managed to shatter a fragile heart that was already cracked in so many places (laughter, bright blue eyes, the smell of the earth after it rains). Love happens too quickly for me, for my papa has read me one too many fairy tails where the princess falls for the prince the moment she sees him. I think that the reason I dated so many guys was because I wanted to feel love, but now, looking back, I don't think I even came remotely close to the feeling.

My heart is no longer as open. I regard people cautiously when they approach me and avoid flirting at all costs. My eyes are filled with heartbreak (but I've seen it so many times in the mirror that it looks like it just belongs there) that direct people away like a lighthouse moves sailing ships away from dangerous waters. I don't trust people with my heart because they will most certainly break it and then I will come crying home to Papa, though even he can't really make things okay anymore. He has his own broken heart to heal, and so I am left on my own. Isn't it odd how things are so easy to break, yet so hard to repair? After a while, I put my walls up, like everyone else. I stopped trusting.

Life isn't all heartbreak for me, though. No, my life is not miserable- in fact, it's actually quite the opposite. I have a papa who loves me, and he is one of the very few people that I care about dearly. Though there is tiny spark of sorrow in his eyes (so perfectly mirroring my own- we are never rid of it, even when we are laughing), he never fails to make others happy even in the most dreadful times. He's a smart man, and always kind and considerate. His smile is like mother's- it can make any depressing moment seem bright and full of sunshine. At first glance, he looks rather young, but closer inspection reveals wrinkles just above his eyebrows and near his eyes, and a few gray hairs almost totally lost in a sea of jet black. I love my papa more than anyone else in the world, and he never fails to express the exact same feeling toward me.

And though we are rich, I am not spoiled. Well... perhaps I'm used to always having enough money, but it doesn't mean that I am constantly demanding the finest things money can buy, or that I look down on people who don't have as much as I do. I suppose that when I ask for something I expect to get it, but I don't throw a huge fit if I don't. I just get disappointed. But Papa always makes sure that I understand that money can't buy the greatest things in life- being rich is a advantage socially, but a curse internally.

I've always been very polite- it was burned into my brain when I was still just a little girl. Always say please and thank you, put your napkin on your lap before you begin to eat, take small bites... people say that I might as well be royalty, with all my perfect manners. I always give compliments, but blush and look down when they are returned (I never believe them, but I have to pretend to in order to please them).




...History


...Codeword