Itzal Usoa, District 5

Name: Itzal Usoa
District: Five
Gender: Male
Age: 16

::Physical Description::
When we look at one another, we are judged based on how much we have to give. Does he have strong shoulders? Is he built like his father, good for heavy lifting but poor in going the distance? Or is he like his mother, tall and lean, waif of a thing, fragile enough to see and even more so to touch? There are the siblings, a brother built like a brick wall, ready to shovel up and build what needs to be built. The sister, smart as she is fast, with strong legs and nimble hands. They are the combination of my parents, mixed together like the earth beneath our feet—bits of her here, bits of him there. A nose that is pudgy and short, cheeks high and forward.

I suppose I could see myself in either of them—but I don’t know whether or not I would know what there is to see. My hair is brown, not the auburn of my mother or the sandy blond of my father. My hands are smaller, my body short, my legs strong but not nimble. I’m not the smiling bright eyed boy of my mother, or the stern faced young man growing into his father. I don’t have the waxen hair of my sister, and I don’t arch up over everyone like my brother. Instead I am small—a young man on the edge of adulthood, still with reapings left but inching my way toward the inevitable. I’ve got muscle from the time spent lifting with my brother but I’m nowhere near his size. Why would anyone be afraid of me?

I like to shine like the sun—a smile to break through the haze that hangs up and over us. Even if I am smaller, even if I am a mouse in comparison to boys my age, I’ve got strength in me. See it in the curve of my hip, in the way that I can skip rocks further than anyone you’ve ever seen before. Maybe I’m not the one that they see as handsome. Maybe I’m not even the one—with green eyes and brown hair—that is anything more than plain. But I can see there’s more to me that just what I’ve been given. And someday I’ll grow into this skin. I’ll grow up and out and be the man that I’m destined to be.

::Personality::
I have had the same dream since I was a six years old. I look up into the sky at the clouds, and I lift up my arms to great them. And I am lifted off the ground and into the air, up and above all those below me. I swoop up and down, and I spiral up and away from the misery below. I can see the tops of the buildings in my town. I can touch the tips of skyscrapers in the capitol. I see snowcapped mountains and I hear the birds chirping in the forests of the land in-between. And I’m never happier—not in a moment of the day to day—than when I am thinking that someday I could fly. Whether it is an airship or hovercraft, it thrills and excites me. I want to straddle the stars and push the boat out—I want to be able to touch the edge of the world, if only for a moment.

I’m supposed to be more practical. It’s what my brother and sister tell me. No one in panem has ever survived anything by having their head up in the clouds. The faces of tributes from our district line headstones—they say that not the one of us will ever make it out of here alive if we do not get our act together. But I can’t help but dream. It gives me the little bit of hope that I need, that I cling to. Because it’s just so depressing to think that this whole time… that life is just a day in and day out of the same thing. I don’t want to always work with the rivets, nuts, and bolts of the world. I don’t want to work in the sulfury fires of our district but—if I have to, do I have to give up these little dreams? We’re not immune to the flecks of faith, even if they burn brightly and disappear just as fast as they arrived. It is enough for me, for a little while, to think of the things and keep myself happy.

My friends tell me that if they want me anywhere, they tell me at least two hours before they need me. My head is somewhere else, they say, whenever they try to talk to me. But I can’t help but think there are a great many things going on at once—I can’t pay attention to them all. It’s frustrating to them for sure. I don’t worry too much. I’m agile, I’m adaptable. And I don’t need a good many people to tell me who I am or be friends with me. It’s funny… some people crave the need to be liked. I guess all I ever wanted to do was get along and be treated like I existed. I can fade into the background soon enough—after all, a footnote in history is still a note in history. But there’s that hope shining through again.

::History::
I am the third of three children to my mother, Marisol, and my father, Jurgi. My sister Esti is sweet—just like her name—the oldest of the three of us, she’s always in charge when my mother and father haven’t been around. She just left last year—not of reaping age, ready to marry. They want to make sure that she finds someone that appreciates her. I suppose I’ve always looked up to her in some way, following her around like a lost little puppy when I was a child. She taught me to be okay with my dreams—that nothing is too silly or too small. Even if I feel like it is, she was always there to make me feel good about myself. It’ll be hard when she isn’t a part of my life anymore. But I suppose that’s how it has to be.

My brother Iker is the favorite. He’s big and strong, and can do all the work that I can’t seem to manage. I guess I’ve always been a little jealous that my mother and father seem to favor him over me. Why wouldn’t I want to be the one that they fawn over and show the biggest pride for? I mean, he’s a tank amongst the rest of the boys, practically with the body of a career you could say. I don’t think he’d every worry about going into the games, I’d be afraid looking him down with a sword. He isn’t all bad, I suppose—even if we always fight all the time. I share a room with him in our tiny little house, since the both of us are boys. We have as much as we need, but it’s just scraping by. The winters are pretty bad, but none of us have gotten too sick from the chills that blow in through the cracks in the walls.

My father tells me that when he was a kid, district five used to be about mutts and animals. There used to be places where one would raise strange iguanas or reptiles on a farm, right alongside seeing strange, horrific things. But all that changed over to the oil industry—natural gas and all that—so the clouds above our little town are black and stink of rotten eggs. He works hours at a time, sometimes disappearing for days so that Panem has the fuel it needs. He and I used to get along much better, but now he’s moody and sullen all the time. I guess I would be too if I smelled like rotten eggs all the time. My mother keeps things in line, but she’s always yelling at me to get my head on straight.

I guess I just thought that there would be more than this… and maybe there is. Growing up in a place that’s locked off and chained up has a way of setting people apart. I guess my dreaming is a way of getting out of here without breaking any of the rules. Someday though, maybe I’ll learn to fly up and out of here.

Codeword: odair

Note: edited because it was doing a funny thing with the codeword and the original pic wasn't his fc. :3