Aaron Kardainel // District Five (Complete)

Aaron Kardainel

there are days when i'm not entirely sure who i am anymore

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It's all a bit tricky, isn't it?

Aayla's not really sure when her life got so complicated. No, that's a lie. She knows exactly when – the day she was born, fifteen years ago. Nothing's been easy for her, ever, even before her secret. But she can hardly blame the horrible life in District Five for the tangled life she's living – she knows very well that the problem can easily be traced back to her and her big mouth. It's not that she isn't welcomed in the orphanage, because she is. The others jostle her and mock her and don't expect her to act ladylike at all. It's more the fact that they don't actually know that she's a lady that causes all the problems.


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She's not much to look at, which is probably a good thing. Aayla's short - five feet, four inches of scrawny limbs and scowls. Her angular features are harsh and intimidating, but more often than not it's the eyes that will draw a person in. Dark, sharp, and bright, their intensity can often be startling, even when she's not trying. Perhaps it's just that arrogant gaze she holds at all hours of the day - it drives the other children at the orphanage mad, the way she holds her chin high as if she's better than them. Though, when it comes down to it, she's usually the only one brave enough to back herself up when she needs to.

She's lucky in that she lacks curves - she does bind her chest to keep her secret, but it's mostly flat anyway. Her auburn hair is cut short, waving out of her forehead and somehow looking messy despite it's clipped length. There are some days when she wonders if you truly do have to be a boy to have your hair actually work in your favor, because even pretending it goes against her every wish, almost as stubborn as she is. It can't quite hide her ears, which are really quite large, or her bushy eyebrows.

It seems that almost everything about her is sharp, from her thin lips that are often pulled up into an arrogant smile to her bony joints that fold in and out of each other so easily she almost resembles a machine when she moves, every action fluid and tight. Everyone finds it baffling that while she can trip over air when she's just walking she somehow manages to be graceful and efficient at work. She patches roofs and occasionally cleans chimneys, if she's offered enough money, and not once has she ever fallen. People have gotten so used to seeing her high above the bustle of District Five that it seems almost abnormal to spot her in the market with the feet on the ground.

But the best part about being a boy is that she doesn't have to be clean. In fact, since she's an orphan, the exact opposite is true. She's expected to be dirty, to have soot smudged across her freckled face and dirt in her hair. Wrinkled clothes aren't a source of disgrace, but rather a way to show off a long day of hard work. Her knees and elbows can be scraped raw, for all they care. She's a boy, after all, so she can look just as filthy as she'd like. And she loves it.



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Aayla is brave in that way that's hard to come by these days. The other orphans whisper of her great feats of courage - or stupidity, depending on how one chooses to look at it - and her confident demeanor that shines through even in the calmest of moments. She leaps from roof to roof on a daily basis, but what really catches people's attention is when she leaps off of one. They say she's lucky she hasn't broken a bone yet, not willing to admit that maybe this girl orphaned boy might just have a braver soul than they ever did. It's the selfless, unpredictable, daft kind of fearlessness that she enjoys the most - the adrenaline in her veins just feels so very right like maybe for once she's actually doing something she's good at. If only bravery payed.

Aayla's a tomboy through and through, with a particular fondness of climbing into high places and scraping herself up when she falls. Her mouth is far from clean, for even the smallest mishaps can send her swearing left and right. She's tough, more likely to throw a punch if you say the wrong thing than any other boy her age and three times as able to take a hit. Her less than modest attitude (she calls it confidence, they call it arrogance) has gotten her into more than a handful of fistfights with the other orphans, and while the caretakers always manage to pull her back kicking and shouting she always lands that one final punch of victory that causes a black eye or a bloody nose. These incidents have built her temper up to become quite legendary.

Strong determination coupled with a horribly stubborn attitude ensures that when Aayla sets her mind to something she isn't giving up until it's done and done right. She refuses to give up on even the worst of repairs, and while she isn't afraid to show her frustration when she strikes complications she always manages to power through them. It's her refusal to let others down that turns this into a selfless trait, because she can be called dirty and poor and all around disgusting but she'll not ever be thought of as scum. She knows she's better than that, even if others of her status have begun to think it true of themselves.

She's blunt in the worst of ways, taking everything in the most literal sense and refusing to cloak the truth no matter how much she knows it must hurt others. She doesn't believe in trying to dodge around the inevitable, saying it's a waste of energy. She always goes straight to the point in every matter and it's gotten her into trouble more times than she can count, people thinking her out of her place when she speaks in such a way. But she believes the even the truth shrouded with the best of intentions is still a lie, and loathes the very idea of telling such a mistruth to anyone.

It's ironic, really, how much she hates such things when her entire life is a lie.



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Not many know anything of Aayla's life before she arrived at the orphanage's door, dirt-streaked and determined (she hasn't changed much since). She was twelve years old, then, and had such a bad attitude that the caretakers almost wanted to turn her away. They didn't, though. Aayla told them that her parents had always been extremely poor, and had kept her a secret as best as they could because they knew that if she was discovered they would take her away. That's why there was no record of any Aaron Kardainel. She never developed any particularly close friends, although she certainly doesn't lack a social life within the orphanage, so after school (which she never really did particularly well in) she would search for chores around the district. She found she had a particular talent for fixing things up high, like roofs. It became her specialty, and she's been doing that ever since. Her life's a simple one, with only a few close calls, but no one's found out yet. She hopes that she'll be eighteen and well on her way out of the orphanage before they do, though she hasn't exactly have a plan for what comes after that. She's working on it, though, and in the meantime she's living life her way.

But if anyone knew Aayla's secret (which they don't), they'd know there must be more to the story. Young girls don't pretend to be boys when they arrive at the orphanage just because they feel like it.

For someone who hates lying to much, Aayla's pretty dang good at it.

Every word that escaped her lips when she first arrived at the orphanage was a lie. Her name wasn't Aaron Kardainel - it was Aayla Karvanika, and her family was among the richest in all of District Five. She was only child raised by an assortment of nannies, all of whom claimed she was a little beast. Her father died in a fire when she was very young - ever since, she's been absolutely terrified of perishing the same way, going pale even when someone just lit a fire in the fireplace.

"Proper society" just wasn't the world Aayla wanted to live in, though her aunt and mother tried stuffing her in all kinds of pretty dresses and forced her to attend formal lunches when she was too young to protest. But as she grew older she only grew louder and more rebellious, often sneaking out to go climb trees or play in the mud behind their backs. The arguments between her and the women who tried to dictate her life grew more heated until eventually she just left - stormed through that open door and didn't bother looking back. But she knew that they would be scouring the streets and every orphanage in District Five looking for her, so she did what they would least expect in order to remain hidden.

Aayla Karvanika became a boy, and she's stayed that way ever since.


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