Re: ~Raine Lyricel-D1-FINISHED~

::R

[/font][/color]aine Lyricel::[/font][/i]

I never meant to wither
I wanted to be tall
Like a fool left the river
And watched my branches fall

::Apperance::[/color][/size][/font][/center][/i]

Grandfather always said I had sky eyes. Perhaps if you chose to dig through the storm clouds that mask the florescent blue, then you'll call them sky blue. No one ever digs past the clouds. Not since Grandfather. They cast heavy rain over my soul. They are a part of me, my clouds. They make me hard to understand, but easy to miss. It is uncommon to have grey-blue eyes in District 1, but it is nothing special. The grey blends in well in the back streets of the district. My clouds make my eyes almost invisible on a stormy day. Just like the typical complexion of my skin makes me unnoticeable in a crowd. I am tan, like dry dirt, but a few shades lighter. Like old paper, but without the wrinkles from age. The tea stained color, though, is exactly what my skin looks like.

My nose is like a bridge over a river. I wonder what river the bridge of my nose is crossing. It slopes down my face, starting at the tips of my eyebrows and ending close to my lips. The end of my nose looks shoved up from the years in my youth I wiped my nose upward with my sleeve. Grandfather never scolded me for that. Once he commented on it, telling me it would morph my nose when I was older, but he also told me to not fear what I would look like. He said that the earth was constantly moving and changing, and it was perfectly acceptable if I did too. My lips look like an undiscovered canyon. No one knows what words float behind it. No one would take the time to find out. I like being undiscovered in some ways. It makes my life a mystery as I try to discover things about myself even I didn't notice.

My hair falls around my face like a waterfall lacking its blue color, and the sound of rushing water. To my disappointment, my hair is silent. Not even the whoosh of the wind makes it sound in my ear. It falls to my shoulders, the color of a sun painted black. If I were to paint the sun, the black paint would burn off, but some of it would stay. Some of it would stain the bright yellow of the sun. That is what has happened to my hair. Some strands outshine the black paint; melt it away with unbelievable heat. While other strands are left to be stained by the paint, for its mark to forever lay upon it. A few strands are in the middle. They are indecisive, and not determined enough to outshine the black paint, so they settle for a golden brown. Just like some strands are alive enough to curl against my neck, while others fall straight to my shoulders. I'm a complex person, just like my hair, and sometimes I am just as indecisive.

He learned everything he knew from the earth. Grandfather mirrored the curves and dips in the earth, the ripples in the water, and the pattern on the bark of an oak tree. Then, he'd trusted my awkward and uncoordinated hands with his writing tool. Of course my hands never quite figured out the curves. I always thought it was because the canyons between the knuckles on my fists were much too large, the space between my fingers much too wide for the tiny tool to fit in. Grandfather told me I was wrong. That my hands were made for writing, but the pressure of him nearby made me shake like an earthquake. I'd laughed. The presence of my Grandfather never made me shake. He was a gentle man.

His walk was gentle, opposed to my broken steps. One of the bones in my leg was bent wrong, and it causes my stance to drift slightly to my left. I've been working on it for years, but its incurable, not any amount of practice will help me walk straight again. So I gave up after Grandfather died. My frame isn't one that needs much support from my legs. They are not particularly strong, nor are they weak. Though, my right leg is much limper than my left. I am unbalanced. My right leg is weak and mostly unsupportive to me, while my left leg prides in its strength and carries most of my weight everywhere.

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::Personality

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Old and thirsty, I longed for the flood
To come back around
To the cactus in the valley
That's about to crumble down[/i][/center][/size]

I am a seeker of knowledge. Everything about the world imprints questions in my mind. Questions that only Grandfather could answer. Even on his deathbed, I asked him questions. Grandfather admired my curiosity. He said it was right to question everything. Every question that comes to my mind I ask him, but he stopped answering long ago. Once, I asked him why he'd stopped answering me. I felt his words even though they weren't there, his last words. "Raine, someday, you'll find the knowledge to answer your questions. Someday, you'll know the answers to everything. There is place, that I am going now, that will answer my every question..." And I'd asked him to take me with him. That's when his pulse stopped. Even though Grandfather is gone, I try to build from his last words, and I spend every spare minute of my time seeking knowledge, answering my own questions. I'd proven Grandfather right, but I can never know enough.

I never speak to people for sake of conversation. It's time-consuming and inefficient. I know I will never find anyone who's company I desire like I did Grandfather's. The only time I speak to people is for trade. For books, and for more knowledge, I will spare a few words. The rest of my thoughts remain merely thoughts. I'm lucky if they turn into actions. Half of my time I spend daydreaming or puzzling at things in my everyday life. Like why it rains, or why people think they are special. I do not find myself special, just different. That's how everyone is. Everyone is different, and no one is the same. Even so, no one is special, or higher than another person. I read the philosophy in a book once, and Grandfather told it to me many times. Because I believe that no one if special, I refuse to train with the Careers. They all are bull-headed, and think the world of themselves. They are the only people in the world I find that I am truly mad at.

Most of my life is based off things my Grandfather taught me, or things that he left me to figure out. I read because of my Grandfather, I write because of him, I try because of him. I try because he tried. He is my inspiration. I thank him for saving me by dedicating my life to him, to the things he believed in, and the things he did for me. My freedom is owed to him. And my freedom is something I don't fully have, but I feel.

::History::

So, the storm finally found me
And left me in the dark
In the cloud around me
I don't know where you are[/color][/size][/i][/center]

I never knew any of my real family. My mother died after giving birth to me and I have no idea what happened to my father. Sometimes, I picture my parents. They would be older, more mature versions of me. Or maybe I'm a younger, less mature version of them. Sometimes I try to think that I had siblings. I like to imagine them finding me after all this time. Often, I wonder if I have an older brother or sister. Perhaps my father had more children after me, and maybe I have half siblings that are looking for me. It's an intriguing thought, and one I'm often caught thinking.

After my mother died, my Grandfather found me. My father had left my mother alone after she died, and I was in her arms. Grandfather said he knew my mother. He used to tell me about her, but I'd long since stopped asking about her. It wasn't unrealistic to wonder, but it felt that way. I'd never see her again. I wouldn't need to know what she looked like to find her someday. Grandfather said he found me in the bed next to her, screaming and crying from the cold. It was in late November when I was born, and the first snow had just left its blanket across the earth. Grandfather saved my life, as I would have frozen soon if he hadn't found me. It's to him that I owed my life.

Grandfather wasn't really my Grandfather. He was my mother's neighbor. He knew my mom well, and he'd gone to check on her when he found me. Even though she was dead, he said he could feel her asking him to take care of me. So, he raised me, and taught me everything I know. He taught me how to read and write and love the earth and appreciate its every occupant. We spent the first thirteen years of my life of me asking questions and Grandfather answering them. Or of him teaching me something he thought I'd needed to know. He never told me how I started calling him Grandfather, as I'd always known my story and that he was not related to me. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. Maybe I'd wanted him to be my grandfather for real that my mind had tricked me into thinking it was really real. Either way, he's always been more like a father to me. The always wise and dependable man in my life.

Four weeks after my 13th birthday, Grandfather died. I held his hand and cried with his dead body for three days after his death. As the year passed, I didn't eat more than I had to survive. I scavenged from dumpsters in allies or begged for scraps. Singlehandedly, I'd dug a grave for Grandfather, and I paid a boy my age my last tesserae to lift him into it. I was much too weak, both emotionally and physically. Soon after, I was taken to an orphanage. I lived there for a while, but I don't really remember most of it. My mind was blank with mourn and sadness. The clouds in my eyes made me look blind. I was blind to most of the world.

After my 14th year passed, I cleaned up my life. I'd mourned for far too long. I started scanning the district for work. I'd gotten a job at a small bookstore. Every day, I read and worked. I talked to people, but only for service reasons. After I'd read every book in the store, and worked a total of two years, I'd started trading in the allies. I traded every coin I didn't use for food for books. I took my books and Grandfathers books and stacked them next to each other in the corner by my bed in the orphanage. Every book in the stacks had been read at least once by me. It was hard to get my hands on all the books, but I'd somehow done it.

Now, in my seventeenth year, I write just as much as read. Every day at the bookstore, my boss supplies me with notepads and pencils. I usually use one every three days, and then return it, filled to the brim with writing. My boss kept all the writings on a shelf in the store behind the counter. They've been there untouched for almost a year now. [/size]

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