Berry Daniels: District 11 (Finished)

Berry has tanned skin, from working in the midst of the raspberry bushes of District 11. Since she works with bushes, not trees, Berry is not shielded from the 10 hours of hot, bearing sun in District 11. Berry has a slight farmer’s tan from the checkered shirt she usually wears, but since she’s already slightly olive-toned, it is not as bad as others i the District. She wears a straw hat that her family has managed to make with their extra coin, and with two older sisters wearing it before her, bits of the straw have started to come out, and jab in places like her ears, where you can find small welts. In District 11, cutting hair and styling is too expensive, so her hair hangs long, slightly uneven, as the last time she cut it was three years ago, with a dull knife that was passed around for use throughout the District.

Berry’s eyes sparkle a deep brown, and she has freckles across her nose. Her eyebrows are what the Capitol would call “atrocious”, but they aren’t here, are they? She has slightly crooked teeth, and an overbite that is prominent when she bites on her lip, a frequent habit. In her hair, she usually has a lilly, which the Peacekeepers let her have for her hard work in the fields.

Berry is a girl out of place in the harsh world of Panem. Although she works hard and long to help bring home food for her family, it’s not a habit instilled in her, rather one she has to ingrain in herself. Berry, when she was a child, used to troll about the town, giving cheeky smiles and kind words around. However, her carefree, or even oblivious nature once cost her dearly. After that, Berry straightened up, hiding her true persona, but not burying it. She still tries to lend a hand to those around her, but the toll of living in cruel District 11 has made her more cautious, more frugal.

When they do have school, Berry, although bubbly, is easily distracted from the school into far beyond, where the flowers grow strong and proud, and do not know about the screams of pain that ring through the District often. Berry is also a forgiver and forgeter, preferring to live in the now. However, she has been walked over several times in poisonous friendships, and instead of ending them, as she should, Berry lets them hover until the very last goodbye.

Although Berry forgives insulters, Berry holds onto the things they tell her, thinknig automatically that’s what she’s really like. If someone casually throws a slightly stingy remark, it hurts Berry deep. Her eyes go wide, and altohugh seeming normal, she analyzes everything she’s (possibly) done wrong. Whne people get angry at Berry, it’s a lot of itmes because Berry starts things- another personality trait. Berry, although kind, also feels that telling little white lies are bad- sso honesty, sometimes blunt, rules. People can get easily offended, and then fire their own respnses back, leading back to her obsessing over rude remarks. They’re both her worst qualities, and are brought out often, because one happens because of the other.

Berry is the youngest in her family at 16. Her sister Fig is 18, and Mint is 21. Her parents were what her District called “threshold tributes.” Although they weren’t actually in the Games, they were so relieved, so happy that they would never die in the arena that the day of the reaping, they were wed, both 18, on the day of the reaping of the 27th Hunger Games. That very day, they were given a small hut, where they clasped hands as they went over the threshold of their home.

Despite being early wedded, they didn’t have children for many years, not until they they were both 31. That was Mint’s birth, year of the 39th Hunger Games. In five years, the year of the 44th Hunger Games, Berry was born. SH was seen as precocious and loving, and even the Peacekeepers couldn’t help but smile at the little girl.

Until she was 6.

At age 6, Berry gave her mother beautiful wildflowers she had picked off a small field in the town. On her way home, one loosed in her hand, and the petals dropped, bright white against the dirt road. Drop, drop, drop. In the past few days, a new Peacekeeper had come, the one who basically started the harsh reign of District 11. He traced the little petals until he found the little girl, about to cross the threshold first stepped over by her parents earlier. And he yanked the flowers out of her hands.

Berry started to scream, as these were precious, for momma. The man raked his long, groomed Capitol fingernails across her arm, and she started bawling. The noise was enough to hear through the thin door, and her mother came rushing out, pushing the man away, and scooping the daughter up blithely, then leading her to the water pump a few yards away. The man growled with disapproval, but he would’ve let her go, if not for that he could now see through the empty doorway, to a small wooden vase, with a beautiful lilly that clear as day grew beyond the house in the Capitol’s own meadows.

The man flew upon Berry, grasping her tiny arm to take her to prison. The mother stopped him defiantly to take berry’s place. He then grabbed her arm, dragging her down to the stately but cold building.

Berry was left alone, crying, until the hours later when her family returned from work in the fields. It had been Berry’s mother’s day off, so it was nothing odd she wasn’t at work. Berry told the story, crying, and her father raced quickly to the Justice Building.

Later that night, Berry’s father came back with her mother. She smiled, but as she turned her face Berry could see a dark purple lining her mother’s pale face. Her father said the unfamiliar, big words of illegal poaching, with narrowed brows and relieved expressions when the family said it could’ve been much, much worse. But all Berry knew that her omther had gotten hurt, and that made her sad.

That day deflated Berry’s happiness. On the outside, it wasn’t noticeable, but on the inside it was very much so. The years passed in blurs of planting, growing, harvesting, and storing, and Berry has healed, but that moment still hits her with sadness and pain. She only hopes that years from now, there will no longer be a Capitol to hurt children's mothers.