Miriam Follows; District 12

Miriam Follows; District 12 Mar 8, 2013 9:19:01 GMT -5

Post by Sarella on Mar 8, 2013 9:19:01 GMT -5

Miriam Follows

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Her head is a little oval, with a small chin and cheeks that are still managing to sustain a little bit of fat. She has light skin, and not really any freckles. Her blue-green eyes are large and almond shaped, with long eyelashes. Her little nose is nicely rounded, one of the prettier parts she believes she has. She has a rather small mouth, and although the pink lips are not too thin, they aren’t very fat either. Her hair is chocolate brown, and nearly reaches her waist. It is very wavy, and if she does not brush it for even one day it frizzes and tangles uncontrollably.

Miriam is considerably short, standing at a little 4’3”, although that may be from not having the energy needed to grow tall. She is very light, weighing in at about 51 lbs (or about 23 kilos). She has thin, knobby and narrow shoulders that lead down to long scrawny arms, with very little muscle to brag about. Her elbows are very sharp, and if you think about it for a moment, perhaps they could be a weapon in a time of need. Get the joke? Her wrists are small, but her hands are fine, despite being boney. She has a habit of playing with her fingers, and thus gets them into positions many people might find queer or painful.

She is a bit late in the chest department, and if her family history proves right she should be this way for another year or two. Or three. Not like you would be pulling up her shirt (if you would, SOMEONE CALL THE PEACEKEEPERS), but if you did (seriously, don’t even TRY) you would be able to count her ribs very easily. There seems to be something like a cliff there, her stomach dipping dramatically away from her ribs. Her hips are not very wide, but if you compare it to a six-year-old you may see a minor difference in width. ~~Don’t get me started on that tiny butt, yo.~~

Miriam’s thighs are thin like the rest of her, though please keep in mind her hamstrings are just fine. She can touch her toes, I swear (one trick pony, actually). Her knees are knobby like her elbows, but not quite as sharp. Her lower legs are just as scrawny, but if you are surprised by that by now I think you may have a few loose screws. Her ankles are nice and pointy, her feet small and rough on the bottoms.

Miriam usually wears a black t-shirt that was once her brother’s, because of the “sentimental value” she often explains to her parents. If that is not what she is wearing, it’s her Reaping clothes, and I’ll tell you about those in a bit. She wears dark brown pants that she usually has to roll up at the bottom, and her mother is always putting pins in them so she does not have to hold them up. She is always bare foot, explaining the rough feet, and even in her parents could afford shoes she might not wear them. For the Reaping, she wears a frilly white dress her mother keeps hidden to keep it clean, and a thick black ribbon tied around it. Often her mother will lend her a pair of white pantyhose then take it back right after. Most of the time Miriam’s hair gets brushed, but a few years ago she decided she did not want to. Only that year, though.

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Peace; if you went to Miriam and told her she could have one thing, she would very simply answer “Peace.” She knows her home is probably the least rebellious of all of them, but whenever she sees even a tiny disagreement between friends, not specifically about rebellion, she shakes her head and wishes to herself for it to stop. She is not outgoing enough to stop it herself, but it hurts her to see hatred. Maybe if the idea got into her head, she would be a hippy. Because hippies are cool. Miriam has a third-person view on most of the world, and if you wanted to you could probably go to her to settle an argument and end up with a near perfect outcome. She wants to live a life with minimal conflict or disturbance, but she knows no matter where she goes or what she does there will always be hate somewhere in the room.

She is generally very calm, not doing anything too fast or jumping at every little noise in the night. It isn’t easy to scare her, but you can disgust her pretty easily. She isn’t the ‘big frown’ the ‘blank expression’ or ‘terribly scary smile’ type; she just has each one in its own minimal, balanced way. When amused, she gives a small grin. When upset, a slight frown appears. When just walking, she looks down and takes on a very thoughtful expression, always lost in her thoughts. If a particularly funny memory comes to her mind, she may on occasion laugh out loud, though this is rare and she hardly ever does it on the spot, right when the funny thing happens.

Miriam does not look at the world as either black or white, she sees many sides to things, the good and the bad. You could not call her optimistic, and you could not call her pessimistic. Although she is wary when it comes to trusting people, she does make a point of looking for the good sides in everyone. She tries not to see the dark side, but nonetheless she sees the big picture and the many colors and sides of the three dimensional figure. Confidence really shakes with her, depending on her mood that particular day. Sometimes she may be up for anything, and other times she will want to hide under the pavement. She has begun to notice she is not good in think-fast situations. In other words, she thinks too much.

She tends to be a hard worker, taking after her parents in many ways and believing thoroughly in honest work. She helps those who need help and often will not expect things in return, a modest person by nature. Miriam is very responsible, and considers herself independent in supporting herself. In reality, she would have died twelve years ago if not for her parents and brother. Sometimes Miriam can be a bit of a perfectionist in getting a job done, and will repeat it many times if the outcome is not exactly what she wanted or what she interpreted someone’s specifications to be.

Miriam is not the boldest or bluntest person you will ever meet. She warns long before she does anything drastic, which she rarely does anyways. She is extremely timid around strangers and will often try to get out of situations where she has to hold a conversation. Although she is a quiet person, she often has the words forming rapidly in her head, words that if said she could seem like a very intelligent, brave speaker. She has the right words but not the right attitude to say them, but however many times she has tried to write them down she has forgotten them when the situation left her. Perhaps one day she will come out with them, but not today.

She is open to new ideas, as long as you are not forcing her to go into them. She prefers to do things on her own terms, though if recommended she tends to secretly go along and try it, if she can do it discretely. She tends to be extremely tolerant, rarely getting over the top angry with someone. When annoyed, she bites her tongue and tries to walk away to avoid making an unpeaceful situation of herself. This also goes for when someone gets angry at her (this is rare though, it’s hard to get angry at someone who has spent nearly their whole life avoiding annoying situations), she forgives them easily. It will be hard to regain her trust, but you will know she holds no grudge against you.

When a situation arises that Miriam can be empathic, she lets herself fall into until someone else snaps her away from the thoughts. Sympathy goes out to everyone, but it is only expressed to those who weaseled their way into her circle of trust. She supports the ideas her father puts through to get the family more money, and keeps supporting him even after they fail time and time again. She does not do well with younger children, finding them difficult and too needy. It’s a very good thing she has no younger siblings.

Miriam is a polite person, and she often seems like she has all the rules memorized from the tip of the first capitalized letter to the period at the very end. This can be somewhat of a nuisance to people who like sticking to the rules, and in fact it is almost the only reason anyone ever gets irritated by her. The “you should not being doing that” gets annoying after the first three hundred times. Do you get it, reader?

She likes to keep her secrets to herself, and though the few friends she has had have shared secrets with her, she keeps her own and theirs and even after the friend loses her trust she still keeps it locked away, not intending to create any disturbance with the foreign baggage she carries. Miriam attempts to keep herself in the “normal” side of things. People do not tease her on a regular basis, people actually pay her little attention at all, and that is exactly the way she likes it and wishes to keep it for a very, very long time.

This is one girl with a very tiny humorous. Okay, not literally, but you get what I mean. Her sense of humor is a tad bit dry, though only on her side. She cannot create a joke, but she will crack that tiny grin if you tell her one she finds funny. Do be wary though, after a little bit Miriam will think you are goofing off and try to find a way to get away from you. She has a very small tank for humor, and once it fills, there is no spilling over. ~~Unless you want to die! Okay just kidding. Maybe.~~

It’s time to get started on something a lot more interesting, meaning, her habits. Some are bad, some are good, some a neutral, and some you will wonder why I even mentioned it at all. I could list them, hair tugging, pacing, counting, walking backwards, daydreaming – but I prefer to go into detail about what she does. She gets lost in thought very easily, and you will know if she is playing with her hair, twisting her fingers, pacing, or simply staring into space with strange thoughts on her mind. When she is nervous she will count everything, and if there is nothing to count she count her fingers and toes. Over, and over, and over, and over, and over…

Miriam is talented in singing, baring a beautiful voice she does not like to share, due to her shyness. She does, however, dance very well. You name it – from slow and graceful to rapid and jumpy she can do it. She does not do it so often anymore, without her brother to play the fiddle, but I’ll touch more on that sensitive subject later, in her history. Miriam enjoys solving riddles, and she used to sit down and answer the ones her brother would give her. Alone, though, she would still sing, and occasionally help her mother cook if there was enough food to do so with. Rare one, there. Although she is not much of a talker, Miriam enjoys hearing about anything artsy, from music to simple story ideas. She loves to elaborate on the pictures she gets in her head, but really has only ever done that with her brother.

Miriam was born in The Seam of District 12, to two coal miners with one other son, Achav, who was five years older than her. Oftentimes, Achav and Miriam would stay at their aunt’s house during the day and be picked up by their parents late at night, usually sleeping. On Sundays their parents would take them out to the square if they had money for anything, or, more often than not, stay at home and play. When Miriam was three, she started seeing a bit less of her brother, who was out stealing. It took another year before she found out, when she was four, and gave a nice, squeaky lecture that he completely ignored. She told her parents, who scolded him. As far as she knew, he stopped after that.

When Miriam was five, Achav called on her to come with him to the square and began to play his father’s fiddle for money. For a few minutes she sat behind him on the short stone wall, smiling and swinging her feet. Then he took a little break, turned around, and told her to get in front of him and dance. She shook her head, until he gave up and started playing again. Another few minutes later and she was on the ground, dancing and giggling to her brother’s amused laughs. With her dancing they had enough money for food that Sunday, and her parents were satisfied with the arrangement. Miriam distinctly remembers her father telling Achav he could keep the fiddle for good.

A year later the original wonder that came from the duo died down, as more people had already seen it and were no longer impressed. Achav and Miriam tried desperately thinking up new tunes, Achav even getting irritated with Miriam when she was too tired to dance anymore. Eventually he set his instrument down, pulled Miriam up next to him in his chair and asked her if she could do anything other than dance. “Anyone can dance, Achav,” she replied, and he thought about it for a second, and asked her to sing. The moment she did, they had another way to avoid death.

When Miriam was seven, she followed her brother to the Reaping with wide eyes, asking him over and over if he was going to be picked. He certainly acted brave, but she was still scared. When she stood next to her parents outside the crowd of children who could be Reaped, she nearly burst into tears before the name for the boys was called, but it was not her brother and for that she was thankful. They went home, discovered their meal had been eaten by rats, and went to bed early.

A year and two months later, a woman mentioned near Miriam she could not sing very well, and immediately the girl went to her brother and said she did not want to sing anymore. Her brother was surprised, and asked her why, getting angry when she explained. The two had a fight, and in the end their relationship was shattered, along with a fiddle and a little girl’s thumb. Miriam forgave her brother when he thumb healed, but she could not get him to talk to her, and eventually she got quieter and quieter until the two could not look at each other. She had ruined his passion, and no amount of “sorry” could fix that.

When Miriam was nine, her mother lost a hand and foot in a mining accident, and half of what the family had disappeared, leaving them scraping by once again. She remembers her brother bringing home suspicious bite-size pieces of vegetable every now and then, and now she wonders if he had gotten back into thievery. Nonetheless, what he brought in was accepted by her parents without question, until her father started disappearing on Sundays and returning with an apple or two. Whether he had found another job or was stealing it, no one but he knew.

Two years later she started searching for coins on the street before and after school. At first she found nothing, until she got quick and beat the other children doing the same. It was rare that there was anything on the ground, money was too precious to lose, but when there was some, Miriam took it and hid it in the crack underneath her bed. She was saving for a fiddle, and at the rate she was going she would not get one until she was fifty. Then, her father came home with one for Achav’s birthday and she was blown out of the water. Recently it has looked a little bit like the two are starting to get along again, and though Achav cared for his sister, he is just now beginning to want to be around her again.