Knives Savage, District 2 (Finished!)

Knives has an exotic look about her. She has an oval face with a clearly pronounced jawline, straight nose and high cheekbones. Her eyes are dark and striking, adding a feline aspect to her appearance. She has fine soft lips and perfectly straight teeth thought her canines are uncommonly sharp and her upper front teeth are also slightly longer than the rest. She’s very pale but her hair is jet black. She doesn’t mind tanning and other than the many cuts and bruises, her skin is smooth and flawless.

Knives’ five feet, five inches tall and weighs precisely 121 pounds. After the move, she dedicated her life to the Games and training so she’s in great physical shape. Her body is unwaveringly strong and flexible. Her long legs make her a fast runner.

Knives style gives off a sense of danger. She’s not exactly a tomboy but you’d be hard put to find any flower patterns, hearts or bows in her closet. She adores wearing leather and the colour black. Knives sports a set of tattoos comprising one on her left hip of a blood red rose which stem stretches into a thorny vine and twists around the flower, a wreath of barbed wire around her right wrist and angelic black wings on her shoulder blades with “KNIVES” written between them. She also seems to be constantly bruised and slashed somewhere. Knives never tries to cover up any of her injuries, she takes pride in them. She’s a very vain creature and will look herself over in most reflective surfaces.

Years of pampering made Knives incredibly vain and spoiled. Coupling this with her aggressive, ambitious nature makes for a very dangerous little girl. She’s not particularly knowledgeable or cautious either and lacks much in the way of a conscience.

Knives’ bloodthirsty and has little to no empathy for almost any living creature, the exception being her father. With a dream to become a tribute in the Hunger Games she’s naturally very violent. She’s not afraid of getting in fights, quite the contrary, she actually likes picking them. She’s doesn’t mind getting bashed up as long as she gets to cause some damage in return.

Haughtiness is both a protection and a weakness in her case. While she’s thick-skinned enough to regard criticism as jealousy, she also overestimates herself and therefore often bites off more than she can chew. Books and study are a waste of time to Knives, unless the objective is a new battle technique. She doesn’t take an interest in anything that would pull her out of her shallow little bubble and open her eyes to a wider, more complex view of the world. However, she’s sly and cunning enough to be manipulative, hiding her true colours behind a perfect facade of polite, tactful and ladylike behaviour when the need presents itself thanks to her upbringing in the Capitol.

Berry Velvet thought herself to be a very lucky woman. She’d grown up safely in the Capitol, living a life of ease; she’d started her own fashion house and travelled Panem more than most other citizens – not much but more.

One time, shortly after returning to the comforts of her posh home from a business trip, she discovered her abdomen, which normally curved slightly inward, protruding. At first Berry was baffled. She hadn’t been to any great banquets recently; in fact she’d been following her vegan diet perfectly. As a very beautiful and vivacious woman she had plentiful lovers, mostly, in the Capitol. One quick test proved half the joy belonged to one William Savage – a handsome young Peacekeeper from District 2.

Berry arranged to meet Will and explained to him that she was expecting his baby. The response she got was not at all to her liking as Will had yet to finish his twenty-year pledge to the force and was therefore forbidden to take on the responsibility of a child.

Nine months later, on the 24th of October, a tiny baby girl was born in the Capitol. Berry named her daughter Candy Bell. The girl’s social status promised not only a carefree but positively luxurious life; she’d never have to worry about food, shelter or money, she had a secure future and her name would never be in the reaping for the Hunger Games. Any other problems – school, friends, happiness – could be solved with a quick visit to her mother’s bank account.

Thought Berry loved her daughter immensely, she was scarcely the maternal type. So whereas she indulged in mollycoddling the girl up to the point of spoiling her as she bought her showers of expensive gifts and dressed her like a princess, when it came to more important matters such as discipline and education, Candy was shunted into the hands of nannies.

William had been all but omitted from Candy’s life. Despite, or perhaps precisely because of this she developed rather unladylike or even boyish tendencies such as a liking for violence and sports which in turn lead to an obsession with the Hunger Games. She would often occupy the TV with countless tapes of past Games and spend the day watching them all and assessing the tributes.

When she was ten years old, her father was assigned to the squad of Peacekeepers who escort the tributes to the Capitol. Will used every second he could spare to locate his daughter and finally he succeeded. They quickly grew fond of each other. Candy discovered she could connect to her father far better than her mother which meant Berry could no longer keep Will away. Upon her daughters request she was able, by pulling a few strings, to invite him to visit a few times.

As Candy became close to her father an estrangement sprung up between her and her mother. Besides not having much respect for the latter to begin with, Candy also resented her for keeping her father away for so long. Berry on the other hand didn’t approve of her daughter’s crude behaviour and was constantly distressed due to reports of fighting from other parents. All the tension and bitter feelings led up to a demand by Candy, shortly before her 12th birthday, to live with her father. After her mother refused, saying she was too young and immature to decide such matters, she contacted her father. Will finally convinced Berry, who was really a very gentle person, to agree following several long, heated, teary discussions. The scar of betrayal left in Berry would never be healed but Candy honestly didn’t care.

Moving to District 2 had brought her one step closer to her dream of becoming a tribute in the Hunger Games – merely watching replays hadn’t been enough for her for a while. She asked her father to train her; teach her hand-to-hand combat and how to use weapons. At first she didn’t admit the reason for the request, simply claiming she wanted to be ready should her name be drawn at the reaping. Will was never worried about this however as Two almost always had volunteers. Yet he agreed and from that point on Candy began to eat, sleep, train and practice like a Career – she lived and breathed the Hunger Games. It didn’t take her father long to catch on and when he did he supported her decision wholeheartedly, even with pride.

One of Candy’s first decisions upon arrival in her new home was to change her name. She swapped her mother’s family name for her father’s. Years later she got rid of both her cute, girlish first and middle name, replacing them with a short meaningful one and so became Knives Savage.

I know she's a terrible character, I wanted to make someone I'd dislike just to try it out :]