Yael Harlow *d3 [done]

Yael is average. She has grey eyes that are shaped like almonds, usually able to reflect what she's feeling at the time. There are dark circles under her eyes that almost make her look raccoon-like from working long hours. Her face is oval shaped with pale skin, sensitive to sunlight. A few small moles decorate her face and other parts of her body, adding to her almost child-like features. Her eyebrows are a bit thicker than most other girls she sees around the district, making her feel somewhat insecure about how she looks.

Although rather thin Yael often has to lift heavy objects and run around, adding a tiny bit of muscle to her arms and legs but not enough to let her run a marathon. At 5'3" and one hundred and fifteen pounds, she's not particularly good at hiding in small spaces either. Even so, carrying is often the only thing she is good at. She can't swing a bat or hold a knife properly. Her curves are very limited, she has no chest or ass to show off, dragging her self-worth down to a whole new level. Her hair is thick and wavy, falling down to her breasts in deep curls and is usually tied back in a low ponytail when she's working.

The few times Yael is outside of work, she doesn't bother changing out of her work clothes. She usually wears slightly baggy jeans or shorts along with a short-sleeved shirt, so no sleeves are caught in the machines. Although what she wears to cover her lower half is usually the same, Yael has what she considers a small collection of ten to twelve work shirts she was able to get on sale. They're all different colors from navy to egg-white, though her favorite is a mossy green with dark stripes going down the shirt horizontally. She keeps a black hoodie with her in case it gets cold, and wears safety glasses around her neck.

Quiet. Yael can speak, but it's mostly a quiet grunt of acknowledgement or a dissenting mumble. She doesn't need to talk at all, causing the majority to see her as a selective mute. Words get in the way when she can express how she feels in a look. When people tell her to fix things, she does. Then, whatever it is, it gets handed back perfectly clean and fully functional. No mistakes; she would never forgive herself if something went wrong. It's all business, but in the end that doesn't help make friends. When she wants to say something it takes several minutes to formulate a response, and usually by then the conversation has moved on. Her tendency to blend into the background doesn't help. More often than not she's left behind to work extra hours on top of what she already gives, not even for money, but because there's no other place she'd like to spend her time. Yes, she is alone. Going home to watch her mother scream more obscenities, sitting with the sheets pulled over her head as an imaginary barrier doesn't fix that. Therefore, she works.

Yael often scares younger children away from her due to her silence, but she does try to help when possible. There is a ghost story of a mysterious disembodied hand that tugs them away from the engine rooms and boilers when things get dangerous, although most of the time it's her. That rarely makes things better with the kids freaking out about possible supernatural powers, or even worse realize it's her and tattle (because some just can't stand the thought of being looked after). It's really all she has at the end of the day, aside from assembling computers and weapons. Her skills aren't foolproof, but after twelve years of trial and error almost 24/7 she knows what works. It's just a machine. Make a mistake, flip a switch, rip cables out, and start over. She can work with it, not like she needs to reset as many times as she did before. She keeps several hundred codes in the back of her head, not including schematics, data, and other formulas while constantly calculating and adjusting the odds of success to her favor. Even adults come to her for jobs they can't handle, because a lot of the more difficult applications have to be set up by her. It's easy. Not like people.

In a public setting, Yael is only noticable by the fact she belongs to no social clique in particular and spends time reading books on plants and animals. She's too busy watching and listening, wary of any technology that could be used against them which is really too much (everything). There's nothing she can do about it and she's given up any sort of will to try. Teens her age are turned off by how distant she seems, somehow managing to zone out if she gets comfortable enough in an enviorment. She knows where she is and what she's doing, her mind just wanders aimlessly to fend off boredom when she's not being perceptive. However she is rarely somber with good company, it just so happens she's by herself quite often. Yet in serious situations that pose a threat to anyone close to her she'll try to put her years of experience to work at its full potential. Some call her the 'technology-whisperer', and she considers those people crazy. They don't understand what made her who she is.

Knowing how solemn Yael is, few dare to anger her in fear she'll be like a volcano and just explode, spewing her wrath and hidden emotions everywhere. In rare acts of frustration she can burst at the seams and just yell at someone, but most of the time she manages to channel that anger, bite her tongue and walk away or just try to perservere through whatever's bothering her. She does this often, which leads to her physical health taking a nose-dive. She's prone to night terrors and panic attacks that are literally crippling, but she tries to make sure they only happen when she's alone. Yael would only feel more guilty if she caught someone's attention or disrupted the work flow.

Yael doesn't know much about her family tree, but the past she is told about is remarkably short. Her grandmother, her mother, and her father worked for District 3 ever since she could remember. The frail elderly woman Yael knew as Shifra Harlow had been classed as mentally unstable since her grandfather's disappearance. She was only six when she heard her parents talking about it. No, she didn't understand anything about the Capitol or the districts. They were home... and home was a safe haven. It was supposed to be. Neither knew where Acaph went, why he would leave so suddenly. He was already having trouble getting around with the arthritis in his legs. Wasn't it the same everywhere? Sometimes people just 'broke'. They got sick of it all and wanted to become wanderers. Eventually Yael heard the sobs of her mother breaking down in her dad's arms. If he came back, he would just be changed by the experience of being beaten down by peacekeepers. Hopefully, he died.

Before Yael could intervene she felt familiar hands over her ears. A pretty little girl with a round nose and a sly smirk distracted her from their parents talking. Nissa was only a few years older than her, but she was their parents' pride and joy. They taught her everything about the industry they could, and in return she became very good at coding computers and putting them together. She was already better than the kids in her age group she was grouped with. Yet Nissa was playful, and she hated the fact their parents worked almost completely full shifts just to make mince meat. She didn't want to be that way, busy and stressed all the time. Needless to say, she didn't want her little sister to follow her path either. Nissa's lips curled and before Yael could realize what happened a tiny hand grabbed her own, and they were off. They'd run down the street and pretend the puddles streaked with oil were clouds they could jump on, bouncing way up high. Away from the mean people who bullied their parents and child workers and reapings. It would just be them, roaming a much cleaner sky. Yael didn't understand why Nissa was so eager to turn away from reality, but she just accepted it as one of those games kids played. Her sister was so kind to her anyway, she didn't see a problem.

As Yael got older she figured out that Nissa's dream was just that, only a dream. When their father suddenly became ill from working with fumes, their mother sent them to a dark and smelly factory where basic materials like wires, gears, and weapon parts were made. When Yael looked around she noticed that a lot of other kids there were their age too, some even younger. They sniveled and shook because the adults were crass and rather mean, they enjoyed scaring the newer kids. Nissa took on the job of defending most of them, unintentionally gaining a bad reputation with the older kids in the process. She watched her big sister dismantle broken weapons to make new ones in awe, taking in every movement. Nissa was so smart and kind. Why did she have to be born as herself instead of her sibling? From then on Yael decided she'd try not to rely on her sister so much. She'd try to grow up fast and listen and learn just as Nissa did, to her apparent dismay. She spent nights and days working in the factory, getting yelled at by the people passing by until she got it right.

When Yael turned fifteen, she'd already spent nine years learning the ropes from all of her family members, sometimes even Shifra would pitch in. She was okay, perhaps better than other teens she worked with, but nothing like Nissa. Her sister in the meantime had soared far above in skill and being acknowledged, she worked with some big company now where she trained other workers at assembling and dismantling various weapons properly without injury, as well as setting up computers for whoever the head big-wigs wanted. They were living a little easier now, even when their father passed away they didn't quite need to work as hard as they once did. Nissa was a lot busier now but she still had time to visit the family occasionally and help Yael figure out programming errors she couldn't solve on her own. Her sister even said that if she improved enough it might be worth it to introduce her to her manager, who was a lot less of a jerk than the other higher-ups. Yael would be able to visit next week, if everything went smoothly.

The next couple days Yael heard nothing from Nissa, even her mother didn't know what was going on. Shifra had already begun to panic, assuming the same thing that happened to her husband had suddenly taken effect on her older sister. Yael frowned, hands moving faster than they did before. No, she didn't want to think about that but when her mother came home screaming and crying there was really no choice. Somehow her sister had been working with a small group of people to make a program not for the Capitol. It was a complete and utter failure of course, but they still considered it an attempted crime against the Capitol, therefore she had to be taken in. Yael watched Shifra take the short fall into complete hysteria as she tried to strangle herself when her mother and she weren't looking. No one knew how long she would be imprisoned, but Yael assumed the worst yet carefully hid those feelings. Anger and depression welled up inside her chest, but she refused to let any of it out.

Since then Yael began to work at a furious pace that few could match, honing her skills in building weaponry and computers, barely even thinking. Similar to how Careers were made for the games, she was meant to work this way until her hands ripped off. Her sister never came back, so she could only draw her own conclusions as to what happened. Thoughts of Nissa stayed in the back of her head forever, haunting her the few hours of sleep she managed to get. She was positive her mother had gone off the deep end as well. She'd gotten lucky so far with the reapings, but who knew how long that would last. It wasn't worth thinking about.

S-sorry for the quality. ><