Ashling Castillon, D3 [done]

::Ashling Castillon::16::District 3::

Narration
Rumination
Speech
Other’s Speech
Shock

::Appearance::

Ash might describe herself as akin to a potato. She’s nothing much to look at, but she does well enough. Everyone likes a potato

[/color]. She’ll tell you. They’re versatile, made up into a million different dishes[/color]. And so it goes with Ash: she doesn’t mind that she’s not as tall as the rest of the girls, or that her figure has always left something to be desired. Form fitting dresses made her laugh—her the way the dresses fitted her curves made her look frumpier than a school marm—and so she preferred something simple and understated to standing out amongst everyone else. If something is really special, then it doesn’t need all the bells and whistles, it should stand upon its own merits[/color].

Her face is dotted with a hundred and forty seven freckles. At least, that’s her last count from Wednesday, when she’d had to sit at her father’s desk and watch the door to the inn. So she’d sat counting every last freckle on her face, until a customer finally came in to disturb her from her counting. She happens to think it’s one of the greatest things about her—the numerous dots of brown that mark her face and offer something different from her fair skinned companions—though she’d never tell anyone for fear of having to admit her own pride. Still, it made up for her unnecessarily curly hair. Truly, it was a wonder that she didn’t ask her father to shave it all off, the way it curled up in the humidity of the oppressive summer heat. She’d gone about hiding it under hats or tied back into pig tails, until her father reminded her that no boy would ever look at her if she kept trying to be thirteen forever.

Little things about her body strike her as spectacular. For instance, she can set about getting a sunburn in less than two hours in the afternoon sun if she doesn’t block it or anything. Even on a day with clouds. Or that she has a little beauty mark on the lower left hand corner—not a mole, though it would be super cool[/color] if there was some hair growing out of it like a witch in those old stories from before—very similar to the one that her mother had on her own face. The fact that she’s got a little bit extra weight around her hips but almost no breasts amazes her. It seemed like a cruel joke of nature that the rest of her body would develop before her own chest that she couldn’t help but laugh. And sometimes cross her arms and wonder if anyone would notice.[/color]

She’s used to the hand-me downs and thrifty nature of her father, who runs a struggling inn. It means that her clothes rarely come fresh, nor are they in season. So she has to improvise and develop her own sense of style. Perhaps it never flowed just quite as it should, but then, she figured buying from second hand stores would never yield perfect results. She likes color, little splashes of it, to brighten the dullness some. Even if she was a potato, it didn’t mean that she had to be flavorless. [/color]

::Personality::

In a word, Ash is practicality personified. There is nothing that is too high wrought or dreamed from Ash. She prefers to stay grounded, steady, and forward thinking. Problem-solving is more important than thinking of the big picture. She leaves that to those that liked to dream; this is a frightening and foreign concept to her. Going beyond one’s means is dangerous, as it throws things off balance. And little Ash likes control more than anything else. Change, therefore, is unwelcome and altogether jarring for Ash. There is substance in hard work[/color], she believes, because it teaches one to understand what is truly important in life.[/color]

She likes to believe that she has an old soul, one that separates her from her classmates. While all of them think of holding hands and kissing boys, she thinks of the budget of the inn and the number of customers that they’ll need for the next quarter if they want to keep service the way it is. Instead of who she will ask to the school dance, she thinks of what it will be like to settle down and raise a family with a good foundation and good morals. Not that she’s already looking for a husband, but it’s good for a girl to know just what she believes in when it comes to a mate. It’s too bad that she’s never even kissed a boy just yet.[/color]

Abstract concepts are not easily understood. When it comes to things that are not practical—take art, for instance—she finds them useless and uninteresting. Why on earth did anyone need to paint, or sculpt?[/color] These pass times might have been valued to the districts that had time for luxury, but in district three they seemed wholly unnecessary. She turns her nose up at those that speak of double meanings, of not saying exactly what they mean. The world would be a much better place[/color], she believed, if people said what they really meant to one another. [/color]

Hard headed might be a word frequently used to describe Ash. It’s why she’s solitary: she can’t stand working in groups with people. It always seems as though she’s clashing with someone over something silly, usually in the direction that things should go. She values loyalty, but it’s hard to find anyone that will agree with her as much as she would like. And so she slips into the background, preferring to make snide remarks and point out flaws rather than offer true advice.

::History::

The inn has been her home and will be her home—Ash knows this, and has known this, perhaps, since she was three years old and talking. Her father would explain that all of it would be hers someday: the run down rooms, the barely working lift, the sad excuse for a bar with a little kitchenette attached, and vacancy sign that had four of the seven letters burnt out. There were more customers then, when she was young and her mother alive. She was the one that brought a life to the place, offering color to the drab surroundings in a way that her father never could.

They struggled through every winter and made peace with every broiling summer. Though the customers ebbed and flowed, the doors of the inn managed to stay open. It meant that there was no money for the staff, however, and the happy little No Name—called as such because her father had been so indecisive as to what it should be called—and so they began to lay off those that they just couldn’t keep. First it was the porter, in his jolly maroon jacket with epilates. Her father was strong enough to carry the bags up the flights of stairs, it was no matter. Then it was the man at the front desk because—couldn’t her mother Fiona just do it? Then there was the cook in the kitchenette because he had never been very good anyway. And at last they lost the maid, finding her a luxury they simply couldn’t keep, especially after Ash had turned eleven, and was big enough to do it on her own.

So her time was divided between school and the inn, and all encroaching force in her life. She excelled in math and made great strides when it came to science—chemistry was a breeze for her—but all of it was just a distraction. Her place was at the inn, spending long nights at the front desk when her mother got too sick to do it anymore. She’d fall asleep, sometimes, into the little book where people wrote their names. She’d wake with a black smear on her face, and her father would curse as to who they were supposed to charge the bill to. All of it weighed on the girl, working hard to achieve in school while knowing deep down she was pushed further and further to help with the inn.

When her mother passed, she knew that there was no future outside of the No Name. It was as if with the passing, a door had closed. She couldn’t see any further than the three letters that still flickered in the window, not when there were beds to be made and bags to be carried up to the room, and a small dish to be made for room service orders in room 3b. All of it came so easily, so mechanically now it was a comfort to Ash. And so she knows that this is her destiny—not that she believed in such things, organized chaos better explained her lot in life—to run the No Name until it fell over, caught fire, or both.

Codeword: Odair

Notes: This is for the Dreamers plot by the lovely Stare. <3
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