Roses and Orphans // Mini

Crywdryn Laurea was no stranger to sadness. Her life had been nothing, if not sad. Though she remembered little of her time out of the District, she knew that something had to have happened to her family. Her adopted father, Kinkajou, never hid the fact he was not her blood father. Not that he could. The two looked nothing alike. Dryn had bright green eyes and charcoal black hair. Her skin was olive when it was washed, which wasn't most of the time. Jou, on the other hand, didn't have a dark bone in his body. His hair was pale gold, which turned silver as he aged, and his eyes were a silver blue like the color of the small pond behind their house in winter. His skin was pale, like the rest of him, although it got worse as he got older. So, even if he wanted to keep the fact that she was adopted a secret, he never could.

Dryn always wondered what her life was like, before she was found. She imagined her parents had the same color hair and skin, yet she had her mother's eyes. In her mind, Dryn's father had chocolate brown eyes, that danced happily in the firelight. She pictured her mother as sweet and with meat on her bones. Not stick skinny, but not really overweight either. She would have knit, Dryn decided. Her father... well, since she was found beyond the fence, she assumed he could hunt and fish, and that he had been teaching her as well. She would only have started fishing, though, because she was very small when they found her. He had a hearty laugh and rough, calloused hands that always held her's gently. They would have had a dog too. A big sweet bloodhound that was really patient and covered her in saliva whenever she hugged him. She had an older brother in her daydreams. He was very protective of her, but was a pacifist by nature and couldn't stand hunting. He stayed home with their mother and took care of the house. It was a nice family, full of joy and laughter. And in her daydreams, there were no Games.

Dryn shook her head as she was pulled back to the present. She had went home for lunch when she became lost in thought. Looking around, she was in the dimmer part of the District. She must have been so lost in her daydream that she didn't take the turn that would lead her to the Square. Dryn didn't come down here much. As a child, Jou sternly forbade it. Even now that she was older and could take care of herself, the dusty shadows screamed danger to her. Being mute wasn't always a good thing. Of course, she could call out if she wanted to, but not using her voice in so long, it would probably just come out as a croak. She shook her head again. She had nothing to be afraid of. She had trained hard every day since she discovered the Games, and as she grew older it was no different. The tree behind her house was covered in hack marks where Jou's old sword cut into the bark. She gathered herself and turned to head back out of the dark alley back to the comforting warmth of the busy Square that was right around the corner.

It was a creak that held her back. Something wasn't right. THe hair on the back of her neck rose. Someone was watching her. The reflexes she gained from integrating herself with the Ocelots were sharp, and rarely wrong. She pulled herself together mentally and flexed her hands. She took no obvious defensive stance, yet her feet became solid on the ground and she balanced her weight evenly. She was entirely focused on everything around her. Maybe, she was just paranoid, but this way, nothing would surprise her.