Morpheus Marley, District 12 [wip]

The first thing people typically notice about Morpheus are his burn scars. The most visible one is on his face. It starts on the left side just under his cheek bone and curves under it and licks up to his tear duct. The scar crosses over his nose at the bridge and covers his right eye. It slants down, touches the right corner of his mouth, goes down his neck, and then down his shirt, into areas normally covered by clothing. His left arm is also scarred, as is the left side of his chest, all but a small portion of his stomach, and his left leg partway down the shin. Due to the damage to his tear ducts, he is unable to produce tears. The burnt portion of his body is unable to grow hair due to the damage caused to the follicles. Morpheus tries to keep his face and right arm and leg shaved so that they match. While he does a pretty good job of keeping them from getting fuzzy, his clumsiness has resulted in the multitude of thin, criss-crossing white scars that pepper the aforementioned limbs.

The next thing they usually take note of is his freakish height. Born with hyperplasia of the pituitary gland, Morpheus has always grown at a much faster rate than other children, though not as quickly as he might have with proper nutrition. Even now, when other guys are usually shooting up, Morpheus is still outpacing them. He currently stands somewhere around six foot six and shows no signs of stopping, though he may grow more slowly as time goes on. Eventually, if he isn't reaped or killed working in the mines, he may grow tall enough that his legs will require braces and have little feeling in his legs and feet.

Though he didn't inherit his looks, Morpheus definitely took after his father in build. He has a long, ovular face with large, round eyes, a long, thin nose, and thin lips. The rest of him is equally long and equally thin-looking, from the tips of his spidery fingers to his the soles of his narrow feet. His skin is very pale in comparison to other natives of the Seam, bearing only the lightest of tan tints. There is a light scattering of freckles across the unburnt portion of his face. Morpheus' left eye is electric blue, while his right is such a dark brown that it appears black in most lights. His hair is a bright orange-y red similar to a carrot. Except for trimmings here and there to keep it healthy, it has gone uncut since he was a baby. The ends hang past his elbows now. He usually keeps it braided, tied at the end with string or twine, so that it is out of the way.

As he still lives in the orphanage, he has little choice over what he wears. The clothing distributed to the orphans is usually plain and much too small for him. Though he does nothing to spruce them up, he does his best to alter them to fit using his mother's old sewing kit. Morpheus usually keeps it tucked into a pocket of his pants.

Morpheus is, for the most part, a pretty open guy. When he feels something, he doesn't bottle it up or try to hide it up under some other emotion. He lets you know just how he feels, though he hasn't yet figured out a polite, socially acceptable way to express these feelings. If he has an issue with you, he brings it right to the front and does his best to resolve it, for better or for worse, as soon as he can. When he gets emotional, he shows it either physically or through vocalizations, which is more comprised of sighs, yells, screams, and other noises than actual words the more intense his feelings become. When he wants to take it out on something, he does his best to beat objects instead of other people, though he can and does slip up sometimes.

One of his biggest problems is his lack of self-esteem. In virtually ever situation Morpheus oozes confidence. When he believes in something or makes a decision, he's perfectly happy to keep to that decision or stand firm by that belief. That is, he is until someone decides to challenge him. The future coal miner has the confidence to get through life but lacks the self-esteem to put the steel he needs into that confidence.

Another of his issues is his sensitivity. Morpheus has a sense of humor - don't think he doesn't. It's just that, sometimes, he has trouble telling whether or not someone's joking or being lighthearted. It is extremely easy to go too far with him, especially when it comes to his parents or his scars. He knows that the latter are very prominent and has come to expect comments and questions about them. Getting a little nosier than he deems acceptable is what sets him off.

His parents are a particularly sore subject for him. There are rumors floating around the district that his father is a peacekeeper that went missing before he was born. (This is the truth, but he doesn't know; the only one that did was his mother.) The fact that his father may be a traitor (as he broke the rule about peacekeepers not having families) and possibly an avox bothers him deeply for some reason and is something he tries not to think about. Even mentioning his mother or her death is almost enough to send him into either a rage or tears; it just depends on how you approach him about it.

A side of Morpheus that most people don't get to see is his crafty, artistic one. He was taught to sew by his mother as soon as he was old enough to hold a needle. While such a stereotypically feminine activity has gotten him bullied, he does his best to maintain and sharpen the skill whenever he gets the chance. This is partly because he enjoys it, and partly because he sees it as his last connection to his mom. This talent has earned him a certain measure of reverence among the younger children in the orphanage, as he's willing to stitch together dolls, repair torn clothing, and, if he's feeling spunky, make clothes or blankets. The qualities required to excel at his art in his environment with his limited resources are as valuable, if not more so, than the sewing itself.

Morpheus' father was a peacekeeper. Leon, a native of District 2, was assigned to District 12 to begin his twenty year service. He stuck out just as much as his future son, with his pale skin, platinum hair, and shocking blue eyes. The only difference between them was that he was short, standing just above five feet.

He met Iris on Reaping Day. Her older brother, Joshua, had volunteered to take a younger cousin's place. Blinded by her own terror and grief, she attempted to run after him and stop him. Leon noticed and managed to catch her before she could cause trouble. Over the course of the games that year, he made sure to keep an eye on her, coming up with excuses to walk her home from school and around town.

Though he knew it could get him in serious trouble, Leon attempted to start a relationship with Iris when she was in her last year of school. She was initially opposed to the idea, as he was older than her and, more importantly, because of the possible consequences of their relationship. He asked her again and again until, worn down, she finally accepted.

They dated - if you could call it that - for a year or so. They met up when and where they could, frequently sneaking under the fence to go on walks through the woods. Leon always brought something for them to eat, enough so that she could take some home to her mother and little sister; he was not blind to his sweetheart's poverty and emaciation, and did his best to help without offending her pride.

Two days before Iris' eighteenth birthday, they met up in the woods to celebrate. To celebrate, Leon brought a bottle of alcohol - nothing fancy, but not exactly the blinding rotgut commonly found in the Hob. Neither got drunk, but each drank enough to lose their common sense for a little while - just long enough to conceive a child, apparently.

The rumors that Iris had been sleeping around started when she did not show up for work in the mines one morning. Her excuse the next morning was that she'd caught some sort of stomach bug. Everyone seemed to believe this... until the next day, when Iris vomited multiple times during her shift. One of her friends helped her home and went with her and her mother to one of the Seam's resident healers. After asking Iris a few questions about her health, the woman deduced that Iris was more than likely pregnant. Her mother demanded to know who the father was, intending to force him into marriage. Iris refused to tell, even when her little sister was sent in to question her.

Simultaneously overjoyed and terrified, she started out to Leon's house as soon as she could sneak away. She was crossing the town square when a man grabbed her by the arm. It was one of Leon's coworkers, though he'd traded his uniform for casual clothes. He told her that Leon had found out that some of his higher ups had been informed about their relationship. To avoid arrest, he'd fled into the wilderness surrounding the district. The man, whose name was Adam, made sure that she got back home. He said that he would come and check up on her when he could, but he never came back.

Life became harder for Iris Marley after that day. Her mother called in a favor with the 'Pig Man' so that Iris could work through her pregnancy in relative safety. Shoveling manure and feeding the hogs definitely beat almost-certain-death-by-explosion, but the physical demands and job conditions still took a toll on her. She became sickly and sore and tired. Her sweet personality became snappish. When she was home, her mother and sister did their best to make sure they stayed out until she went to bed. What reputation she did have suffered the more her stomach swelled; people felt that insulting and mistreating her was justified by her obvious promiscuity and lack of shame.

No matter what happened, no matter what they said or did, Iris comforted herself with the thought of her baby. (She cut Leon's being the father out of her mind. The fact that he left to save his life wasn't important; that he had left her without so much as a word had cut her deeply. As far as she was concerned, her child had no father.) The thought of him, of getting to hold and love her firstborn, was what got her through the next nine months.

When Morpheus was born, he became the center of Iris' world. She almost instantly improved, becoming more like her old self. Her family noticed the change and they soon began bonding over the newest member of their little clan. They almost became closer than they were before he was born. When Iris moved out and was given a house halfway across the district, closer to the mines, both parties did everything they could to keep up contact. Until he was old enough to go to school, Morpheus spent much of his time at his grandmother's house, helping her out with chores.

School was a shock for him after being shielded from other kids for so long. His hair, so carefully maintained by his mother and grandmother, was much healthier than most kids' in the district, and it hung down past his shoulders. He was also several inches taller than the rest of his grade. They bullied him for being a 'tree' and a 'girl,' and for being a mama's boy. Many of these kids had also heard their parents' whispers about Leon and Iris, and they decided to tease him about being fatherless and a traitor's bastard as well. He got into more than a few fights over it, but everything eventually calmed down. They seemed to forget about him.

music ideas: fine again - seether, fix you - jai mcdowall, i melt with you - modern english, a place to call home - nobuo uematsu, wasteland - ten years