Lydia Grecco, D4

Lydia Grecco
16
District 4

||CERBERUS WAS THE THREE HEADED BEAST THAT GUARDED THE RIVER STYX||

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I am the third head of Cerberus.

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When we were little girls, even my mother had trouble telling my triplet sisters and I apart. She says we look like our father, but our thick pin-straight blonde hair and heart shaped faces are definitely hers. We share our father's green eyes and angular brows, and Caria likes to say that we have a perfectly balanced face. I think she's just taken the full share of vanity intended for the three of us. I remember reading a story when I was younger where the author described a girls mouth as 'having a hint of a kiss, just in the corner' and I'd love to think that's what my mouth looks like too.

Out of my sisters, I've done the most to alter my appearance. About three years ago I managed to get my hands on a tattoo gun in one of the underground markets. Since I have a natural talent and passion for art, it seemed like a natural extension to start creating tattoos. Most of my arms, my lower back, my sides and hips and much of my legs are covered in inky black artwork. They stand out sharply against my pale skin, and I usually wear clothes that can show them off. The only exception is every year at the reaping, when I wear a long sleeved, floor length dress to cover my creations from the swarm of Peacekeepers.

Unlike my sisters, I've kept my hair its natural colour and let it grow past my shoulders so that it brushes the small of my back when I walk. I never wear makeup, can't stand the stuff, but I always have jewelry on. At minimum I wear a necklace, an armful of thin silvery bangles and the gold ring my mother gave to me. Both my sisters enjoy physical activity, and as a result are much stronger than me. I'm still thin, a result of my mother's insistence on healthy diet, but my arms and legs are soft and gentle.

The drink you spilt all over me
"Lover's Spit" left on repeat
My mom and dad let me stay home
It drives you crazy getting old
We can talk it so good
We can make it so divine
We can talk it good, how you wish you would be all the time

||THE THREE HEADS OF THE BEAST ARE SAID TO REPRESENT BIRTH, YOUTH, AND DEATH||[/center][/colour]

I am death. I am immortality and reflection. I am the sage.[/colour]

I have always been referred to as the quiet one by peers and extended family members. I suppose to them it's true. I don't enjoy conversation with large groups of people, it's garish and impersonal, and I've never bothered with small talk. My sisters, and my mother and uncle are the only people who really see me at my most flamboyant. My mother likes to call it dramatics. My uncle says it's womanhood and Caria refers to it as an artist's soul.

The truth is I don't know which of them is right. Perhaps they all are, because they will never own anything but their personal perception of me. Sometimes it's exhausting being all these different expectations, but I wouldn't trade it. Not if it meant giving up my family or my tattoo gun or my books. But sometimes it's nice to think about. The nothingness of nonexistence seems almost soothing.

I devour books like fire, I consume them and become them, every particle of their knowledge becoming something that I know. We have a huge library in our home of books that I have bought or found or stolen, and a handful that were my father's or my mother's. If I'm not reading in the library I'm most likely writing or painting. It's mostly poetry, what I write, I haven't the patience for anything longer.

I feel everything right to the center of myself. Nothing less than love or hate. I am passionate but composed, and I am always in control of my emotions. I am quieter than my sisters, spending most of my time inside with my words or my art. However, I am fiercely protective of the things I care about and can talk somebody's ear off if they strike up a conversation about one of my favourite books.

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I am the past.[/colour]

My sisters and I were born in peak of the hottest summer my mother had ever known. My mother's name is Echidna and my father's name was Niccus and they had a love to rival the great novels. They met when they were young, and fell in love instantly. My father worked on the fishing boats and my mother had been a seamstress. They weren't rich, but they were very happy, and very proud. They wanted nothing more than to start a family and live happily ever after.

My mother was never supposed to have children. My parents tried for seven years to conceive, through all natural and known medical means. After nothing worked, my parents became desperate and turned to back-alley solutions. They heard whispers of a woman in District Four who could 'grant your wildest wish'. They saw their chance and took it. The woman lived in the poorest part of District Four, her small home transformed into a secret shop of sorts. She worked as a mechanic for the light trains that carried officials and tributes from district to district. She was sometimes able to get her hands on prohibited, and even Capitol items, when the trains were being inspected or mended. For a price of course. The woman told my parents that there was a drug from the Capitol that she could give them, but reminded them that the consequences could be terrible; but my mother was so determined to have children that she accepted the woman's terms and took the risk.

It worked. My mother was pregnant, and they happily returned home. Weeks later, the woman was taken in the night, and the next evening the Peacekeepers were waiting to arrest my mother and father on their way home from work. To protect my mother and his unborn daughters, my father told the Peacekeepers that he had kidnapped my mother, and forced her to have the procedure. He was arrested that night, taken to the Detention Center and my mother never saw him again.

When we were born, my mother turned to our Uncle Orthus for help, and he took us in and helped my mother raise us. My mother was never quite the same after our father was taken. She is soft where she had been brave, and wise where she had been reckless, but she is still as kind and clever as ever. I am the closest to my mother, I enjoy her hobbies more than my sisters and I don't spend as much time out. It's hard sometimes, when I see the tiny shade of sympathy in Caria and Mysia's eyes when they look at her, but they mean the best.

My sister's and I are exceptionally close, we have a connection stronger than any relationship. I sometimes feel like we know each other better than we know ourselves. We disagree and bicker, but never seriously and nothing unites us faster than an outside attack. We're still not rich, but we make do and work hard when we have to. Our Uncle Orthus is very kind and has worked to keep my sisters and I from wanting.

I want them back
The minds we had
It's not enough to feel the lack
I want it!
You're the only friend I need
Sharing beds like little kids
We'll laugh until our ribs get tough
But that will never be enough

odair

ooc: this is the final Head Of Cerberus character.
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