parker bowden ⊗ d10 ⊗ fin
Nov 24, 2016 23:33:45 GMT -5
Post by glissando on Nov 24, 2016 23:33:45 GMT -5
parker lyra bowden
your name is parker bowden.
you are thirteen years old.
you hail from district 10. you hate it, but you wouldn't have it any other way.
anyone who sees you would say you’re small.
and for what one could see with the eyes, you suppose they’re right. you stand at a mere four feet eleven inches, and you doubt you’ll grow much further. your mother’s only five feet, and you hope you can at least beat that. your competitive streak somehow finds room in your small frame, and so when wren calder from down the street says you look like a bag of bones, you curl your (admittedly bony) fingers into a fist and punch him. he was always an asshole anyway, you decide.
unlike you, your face is soft - kind, even, if a stranger were to judge. a bit plain, perhaps, and prone to acne, but you don’t care. you were never the type to try to scrape by on looks, and you don’t try to decorate with makeup like you see some of your friends do. (you can’t afford it, but you wouldn’t use it even if you could.) your eyes are a dark brown that you can’t quite see to the bottom of, and there is a certain mischief in them that gleams whenever you are up to something - and you are always up to something.
you usually keep your hair in a ponytail. it keeps your hair out of your face when you’re working, and you know your mother would prefer “ladylike” braids. you look more like her than either of you would like, from the round shape of your eyes to the angle of your nose, similarities you both choose to ignore.
your personalities, too, are more alike than you’d care to admit. you both have a certain ambition driving you, a need to bend the world to your will that drives everything you do. you have a difficult time accepting any way other than your own, and why wouldn’t you, really? everything you do is right. (at least, that is what you believe. the truth of it is doubtful.) if anything bad comes to pass, it is the fault of the unfair, cruel world, or perhaps your mother. never you. your arrogance, your mother says, will be your downfall. she is a hypocrite, but it is true.
you and your mother have plenty of differences, though. she has charm and tact and elegance and grace and you have your fists and your smart mouth and your quick mind, and just the common sense to make sure you use them outside of view of the peacekeepers and your teachers. girls whisper about you sometimes, about your missing father and your whore of a mother, but they know better than to try anything. you are not popular, but to your few friends you are loyal to a fault, supporting them through thick and thin and right and wrong. one of these days it will get you in trouble, but that day has not yet arrived.
even with your flaws, you are young, and you maintain a youthful stubbornness throughout everything. your anger, when pressed, knows no bounds, and when you lose your cool everything is let out. you pretend not to regret your harmful words, but when you are angry you are cruel, lashing out in every way you know how. your youth allows you a certain playfulness, too, and maybe if you were not so hardened by the world it would be endearing. instead, you look for mischief wherever you can start it and not got caught, fighting against nothing just to prove that you can.
you crave power, but deep down, you know you crave love, too.
perhaps it is because you haven’t received enough. that’s certainly what nysa overwhill from the grade above you says. she claims to pity you, but she’s just a gossip, speculating on why it is you do this or are like that, and all it does is make you wonder why someone can have so much of an interest in other people’s business. your mother is the same, but at least she has a reason. knowing everything about everyone allows her to get in good with all the higher-ups in district 10 business or politics or whatever, you don’t really care. a lot of people say she sleeps with them to get what she wants and you’re not sure if that’s true but it wouldn’t surprise you. she charms them out of their money to fuel whichever vice she currently wants to indulge and then moves on to the next.
your own father was different. they were almost real, your mother tells you when she’s drunk and willing to overshare, or so she thought. he left when you were five. you barely remember, and you don't really want to. now he’s the district drunk, or at least one of them, living in whatever bar’ll let him pass out on the ground. you never see him, and if you do, you can't recognize him. he’s not dead yet, but sometimes you wish he was, because maybe then you’d get sympathy (not pity, never pity) instead of whispers.
for now, you live. it's all you really can do. you work with the cows at wren calder’s family's ranch for enough spare change to get by, and rely on luck for the rest. all you do at your mother’s house is sleep, and that's how you like it. every waking moment you spend either at school or the ranch or at the city square, finding odd jobs to do wherever you can. and behind it all is a hope that someday, somehow, you will make it all better.
you have to.
you are thirteen years old.
you hail from district 10. you hate it, but you wouldn't have it any other way.
anyone who sees you would say you’re small.
and for what one could see with the eyes, you suppose they’re right. you stand at a mere four feet eleven inches, and you doubt you’ll grow much further. your mother’s only five feet, and you hope you can at least beat that. your competitive streak somehow finds room in your small frame, and so when wren calder from down the street says you look like a bag of bones, you curl your (admittedly bony) fingers into a fist and punch him. he was always an asshole anyway, you decide.
unlike you, your face is soft - kind, even, if a stranger were to judge. a bit plain, perhaps, and prone to acne, but you don’t care. you were never the type to try to scrape by on looks, and you don’t try to decorate with makeup like you see some of your friends do. (you can’t afford it, but you wouldn’t use it even if you could.) your eyes are a dark brown that you can’t quite see to the bottom of, and there is a certain mischief in them that gleams whenever you are up to something - and you are always up to something.
you usually keep your hair in a ponytail. it keeps your hair out of your face when you’re working, and you know your mother would prefer “ladylike” braids. you look more like her than either of you would like, from the round shape of your eyes to the angle of your nose, similarities you both choose to ignore.
your personalities, too, are more alike than you’d care to admit. you both have a certain ambition driving you, a need to bend the world to your will that drives everything you do. you have a difficult time accepting any way other than your own, and why wouldn’t you, really? everything you do is right. (at least, that is what you believe. the truth of it is doubtful.) if anything bad comes to pass, it is the fault of the unfair, cruel world, or perhaps your mother. never you. your arrogance, your mother says, will be your downfall. she is a hypocrite, but it is true.
you and your mother have plenty of differences, though. she has charm and tact and elegance and grace and you have your fists and your smart mouth and your quick mind, and just the common sense to make sure you use them outside of view of the peacekeepers and your teachers. girls whisper about you sometimes, about your missing father and your whore of a mother, but they know better than to try anything. you are not popular, but to your few friends you are loyal to a fault, supporting them through thick and thin and right and wrong. one of these days it will get you in trouble, but that day has not yet arrived.
even with your flaws, you are young, and you maintain a youthful stubbornness throughout everything. your anger, when pressed, knows no bounds, and when you lose your cool everything is let out. you pretend not to regret your harmful words, but when you are angry you are cruel, lashing out in every way you know how. your youth allows you a certain playfulness, too, and maybe if you were not so hardened by the world it would be endearing. instead, you look for mischief wherever you can start it and not got caught, fighting against nothing just to prove that you can.
you crave power, but deep down, you know you crave love, too.
perhaps it is because you haven’t received enough. that’s certainly what nysa overwhill from the grade above you says. she claims to pity you, but she’s just a gossip, speculating on why it is you do this or are like that, and all it does is make you wonder why someone can have so much of an interest in other people’s business. your mother is the same, but at least she has a reason. knowing everything about everyone allows her to get in good with all the higher-ups in district 10 business or politics or whatever, you don’t really care. a lot of people say she sleeps with them to get what she wants and you’re not sure if that’s true but it wouldn’t surprise you. she charms them out of their money to fuel whichever vice she currently wants to indulge and then moves on to the next.
your own father was different. they were almost real, your mother tells you when she’s drunk and willing to overshare, or so she thought. he left when you were five. you barely remember, and you don't really want to. now he’s the district drunk, or at least one of them, living in whatever bar’ll let him pass out on the ground. you never see him, and if you do, you can't recognize him. he’s not dead yet, but sometimes you wish he was, because maybe then you’d get sympathy (not pity, never pity) instead of whispers.
for now, you live. it's all you really can do. you work with the cows at wren calder’s family's ranch for enough spare change to get by, and rely on luck for the rest. all you do at your mother’s house is sleep, and that's how you like it. every waking moment you spend either at school or the ranch or at the city square, finding odd jobs to do wherever you can. and behind it all is a hope that someday, somehow, you will make it all better.
you have to.
(aaa first charrie! i'm super excited to be here
) 
