petra ral . peacekeeper | wip

As far as Petra's father is concerned, she never had a mother. And for the longest time, it truly felt that way to her. She was raised an only child in the Capitol, given everything she wanted by her single father, but deep down she always felt that there was something missing, a piece to the puzzle that had been lost long ago —

her mother.

When she was young, she found a red beret sitting on the chest at the end of her father's bed. The chest is always locked up tight, and every time she would ask why she couldn't look inside, she would be met with silence and a grim look. She had taken the beret in her hands, run her fingers along its rim to feel the smooth fabric. And then her father saw her and ripped it away, ushering Petra out of the room and telling her never to touch anything that didn't belong to her.

"Everyone else has a mom," Petra once said to him. "Why don't I?"

"Some people just have one parent, Petra." His voice was always so bitter when he spoke of her.

She wondered if she looked like her; she did not resemble her father very much. He is fair-skinned and sharp-featured, with red hair and bright green eyes. Her hair is like his, only a darker shade of red; silken ginger-colored hair falls down to her shoulders, cut short in a blunt line. But her eyes are hazel, a dark forest green in some places but dappled with amber-brown in others; her features are smooth and the planes of her face are wide, not so pinched like her father's.

There was always this blurry image of her mother in her mind, but she could never truly solidify her idea of who she was. Petra knew she had to have a mother — but she may as well have never existed with the way her father talked about it. He had turned her into a ghost for seventeen years.

Mr. Ral worked in government; he had friends in high places. There was one particular family friend whose son had taken a fancy to Petra. Her father's friend also worked in government, and had access to records, and when Petra learned of his job, she couldn't help but think of the man as a way to find her mother. The easiest route was through his son, a spoiled boy who received everything he asked for from his father — and Petra figured that citizen records would be no exception. The boy would often brag about the secrets he found from his father, and Petra would giggle and blush, pretending to applaud such behavior. Truly, she held disdain for his ego.

She never had an interest in boys, but she supposed that if she could kindle a friendship with him, he could give her what she wanted: information about her mother. Every time she forced a smile to the boy, she felt a pang in deep in her stomach; Petra knew it was wrong, but she also knew that the boy's father had access to citizen records. It was her only chance to find out who her mother was — she could not have passed that up.