Post by reallivefiction on Aug 30, 2020 8:16:09 GMT -5
Name: Bryn Bagley
Age: 13
Gender: Girl
District/Area: District 10
Appearance:
Though Bryn only stood at 5’2”, she’d always longed to be taller. Her two older sisters and her mother all shared Bryn’s petite frame, each capping out at a healthy 5’5”. But Bryn didn’t want to be like them, and she felt like even one inch would make the difference.
Wavy auburn hair grew long over her bony shoulders. She’d sometimes tie it up with twine if she was mucking the paddocks, but most of the time it was left down for the winds to tussle how they pleased.
Muted brown freckles dotted the skin below and between her large brown eyes, leading down her button nose to her young, plump lips.
Despite how young she was, Bryn had quite the collection of scars; a few garnished each of her kneecaps from the time she’d fallen over the paddock fence, and one ran straight through the dimple of her chin from when she'd jumped from a too-tall stack of hay bales. She was proud of the marks on her body—they told a story. Her story.
Personality:
Bryn’s defining trait had always been her love for animals of all kinds. She considered them her closest friends, since she was rarely ever allowed to leave the farm. Whenever one of the animals was panicked and resistant, her father would call Bryn over to calm them down with her gentle touch. That was her purpose—her design, her father told her.
Bryn had never been particularly ambitious in or outside of school. Success to her meant living a life you were happy in and proud of, not making the most money or having the nicest things. If she had the opportunity, maybe she’d like to be an Animal Rights Activist. She was already a vegetarian despite food shortages, contributing to her thin frame. But chances were she’d be a farmer and a housewife, just like her parents wanted her to.
As Bryn grew older, she found herself running away from home more frequently. Most of the time, she’d return when she got hungry, but it was as if nobody in her family had noticed. Maybe they didn’t. She dreamed of escaping for good one day, but to where? Nobody in District 10 was allowed to leave and almost all of Panem was just as oppressed as they were.
When visitors came to the house, Bryn tried her best to be the charming, obedient child everyone expected her to be. Her social interaction with people outside of her family was limited, so she had trouble finding the right things to say and often came off as awkward. When the right person came along, though, she felt as if she could stay in their company forever. This was the case with Julea, a friend she’d made whose father then was relocated to the Capitol. Bryn wasn’t able to stay in contact.
History:
If you asked Bryn, she’d say she was raised more by her farm’s livestock than her own parents. That was the only explanation she had as to why she could communicate so well with animals—not so much with spoken language, but just a look. A touch. She realized all of this the night the wolf pack strolled onto their farm. Bryn could feel the fear and panic of the pigs left out in the pen, waking her from her sleep. She forcefully woke her father, who was not pleased to have been startled awake. Fortunately, he was fast enough to send one loud blast from his rifle, which was enough to drive the wolves away.
Bryn was the youngest of three daughters, the oldest of which had already married and was starting a family of her own. In Bryn’s family, the men led the household, and the women complied with their every wish. Bryn’s father told her that one day, she’d be married off to one of the Carver boys—the Carver family owned the largest cattle farm in all of District 10. But Bryn didn’t want to marry any of the Carvers. She was thirteen, much too young to think about marriage. But by this point, she’d already decided she never wanted to marry at all. The older she grew, the more she understood that, whether by the Capitol or by her own father, she was forced to be of service as long as she followed their orders.
This disenchantment didn’t come easily to Bryn. For years, she’d lived under the belief that Panem was doing everything they could to support the districts. Then “Liquidation Day” came. At the time, Bryn didn’t understand what this meant, but her father mentioned it several times over supper the night before. It was the first time in a long time she’d seen him so jolly. Liquidation Day was a good thing, it seemed. A day to rejoice in the mercy and generosity of the Capitol.
In reality, Liquidation Day referred to the mass slaughter of all grown livestock in District 10, and this year, the Bagley farm had “won” the lottery. The next morning, Bryn found her dairy cow, Daisy, with its throat slashed hanging from the barn rafters to bleed out. That was the day Bryn realized that nobody was on her side but her. Her father, mother, sisters… None of them could protect her, so she’d have to do it herself. Disobedience in Panem was a death wish, but Bryn was confident that, in time, she’d find a way to make all of them pay.
