pioneers! o' pioneers!

BASIC INFORMATION

full name: roland dearborn nicknames: tba- he's not really a nickname guy but i'm totally open to people coming up with creative nicknames!! age: forty-eight birthday: may 7th zodiac: taurus district: ten gender: cis male pronouns: he / him orientation: bisexual profession: ranch hand, tribute, ranch supervisor, mentor

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

face claim: pedro pascal hair color: brown with the start of salt and pepper streaks eye color: brown height: 5'11" scars: 

RELATIONSHIPS

father: william dearborn ( deceased ) mother: gabrielle dearborn ( deceased ) siblings: none extended family: none

TRIBUTE DETAILS

reaped/volunteered: reaped reaped age: 17 victor of the: 61st hunger games weapon of choice: machete arena: a multi-tiered jungle where the tributes were launched on the third tier with a crashed airship, tangled in enormous branches served as the cornucopia. think mcdonald's playhouse style jungle. kill count: six allegedly-- four direct token: braided leather necklace with a rook's skull

EXTRA

mbti: istj-t ( the logistician ) temperament: phlegmatic   moral alignment: true neutral primary vice: pride primary virtue: diligence element: earth

BACKSTORY

TW: animal death ( in relation to the livestock industry ), parent death, general hunger games violence, suicide/suicidal thoughts/ideations

you don't realize how blessed your childhood was-- in comparison. your father was mayor and one of the last 'landowners' in the district, with 100 acres of wild, open country leased from the capitol. once upon another life, he would've been called a cattle baron; damned if he didn't do everything he could to take care of his barony. when you're a child, your parents are god and when you're small, there is not a better example of good than your parents. your life is comfortable in a time when so many aren't but your father extends that comfort as much as he can. as mayor of the district, he stood as a stalwart advocate for his people, always toeing the line but never doing anything outright to warrant his execution-- knowing if president snow did call for his removal ( or worse ) there would be an outcry in district ten that would result in a much bigger problem for the capitol. ( it's no wonder things unfold the way they did-- but you're getting ahead of yourself. )

you thank fate that you weren't born in an urban district-- because while the hand of the capitol inched further and further to shadow that happy childhood with each passing year, you were blessed with space to grow and roam. you were in a saddle from the time you could walk and you grew up around punchy ranch hands who taught you more than any schoolhouse ever could. it was their hands that guided yours to bring a calf into this world and taught you how to dispatch those meant for slaughter. they showed you the native flora and fauna of your district, showing you what plants could soothe and heal; they taught you how to build a cook fire and how to build a shelter. at the time, you thought you were learning what all young people needed to know- why else would they gather you and your friends, taking time out of their days to patiently guide your hands and answer hundreds of questions? ( it's only when you're running for your life do you realize fully all of it was to prepare you-- how these men and women in your life had watched peers, friends, family die year after year for the games and they wanted you and your friends to have a fighting chance-- but you're not there yet, we're building up to it. )

the first person you lose to the games is alain. you're thirteen, standing at the reaping with the hot july sun beating down on you, standing between your best friends since infancy- alain and bert- when his name is called. alain leaves your side and it almost feels like the remainder of your childhood is ripped away with his leaving. he dies in the bloodbath; as much as you loved him ( and you did-- he was gentle and soft-spoken and precocious compared to wild bert, honest to a fault, genuine and empathetic-- ), you're not surprised he's gone as quickly as he is. bert becomes angry when alain returns to district ten in a pine box; you go quiet. not that you were ever particularly verbose- a fact that bert would brow beat you with now that alain is gone- but the absence of his gentleness leaves only bert's sharpness to crash against your stone. ( you smooth parts of his sharpness and he carves a place in your heart no one else could ever occupy. ) you both cling to each other the next year and the years after. ( his hand almost breaks yours when they read your name-- that's always a painful memory to revisit... )

when you're fifteen a new head peacekeeper is assigned to district ten. you're with your father and mother when he departs the train-- your father's hand meeting his with a firm shake and steely eyes. a gaze you have learned over the years is an unspoken warning; you're in my district. at first, it seems as if general marten understands the assignment; nothing drastic changes. you aren't paying attention to the small things that start to seep through the district- how streets that maybe saw one or two patrols a day started to have a peacekeeper on every corner, how they started walking in pairs more more, how they began to push at the boundaries and wills of the district. your father is called to the capitol- discussing district production and demands ( the things his father swore he would teach him one day but one day never came ) - but the calls come more and more frequent and it feels like that hand from the capitol stretches further and further to cover the district.

you're a young man trying to fill in your father's boots while he's away-- life in the district continues, cows ( and people ) have to be fed. you're out from the moment the sun rises until it starts to sink under the horizon, so busy trying to take care of your father's house that you don't notice the snake that's sneaked in. you're not sure why you were looking for your mother but you follow the smell of magnolia to her bedroom, opening the door to what used to be a sanctuary in your childhood to the clipped zip of a peacekeeper uniform. marten slips past you and part of you wants to kill him-- part of you isn't wholly sure you wouldn't have if you had the tools to ensure that swift departure. you never speak of it to your mother and her shame is palpable. ( your cold fury and her shame drives a wedge between the two of you that is never bridged. ) you wait for your father to return to the district- ready for him to take the mantle of responsibility from your shoulders and to deal with the varmint that has taken up residence in his bed; he doesn't return, not until you're thousands of miles away in the capitol. ( you can't think about the last time you saw him; some memories are best left buried. )

you're seventeen and it's reaping day-- you're seventeen and your name is called. ( sometimes you can still feel the echo of how your hand had ached in bert's as he clung to you, brown eyes filled with tears mirroring your own as you wrench away from him. ) from the stage, you can see your mother weeping, held by the men and women who stare at you with love ( and perhaps, cautious hope ); from the stage you can see the smug expression of marten, his peacekeeper's visor casting an dark shadow across his face. you'd never be able to prove it, but in your heart that injustice takes root. you know he made this possible-- you know that he's sending you off to your death.

they come to see you before you leave- your mother, your mentors and bert. your mother tries to hold your hands, gripping calloused palms and reminding you that she loves you- she loves you more than life itself, roland ( won't you please just look at her? )- pressing a kiss to your forehead, the space between your eyes. you remember each hand that shook yours or arms that enveloped you in brief reminders of love; you don't remember when the room cleared and it was just you and bert. he cries openly- you've never shamed him for his tears, he's always felt things more sharply than you- rough palms holding your face as his forehead presses against yours ( you linger in this memory even though you hate to remember it-- ). he takes the braided leather necklace that hangs around his neck, the strand of leather looping between the eye-holes of a rook skull and places it over your neck. his lookout- it's what he called it when he looped the braid around his saddle horn, the brilliant bone-white skull bouncing as they rode; maybe you'll need a lookout in the arena-- or the capitol.

it's the capitol that you don't know how to navigate- the moment the train pulls into the station, you feel closed in. you try hard to keep your distance from your district partner despite there being more than a few threads that connect you and tug. you've known her since childhood- you've known her as a woman. she reaches for your hand on the train and you pull away but when they load you onto the chariots for the parade, a cartoonish wide brimmed hat placed on your head that covers the look of alarm that crosses your expression when she almost flies back at the sudden movement of the horses, your hand immediately bracing the small of hers in a practiced movement. a movement caught by cameras and your escort gushes about the moment caught on camera- your hand steadying her as you fly down the avenue, her face turning to look at you with that doe-ish expression of hers, your face shadowed by the hat-- and how the capitol will eat you up. ( and they do-- they chew you up and spit you out, chew you up and spit you out, chew you-- ) you say nothing, even when she calls out to you in that bell-tone, her small foot stamping at your bullheadedness, your god-damned stubborn ass as you close the door.

your cold shoulder apparently isn't cold enough because she sticks to your side like glue in the training room, mimicking every movement you take- if you pick up a weapon, her hand curls around it's equal; if you wander towards stations with survival skills- locating freshwater, setting up shelter, starting a fire- she is crouched beside you, those dark eyes staring intently at your temple. you lose your patience with her only when you both return to the tenth floor quarters, your voice never raising but each word razor sharp. you say whatever you have to ( you wish you hadn't said most of it by half ) and even when those large doe eyes fill with tears and she screams at you not to leave her to die alone, you stand stony-faced, unmovable. you both know the games too well; susan had also loved alain. she wants comfort; you want to go home. your arms ache to take her in them, to smooth her hair with kisses and whisper sweet nothings to take away the reality-- you think at the time it would be crueler if you did. ( in hindsight, you were only cruel to both of you. )

your stylists- to their credit- paint a beautiful picture of the two of you for the interview: a man in black and a prairie angel. susan goes first ( ladies first ) and you'd never wished to be impolite more in your life when she drags those threads between you under the dazzling glow of stage lights. she tells them about laying under a blanket stars, deliveries of handfuls of wildflowers, dancing under festival lantern light-- she tells them about the love. first love- an ache everyone in the audience can relate to. ( she doesn't tell them how it ended; how as much love there was between you, there was maturing to be done-- right person, wrong time-- ) and when your name is called and you step out into the blinding lights, you know what she's done: you're cornered. you'll have to be there when she dies.

your team scolds you for being, well, you during your interview. susan had painted this tragic picture of first love- of doomed love- and you had remained tight lipped and stone-faced in front of caesar, not playing into the questions that poked and prodded at the life you never wanted to share with the capitol. susan asks if she can stay with you the night before the launch and even though you're furious with her for dragging your life under those lights, even though you know that you're setting yourself up for heartache ( oh, you can't even begin to imagine the heartache you're in for-- ) you let her curl against your chest. in another life and another time, you would've been grateful to have her heart beating against your ribcage again. right now, you can hardly sleep for fear of missing a single beat. she reaches for your hand after they inject your tracker and you don't fight it this time, letting her soft fingers slip between the grooves of your rough ones, only letting go when they pull her away.

a peacekeeper in your launch room takes the rook's skull in his fist and your body tenses-- and when that fist clenches and the frail bird bones shatter in his fist, other white gloved hands hold you back from lashing forward. words fall from their lips but you don't hear them, all you can see is red and you're thrown in the tube, watching those bone fragments fall to the ground, crushed further to dust under that boot before darkness takes your vision. the platform rises and you're greeted with a swath of green as far as your eye can see, save for the creaking and torn wreckage directly in front of you. you can hardly see around it for how it seems to split the tributes-- you can't see susan. it doesn't matter once the horn sounds and your feet fly from the podium, barely touching the greenery underneath you. your gaze is focused on the pack directly in front of you and your hand grabs it quickly when a blade comes down the back of your curled knuckles.

you're lucky that blade is wielded by arms that aren't strong enough to cleave through bone and it's without thinking that you throw your elbow back, slamming into his chest and as he goes down, it's almost as if the ground cushions him for a moment before it sinks and he falls screaming. over the screaming, over the clash of weapons, you hear a crack and then another and another-- you don't spare much time to wonder what happened. when you grab the machete that had bit into your last three knuckles on your right hand, your fingers brush against that greenery and it's the texture of leaves. the career girl from four charges at you and without thinking, you roll towards that place that had swallowed your attacker-- and you fall deeper into the arena.

your left hand is your saving grace- the right one bleeding and those last three fingers going numb as you cling to that weapon- because it catches a branch before you crash to the thick vegetation below you. the fighting continues on above you but as you hang, you see more bodies falling through those holes in the canopy either silenced by the violence above or screaming before they slam against branches and they hit the unforgiving ground. you see others who have figured out the same as you, scared faces gripping tree trunks for dear life-- trying to figure out which was safer: up or down. it would only be a matter of time before the fight would be brought to this next level and you slowly- painfully- choose to move. pressing your body against the trunk, you weave in and out of branches, the throb in your hand becoming almost nauseating as you force those useless finger to grip to keep from falling.

it's dark under the shadow of the leaves that cover the sky but it's impossibly dark by the time you reach the fern covered floor. you're exhausted but you're not stopping until you find water. you tear the sleeve from your arm and wrap your hand, cradling it against your chest and grip that machete in your left hand- a hand not used to handling anything, much less a weapon necessary for your survival- venturing forward into that oppressive dark. you don't find water that first night-- you don't find water until the third morning. your hand is red and infected and your mind is fuzzy with the fever and when you fall into the spring, you could care less if you died then and there. ( you almost do. )

his name is eddie from district 6- another seventeen year old with acne and a chip on his shoulder- who finds you passed out next to the spring. her name is susanna from district 8- an eighteen year old with a foot turned in so dramatically that it's amazing she wasn't taken out in the bloodbath- and she uses medicine gifted to her by sponsors on the infection, wrapping your hand in strips from the blanket tucked inside her pack. his name is jake- a thirteen year old from twelve who watches you with wide eyes that have seen more life than you have- and he helps eddie carry you to the cave the three of them have tucked themselves inside. you wake up two days later to their faces and for a moment, you forget where you are. when it comes rushing back and you reach for that machete with a hand that no longer beats with your heart but still throbs and shoots pain up your arm when you try to grip it, their voices fall over each other in pleas to listen-- to ally with them. you have a higher tribute score- they saw you in the training center, broad shoulders and sure hands- they see some sort of salvation in you that you want to run from.

they tell you that there's only ten left in the area- the four of you, the three careers, the boy and girl from seven, and susan. they tell you there's strength in numbers; they tell you they'll help you find susan. the five of you could take care of the five of them; once the careers and the two from seven ( who had grown up in trees the way you had out in the prairie ) were gone, they would go their separate ways. at least then they would have a fighting chance. maybe it's the faded sickness, maybe it's the hope that susan is still alive in the arena, maybe it's the earnest way that susanna and jake look at you that convinces you to agree. you move slow through the arena- eddie carrying susanna on his back for the majority of the journey, her arms looped around his neck and her knees tucked in the crooks of his elbows. jake stays almost constant at your elbow and there's times when his chatter grates on your nerves but you wonder if he's trying to get out everything he could possibly want to say before he can't speak anymore-- and that stays your tongue.

you lose susanna to a snake that strikes as eddie sets her down in a blanket of thick ferns. he turns his back before he hears her gasp in pain, turning back in time to crush the head of the snake under his boot but not in time to keep those fangs from sinking into the delicate skin of her ankle. you lather on the medicine that had pulled the infection from your body to no avail. it's a slow poison that mottles the skin of her leg as it travels and she chokes and shakes for hours. eddie grips her hand and jake stands behind him with understanding in his expression when your eyes meet-- it's cruel to make her suffer. eddie tries to fight you- tears and snot flying as his hands shove at you, trying to cover as much of her with himself as he can- and it's jake's voice- that chatter quieted to a solemn whisper- that pulls the fight from him. they bear witness as you look into her eyes that have turned red with the blood pooling in them- seeing that begging in them- before you sink eddie's knife into her chest and susanna goes still.

her cannon booms and when you turn back, eddie is gone. his face shows in the sky after susanna's that night and you're not sure how he goes but your heart aches at the loss of both of them. jake stays with you-- you feel responsible for him now that eddie and susanna are both gone. you've lost track of time between the launch and now but susan's face still hasn't appeared in the sky. you decide to leave the jungle floor after the rumble in your stomach - and scarce choice for hunting- forces you back towards the cornucopia. jake follows behind you until he can't, the branch above out his arms reach. you press your belly against the limb and hold out your left hand for him to grab ( your right grip will never be the same ). his feet leave the branch, hand outstretched to grab hold of yours and you feel his smaller hand grip your wrist for a split second before the sweat that gathered on both of your skin has your hands slipping, jake falling towards the ground with his eyes wide open-- and you scream. ( they'll cut that part out later- focus on the moment his hand leaves yours and zoom in on his wide eyes as he falls- and add him to your kill count. )

jake's face lights up the sky with the two from seven. susan is the only thing you can think of now as you tie yourself to a tree trunk, back pressed up against it as that blackness settles around you. a gift from a sponsor floats from the canopy- your first and only- filled with a warm stew that's familiar and comforting in a way you can't put your finger on. you sleep soundly with a full belly and when you wake, there's a new drive in you to reach the cornucopia. ( you want this to be over- you want to find susan-- you want this to be over -- ) you push yourself hard, sweat pouring down your face and drenching your clothes before you finally push yourself into that initial clearing you had launched from.

the careers see your face-- you see susan's. the girl from one has a knife to her shining throat and you realize that you both must have had the same thought of climbing to the cornucopia; she must have just broken through as well. there's no time for taunts or shows of bravado-- you drag yourself up onto that quasi- solid leaf cover and charge. the boys from two and four rush to meet you but your eyes aren't on them but on the blood that beads up from that blade pressed against susan's throat as it draws across it. you'll see in the footage later the moment your mind snaps- how you scream in rage before that machete blade bites into the place where two's neck meets shoulder, wrenching it free in time to swing it wildly, biting into the side of four. their blades draw their own blood- the tip of a sword slicing the skin across your cheek and through the cartilage of your ear, biting into the flesh of your thigh- but susan drops and you feel nothing except for that rage. the girl from one is the last one your blade fells and her blood splatters across your face-- that you remember with startling clarity ( that's when the memory comes back into focus. )

only three cannons have boomed and when you sink down to your knees, pulling susan against your chest while red pours from her throat, you beg god or the capitol or whoever will listen that hers booms soon. you brush the dark hair from her face and you weep, tears tracing through the red splatter and painting streaks of violence down your closed throat. you can't get the words out- how sorry you were, how much you wished you could unsay and take back, how honored you were to have been loved by her even for a time- and when her eyes go sightless and her cannon booms, you cradle her in your arms before standing. the cameras cut as the upper canopy separates, the last frame of the 61st hunger games being you standing with your dead first love in your arms- a dark silhouette against verdant green.

they call you butcher- replaying the moment you lost your mind on the big screen- cheering your savagery while you sit numbly in your victory. you return home an orphan; they tell you that your father returned to district 10 after your reaping and killed himself when they were all certain the infection would take you. you won't say it but you know your father-- he would've never killed himself, not out of grief. your father would've taken that grief and put it to work. ( you find out later from those loyal men and women who have worked alongside your father your entire life how the place had flooded with peacekeepers, how they weren't permitted near the house until after they left and found william dearborn with a single gunshot to the back of his head. ) suicide seems to run in the family because your mother, stricken with grief, had also taken her life after finding your father dead in his office, burying a knife in her own chest. ( this end makes sense- thinking she has lost her man and her son, faced with the shame of her infidelity and the prospect of life after; you don't fault her for it but you haven't forgiven her for it. )

the house ( your ancestral home ) is taken over by general marten in the wake of your parents death; the ranch ( your ranch by birthright ) is taken over by the capitol and you are moved to the row of houses that make you feel claustrophobic. you are desperate for life to return as normal while understanding that life will never be the same-- the district ten you left is not the one you've come home to. your father is dead and a weak man with marten's hand up his ass takes his position as mayor. peacekeepers flood the district and that freedom of your childhood is shrunken down into working hours-- that is until july rolls around.

it becomes a cycle-- for the majority of the year, your mind is home. you don't have the land or the home but you have your horse and you have your men and even if everything has changed, the name dearborn still evokes some sense of loyalty and respect; nothing is given to you that you haven't had to work for now, but years give experience and it's not long before you're running the ranch you grew up on-- the ranch that is yours in blood, sweat and tears but never again in name. once july rolls around and the years reaping has yielded two more tributes for district ten, your mind is on them. you try so hard those first ten years- try so hard to do everything in your power to bring them home. some years you're lucky-- most you're not. ( it wears on the soul, doesn't it? the weight of failure year after year of bringing home pine boxes to bury instead of children back to their families. )

bert stays steadfast beside you even when you try and force him away; bert stays sharp and when he and others in the district come to you with conspiratorial whispers, you damn him for involving you in something that'll leave you both dead. for a brief moment, that doesn't seem like the worst outcome. it's a disorganized effort and there's a moment when those bullets fly, slamming into your shoulder and chest and you fall back that you think you'll find that relief-- that after fifteen years of the cycle ( home, reaping, capitol, pinewood boxes ) that your eyes will close and susan will be waiting for you with alain and your parents at the clearing at the end of the path. you wake up a day later, chest aching and sore but alive-- damnably alive. you bury bert and the others that fell in that suicide mission; you curse the capitol that you aren't sleeping beside them.

the cycle continues- home, reaping, capitol, pinewood boxes- and so you continue. you try to be a man your father would be proud of- you work hard, you take care of your community in the small ways that you can- home and in the capitol. ( no one knows the torment in your mind like those who have seen the arena-- no one comes out of the arena without some torment. ) the announcement of the 92nd hunger games stirs that old, almost-forgotten fury in your chest; it's not the threat of it being you ( gods, you hope it is, you're so ready to be done-- ) but the threat against those that you have fought like hell to see to the other end of the arena-- it's the threat to your people. that cold fury burns in your chest as the days tick down to reaping and while part of you hopes and prays it's your name called, part of you is resolute to do everything you can to keep this from happening again- to you or them. gods damn you if you know even where to begin. you've been so stuck in that cycle now that you want to break free, you have no idea where to look.

ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ, ʙᴜᴛ ɴᴏᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ, ɢᴜɴꜱʟɪɴɢᴇʀ. ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀ ʏᴏᴜ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴀʀᴋʟᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴛɪɴᴄᴛ. ᴍᴀʏ ɪ ʙᴇ ʙʀᴜᴛᴀʟʟʏ ꜰʀᴀɴᴋ? ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴏ ᴏɴ.

TFLDR;

roland was the only son to the mayor of district 10 and grew up privileged compared to a lot of folks in the districts.

grew up surrounded with the folk who worked on the ranch his father ran, learning how to ride a horse, care for the cattle and general survival skills he never thought he'd need ( guess again! )

lost one of his besties to the games when he was 13.

a new head peacekeeper shows up when he's fifteen and his dad is suddenly away at the capitol more and more; he's 16 going on 17 when he catches his mother in an affair with the head peacekeeper.

a few months later, he's reaped. convenient.

his district partner was an ex-girlfriend-susan- his first love. he tries to keep his distance from her but she pretty much drags their history into the light and paints them as these doomed lovers. he straight hates it but only bc it's true.

his arena was a multi-tiered jungle setting with a crashed zeppelin type apparatus as the cornucopia.

he's attacked right off the bat and knocks a kid to his death but not before the kid fucks his right hand up with a machete-- that he ofc picks up and keeps with him the whole time.

almost dies of dehydration and infection, finding water around day three and is found by three other tributes who have banded together- eddie from six, susanna from eight and jake from twelve. they spare him, helping to heal his wound with medicine from sponsors-- ofc he allies himself with them afterwards with promises they'll find susan.

when one of his allies dies-susanna0 bitten by poisonous snake but mercy killed by roland- eddie leaves their makeshift team and ends up in the sky next to her.

the little one- jake from twelve- sticks with him but falls to his death when the two of them try to climb back up to the cornucopia; the gamemakers edit the footage to make it look like roland drops him to his death.

he makes it to the cornucopia, greeted by three remaining careers and susan who has her throat slit by the girl from one. roland McFreakin Loses It™ and kills the two remaining boys from two and the girl from one before holding susan as she bleeds out in his arms.

his parents die while he is at the games- both from apparent suicide but roland has Serious Doubts about his father killing himself. he loses the house, the ranch, the status and is just a mentor stuck in victors village.

goes to work at the ranch that was his and over the years has worked his way up to being a supervisor; gets caught in the cycle of his Life and the Capitol

gets looped into some wild scheme by his best friend to fight back-- everyone dies but him and he's forced to live with that

very much was Stuck in the cycle up until this last games announcement. now he's fucking Mad

isn't Involved with the rebellion but the spirit is willing ( open for that to be a connection we work on in the rp!! )

personality wise? he's very stoic- not a man of many words ( he's never been but tbh it's gotten worse over the years )- but is like a bulldog with how he won't let go of something once he has it in his head-- very determined, almost to the point of obsession at points.

BASIC INFORMATION

full name: rory hawthorne . . . 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 . . . aurelius cragg nicknames: rory, ror age: thirty birthday: august 16 . . . 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 . . . august 6 zodiac: leo district: twelve . . . 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 . . . two  gender: cis male pronouns: he / him orientation: bisexual profession: miner, rebel . . . 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚋𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 . . . undercover peacekeeper

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

face claim: kiowa gordon hair color: dark brown eye color: dark brown height: 5'10" scars: a patchwork of lash scars across his back and shoulders- varying from some that are roped with thick, purple scar tissue and others that are just that permanent angry red; a thin scar on the bottom of his chin from busting it when he was a kid; a scar above his left eye from a peacekeeper's baton, a three inch scar from a bullet graze on his right shoulder

RELATIONSHIPS

father: tba hawthorne ( deceased ) mother: hazelle hawthorne  siblings: gale ( older brother ), vick ( younger brother ), posy ( younger sister ) significant other: tba

EXTRA

mbti: esfp-t ( the consul  ) temperament: sanguine - choleric   moral alignment: chaotic good primary vice: wrath primary virtue: diligence element:fire playlist & pinterest

BACKSTORY

TW: parent death, whipping, police & gun violence

ᴏɴᴄᴇ ɪ ʜᴀᴅ ᴀ ʀᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ, ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪᴛ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʙᴇ ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɪ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇʟ, ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴇɴᴅ ɪ ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴇᴇ

the day your father dies is etched in your memory with startling clarity-- how the shouting from the mines had carried throughout the district, how the peacekeeper uniforms turned a dingy grey with the coal dust as some jumped in alongside the miners trying to dig out the collapsed shaft ( the same ones whose faces you'll recognize frequenting the hob, the same ones who pay or trade for the game gale brings back after he learns to hunt and never ask how or where he got it ); the feeling of how tightly gale holds your hand as you stand with your mother just outside of the mine, waiting for that blurred face to be pulled out- broken and limp. you remember the noise your mother made- not a scream or a wail of grief but a low moan that reverberated so deep that it's permanently etched in the walls of your mind- as her legs go out from under her and gale's hand leaves yours to catch her; you don't know the name for the noise but over the years, you grow so used to hearing it from the corner of the home where she huddles around baby posy or vick- both who are too small to know what's going on- and one day the word comes to you: despair.

you're not the only ones who lost a father in the accident and out of that tragedy is some bright spot: the everdeens. your mothers both share that empty stare of losing the men they loved who stood between their children and starvation; your mothers both share oldest children who step in to be fathers. gale gets katniss and you get prim; while the two of them go hunt, crossing over that forbidden line of the boundary, the two of you share the fullness of childhood-- a childhood that your older siblings had cut short in order for you to experience. a childhood in the seam- raised by the seam because while gale is away and your mother is away there is still that guiding presence with other mothers balancing babies on their hips who scrub your dirty, tear stained face with the corners of thin aprons and wash your scrapes with cool water and old timers ( whose bodies are too hunched and frail to work in the mines, chests constantly rattling with coal dust that's glued to the inside of their lungs ) who bark at you from dirt porches when you get too rowdy with other kids and the play fighting turns to real fighting. as you get older, they find chores for you to do- the old timers tell you it's good for your character, the other mothers tell you you're doing them a great favor saving their men and sons from the extra work after coming home from the mines- rewarding you with whatever little they can spare. everyone knows the hawthornes have got more than their fair share of open mouths and empty bellies; everyone knows the weight of the family has fallen on gale. they tell you that you should help your brother however you can.

you learn about the tesserae when you're ten-- you hear gale and katniss talking about it and the number of times gale's name has been added to the reaping bowl makes your stomach turn- truly full for the first time since the last time he collected tesserae and it makes you sick with fear and worry. you understand the reapings by now and you cling to gale later, unable to tell him what's wrong when he asks-- afraid that if you open your mouth, you'll get sick and waste the food your brother had paid for with his life. because if he gets picked, you know that's what it means-- twelve hadn't had a victor in longer than either of you have been alive and while you think he could win, there's always that very real possibility that he wouldn't; and you can't imagine a world without your brother. you're still too young to take out the tessarae for yourself- for your siblings- and you bite down on your tongue when gale comes back with the proof that he had yet again; you want to help your brother but you don't know how.

the morning of your first reaping, it's gale who gets you up, who fills the tin tub with heated water and scrubs at your skin until you yelp, who combs your hair- trying desperately to get it to lay flat- and helps to button your shirt when your hands shake. it's gale's last year, he's an old pro by now-- but you counted. and you know how many slips of paper have his name on them and your singular one floats in that sea of white but it's not you that you're afraid for. when you see prim's face and how scared she is, you smother your own fear-- you can't be strong for gale but you can be strong for her-- and the only moment you let it slip out before your arm wraps around her shoulders ( because younger kids go to the front, you can't stand with those pillars of strength in the back ) is when you look back at gale, seeking reassurance in his eyes. it won't be us, you tell prim, whispering in her ear like it's a secret before you have to go to one side and her the other, after this, we'll play pirates. when they call her name your heart stops beating, eyes wild to find her face as she stumbles out like a lost lamb into the aisle before you look back to find gale-- but the moment katniss' voice raises your eyes go to her.

you don't play pirates after-- you sit with prim while she cries and later after the stars have come out and you walk prim home, you take charge of home- getting vick and posy dinner and getting them in bed, tucking a blanket around your mother's shoulders- trying to, without words, take some of the weight off gale's shoulders. you sit quietly with gale for as long as he'll let you. there's a question sitting behind your teeth and there's times when that silence between you two feels so heavy that it almost slips out but it never does; would you have volunteered for me? the part of your mind that knows your brother loves you in the same way that katniss loves prim has no doubt that if it had been the reverse of the coin, that gale would've taken that burden from you-- just like he had taken every burden for the last five years; the part of your mind that is growing up knows that gale couldn't leave posy and vick, both of them younger than both of you. you don't have to wonder if you'd volunteer for him-- you also couldn't leave vick or posy... and you're still afraid of dying. the air is heavy and you don't say anything because you know gale is hurting but, you're relieved-- relieved it's not going to be him. you hate that it's katniss because the people you love most in the world are in pain because of it-- but he's safe and after all those years of putting himself at risk of the games, he's not ever going to have to go there. and for that, you're grateful.

ɪ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛᴇᴅ ᴍʏ ᴍɪꜱꜰᴏʀᴛᴜɴᴇ, ɪ ᴀᴅᴅᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴀᴍᴇ ɪ ᴘɪᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀʀʙᴀɢᴇ, ɪ ᴄʜᴇᴄᴋᴇᴅ ᴏꜰꜰ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴀᴍᴇꜱ

they both come back- katniss and peeta- and everything changes. there are new peacekeepers with grim faces that seem to flood the district; there's a distance to gale that you can't understand. you ask him to teach you to hunt- you want to help, that's all you want to do because the weight of the world seems to be weighing him down-- but there's never time. they burn the hob and strap gale to a whipping post-- you're out gathering wood, trying to lighten that load on gale's shoulders and don't find out until someone finds you- arms laden with the driest pieces you can find with the snow as thick as it is- and regales the news to you; you drop the wood and run to the opposite side of the district, racing for that aisle of houses where prim lives now. another sound etches itself into the halls of your mind, taking up residence next to your mother's moan of despair: the sound of your brother screaming in pain. you help to hold him down, jaw clenched tightly and tears silently rolling down your face as hands that have lost the softness of childhood grip at his arm, desperate to keep him still while prim and her mother work-- until he falls still and quiet.

you don't want to leave him. you have to get back to vick and posy and mom. you don't know how you're going to carry him home- you're taller and your shoulders have started to broaden but it's a good trek back to the seam and gale can't move. you can never repay their kindness. you don't want to leave him. you promise to come back after you've got vick and posy in bed; you're reminded there's a curfew-- if you look back and examine it, maybe this is where that rebellious spark ignited in your chest because you don't care. you only try it the once, almost caught by those patrolling peacekeepers but you come back to the house and you sit with him that first night, shoulder pressed against the corner of the kitchen where he's laid out, head resting against the wall, sitting vigil silently. while gale heals you pick up more and more odd jobs where you can; you take his bow and sneak past the boundary-- and almost lose his arrows, spending most of the time trying to find where they've fallen. when the time comes, you take out the tesserae for yourself, vick and posy. gale can't do it anymore but you can and you want so desperately to just help him; the two of you end up fighting, your crackling voice ( changing because you're growing, you're getting older, you can help more-- ) raised in anger and exasperation. you just wanted to help.

when he comes home in that crisp white uniform, baton at his hip, you almost think it's a joke-- and honestly, you treat it like a joke. you're an angry teenager because the reality of life in your district is starting to actualize in your mind, how these white clad thugs walked around as if they owned the damn district, harassing folk who had generations buried in this ground, how they had damn near killed gale-- and he's parading around in one of their uniforms. he tells you he has to work-- you don't understand why he can't keep working in the mines like everyone else in the damn district. it's a cause of friction between you two that only softens the slightest bit when gale becomes involved in the rebellion with you following half a step behind him whether he wanted you to or not. you tell gale he doesn't have to provide for you anymore when you start working in the mines at sixteen. you're sick of him carrying your weight and whether he likes it or not, he's sharing vick and posy's with you-- you can provide for this family too. gale might be too good for the mines but you're not. you can help too.

the coal dust that clings to the threads of gale's hand-me-downs that you're quickly growing out of clashes against that crisp white uniform; and you continue to clash against your brother. over time, that clashing slows and ceases, seeing the evidence of your brother using his position to help where he can, to aid rebellion efforts at home and away. there's a lot you learn about your brother as you get older and go through all the ages he has already experienced, viewing them through the lens of your own life in one eye and his through another; there's a lot you've never thanked him for and aren't sure you'll ever really know how to. he works in his position and you work in yours and at the end of the day, you both come home-- that's the part that matters: you both come home.

you're twenty-three and still in the mines: eyes burning and red from the dust that falls in them, face with dark lines etched in your skin making you look older than you are, chest already starting to rattle with the start of that miner's lung. the older man next to you starts grabbing at his chest and you call for a halt, trying to help him get seated, shoving a canteen in his hand as he rubs at the spot breathing shallow through the dark dust that tries to settle. peacekeepers have joined the foremen in the mines, making sure production doesn't halt, pushing you deeper and deeper-- and just as you've got the man seated, gasping in pain as he rubs his chest, they push again. you start to argue on behalf of the man- his chest is hurting, he should see see a healer at the very least he deserves a moment to rest and catch his breath! a baton whips across your face and you see red, starting to launch yourself before you're drug back. it's not worth it, they mutter, voices rough against your ears, it's not worth it. the older man stands and work resumes. he drops dead about three hours later. you and another carry the body out, the dead weight balanced between the two of you and your anger lashes out before you can stop yourself. the baton cracks at your face again, splitting the skin above your eye and your vision does go red, dropping you to your knees. with blood on your face you carry the body back to his widow because these are your people. this man worked alongside you like a brother, an uncle, a father and you honor him in the same way you would if he were blood related. the next day you help to bury him with others in your crew; you're back in the mines an hour later and a scrawny fourteen year old year old kid takes his place in the line.

ɪ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇᴡꜱᴘᴀᴘᴇʀ, ᴛʜᴇʏ'ᴅ Qᴜᴇꜱᴛɪᴏɴᴇᴅ ᴀʟʟ ᴍʏ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ ᴛʜᴇʏ ʜᴏᴘᴇᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ꜰɪɴᴅ ᴍʏ ᴀꜱꜱ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ɪ ꜱᴛʀᴜᴄᴋ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ!

time passes and you strike a new vein of coal but you've all been doing this long enough to know that the deeper you follow it, the more unstable the shaft becomes. you tell them it's not safe; they push you. you tell them the shaft will collapse; they push you. and you see your father's death flash before your eyes as the tunnel collapses and you're dragged backward, watching the earth bury outstretched hands that reach for you. it takes three days to dig them out. time is a wheel and history repeats itself and there are still those digging who remember the last collapse, the sons whose fathers were buried now work these same mines-- and they're angry. it's not the capitol or it's peacekeepers who bury the district's dead or who care for her widows and orphans. it's you and everyone else with red-rimmed eyes and lungs burning with coal dust-- coal that never heats your homes. they don't care if you live or die because there's always room for one more on the line and there's more empty bellies in the seam than there are full in the whole of the district. you're not even sure when you started talking or when people started listening but it's a spark that catches onto every coal-dusted soul in those mines and sets it ablaze.

a sea of headlamps march from the mines and you lead them out, shovels and pickaxes gripped in tight fists: a strike. no production until conditions change. it's not anything set out by the rebellion leaders in that mythical district thirteen; no, this was twelve- the district and her people, acting in their own with that flame ignited in their chests- as you march out and are met immediately with a wall of white. bullets fly and batons whip but they're met with resistance, the tools of your trade now turned makeshift weapons. some scatter, most stand until they fall by bullet or baton and you're grazed by one, burning fire across your shoulder before the baton slams against your temple and everything goes dark. they drag you and two other 'co-conspirators' to the whipping post and you understand the sound of gale's scream that's etched in your mind, echoing through it's halls and joining yours as the whip falls against your back and shoulders. you understand how he couldn't move after, every breath feeling like fire. the train cars you had been loading for the past few weeks as you dug through that unsafe shaft are going to the capitol-- and you're going with it. since that tongue thinks it's so smart, wagging and inciting treason, the only way to deal with it is to cut it out. they're going to make you an avox.

that night, you're carried from the cell but by friendly faces-- rebels who work to get you from the justice building to the train yard, dragging your weight, legs feeling almost useless under you. they hide you in plain sight: on the train that was supposed to lead you to your doom. they shove a bandana in your mouth and tell you to bite down, muffling the sounds of pain as they lay you in a bed of coal that digs into the sore spots, staining the bandages around your torso red. you try to focus past the pain that has tears running lines through the coal dust that's settling on your face as they bury you under a layer just thin enough to be hidden: the train will take you to three. there, rebels in three will hide you for a few weeks before a train on it's way to six passes through where you'll stowaway on to get yourself to six. once you hit six, you're on foot until you reach thirteen.

you ask through the bandana you have gripped in your teeth where gale is-- it would be the first place they're going to look when they realize you're gone, he had to have a solid alibi, right now he's too important. you agree. you don't regret the choices that have brought you here and you don't regret the ones you'll have to make going forward but damn if you don't regret the fact you didn't get to say goodbye. you've left your family with a mess to clean up-- you just hope they understand why. you ask the faces to tell gale you're sorry you didn't make it home tonight.

ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴛʜɪʀꜱᴛʏ ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴅʀɪɴᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʜᴜɴɢʀʏ ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ꜱᴛᴇᴀʟ ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɪ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇʟ, ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴇɴᴅ ɪ ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴇᴇ

it goes exactly as planned-- you reach three and you wait for hands that dig, reaching out to let them pull you free. they clean your back and feed you, keep you hidden until the next train rolls in to three for a pick up of technological pieces for the trains and other vehicles that rolled out of six. it makes you stir crazy- to sit and wait, sit and wait- but there's this fear in your chest that has you wondering what it is that you're so eager to go for? getting to six will have risks and getting from six to thirteen will be beyond treacherous-- and after that? unknown. you think about home a lot- about your brothers and your sister, your mother ( which twists like a knife of guilt in your gut, wondering how much grief losing a son would bring her ), of prim and how you never got to explain or say goodbye-- wondering if you're ever going to see it again. you apologized for not making it home but now you're not sure you're going to make it home for a long time. maybe never.

the train to six is harder to hide on but you manage and you've had time to heal but those still-stitching wounds are tender-- you make it to the boundary and hidden among trees before anyone can see you. they gave you a map in three- taught you how to read a map, not exactly like you'd ever had need for one before now- and you follow it, pressing deeper into territory that's familiar and new all at once. you're not sure when you actually crossed the border into thirteen, having gone further beyond the boundary and losing the fence line some time back but you're found by scouts that you at first mistake for peacekeepers and try to outrun. you don't get far and at first it looks like you've missed the welcome wagon but they help you up and take you in.

you're not sure what you imagined when you thought about district thirteen before but it certainly wasn't what greeted you. you tell them who you are and how you managed to get there. they ask you how old you are- you ask what day it is; they tell you august 20-- you tell them you just turned twenty-five. you don't argue with the work assignments that are given to you-- hell, you're just grateful that you're given something to do and don't have to sit and wait or run anymore. that only lasts a few months because you've seen the military training that goes on, you've seen the rooms where it's happening- the rebellion, planned meticulously, different strings across the district all connected to thirteen- and you didn't come all this way to scrub toilets.

the next three years are different but focus and ground you. you train, learn how to be a fighter and not a brawler, how to be a soldier not a rioter. you fall in love-- it's three years, it's bound to happen. you still think about home but less and less in the looking back way and more looking ahead. fire is catching across the districts and you're ready to fight like hell to be able to go home. it feels a different life away- district twelve- so different than the one you're living now but once again, you're struck with that stir-crazy feeling. it feels too much like sitting and waiting now even with the parts that filled the space between like the lover who wrapped around your heart. when the assignment comes, you immediately jump on it, eager to be moving again.

ꜱᴏ ᴛᴏɴɪɢʜᴛ ɪ ᴡᴀʟᴋ ɪɴ ᴀɴɢᴇʀ, ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴡᴏʀɴ ꜱʜᴏᴇꜱ ᴏɴ ᴍʏ ꜰᴇᴇᴛ-- ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɪ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇʟ, ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴇɴᴅ ɪ ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴇᴇ

the assignment: peacekeeper in the capitol. rory hawthorne of district twelve is dead so you get a new name: aurelius cragg, born august 6th in district two. you tell them you don't want a new name-- especially not aurelius cragg. they tell you that you don't get to pick-- you can get rory out of 'aurelius'. you're briefed on your family history, your academic history, your record at the peacekeeper academy, all bundled up in the official documents that would prove your identity. you're smuggled across the districts to two where those documents get you a one way ticket to the capitol on a transport filled with other district two peacekeepers, freshly graduated from the academy.

the next two years, you live that double life; rory hawthorne is dead and aurelius 'rory' cragg is who looks back at you in the mirror. you wear the uniform you had sneered at when your brother wore it, working street beats and eventually your way up to private events of those self important capitol citizens. there are rebels all over the capitol and over the past two years, you've worked alongside them in different missions. you hold up the facade of this identity that isn't yours and work as a dead man in the dark, each success drawing that dream of going home that much closer- to see your brothers, your sister, your mother, your best friend- and each failure pushes it further away.

you're assigned to the tribute center this year-- a place you've spent the last two years avoiding each time the games roll around and with good reason. rory hawthorne was supposed to be dead as much as your heart yearns for that glimpse of home, you've kept your distance, never getting any closer to those victors from twelve than a television screen. for the first time, you argue against the assignment-- but you can't give an answer that will satisfy when pressed for why; you can't exactly tell your superior officer that you're supposed to be dead.

every time you turn a corner, you're afraid you're going to be found out. you've seen them- katniss and peeta, haymitch, gale and prim-- but you've taken great care that they don't see you. the things you have been helping to put into place over the last five years are starting to fall into motion and no matter how desperately you want to seek them out, you cannot risk anything going wrong.

you want to be able to go home with them when this is all over-- you can wait a little longer for your reunion.

ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ᴡɪʟʟ ꜱɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴍʏꜱᴇʟꜰ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ'ᴍ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʙᴇ ꜰʀᴇᴇ! ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɪ ᴍᴜꜱᴛ ᴛʀᴀᴠᴇʟ, ɪᴛ'ꜱ ᴇɴᴅ… ɪ ᴄᴀɴɴᴏᴛ ꜱᴇᴇ

TFLDR + EXTRAS

rory is gale's younger brother, second born, typical middle child.

after their dad died, gale took on everything and was 100% rory's idol for his entire childhood and into his teenaged years

grew up as childhood besties with prim he was her self appointed guard dog growing up

gale became a peacekeeper** just as rory was entering puberty which of course meant he had to be a real shithead to gale about it for longer than he probably should've

he joins the rebellion and starts working in the mines at sixteen bc he's going to prove a point to gale. dont ask him what the point is

when he's 23, a fellow miner in his crew drops dead after being denied a moment to rest after complaining of chest pains and rory gets in an altercation with some peacekeepers.

later after warning the foremen of a shafts instability, there's a cave in that kills a handful of miners and rory organizes an impromptu strike that leads in a riot and violent altercation between d12's miners and peacekeepers.

rory and two other 'co-conspirators' are flogged publicly for inciting rebellion and are set to be sent to the capitol to become avoxes. rebels help to sneak him out and hide him in the coal being transported to the capitol that's stopping in three. rebels in three help him heal up and get him on a train to six and from six he walks to thirteen.

he spends three years training in 13 before he's sent on assignment to the capitol as an undercover peacekeeper where he's been for the last two years.

this is the first year he's been assigned to the tribute center and he's trying very hard to maintain that low profile-- we'll see how well that works out.

short math: rory was 25 when he reached district 13 so it's been 5 years since he disappeared from district 12.

has an alias 'aurelius cragg' but he thinks that name is stupid and has established that you can get 'rory' out of aurelius

** in the event we get a gale (please!!) who isn't down for gale being a peacekeeper, i will edit that in the intro-- it's just what was going on the last time i played rory!

CONNECTIONS

EX LOVER -- so rory spent three years in d13 training and preparing and between that hyperfocus, he found time to fall in love. maybe the two of them were in the same training squadron or just lived in the same area. maybe they've both fled from their districts seeking shelter in thirteen or maybe rory's the outsider who's coming into their home. however it happened, it happened and for at least while he was in thirteen, it was this bright spot of happiness in his life. but after a while, he gets restless and takes an assignment that separates the two of them and they split- amicably? less so? horribly? who knows! i think it could be fun

REBEL CONNECTIONS -- rory's been in the capitol for the last two years undercover so would love!! to come up with some connections that have developed while both of these characters have been fighting this quiet ( and not so quiet ) war behind enemy lines !! but also the rebels that helped him escape to thirteen by sneaking him out of twelve and then hiding him in three and even some in six like this network of people who are all fighting for freedom from the capitol who helped get him safe pls i beg

BASIC INFORMATION

full name: voltaire owens nicknames: volt age: thirty-three birthday: july 13th zodiac: cancer district: three gender: cis male pronouns: he / him orientation: bisexual profession: factory worker, tribute, mentor, craftsman horologist ( clockmaker ), tribute

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

face claim: andrew garfield hair color: tawny brown eye color: brown height: 5'10" scars: several small silvery scars across his fingers and hands, a scar at his temple that dimples when he smiles, an amputation scar just below his left knee. 

RELATIONSHIPS

father: arin owens ( deceased ) mother: thalia owens ( deceased ) siblings: violet owens ( younger sister, deceased ) extended family: elianna “ellie” owens ( niece) 

TRIBUTE DETAILS

reaped/volunteered: reaped reaped age: 18 victor of the: 77th hunger games weapon of choice: traps arena: underground cave system kill count: four token: great- grandfather’s pocket watch

EXTRA

mbti: infp-t ( the mediator ) temperament: phlegmatic - sanguine  moral alignment: lawful neutral primary vice: wrath primary virtue: kindness element: water

BACKSTORY

your first breath is clogged with smog, born in the factory district. it’s never quiet and your small ears learn to drown out the noise early, lulled to sleep more often than not to the sounds of production that surround you and the cluster of matchbox apartments stacked haphazardly on top of each other where you grow up. both of your parents work in The Factory though it’ll be years before you know what that means. and you’re left with a neighbor who keeps other children in your building- too many for the cramped apartment- for parents who also work at The Factory. by the time your earliest memories start to form, your parents leave a baby sister with you at the neighbor’s and the neighbor lady tells you that you’ll start school soon and this causes you some distress-- you’ve never been a fan of change. the day that mommy doesn’t leave you with the baby sister but instead walks you down the stairs of the apartment and down the street, you throw a fit-- until her hand swats at your bottom and her voice grows stern. you start school with teary eyes and a reluctant heart. but it doesn’t last long because you find that you love school. you love the teacher and the routine- how every day has the same schedule- and the world that she opens with letters and numbers. you’re exceptionally bright, a sponge that soaks up every ounce of knowledge made available until you start to grow and some of the knowledge presented bores you; there are other things that you would find more interesting. you find that you love working with your hands- a puzzler, as dad says when he brings home defunct motherboards from The Factory ( you learn that’s what mom and dad do all day: they build these pieces that power all sorts of things ) that you tear apart with curiosity and put back together in concentration. dad’s cough gets worse and there’s no money for medicine and in an urban district, herbal remedies cost even more than medicine that trickles down from the capitol. soon, he can’t go to work, hardly able to keep drawing breath through lungs that rattle and wheeze and mom is almost never home, trying to pick up more shifts at The Factory to make ends meet while your father drowns on his own air in the bed. you’re fourteen when your father stops breathing and his ashes sit in a small wooden box on the table beside the bed he died in and mom works herself ragged because she doesn’t want you to leave school-- says you’re smart enough to do more, to work in the glass buildings deeper in the district’s center and that she doesn’t want you to end up stuck on a factory line like her and dad. you take out tesserae for yourself and violet that year, the baby sister who’s not a baby anymore but still too young but mom works herself to the brink of exhaustion and it’s still barely making ends meet.  you take your father’s place on the line, thin fingers nimbly assembling the motherboards you had been taking apart and putting together since you were six. mom resents the fact that you walk to work together and the trips are spent mostly in silence; you’re not sure if she resents you for walking with her or herself for the same. you keep taking out tesserae for yourself and for violet; you don’t let her take out any and every year on reaping day you hold your breath until the names are called, exhaling in relief when each year, you pass by unscathed. it would be the cruelest of ironies that the last year you’re forced to stand and be counted is when your name is called. your mother and sister both weep, clinging to you when the peacekeepers drag you towards the train; the last thing your mother tells you before the doors close is that she’s sorry. 

your district partner is one of your sister’s friends, a 16 year old named piper-- you know her and it’s so easy to replace her face with violet’s and when she cries on the way to the capitol, you wrap an arm around her shoulders and offer comfort. there’s too many reminders that only one of you can win but it’s a fact you ignore; you don’t have any grand ideas of getting out and you’re sure it’s wishful thinking that she’ll get out either but in the meantime, it doesn’t mean that mindset has to follow you. you force yourself into optimism- for both of you- trying to make each step of this process easier for her and in a way, yourself. you have no strategy at first; your hands aren’t used to the weight and balance of the weapons that line the walls or against stands scattered around the training room-- you end up making a complete fool of yourself on your first day for even daring to touch them. the ropes course comes easier- you’ve had plenty of experience climbing and walking across narrow scaffolding to work on pieces of machinery that created the pieces that you assembled- and it seems like a glimmer of hope. when you present to the gamemakers though, they’re less impressed with your displays as you’d hope-- you leave with a score equal to your district: 3. 

but you shine in the interview. piper had been nervous, so afraid of all the faces in the crowd and caesar’s too wide smile and outlandish appearance so you tell her ( and yourself ) that it’s nothing to be afraid of: it’s just a conversation with an old friend. hadn’t they all grown up watching caesar flickerman from birth? and that’s how you treat him, like an old friend, with a wide and genuine smile and a handshake. when you talk about your home and your family, you do it as if you’re catching ol’ caesar up on what’s been going on at the home front. the two of you laugh and joke- poking fun at each other because after all, you’re old friends- and when your time is up, your handshake turns into a hug and that winsome smile turns towards the crowd, greeting them with that same familiarity. ( we’re all just old friends, you and i. )

when you’re dropped into the arena, you watch the sunlight extinguish above you and when you reach the platform, there’s no light aside from the countdown hovering in the air in the middle of the circle of tributes, casting all of your faces in a ghosty glow and sending the shadows of the cave system in sharp relief. the cornucopia sits in the middle of this junction, several different openings branching surround the round room and when the count hits one, the lights go out-- and the screaming is drowned out by the starting horn. it’s chaos-- the sounds of screaming and struggling and then the sounds of weapons biting into bodies-- all in the pitch black. you trip over someone and you don’t pause to see if they’re living or not but you feel the pack in their hand and ripping it from them, you stumble off into the blackness, hand outstretched until you meet stone and one of those openings. and you barrel forward, blind. thirteen canons fire after the cornucopia and the light from their projected faces don’t reach you as you push further and further, getting lost in the labyrinthine tunnels. 

you don’t stop until your body can’t take you any further and it’s only when legs grow jelly weak that your hand finds a crevasse in the wall, barely big enough for you to pull that thin and lanky body into- and you know that if anyone else were to find that hole and start stabbing, you’d be done for- but your body is too tired to care. as you push yourself in though, deeper in the cave’s wall is the faintest glow-- phosphorus mushrooms and you wonder how they could glow as deep and as dark as you are. you use them as a marker, mashing them into a paste and marking against the cave wall in attempts to create some sort of map to take you back to that hiding place when you finally get adventurous and leave it. the food in your pack is gone after what you believe is two days but then packages from sponsors seem to drop in your lap from skittering creatures in the dark and you eat.  there’s a moment in your wanderings where you’re almost done for- foot stepping forward and meeting nothing only to fall back on your ass with a yelp that echoes through the caves- and you ignore the way it travels to crawl on your stomach until you feel that ledge. the mushrooms glow isn’t strong enough to see how deep the hole is and you chance using the flare in the pack. 

it’s a tribute from ten that finds you ( you find that out later )- a fifteen year old whose muscles are thick and roped from working with livestock where yours are thin and lean- following that echoing yelp and his knife slashes at your shoulder when he sneaks up behind you. the flare drops and the two of you wrestle, him above you with that knife pressing down and aiming for something more lethal, your hands braced against that knife. when he presses harder, your arms buckle and your legs kick, throwing you both- him tumbling over you and you tumbling back. you manage to grab hold of the ledge and you hear him fall hard and when you look behind you, you see the fall is a good ten feet but that the floor is littered with sharp stalagmites jutting up from the bottom of the cave’s floor and the flare goes out just as you see blood trickling from the boy’s mouth and glinting off the points of those stalagmites that have punctured through his chest. another package comes your way with a salve that soothes the pain in your shoulder from the stab wound and you chance a whispered thank you to whoever sent it. 

you lure two more to their deaths that way and as the days progress, you count the canons as they fire and then for a good while, there aren’t any canons that sound. you’re not sure if it’s a handful of hours or a day but you know that there’s only three of you left. the gamekeepers begin to trigger cave ins that push the three of you further back towards the cornucopia and it’s on that last one that brings down the entire cave that you once again almost lose. you’re running, hand pressed against a rumbling wall to guide yourself and the other holding that pack over your head as rocks fall and slam against the pack and your shoulders and then, you trip. careening towards the rock floor, you feel the bounder crush your leg and pain rips through your body but adrenaline helps to numb it, your mind in that fight or flight mode as you shove and rip your useless leg from under the boulder and crawl- pack forgotten, rocks slamming into your body, trying to beat you down and bury you there but you break into the opening where the cornucopia stands, another dark shape in the darkness your eyes have barely begun to adjust to. a canon sounds-- only two left. and when she stumbles in, you grab her ankle and yank her to the floor, dragging yourself up to wrap your hands around her throat, feeling her nails tear into your arms, your chest, your throat. when she stops moving, the sound of the canon fading as you drop into unconsciousness. 

they can’t save your leg and they tell you that it’s a blessing you weren’t awake to see it when your eyes open to blinding light. it takes you almost three days before you can see normally again, your eyes having grown adjusted to that pitch black. the healers teach you how to walk with the prosthetic and it’s like being a baby again, training your body to work with a piece of you that wasn’t there but when you walk across that stage to greet caesar, no one would notice the stiffness in the movement unless they were looking for it. that smile is still warm and genuine as caesar holds your hand- an old friend glad to see the other returned from war, you tell yourself- as you talk about the games; an old friend who encourages you to show off that fancy new leg the benevolent capitol healers have fashioned for you and the crowd roars as you strut across the stage, pausing to lift the leg of your pants and revealing the prosthetic to a crowd that roars and cheers. you hug caesar again in that tight hug- a hug for all panem, for you watching at home-- in gratitude. you're sick the moment you step foot off the stage.

you return home and move your mother and sister in the victor’s village and the lights in the house never go out-- it’s a rule you impose and no one argues with you. the victory tour and the following year returning to the capitol are a blur-- you don’t remember that first year. or the second. but the third year, your sister tells you a secret-- and you wake up. the baby is born just before you go back to the capitol and you hate to leave them, knowing that the baby’s father has no intention of being involved and as such, no fucking help ( and when you see him, you think about how your hands had wrapped around that thin neck in the dark and-- ) but it becomes about coming back. and when you look at the faces of the tributes that ride in the train with you, it’s too easy to replace their faces with the face of your niece-- and you start working like hell to bring them back. 

one of the perks of being a victor is not having to worry about work-- the job is only for a few weeks a year which leaves plenty of time to pursue interests. and you try your hand at several- fidgeting with prototypes that come from the experimental engineers ( for the games, for the peacekeepers ), whittling, puzzling-- and it’s in that puzzling that you find something that brings your heart unmitigated peace and joy: clockwork. you study timepieces and begin to craft pieces of handheld art-- they become presents for sponsors and soon there’s commissions that roll in and while the demand is definitely more than the output, it’s something that keeps you busy and keeps you beloved by the capitol-- everyone wants a voltaire original. 

you’re approached by members of the rebellion about seven years after your games. your mother’s ashes have joined dad’s on the mantle in the living room and at first, you’re resistant because all you can think of is the fact that standing against the capitol- against president snow- would only guarantee that more boxes of ashes would line that mantle: your sister’s, your niece, your own. for weeks you agonize over the proposition, going back and forth between the fear that keeps you frozen- head down until the lights come up- and the anger in your heart that grows year after year each time you return home with tributes in caskets. it’s a clandestine meeting when that anger wins out and you sign yourself onto a rebellion. 

your job is simple: keep making clocks. continue to create beautiful and coveted pieces of time but with a special addition that you create with the help of scientists from district 13: a recording chip the size of a pin’s head, nestled underneath one of those sparkling gems that transmits directly to a radio frequency monitored only by district 13. and each time you pass one of those beautifully crafted pieces to their new owner, there’s a breath that’s held, wondering if this time is when you’ll be caught-- and you don’t breathe again until the new owner has left, unsuspecting. gamemakers, socialites, sponsors-- even caesar and president snow have been presented with their own unique pocketwatches. there’s a feeling of accomplishment as time passes and those gifts are given, received with gratitude and greed in equal measure. it wasn’t much, but it was something. 

less than a year after you begin working alongside district 13, your sister is killed in an accident and your mind flies into a panic, thinking you’ve been found out. perhaps it’s paranoia but the details don’t add up and you try and pull from the rebellion- your niece needs you, you’re all she has left, you can’t risk it-- but you’re talked back down from that ledge. there were bigger things at work here; the steps that you take today keep your niece safe tomorrow. and she’s all you have left too, you would do anything to keep her safe but more than that, you want to create a future for her. a future where she isn’t under the thumb you’ve been pinned under for the last fifteen years.  

TFLDR + EXTRAS

volt is from d3- lil smarty pants, neurospicy lad- got reaped at 18. 

his games were in a underground cave system- he killed four people and ended up losing his left leg just below the knee due to a cave in that crushed his leg. 

so he’s got a prosthetic leg!

got super into clockmaking and has developed a bit of a name for himself as a craftsman among the capitol elite-- everyone wants a voltaire original timepiece. 

joined the rebellion about 7 years ago and almost dipped when his sister died suddenly but was talked out of leaving bc we’re making a difference dammit! 

puts lil secret recording devices in some of his pieces that he gifts/sells to capitolites!! sneakily spying for the rebellion!

has a 12 year old niece named elianna aka ellie who he's been the primary caregiver for since she was about 6 years old.

is super good at masking!! until he’s not!! has a very limited social battery

has a paralyzing fear of the dark-- hasn’t slept without a light in 15 years. 

genuinely nice guy who’s a lil bit of a weirdo

CONNECTIONS

mentor pals!! literally nothing gets me harder than a good found family bonded through shared trauma. would love 2 have it someday

rebellion pals!! folks who are working with the rebellion that volt would know or have worked with in the past

past lovers/friends!! im a simple bitch i love a good exes plot whether it be a relationship or fling that fell apart or a friendship that couldn’t stand the test of time whatever man im open

ppl who don’t fuck with him!! listen he’s a just a lil dude. some people vibe with the lil dude and some people dont. would love 2 have some antagonistic plots please im BEGGING