[.}Ayane Pilayar-Kilera{.][>District Seven<]

[WT]

Ayane Pilayar-Kilera
female
three years

~~

Babies are cute. You’ve gotta expect that; it’s just how they are. Still, there’s something a little surprising about looking at Ayane. It’s not that she’s any more adorable than others her age, mind you; she’s a cute kid, but by no means the be-all end-all of toddlers. Perhaps it’s that she seems so happy, despite the past that haunts her father and the gloom of the District.

At first glance, Ayane looks like the spitting image of Aisha. She definitely gets her medium brown skin, as well as her eyes--a lighter shade of the same color, and always bright with energy and excitement of one form or another--from her mother’s side. Even her hair, little enough that she has, is brown and showing the hints of red and gold that made her mother’s auburn hair so lovely (although hers is not so tightly curled.)

She gets all her build from her father, though. Her fingers are turning out long and smooth and slender, artist’s hands; she doesn’t have his ability to use them, of course, but he’s confident that this will come with age and experience in the world. Her arms are still a bit short, but her legs are looking like they'll turn out quite long. Also, living in District Seven, even in a stable household, has denied her enough food for her to lose the usual baby fat pretty early, which emphasizes the slender, lanky look.

Ayane’s clothes are much nicer than her father’s, for a couple of reasons. First of all, they don’t get used as often; she’s growing quickly, whereas he’s been the same size and has therefore had the same wardrobe for quite a while now. The other reason- and this is the bigger one, actually- is donation. She made a splash at the Capitol, raking in money for her mother; after Aisha died, there was still some money left, and Ayane recieved a share. She quickly became one of Panem’s lower districts’ best-provided-for children. Aisha's money has run out Themba bought ahead, and she still has clothes- new clothes, too, not hand-me-downs- for the next year or so to come. Her father, recognizing fortune when he sees it, makes sure to take care of these clothes, too; as a result, she almost always looks very clean. (Some of her older clothes pay for their food, when the job as an apprentice doesn’t pull in enough. Themba can’t wait to become an actual architect; that will pay much more, but he has two more years to go.) She dislikes dresses, but likes hair things, which are something of a novelty for her- Themba focused on getting things like pracitcal clothes (and, at the time, diapers and such), rather than accessories.

~~

The second you interact with Ayane, one thing becomes clear: this girl has some energy. She’s always bouncing up and down and shooting her gaze every which way, and if she’s not doing that, it’s because she’s running off to investigate something. Or, quite possibly, she’s just running because she feels like it. It can be hard to tell at times. After all, she’s two; she speaks pretty well for her age, but her rapid-fire sentences, poor grammar, and frequent mispronunciation of certain sounds (she just can’t form ‘sh’ or ‘ch’ yet, for example) makes it hard for most people to understand when she tries to explain things.

She is also very affectionate and not shy at all. Themba has the worst time with her when they’re out, because she feels the need to constantly run up to random people (and animals, and sometimes object) and hug them and start chattering to them. Not everyone appreciates this, and apologies are often in order- mostly from Themba, although Ayane always pitches in when she realizes that she did something wrong. (She’s exuberant and often forgets herself, but her father wants to make sure she grows up properly, and she has definitely learned her manners.)

One notable problem for her father is that she can’t go into stores unless she’s watched extremely closely, because she always ends up knocking something over. She never puts things in her mouth, but she feels the need to pick up and examine everything that interests her- a bad habit, when combined with the limited dexterity of a two-year-old. One day her curiosity and eye for detail will probably lead her down a similar path to the one her father almost chose, but in the meantime, it’s just inconvenient.

Themba never criticizes her too harshly, though. He’s careful to reprimand her and make sure she knows when she does something wrong, but he’s never unfair. This treatment is already shaping her into a very conscientious young lady for her age, and if she ever burns off some of that mad energy, she will undoubtedly emerge very graceful, socially if not physically.

What she has in social grace and extraversion, however, she loses in common sense and attention span. She’s clever, but she’ll never be very good at learning, because she simply gets bored too easily. She also needs to learn some tact. She has no patience for mean people; any violence, raised voices, or unnecessarily angry remarks will cause her to yell at the person in question and stomp off. She also sometimes decides she doesn’t like people based on one annoying habit- and once she dislikes you, it is hard to get back in her good graces. She is also something of a hypocrite for telling people they shouldn't yell; though she’s usually mild-mannered, she does throw the occasional tantrum, and when she does, it hurts the ears.

Give her a break. She’s two.

Luckily, she’s largely unscarred by her mother's fate; she slept through almost all of it, and the bits she was awake through only resurface in her nightmares. She shows no signs of violence, unusual fear of people, or anything else that might worry her father. The only problem is her occasional requests for her ‘Auntie Kima’, the girl who looked after her for most of her first six months. Themba has never been sure what to do about them, so he tells her that Kima is away and will come visit someday; she is always content with this answer, but the time will come- possibly soon- when she wants to know more about why she never sees her aunt, and why she’s never met Mommy. She’s at the age where she’s beginning to understand more and more every day, and soon the questions will come...

~~

For most people, birth is an incidental thing, and it doesn’t really matter whether they remember it or not. For Ayane, her birth was on national television, and it’s a very good thing she has forgotten the whole thing, because people were dying around her.

Her parents were together very, very young. In some ways, it’s unbelievable and a little shocking that two fourteen-year-olds could make it work (at least for a year), but in other ways, it’s easy to understand. Both had lost twelve-year-old siblings, instilling in them a kind of terror of not getting enough out of life before they died. They had to rush into life, into each other, into marriage, into Ayane. Just in case.

Because of that, Ayane’s mother was only fourteen when she became pregnant, and was about a month away (give or take a few weeks) from giving birth when she went into the Games. The Capitol doctors had given her another week or two, but the stress of the Bloodbath brought on labour early, and Aisha ended up giving birth at the Cornucopia while her two friends protected her. Through the rest of the Games until her death- two weeks- Aisha fought for her daughter; when she finally died, the one friend she had remaining alive looked after Ayane and fought their way to freedom. Despite cries from the Capitol and District Seven alike, Ayane stayed with the woman she came to know as Auntie Kima for the next six months, and was only brought to her father during the tour of the Districts.

She’s been living with him for the past year and a half now, and has taken to him exceptionally well; she was anxious when she was given away to a stranger, but she’s come to love him as much as Kima. Life is pretty normal for her; there are some unanswered questions about the women who shaped her life, but she trusts that Roro (don’t ask anyone why she calls Themba that, no one knows) will tell her eventually, and in the meantime there are many interesting things to do and look at in the District.

[Sunrise Rainier D2 // [Thundy]]

Aww, accepted!