Shalev Tegid Pizzaro - Avox [DONE]

[Kire]

SHALEV TEGID PIZZARO



At the age of twenty-two, he should be out living his life in his home District of twelve, hanging out with friends and flirting with pretty girls. Instead, he was a servant to a Capitol family, and as a Avox he had no way to argue his situation. After all, how could he speak without a tongue?

How the time passed away? All the trouble that we gave
And all those days we spent out by the lake
Has it all gone to waste? All the promises we made
One by one they vanish just the same

BACK ME DOWN FROM BACKING UP

If you didn't know, you would never be able to tell. You would never know, that this boy was missing a tongue. That's right, this boy is an avox.

Perhaps he wouldn't stand out so much if he was back in his home district instead of being as good as chained to the Capitol. But they couldn't, wouldn't, risk him running away. Because they really need another slave. They need another boy like him, with his blonde hair. In truth, you could say his hair was a very light brown, because of the many low lights of a caramel-like brown throughout the slight waves. Swept to the side like it had been blown by the wind, it lays pretty well flat against his head. Below this hair, just hidden by the ends of his bangs, are two semi-thick eyebrows that curve over his eyes in gentle arches. And those eyes, his eyes of palest blue-gray, darkened by a touch of green. They're always analyzing, watching, calculating. His nose may be slightly too big for his face, but it's not as if he could change it, nor would he give the effort to if he could. His mouth is a nice size, and his lips are semi-thin on the top, but make up for it with a fuller lip on the bottom.

Of all the things I still remember
Summer's never looked the same
The years go by and time just seems to fly
But the memories remain

HOLD YOUR BREATH NOW IT'S STACKING UP

His face ends in a pointed chin, under which stretches a long neck. The shoulders it stretches into are strong, square and the slightest bit broad. His torso is more or less unremarkable, not having excess of fat or muscle. His back, however, is a different story. On every inch of skin on his back are scars, long ragged horrible scars. His whipping scars. It is rare for anyone to see them, and rarer still that he would purposefully expose them. He wasn't proud of them, and they wouldn't earn him any standing. His legs are long, but not overly, and sturdy with some muscle. They cause him to stand at a full height of 5'10", not the tallest of persons, but not the shortest either.

His clothes are plain, especially for someone living in the Capitol. But he is merely a servant, so he makes do with what he gets. His only item of worth is a silver necklace with a tiny bow and arrow pendant. Most of the time it is hidden under his shirt, and usually only seen when it is accidentally revealed. His shirts are either very plain, or semi-fancy dress shirts. However, he is only dressed in fancier clothing when there is some sort of event at his masters' place. Except for one pair of dress pants, all of his pants are jeans. He owns no shorts, and is often overly warm in the summer. Along with his shirts, he wears a black-and-white hoodie to cover his upper body. He has only two pairs of shoes, one pair of black-and-white runners that go well with his hoodie, and a pair of black dress shoes.

In the middle of September we'd still play out in the rain
Nothing to lose but everything to gain
Reflecting now on how things could've been
It was worth it in the end

ETCHED WITH MARKS, BUT I CAN DEAL

At first glance, you would never see beneath the servant-like shell he had created. you would never see the rebellion laying in his heart, the plots that sort themselves in his mind. This boy is a walking time bomb, only a matter time before he sets in motion a plan that will unleash chaos, at least for him.

On the outside, and somewhat on the inside as well, he is quiet. Not simply as a result of being an avox, but a quiet in his movements and presence that suggests a relaxed mind and content soul. Truthfully, he is calm and generally quite patient, but his hate for the Capitol, and worry for his brother keeps him from settling into his new life, even if he has been an avox for years. He still cares deeply for his brother, and constantly wishes he was there with him. Because of his on going aspiration to leave the Capitol and go home, he is slowly building a plan for his escape. The knowledge of the estates he works on, and of the various parts of the Capitol he travels to for errands, has allowed him to notice the area where there were weaknesses he could exploit. It is only the idea that he would get caught and whipped again that has restrained him thus far.

Now it all seems so clear, there's nothing left to fear
So we made our way by finding what was real
Now the days are so long that summer's moving on
We reach for something that's already gone

AND YOU'RE THE PROBLEM AND YOU CAN'T FEEL

He hates the Capitol with a passion, but the family he currently serves is kind, or kinder than most. He doesn't despise them like the other Capitolites, but he's not exactly buddy-buddy with them either. In general he follows orders, playing the part of the obedient servant. He would never do anything to harm the family he works for, but that doesn't mean he isn't up to running away. No, running wasn't the right word. Escaping. He would be escaping from this ball and chain, the shackles that had been placed around his wrists and ankles, binding him here. He would only need a key.

His greatest fear was that he would never find the key, that he would never be able to return home. He also feared for his brother, that Quinten's name would be drawn from that glass ball. Surely there must be plenty of odds against that happening. But he had seen twelve year olds, their names only in once, snatched from their district and tossed into the death match called the Hunger Games.

His lack of a tongue has sent him to find ways in which he could speak again. Surely, there must be a way to replace his tongue. However, it would be quite expensive, and would expose his plan if he attempted to regain one. Still, the missing muscle left him feeling disconnected, and he wanted to be able to speak again. If only he could find a way out of this blasted city.

We knew we had to leave this town
But we never knew when and we never knew how
We would end up here the way we are

TRY THIS ON, STRAITJACKET FEELING

For fourteen years, he thought his life would be normal. For fourteen years, he thought he would live in relative comfort. But two hours changed his life completely.

As a young boy, he was the pride and joy of his parents. For the first few years of his life, everything was perfect. He was an only child, and both of his parents worked. They were from the richer part of District twelve, though they were one of the poorer families there. At least they didn't live in the Seam. When he was six, his mother became pregnant with her second child, his younger brother. From the moment Quinten was born, Shalev loved him and wanted to do anything he could to protect him. He helped his mother care for his brother, and taught his brother things, like how to play with the two toys they had.

When his brother was two, and he was eight, Shalev had gotten mad about having everything of his stolen by his brother. When Quinten took one of his toys and began playing with it, and sticking it in his mouth, he had become very upset. Being a boy of only eight, he didn't understand about patience or about temper control. So, he did the only thing he could think to do. He hit his brother. But instead of just striking him, he grabbed the nearest object and took a swipe at his brother. Unfortunately, he had grabbed the letter opener off of the coffee table. Before he knew what he had done, there was a scream and he was covered in blood. So was the knife-like object he held in his hand.

His mother had come in, and yelled and screamed and ran to both of them. When she realized Shalev was okay, she focused on Quinten. Luckily, the letter opener had only sliced the side of his neck, and had missed his jugular vein and spinal cord. There was a lot of blood, and Quinten had been quite pale for the next while, but the two-year old had a full recovery. Except that there was now a scar of the side of his neck. A scar that would torment Shalev forever.

It was when he was ten when his world started to fall apart. His mother had come home one day, looking pale. She had told him that it was just a cold, that she would be better in the morning. Only she wasn't. His father had come home an hour or two later, and had gone strait to his wife, a look in his eyes that Shalev now recognized as fear. For the rest of that night, Shalev had to take care of his four year old brother. In the morning, they woke to find their mother shaking and vomiting. Without any idea of what was going on, they were scared.

Their father grew sick a week later, coming down with the same, strange illness that their mother had. They weren't deathly sick, but they were certainly not well. There was no way that this was an ordinary flu. It was obvious after three months that the two adults would most likely never fully recover, if even at all. It was now up to Shalev to take care of his little brother. At first, it had just been him on the streets, trying to find something to do for someone for any kind of money, even if it was only a couple coins. Eventually, a man gave him a knife as payment. The man had told him, "Give a man some game, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to hunt, you feed him for a lifetime." Without another word, he had left, but first he pointed towards a section of the fence.

Wandering over there as casually as he could, the boy saw that there was a gap in fence. Everyone knew that the fence wasn't always electrified, but he had never heard of or seen a split in it before. He checked that there was no electricity, and then that no one was around to see him. He knew the consequences of getting caught leaving District twelve, which was bad enough. But he was also carrying a knife. He would be whipped and made into an avox in seconds if anyone saw. No one did.

And so, Shalev began to hunt. He went every other day into the forest, coming to create a bow, obtain wire for snares and have his trusty knife. He brought home game most of the time, once he even killed one of the wild dogs who loved to torment him so much. There was also the couple of times when he happened upon a deer. His family had been fed for a week, but he had continued to come out to the forest. Any extra wealth was always welcome.

It was the third deer he had shot. After four years of wandering the forest for game, he knew that deer usually brought a good sum of wealth and amount of meat. But not this time. He had shot the deer, and was about to finish it off when he was ambushed by three peacekeepers. He had made sure that no one had seen him going through the fence, but obviously he hadn't been sure enough. Having seen him in the act, he could not deny his guilt. Knowing this didn't keep him from fighting the three men. He ended up stabbing one of them in the thigh, and another in the gut. The third had gotten bashed with the back of his head. But it was no use. They had caught him.

Of all the things I still remember
Summer's never looked the same
The years go by and time just seems to fly
But the memories remain

TAKE BACK NOW, MY LIFE YOU'RE STEALING

They had marched him to the Square, hands tied behind his back. Calling all nearby citizens to the square, they had prepared him for a public lashing. Fortunately, none of his family was there. Quinten was only eight, and he stayed home with their sick parents. There was no one there to see him whipped, except the rest of the District. But no one would see him cry.

And he hadn't cried. Even after receiving first ten, then twenty, then thirty lashes, he never shed a tear. Even after he fainted from the pain at thirty-five lashes, he never cried. He put his pain to use, yelling at the Peacekeepers, at the Capitol, at anyone who would listen. His cries of agony changed to cries of rage in his throat. After receiving his full sentence of forty lashes he waited until being unbound to faint, falling unconscious for almost three days.

When he woke up, he instantly knew he wasn't at home. He also wasn't in the District Square. In fact, he wasn't even in District Twelve. He was in some sort of stainless steel area, more like a metal box than an actual room. Lying on some sort of cold metal table, presumably stainless steel like the rest of the room, he had his stomach pressed to the metal and his back to the ceiling. It was then that he noticed he was completely naked, and that his hands and feet were bound.

A woman walked into the room, paying him no attention for a bit. She flipped through papers attached to her clipboard for a bit before looking at him finally. "Mr. Pizzaro I presume." Her voice had been as steely as the table beneath him. She ran a finger down his back, tutting once as he bit back a snarl. It was humiliating to be seen like this, and the pain she had just caused him made it worse. After looking him over for a few more moments, she walked to stand by his head once more. "It's always nice to see troublemakers like you punished properly. It just seems like they took it easy on you with the whipping." She walked to his other side, looking between him and her notes. "You seem to be strong enough now. It's time that they performed the operation." Operation? And then his fears were confirmed. I'm going to become an Avox!

It had taken him nearly two months to get used to not having a tongue. And that was merely adjusting to the feeling. It was so much harder to eat now, and he had to be careful not to drown himself when he drank anything. Swallowing took almost three times the effort. The worst part of it all was not being able to talk. He wasn't able to reply, he wasn't able to question, he wasn't able to make any kind of sound except for grunts and half-formed tones.

In the beginning he had never been able to call any place home. He would become the servant of someone, only to be given to someone else a few months later. The shortest time he had spent in one place was a week, the longest being a mere three-and-a-half months. That was until he arrived at the last house. He had been taken in by a richer couple who had a daughter about his age. He learned that they were kind people, and they were not a fan of him having had his tongue removed, but they could do nothing about it. It was the closest he had come to kindness in a while.

For the last five years, he has lived with them, serving them and helping to do chores. There are two other avoxes at the house, though they didn't always make for the greatest company. It's hard when none of you can talk. As he completed more, and more difficult, chores, he learned his way around the house. After so many years, he knows all of the back routes and exits. He would hate to leave such kind people, but the fire of rebellion in him still burns.

All he needs is the right opportunity, and he will run. Father, mother, Quinten. I'll be home soon.

In the middle of September we'd still play out in the rain
Nothing to lose but everything to gain
Reflecting now on how things could've been
It was worth it in the end

OTHER

Brother of Quinten Alphonso Pizzaro

FC: Harry Goodwins

Lyrics: September by Daughtry

Words
57 - Introduction
497 - Appearance
469 - Personality
1643 - History
2666 - Total

Yeah we knew we had to leave this town
But we never knew when and we never knew how

odair

[Kire]

Yay! finally finished, that's a total of 2607 words. Ooooh Yeeeaaah!

[Deleted]

Nice job! Very eloquent writing <3

[/blockquote][/justify]