dove sinclair || district ten || fin

[lance]

"...and this here is the de la Cruz household. Nice folk, mostly. They has a daughter a few years older than ye, bit rough-and-tough kinda girl, but a right proper lass. Now, there..."

"Papa, you forgot that one over there!"

"...Aye, it seems I have. Now that, son, is a house ye best be giving a wide berth at all times of day. The folk there ain't ordinary."

"But why, papa? Didn't you say earlier that-"

"That we should always care for our neighbors like they were our friends? Aye, of course. But that there house up there at the end of the road, well, that's a special case. That's the old Sinclair house."

"Old Sinclair house? So is it like, haunted?"

"Well, in a sense, yes."

"Haunted is a mighty fine descriptor of the kids the Sinclairs left behind, I'd reckon."

dove sinclair
eighteen years old
cis female
district ten
daisy clementine smith
hot-headed, reckless, protective, somewhat arbitrary, textbook chaotic neutral.
the sinclair's enforcer

[lance]

The old Sinclair house didn't always used to be a dark, foreboding place. Dove, the eldest of Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair's three children, remembers it the most clearly, despite Wren always insisting otherwise. Sure, it was strict often, both the mister and the missus being borderline fanatical adherents of routine and perfectionism (and in hindsight it made sense - chickens were hardy creatures, but even they were not invincible) but it had never been unpleasant. She was happy in that house, with her mother and father and, later, her younger sister and brother. It was a simple life, and for a while, she was able to experience a somewhat normal childhood complete with home-taught education and farm-working. And whenever the same four walls grew old and boring to look at, there was always the rolling farmlands behind them, or the spotty yet colorful images on the government-mandated television.

Really, when looking back on it, the only mistake that her parents had ever made was grossly overestimating how long they had on this world.

It was just shy of Dove's tenth birthday when the illness came, in the aftermath of her mother's weekly trip into town to trade eggs and meat for other essential supplies. It was just after said birthday that she was burying their corpses in the dirt, refusing to let either Wren or Jay help her, much to their chagrin.

But she was the eldest. And with being the eldest meant that no matter how headstrong and independent her younger siblings already were, there were certain burdens that she would take on for herself and herself only.

Of course, it would not be without a fight - Wren, nine years old at the time but already carrying herself like a woman thrice her age, refused to let her take on the majority of the logistical leadership duties that came with running a small business, and Jay, ever quiet yet the most stubborn kid she had ever met (not that there was a wide pool of competitors), resisted in his own way as well by refusing to let her interfere with the chicken caretaking. But it was heartwarming as much as it was infuriating that her siblings stepped up, she supposed - after all, at the end of the day, they were a team, not a tyranny.

So she took the last job remaining - that of the public face of the Sinclair house. And it was jarring, to say the least, to go from ten years of virtual isolation to the representation of your family to the rest of the world. But she'd always been told that of the three, she'd been the most friendly, the most personable, and she quickly found out that there were more than a few bleeding hearts out in the world that were only too happy to take pity on the poor girl who'd lost her parents to sickness.

Like her siblings, she adapted, never leaving the house without a smile on her face and her tongue polished with a fresh coat of silver. And as she grew and more than one leering punk began giving her glances and sneers that were more than unwelcome, she took out her mother's old books on self defense and found out really quickly that even if men appeared scary, they all hurt in the same places. Before long, neither one of her siblings - not the sister who had a tendency to overwork herself if she wasn't careful nor the brother to almost obsessively pursue a task at a direct detriment to his well-being - knew suffering as long as she was around.

At eighteen, it's a wonder to think that she's spent nearly half of her life without her parents, nearly half of her life building connections and defending her family's honor with a few self-taught yet well-placed blows, and even more so that their small family business and isolationist tendencies have survived into the modern era. But really, it's had little to do with her - Wren has matured into a fine businesswoman in her own right, acting as the de facto head of the family in more ways than one, and Jay's dedication has made their chicken farm one of the envies of the market. In comparison, all she does is smile and wave, and occasionally crack a few heads in the process.

But she doesn't mind. They're a team. A family. And the Sinclairs will always have each other's backs, come what may.

[lance]

one!

[lance]

well fine let's try it the ripred_bot way

[Tom]

I love this family already. Dove is such an interesting character. Can't wait to see more!