Lucia Nautilus

Appearance
Now, why do you want to know that? Can’t you see me here, plain as day? Well, supposin’ you’re blind…I’m short. Shorter than most people, but I can fight like anyone else in the district. My hair is near white, and always pulled back so it doesn’t get tangled and the like. I don’t like it when people call me old, even if it is true and all, but I look it. Some folks say the millions of wrinkles make me look wise, but I know differently. They make me look frail and kindly, and if it’s one thing I don’t like, it’s bein’ patronized just ‘cause I look sweet. I can still turn each one of you over my knee, do you hear?

Mayhap I don’t have as many teeth as others, but old age makes the worst of our appearances. I spend much of my time out and about, and have no money for special creams to keep my skin pale. It’s leathery and thin, and if the young ones bemoan their fate, I laugh. They’ll learn what it’s like to be stooped and old.

I don’t keep nothing on me that can be thieved. My ma always told me that if you show off your riches, you won’t have anything left in the morning to show then. I keep my dresses clean and tidy, not like some of the lazy bodies ‘round here who think they can stink up a place. They’re not fancy, like, but they’re dark colors as an old woman as me should wear. I wear my man’s old boots, ‘cause the mud down in the streets can pull an old lady’s shoes off, if she en’t careful.

Background
See, there you are again, poking yer neb into my business. Most people don’t give cat dirt about an old woman’s story, though, so I s’pose I’ll answer. I was born right here in District 6,1 and I married here and I had babies here. Both of my babies are gone now, one taken by the Games, the second…well, I don’t know. I think she was stolen, m’self. The third married, and had her own babies. My whole life’s been spent in this stinking hovel because we didn’t have the means or the sense to leave.

My ma was a midwife, and my pa helped where he could. Mostly he built folks their houses, or fixed them, for food or sometimes a chicken. Ma just asked for grain, if the little one and the mother survived. “No use in robbin’ a suffering man blind.” She always told me when the birth went wrong. Sometimes I thought the same, ‘specially when she cried her grief behind doors, but other times my belly was so empty that I wished hard for food.

I got married to a man who was like my pa, though there wasn’t much to choose from in this place. My man was a carpenter, and a fine one at that. There was no going into the fields for him, unless it was harvesttime when all hands were needed. He built our little cottage and our bedstead and even a fine hearth. I put little trinkets there, and nothing worth taking.

My own first babe Jaxon was a boy, and a beautiful one at that. I was proud and loved showing him off, and holding him so he didn’t get his feet muddy in the slime when he started walkin’. Oh, how I wanted something more for him than this slum, but when he turned twelve he was chosen. Just like that and he was gone, my poor little one. His sister Moira was taken from her cradle, only two years old, and their pa died after Jaxom, leaving me with only little Corinne. I live in our house still, and small as it is with my daughter's family as well, it feels large and empty. Nowadays I practice midwifery and harvest, same as my ma, and I watch the little ones die in the slaughter. Those cows, making the children kill just because of old history.

My life is quiet, and I mean to keep it that way.

Personality
There are those that laugh at the Games, and I call them cruel. Those that say that ought to rot in the ground, for what our slavers’ve done. Ancient history is all it is, and how can they kill babies for it? They’re just babies, after all, hardly old enough to know what they’re fightin’ for is cruel and wrong.

My ma and pa always called me sweet and honest, but nowadays I shake my head. I’ve seen too much, and I’ve flung too many rocks at guards. I’m a bitter old woman, though it still hurts to lose a baby to birth sickness, or a mother from the same poison in the blood. Other still turn their little ones to me when they go to the fields, and I make sure their faces are clean and their nappies fresh, and I spare little sweets for them if I can afford it that day.

The guards get no sweets, nor does the government. They get rocks, or they would if I could fling them hard enough.

Likes

 * Fresh milk (hard to come by as it is)
 * Equality (even harder to garner)
 * Knit socks
 * Freshly-laundered clothing
 * Babies and children

Dislikes

 * The government as a whole
 * Cruelty
 * That which took her baby girl away
 * Laundry (though she does it anyway)