stark, birdie

[tapclaret]

BIRDIE&&STARK



"In this planet of deceit
I'm so glad we got to meet
Birdaloo, Birdalee..."

full name: Birdie Lee Stark.
age: 17
district: District 6.
tesserae?: None.

valuable skills: Trained to use an assortment of basic weaponry, Birdie feels most comfortable with polearms, such as lances or spears.

Often the first to rush out onto the battlefield, Birdie acts as the initial offensive force, while others support and protect her from behind. While a decent strategist at best, Birdie is tactically adept and adapts herself to changes in the environment easily.

weaknesses: Birdie fights best in "crowd control" situations as opposed to specialized one-on-one duels, as her stamina allows for long battles.

Being the proverbial "wrench" in everone's plans, Birdie is typically left out of them.

family:
>> Demas Stark, 20, unemployed.
>> Elena Stark, 45, lab assistant.
>> Roger Stark, 47, records and processes samples.


likes:
>> Honey and bananas.
>> Fiddling with metal scraps.
>> Being social (opposite of brother).
>> Kids.
>> Trivia.
>> Ambition.
>> Demas.
>> A few choice drugs of her own.
>> Control.
>> Simplicity / straightforward solutions.

dislikes:
>> Distrust of medicine.
>> Being lost.
>> Long hair.
>> Uncommon foods.
>> Dependency.
>> Critique.
>> Her family’s ignorance.
>> Doctors.
>> Alterations or unnatural events.
>> Helplessness (matters out of her hands).

wants: (two please)
>> To cure her brother.
>> To deliver a great big wake-up call to her family.

fears: (two please)
>> Losing her independence.
>> Attachments.

personality:
Birdie is a saucy kid. Eccentric in a few ways, you know, but awfully well brought up. You just can’t figure them out, the Starks. They haven’t got a penny to their name, but you get the feeling they should. That’s the impression they all give. It's what Birdie can do best: slip back into acting the part of an aristocrat, letting the stares roll off her back.

It’s faux regality. Nearly.

history:
Demas never trusted anyone. Working in a world of people who spoke evasively, secretly and in circles to hide their intentions from those who might be listening, he never took anyone at face value.

Birdie, while friendly and polite on the outside, could be just as wary as her older brother, and while living in District 6, she had as few friends as Demas did. They had no faith in anyone, in finding others they could trust as much as each other.

It was years before that changed.

Eventually it became that their similarities ended in appearances; they grew up close but became different people, two contrary personalities completely codependent upon the other. Birdie became more open, and Demas would have nothing to do with any social situation.

In District 6, kids are prime testers for pharmaceutical products. Safety is never guaranteed, but if you have mouths to feed, it can be the solution. Birdie’s family was never wealthy, never had money to spend on new clothes, and certainly not luxury items. If pants became too short, cut them into shorts. Socks are still usable without the soles.

But that final night, with Demas’ stomach crying out hungrily, he dreams of being able to buy honey and sticks of butter to be eaten whole, like candy. Birdie needs her first bra.

Demas knows the danger of being a Tester, has always known the danger.

But he's also heard of the power and the money and… The few remaining forces not controlled by the machine had given up after the first few weeks of the new pharmaceutical company’s introduction to District 6. They were grinding out drug after mind-altering drug, using the Districts’ scientific minds to create new chemicals. Of course, products couldn’t be put on the shelves until any possible side-effects were determined.

Demas became a Tester. In exchange for an increased income, he tested deodorants (burns on his arms), acne medication (a swollen jaw), and other topical mixtures.

This new drug, Bliss, was a killer. The average user died after only a few months, maybe a year, if they were really damn lucky. Those psychotic addicts were too violent to be quelled; it was a waste of time to jail them, a waste of lives to even try.
They went through dozens of testers just trying to find the one element that made it so volatile, in order to remove it and make a revolutionary new cold-medicine available to the Capitol public.

Bliss dried you out quick, didn't matter if you snorted it or injected it or smoked it or dropped it. You traded years of your life for a few hours of the most mind-numbingly orgasmic sensation in the entire world. That warm cotton candy feeling in your gut and the smile on your face.

Her family came to collect Demas from a row of used up, dried-up test subjects. Birdie wondered which one of those mindless faces belonged to her brother. When they find him, strapped to a board along with the other Testers, his eyes are like oil, deep pits of it just… simmering within the confines of his eye sockets. His hair is about as flaxen in color as soggy straw.

Now Demas lived in a different reality. A separate plane that left him with advanced symptoms of motion blindness. Extended time left him blind to most movement around him. His skin sallowed, became waxy and greenish. His muscles atrophied. Instead of providing, he became another mouth to feed. It won’t be long until he withers completely, ribs extruding and unable to walk on legs as thin as the bedposts of the bed he’ll die in.

The Stark family has always scraped by. But now, with an extra mouth to feed and a loss in income, things are getting tight. They’re all losing weight. They’ve never had to even consider it before, but it may be time for Birdie to put in a tessarae.

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alias: Just Birdie, or any variation.
experience: 4 years, off and on.