HG OCT: Rhona Velaro

For an upcoming Hunger Games OCT. Figured it'd be fun to do something less plotty and more actiony after TBOS ends.

Paper texture from ~bashcorpo.

Rhona Velaro
Age: 13
Height: 4'11"
District: 6
Score: 5/12
Weapon: Twin knives
Token: A small, rounded piece of glass, given to her by the Velaro Street Runners.

Appearance
Rhona is small and underweight for her age, clearly built for speed rather than strength. She keeps her hair hacked short--long hair tends to be a liability in a brawl. Her eyes are brown; so is her skin, if you can get underneath the initial layer of grime. There's a small black tattoo under her left eye, acquired when she first joined the Velaro Street Runners. She carries herself with an air of faint aggression, directed at the world in general, as if everyone owes her a fight she simply hasn't decided to pick yet.

Personality
Rhona is as pragmatic as it is possible for a child of thirteen to be. Growing up as a street urchin has taught her that if you can't defend something, you don't deserve to keep it. She carries herself with an air of confidence that's borderline cocky, and she has no particular qualms about lying or stealing to get what she wants. She has a severe distrust of authority, but at the same time, she doesn't mind trying to play along if she thinks she can come away the victor. She relishes any opportunity to get her hands (and probably the rest of her) dirty, and she prefers to let her fists do the talking more often than not. She has a childlike fascination with violence that can come off as distressing to the uninitiated.

That said, life in the slums is about trust as much as it is about distrust, and Rhona has a protective streak a mile wide when it comes to kids younger than she is. She'll cheer readily enough for the underdog, even if she doesn't think of herself as one. While she can come off as sullen or downright aggressive to strangers, she's capable of warming to people, and can border on talkative when someone manages to gain her respect.

Skills/Weaknesses
If there's a skill you need to survive in a city, Rhona's got it. She's a talented lockpick, good at using makeshift weapons, and a fast talker. Her size and build make her good for climbing just about anything and fitting in spaces she has no right fitting in. Rhona's an excellent sprinter, though she slows down a bit when it comes to longer distances.

If there's a skill you need to survive in a forest...Rhona hasn't got it. She can count the number of non-prepared foods she's seen before on the fingers of one hand. She has absolutely no idea what you can and can't eat. Even finding water will probably be beyond her. This is something her mentor is doing his damnedest to rectify, but she'll still be miles behind anyone with actual wilderness survival skills.

Also, she's illiterate. There's that, too.

Biography
As far as Rhona is concerned, her life actually began when she was thrown out on the street. Anything that happened before that is irrelevant. She doesn't remember who her parents were, aside from a few fuzzy images, and she doesn't remember why they threw her out. She doesn't care. If she met them again, she'd probably shake their hands and thank them, because the Velaro Street Runners were the best thing that ever happened to her.

The Runners, a small band of kids who lived in the slums near the District 6 factories, readily accepted Rhona into their ranks after the traditional scuffle. And then the war hit.

Truth be told, the war was kind to Rhona. When it came, it came in the form of a teacher who spoke in the rattle of gunfire and the thunder of heavy shelling. It taught her things that were useful: how to to stay out of sight and out of mind. It taught her things that were illegal: how to take before it’s taken, and how to keep it. It taught her things that are both: that a man gurgling his lifeblood out onto the streets can be sent quickly on his way if you press just right, and that such men usually have enough coin on them to last a week or more.

Rhona was, and is, a fast learner. And so she lived like a queen for a year, she and the rest of the Velaro Street Runners, before the ceasefire took it all away.

Peacetime isn't as bad as it could have been. The Runners are mostly tolerated by the local Peacekeepers, who aren't paid enough to deal with children, as long as they keep the property damage to a minimum and most of the thefts minor. But during the war, the food and empty beds were everywhere as long as you knew where to look, and returning to living on the streets and eating next to nothing is a less than preferable change as far as the Runners are concerned.

Still, barely living is better than not living at all, and at least Rhona will get some entertainment out of these televised deathmatches everyone keeps talking about...

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ROUND ONE
Status: Normal.
Inventory: Two protein bars, one bottle of water, one length of rope, two knives.

ROUND TWO
Status: One long cut going from her left shoulder to the middle of her lower back. The cut is relatively shallow and has stopped bleeding, but is untreated.
Inventory: Two knives, half a bottle of water, a small whetstone, and two pounds of shadhavar meat.

ROUND THREE
Status: Left ankle is sprained. Minor lacerations on her right shoulder. Multiple compound fractures along left radius and ulna, with associated muscle and ligament tears and increased risk of infection (bite wound). Bruises along right arm. The long cut on her back from Round Two has not healed and infection may set in before long.
Inventory: Two knives, a small whetstone, a small tin of grilled lamb meat (Rottie's banquet item from R2).

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The Team
Leon Chen
Position: Mentor
Age: 32
Height: 5’9”
A former taxi driver from District 6, Leon is outgoing, talkative, and seemingly imperturbable. Still, while he’s willing enough to listen to other people, and he can talk at length about nothing in particular, he likes to keep his cards held close to his chest. And then there’s the matter of why he apparently volunteered to be a mentor in the first place…

Velma Twipp
Position: Escort
Age: 27
Height: 5’6”
Velma Twipp is from the Capitol. That is all you need to know about her.