Vanessa "Nessa" DayVictor of the 71st Hunger Games
Name:Age: 17Sex: Female District: SixFamily: As with a large part of District Six, Nessa's family struggles with a morphling addiction. Her parents are addicts, but her and her older sister
Ella are not. As a result, Nessa is distanced from her mother and father. However, she and Ella are very close.
Appearance: Standing at five foot nothing, and weighing in at 95 lbs soaking wet, Vanessa is not exactly what one would call a formidable opponent. She put on some muscle in training for her first games, and has managed to maintain it in the years following. Even with the added muscle, Vanessa is not strong enough to hold her own in a battle against a larger opponent.
Vanessa ties her dark hair back, but the fine strands are constantly falling out of the ponytail. Even when her face is expressionless, her large eyes and small mouth make her look scared. If she wears a low-cut shirt, a deep scar can be seen above her left breast. The scar is the result of a spear to the chest; the only injury she sustained during her games.
Strengths: Vanessa has learned to use her frail appearance to her advantage. People take pity on her. If she begs for mercy at the end of a knife, she has a much higher chance of being spared than another person. She is intelligent, and knows how to convince people to see things her way. Making allies is easy for Vanessa, as is basic survival skills.
Weaknesses: Vanessa's biggest weakness is her small physique and lack of physical strength. If someone wants her dead, there's little she can do to stop them.
Weapon of choice: Of the weaponry Vanessa has practiced with, she is most capable with throwing knives. They are light enough for her to handle, and she throws with reasonable accuracy.
Bio/Background:Ella was always the strong one, not Vanessa. Ella was the fighter, the protector, the one who kept her younger sister safe from harm. When the family needed money, it was Ella that took a job as a mechanic in repair shop for Capitol hovercrafts. Nessa was able to stay in school longer than many children in District Six, not dropping out until she was thirteen. At that point, she took a side job as a mechanic alongside her sister. When older children pushed her around after school, Ella always seemed to be there to fight them off. When their parents were too far-gone in a morphling-induced high to remember to feed their children, Ella made supper for the both of them. However, on the day her name was drawn in the Reaping, there was nothing her older sister could have done to save her. Ella was nineteen, and no longer eligible to compete in the games. Nessa was fifteen years old, and tiny for her age. She had no hope of winning.
On the first day in the arena, Nessa had already prepared herself to die. Nevertheless, she sprinted away the second that the games began, running into the forest and away from the bloodbath at the cornucopia. It was easy for the girl to hide in there. The first day, she climbed a tree and waited. No one came after her, for she was not a target. The following three days, Nessa delved deeper into the woods. She gathered food. With no knowledge of how to hunt, she had instead opted to memorize a list of berries, grasses, and roots that were safe for human consumption. When she had enough food, wrapped up in her jacket, to last for a few days, Nessa disappeared.
There was no sign of the girl. To the other tributes, she had simply vanished. For the spectators in the Capitol, there was slightly less mystery. She had crawled beneath the roots of a tree. It was an impossibly small gap for any of the other tributes to pass through. But Nessa was tiny. She still hadn't hit her growth spurt, and stood a few inches shy of five feet. Combine that with the fact that she'd been underfed her entire life, it wasn't difficult for her to squeeze her way between the roots. She stayed there for the next three days, and the games progressed without her. Finally, there were only two tributes left. It was Vanessa against Ivan, the man from District 1. He was eighteen, two feet taller than her, and a hundred and fifty pounds heavier. It came down to a game of cat and mouse. Nessa crawled out from beneath her tree. She had no weapons, nor any way to defend herself. Ivan was armed with a huge spear and a machete.
In the end, her victory was accidental. The chase lead the two of them to a fast-moving river. The banks were rock, covered with dangerously slippery layers of moss and algae, and the river turned into a waterfall a short distance away. Ivan cornered her at the water's edge. It was all too easy for him to stab the spear straight into Nessa's chest. It missed her heart by inches, but the wound was nevertheless incapacitating. As Ivan stepped forward to finish her with the machete, Nessa let herself fall back into the creek. Ivan's machete missed, and he was thrown off-balance by the force of the attack. Slipping on the moss, he went in the water right after her. The spear in Nessa's chest snagged on a rock. She was submerged in the water, drowning and bleeding to death. But death favoured Ivan that day. The would-be victor was sent over the falls. His neck was broken while Nessa's heart still beat. She was the victor.
Since that day, she has spent the past four years battling the guilt of Ivan's death. Even though he didn't die by her hand, she still feels responsible. In Vanessa's eyes, her return to the arena is penance for the fact that she never should have made it out in the first place.
Token:
A small bracelet, fashioned out of scrap string and spare hex-bolts by her older sister.
