River Mallory

## Bio

*River Mallory (she/her). District Seven Tribute. 19. Chase Sui Wonders.*

To be orphaned was a misfortune anywhere, but to be orphaned in an outer district especially so. Those abandoned by their parents at a young age had it worst, many wasting away from illness or starvation—unless, of course, they had help. River Mallory was one of the lucky ones, even if calling her lucky might be a bit of a stretch.

She was eight when her mother left her with her cousin for the day. That alone was nothing out of the ordinary, because Lily was a single parent, and it was not so rare that she had to work overtime at her job as one of the mayor’s housekeepers. What made it out of the ordinary was that, this time, she never returned. River was lucky, though, because her cousin Perry was kind and he loved her, and he never kicked her out of his house. But Perry was only nine years her senior, and alone, too, an orphan of sort himself, and barely making enough working the odd job and catching the odd squirrel. Despite his constant reassurance otherwise, River hated the thought of being a burden to him.

So, naturally, she pulled herself out of school two years after her mother’s disappearance. Perry had always been her best teacher anyway, what he taught her about setting traps would get her further than whatever she could possibly learn at school. She also told him to never take tesserae for her sake, that it was just not worth the risk. What she saw of the Games always did scare her, the way an arena and the race for survival could turn ordinary people into monsters, but perhaps what scared her the most was that, on some level, she understood. Most importantly, she told Perry that she would take care of herself and that he never had to worry about her.

And she did just that; she took care of herself. What she could not catch with her traps, she made up for with her speed, cunning, and sleight of hand—which was to say by stealing. It was never something big; a pocket of sugar here, a can of peas there, some money straight out of the pocket of some distracted sod. Small enough every time that she could get away without the loot weighing her pants down, but collected together from multiple outings, good enough for her and Perry to survive on.

She was not above stealing from others trying their luck to find food in the woods, too. In fact, this was how she first ran into Fitz Reed. To his credit, he was an excellent hunter, skilled with the spear almost to a frightening degree. To her credit, she was just a little sneakier and maybe a little faster. She swiped the rabbit he had killed right from under his nose, and when he found her selling it in the market later that day, she only stuck her tongue out at him before running again. From then on, it turned into a game between the two of them—or at least to River it was.

But at the end of the day, luck was hardly ever on the side of the orphans of the outer district. River’s, too, had to run out, and apparently so did Fitz’s. The harmless game they played had to come to an end when they were both thrusted into a different game altogether; *the* game. Even Perry could not save her this time—and he tried, tried to hold on to her when her name was called at the reaping, only to earn the blow of a peacekeeper’s baton to his head.

River Mallory had no choice then but to walk up to the stage, to stand next to Fitz and pretend to be brave. The fact that she did not have a token spoke of just how unprepared she was—unless the button she had accidentally ripped from Perry’s shirt when she had tried to hold on to him counted as one. She hoped he would survive the head injury, hoped that she would return home to find him well. But seeing as luck was not on her side, hopes probably would not get her very far.

(+) daring, perceptive, witty. (-) deceitful, emotional, flippant.

**PENNED BY: Cee**