Pyxis Flannan

## About

Those who meet Pyxis now are always curious if her inability to read a room even if given a map was something that pre-dated her games and head injury, or if she was just always like that. The truth is, her damaged brain may make it worse, but she has always been a bit oblivious in social situations. After all, most of her socialization happened on a boat with oyster divers, who are already a very peculiar sort of person. Her privileged upbringing combined with her nature made her rather unable to read the room. This also means she is lacking a certain amount of tact, which gets her in hot water when she does not think before she speaks. On the up-side, those who get used to her quirks often find themselves enjoying not having to read the subtext with her, or having someone who sometimes just breaks tension by outright saying the thing they are all thinking.

Beyond this, Pyxis is a confident young woman. She knows she has a lot of skills and assets, she knows that when she walks into a room she draws attention. Sometimes she finds herself getting exhausted by the constant buzzing of the tower, but other times she is the life of the party and able to have fun. As time is going on, she is also getting slightly more impulsive, finding herself seeking more fun and daring situations. This sometimes means flirting with people she shouldn’t, or going places she’d be better off not.

Friends of hers call her Pyx, and enjoy having her company.

> [+ confident] [+ easy-going] [+ adept]
> [- oblivious] [- tactless] [- ignorant]
>
>

## Bio

Seafood and splendor come from District Four, and Pyxis’s family was in the business of both. Running a large oyster farming operation, the Flannans are well-known citizens of Four. Producing both fresh oysters for shipment and consumption, as well as extracting the valuable pearls to be shipped off for jewelry, the Flannans have always held a good deal of influence within the District.

Pyxis grew up working on her family's oyster operation. Whereas her

two brothers took more interest in the finance and business side of things, Pyxis had always felt an intense call to the sea and to the water. All of the family was expected to work with the business from a young age. Young fingers could shuck, and learning how to swim was all but a requirement in Four. Whereas the boys eventually moved into more managerial roles that took them behind desks, Pyxis remained more hands on. With her love of the water, she started joining the oyster divers. Working with a net attached to her hop, a diving knife, and a pair of goggles, Pyxis would join the other divers as they got on the boats early in the morning to go out to the oysters underwater fields. They’d spend the day diving below the surface, staying down for as long as ten minutes on nothing but the power of breath, cutting the oysters away from the sea bed below. After collecting oysters, the divers and Pyxis would swim back to the boats, switching out their nets and beginning the process again. The job was seen as common labor, so the daughter of the operations owners being involved brought curious looks. When she started going out on the boats, the Peacekeepers were not sure how to handle this. Was she expected to use her breaks to take one of the fishing spears to the depths to catch something to bring home that day? Would she maintain the nets on the rides in and out like the rest of the divers? District Four residents had always enjoyed a degree of freedom from the Peacekeepers, but would this treatment be even more altered for Pyxis?

These concerns never came to be realized. When boarding the boats for the first time, Pyxis had picked up her net and started mending as everyone else did. In the early days, she accepted the wisdom of the senior divers as any apprentice would. During breaks she took the spear like every other diver, swimming down and spearing fish so she could bring them home after their long days were over. She spoke with the other divers as friends, their lilting accents matching hers. When they returned to the docks, she followed the rest of the divers carrying their bushels, hauling her own over her shoulders. When they put them on the processing tables to crack the mature ones for pearls, she had picked up the shucking knife and gotten started without a word. As time went on, her fingers collected the same scars and calluses as everyone else. Her breath control improved, and before long she herself was a veteran diver, giving her own advice and helping the apprentices learn how to work with the oysters that gave them all their livelihood. The biggest difference was at the end of the day, when the other divers walked home with their catch to cook it themselves, Pyxis handed hers off to kitchen staff who would prepare it for the family’s dinner.

Returning from the boats, she had the luxury of changing her clothes and washing her hands of the days grime. To rinse the salt from her braided hair, preventing it from being damaged more than the sun and waves already did. Then, to finish the day, the family would all sit together to enjoy dinner. Although they all had their own things to do throughout the day, this was a Flannan staple, sitting at the dinner table together. They would talk about the business, the day. Pyxis’s brothers would talk about management matters, updates from the factories, production needs. Pyxis would talk about her love – the waves and the oyster beds.

## Before the Games

Although the training of tributes was not allowed, much like Districts One and Two, District Four had their own way of doing things and the Capitol allowed it to continue so long as they did not take it too far or let it get too out of hand. Therefore, from a young age, District Four children were given a basic primer on the games in school with options for electives to take their training further, if that was an avenue they planned on taking. Like many of her classmates and friends, Pyxis enrolled in the training. Although she had no desire to volunteer herself (she had more interest in her oyster beds and would leave eternal glory to those who looked for it), her friends occasionally entertained the idea and the classes were fun. The time usually ended with them laying on the mats, talking about the day's events, or listening to Pyxis complain about how she could not wait for the weekend or the summer to go back out on the boats to dive.

When the games were occurring, the Flannan family would gather in the family room with snacks, blankets, and turn on the television to watch. They rarely went to the public watch parties, instead preferring to make it a family activity. Strewn about the furniture, they would watch the Games together. They would always cheer for the District Four tributes (and if they were eliminated, picking a new tribute to back and placing penny bets among themselves on it). Sometimes, the tributes they watched would be friends of hers, or friends of her brothers. Many times they had volunteered, wanting their chance to try their luck and achieve eternal glory, fame, and riches. Pyxis may not have had the same desires, as in her mind her life was all she needed or wanted it to be, but she would support their hopes. When a tribute from Four died, the Flannans would always send a gift of condolence to the family, but did not personally grieve unless they knew the individual. Pyxis had lost some friends to the games, but that was just a part of her life. When the games would finish, the family would go back to normal.

Pyxis herself was ambivalent to the entire affair. When they watched the recap of the days reapings, she would always find herself worried about the younger tributes, hoping or wishing someone had volunteered in their place. The entire Flannan family would murmur as young and unprepared tributes were selected, discussing the fact that those other districts had not prepared their tributes properly. Pyxis had always thought it unreasonable that those schools did not offer at least some basic training so as to not throw their tributes to the sea like a bad catch. Her father – who was perhaps more worldly and aware than the rest of the family due to the nature of his job and status – would remind them that things do not operate in other districts the same way as in Four.

At times her brothers would make noise as if they may volunteer, when they were still of age. It was known within the family and by Pyxis that the farthest they would ever go is their armchair expertise while watching the games. At 17, Pyxis was nearing the end of her formal education and looking forward to taking on more responsibility while out diving and shouldering more responsibility with that side of the business. Maybe even starting to do the multi-day farther offshore dives away from their farmed stock to seek out new oysters to propagate. Instead, her plans were changed when her name was pulled from the reaping bowl. She did not wait for someone to volunteer, knowing that her friends were the ones who would intend to and would see it as them trying to steal her potential for honor.

She had raised her hand to the crowd's cheers, a confident and easy smile on her face as she stepped onto the stage. Pyxis had come to terms with her mortality at a young age – you had to when you worked diving down to the depths and hoping you had managed to keep enough air to make it back up. Spear fishing and oyster diving had its risks, with sharks always a concern, or catching the net on the seabed below. When she was brought to the District Capitol Building, she had hugged her family goodbye, accepting hugs and kisses. Her promise had been to bring them and the district honor, whether it was with her victory or with an admirable death. And then she boarded the train.

## The 110th Hunger Games

(TW: Violence) The 110th Hunger Games started with the podiums raising the tributes into an arena that was an isolated, abandoned, desolate city. Decay had not set in, the city looked as if it had been lived-in, a once bustling city that had just been up and left overnight. The silence that greeted them when the podiums ceased their movement was deafening. The Cornucopia had been set in the middle of what had likely once been the city square. They had been dressed in plain, loose fitting clothes, with district numbers on the shoulders of their shirts.

While still in training, Pyxis had easily fallen in the tributes from other “career” districts. It had made her feel as if she was training at home again, working with them, and she could tell that it had been a similar upbringing in the training schools. Just like when she was training with her friends, at the end they would find themselves laid on the mats, laughing and learning more about each other with a lackadaisical care that only came from a feeling of preparedness. The other tributes, the ones usually from non-career districts, were not as keen on her. Pyxis figured it was because they did not understand how the idea of training, fighting, and death was something that was a newer concept to them. Her more pragmatic assessments (and blunt way of sharing them) was likely off-putting.

In the Arena, she had joined up with the career pack quickly. Once they acquired their preferred weapons from the Cornucopia, they had reached their way through those who had been foolish enough to linger about. The gamemakers had paid attention in her assessment – her preference for a diving knife had been noted and they were available to her in the Arena. The sharp blade was usually used for slicing tough oysters from the sea bed, but now they were used to slice through flesh. In the opening bloodbath, she personally finished two tribute bids for victory. From there, she and the other career tributes settled in what was once the city hall, treating it as their base of operations. It provided needed shelter from any elements, while still being in sight of the Cornucopia and its valuable resources.

The first day they had focused on building the base and making sure they were properly stocked. A few tributes had been killed as they tried to sneak back to the Cornucopia, quickly caught by the career pack and ended with swiftness. The second day, they woke up to a drizzle raining from the skies. The gentle patter had been welcoming to Pyxis, and she had spent her watch shift apart from the other watching tribute, sitting on the front steps of the building and letting the rain come down on her. She watched it create a small flow into the storm drains that were around the city. After some time, the group had readied up to explore, setting out to scope out the arena more and also scare up any tributes that may be hiding or already petering out. They had discovered quickly that a good bulk of the buildings were actually closed off, impossible to get into. The ones that could be accessed were the tallest buildings, which had all been in the “downtown” area of the city. One had possessed a tribute who they quickly eliminated, the canon echoing through the empty buildings. The rain had increased slightly as the day had gone on, and they used the steady streams of water flowing towards the drain to clean the blood from them and drink.

By the third day, the water had reached the tops of the drains and the rain showed no signs of stopping. The drops grew big, and remained persistent. Canons had woken them that morning, but they had not seen anything out of the ordinary. As they were walking through the city later, a loud bang had echoed through the mostly silent streets, as if something large had fallen. A cannon blast sounded a moment later, and they watched the hovercraft collect the fallen tribute from a nearby building. Going to investigate, they found the floor of the main lobby had crashed in, leaving a large gaping hole in the ground with water running under it. Pyxis started to watch her step then – she had seen those sinkholes open on roads near the shore after years of storms would wash away the sediment underneath. Sure enough, spots in the asphalt began to soften. Another tribute died running from them when their foot hit the weak spot and they fell, making catching them easy.

It was the overnight between the third and fourth day that brought the first legitimate attempt on Pyxis’s life. When she left the arena, those who had watched her on the screen said it was obvious what was about to happen. The looks between two of the tributes in their pack, the way their conversations seemed to taper off when others entered the room. The fact that when Pyxis would bring up certain questions or comments, they would share a glance over head that she completely missed. In the middle of the night, Pyxis had woken to the sounds of the rain increasing in tempo against the windows and roof of the building. As she lay thinking about the odd calm of the city and the rain, hushed whispers and rustling caught her attention though, and the feeling that something was wrong hit almost as soon as all hell broke loose. Pyxis had enough notice to pull her knife, catching the District One tribute – a tall boy only two years older than her – swinging his sword down at her. The blade managed to just graze her, opening a superficial wound. Her knife struck into his arm true, causing him to recoil for a moment. His uninjured arm grabbed her by the throat, slamming her head down into the linoleum flooring and causing her to see white for a moment.

Before he could gather to strike a killing blow, the boy had frozen above her, a blade protruding from his chest and a shocked look on his face as blood coughed from his mouth and he slumped over. His District-mate, a young woman, had stabbed him. He had betrayed her and conspired against her with the District Two woman. The tribute from Two charged at them, and Pyxis was able to make her head work fast enough to slash the woman across her face, getting her nose and eye and causing enough hesitation for Pyxis to make her second attack a stab to the woman's throat, ending the bloodshed as fast as it started.

It was then the silence reigned for a second, although it took Pyxis a moment to realize it was from the rushing in her ears and not the deafening of the city. The rain sounds had rushed back to her, and then the soft hesitant sobs from the tribute from One who had intercepted the attack that may have killed Pyxis. The girl was holding her side, rivulets of blood flowing from between her fingers as she clutched her hand to a wound on her side. Pyxis had fallen back onto the ground, landing hard on her bottom, hand reaching to check her head to see if it was bleeding or not from the impact on the floor. The Career pack had been eliminated just like that. Cannons had rung out for the original dead, but not for the girl from One. They waited for her as her sobs got softer, turning into hitching breath, and then . . . to nothing at all. As the cannon sounded, Pyxis had walked out of the building, her rucksack full of the supplies she had collected from what was once their base. She had sat on the steps of city hall, watching the water rise ever so slowly, letting the downpour wash on her.

It was sitting there, with her head pounding and her tears being washed away as fast as they appeared, she watched the rain hit the inches deep water on the ground. Taking twine another of the careers had before their death, she started tying it and cutting it with her knife, beginning to shape it into a simple net, ignoring the hovercrafts that came behind her and lifted the bodies away. By the time the sun rose through the city skyline, the water at ground-level was easily waist height. Putting the necessary resources into her new net, she tied it to her belt like it she would wear it again diving for oysters, and not for her life. A swinging parachute came to her as she prepared to set out on her own. It dropped a package – small, and containing a single item. A pair of goggles.

Throughout the day, the water continued to rise until she had to swim to get anywhere. Growing up doing so and with her lithe swimmers body, it was not hard for her to do. Buildings would shutter and collapse as the steady onslaught of water began to compromise the foundations. The cannon would occasionally sound, and Pyxis lost count of how many tributes were lost, whether to drowning or a building collapsing. She had managed to get into one of the taller buildings through a window she had broken on a higher floor, resting on the dry floor until the water rose to a point where she could no longer rest easily.

On the fifth day, it was clear the water would not cease. Pyxis had taken to diving down into the buildings to search for anything she could use to survive longer, or to make a fire. Exhaustion was sitting in, as even though she had grown up swimming, the lack of rest and the fact that her head was still in pain from being slammed into the ground inhibited her abilities somewhat. More cannons had sounded throughout the day, and Pyxis knew the end was likely to be coming soon. After some time, she was able to make her way onto one of the building's roofs. She had startled in surprise when she saw another tribute crouched up there as well, sitting next to an open door which led to a slowly flooding staircase.

Stealth was no longer an option for her, breaths coming out sharply and she pulled herself up onto the roof. The other tribute stood quickly, an ax in his hand as he turned and looked at her. A fearful look haunted his eyes, flicking to the rushing waters and the lack of escape options available. Once he realized his situation, his eyes hardened, and he took a step towards her, bracing with the ax raised. Pyxis pulled her knife out, setting her feet as well, ready to take the tribute on. She did not even recognize which district he came from, although his clutch on the ax made her think perhaps Seven or one of the other districts with a prominence of manual labor.

The two clashed together, tussling in a way that two exhausted, strung out people at the end of their rope do. The only option was death, and although Pyxis could flee into the water, she was running out of the energy to do so. Her fight was sapping away, and she needed to get blood rushing again. This tribute would serve that purpose for her. The two traded blows, cutting and slicing, none so deep to be deadly but enough to cause blood to seep from the wood and mix into the water that collected below them. Finally, she had tripped the other tribute, slamming him onto his back and allowing her to collect herself for a moment. What she did not notice was him grabbing one of the pieces of building concrete that had broken off when the building had shifted and shuttered. As she went to finish him off, he smashed the rock into her head as her knife had buried itself in his gut. The two fell apart again, both clutching at their wounds, stunned by the turn of events. Blood dripped into her eyes from where the head wound bled. Pyxis had been closer to the edge, and tripped, falling into the water below and letting it wash her away as her head swam with it.

Watching the highlights and replays later, she could see where the tribute from Seven (as she learned that was where he was from) had thought he won. Even slowly bleeding out, he expected help to come soon. Staggering up, he had looked to the sky, waiting for the hovercraft to come to collect him from his nightmare, to provide him the healing needed to celebrate his victory parade. He had no idea Pyxis had survived the waves, that her instinct had taken over and she was able to hold her breath enough to get to safety again, pulling herself out of the water. She too was waiting for a hovercraft, her eyes growing heavy as she grew tired, feeling as if the energy had been sucked from her. She finally did shut her eyes, but not before she heard the cannon go off, and the hovercraft came. Expecting it to go to the tribute on the roof, she was surprised when it collected her – alive. Breathing. Slowly fading out of consciousness. She had won the 110th Hunger Games, her last thought before she let the exhaustion win and closed her eyes.

## After the Games

A concussion was the final verdict for her injuries coming out of the Arena. Minor, superficial injuries were patched up, but the concussion was what lingered. Even smiling hurt, but she had put on her best face when she was celebrated as the Victor, nodding her head slightly in thanks even though it felt as heavy as a bowling ball. She was allowed to go home then, given some time to rest and recover before her Victory parade would begin. Her parents had cried when they brought her back into their arms, and she had cried too. Despite the Districts desire to celebrate, her family had been able to ensure they waited until the end of her Victory Tour. Her head still was not behaving, hearing the ear that was on the side the concrete chunk had hit was still echoing a bit with a ring in it.

The first few nights after the games she was able to sleep sheerly because of the exhaustion. As time went on though, she started becoming restless, unable to sleep at night. The memory that her near death had come in the darkness of night began to plague her. She was unable to sleep at first without the door closed and locked, sometimes even needing to have one of her brothers sitting outside, talking quietly so she knew he was there. No one could be in the room, it had been the watchers who had taken advantage of their sleep. Gone were her days of dozing off on the boat in the morning on the way to the oyster fields. No more would she sleep on the beach with the sun beating on her. It took weeks before one day, she had dozed off sitting next to her mother on the couch, leaning lightly on her.

This habit, the inability to fall asleep without her guard completely up and the area secured, has persisted over the years. Even partners have not been allowed to remain in the room with her, Pyxis seeing them out and making sure her doors were locked and secure. Her quarters in the tower are always likewise locked down, a safe space for her.

Beyond that quirk, as far as Pyxis is aware, there were no lasting effects. Life went back to normal. She cannot dive as well as she used to or as deep, her head starting to ache with the pressure after too much time. Her victory tour had been uneventful, a small blessing that it had started in Twelve were celebration was rare. It had been her first time seeing many of the other districts, and she had considered her fathers caution that other districts were different from Four. She understood more what he meant now, seeing it with her own eyes, although she did not fully comprehend it. By the time they had reached the Capitol and District Four, her brain had been healed in the short term, allowing her to enjoy the festivities to a point (headaches still flared up, another thing that persists).

What Pyxis would have no way of knowing is that her brain, twelve years later, was still not healed as it should be. As time has gone on, little things have popped up. Forgetfulness was the first symptom. Although she had always been a bit languid and aloof, her family and friends began noticing how her memory was struggling. Pyxis plays it off, even joking about it personally when others call her out on her lapse of memory. Her paranoia was already existent, but what many didn’t notice was how much it was worsening. She was on edge more, worried that others were conspiring against her, wondering who would come for her next. Sometimes, it's like she has only been out of the arena for days – not a decade. What she could possibly not know, and what others could not know, is that the Arena was not done with her yet. Pyxis is suffering from the early stages of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. A long-term and slow moving illness, it is often caused by repeated traumas to the head. There is not curing it, and no stopping it. Just hoping that the symptoms don’t continue to manifest further. As time goes on, it is likely her symptoms will get worse. New problems will arise, and only time will tell what will continue to be slowly taken from her as the years go on. For now, she remains ignorant to it, laughing about her malfunctioning brain, and writing it off as just something that happens.

## Becoming a Trainer

After taking a two year break and living as a Victor in District Four, Pyxis began to train potential tributes back home through the schools. Her head had needed time to heal, but once she started working again, she had found a new thing to pass her time. It would never beat the joys she got from diving out in the deep ocean for the oysters, but after some denial she had realized that life was gone. Training people had filled the hole that was left in her heart slightly. After her two year stint working locally, she began to get tapped as and trainer to train and guide tributes as they came to the Capitol.

Pyxis is a very honest and up-front trainer. She often says exactly what is on her mind, regardless if it is encouraging or disparaging. Tributes who have a zeal for learning and want to soak up any knowledge she can impart. Her tactics often divorce themselves from any emotion: she sees what happens in that Arena as a matter of life and cannot comprehend why some tributes do not understand that. It is no place for compassion or empathy. She teaches to be ruthless, to consider their own longevity instead of the feelings of others. Plenty of time to be sad about it when not dead. Those she trains do seem to enjoy her hands-on methods, as she often personally spars or works with the tributes instead of just providing direction. Her sense of humor, even if sometimes misplaced, also helps those working with her realize that she does have the best interest of them and her district at heart, and that she has a vested interest in getting them back alive.

When in the Arena, it has also been noted that Pyxis is perfectly content approaching other mentors and potential donors to help with external strategy. As far as she is concerned, her job does not end until her tribute is dead and returned to their families. This means securing gifts, sponsors, and trying to send messages if possible to guide her tributes. Her more abrupt and confident style is surprisingly good at achieving sponsorship gifts, which could possibly be because sometimes people just feel weird turning her down when she asks so directly, regardless of the tone in the room.