Leoni's Aesthetic
LEONI VENEDEN
DISTRICT 3
F | she/her | 16 | Reaped
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Leoni grew up in a pretty average family in District Three. Her parents both work in factories full time and after school, she would help with the simpler jobs. She’s a genius when it comes to electricity and mechanics and always has been. Leoni also has a fascination with clocks and loves experimenting with putting clocks and timers into different machines. She also loves spicy food.
She started helping out in the factories when she was ten and as such, has had lots of time to practice and learn how things work. Leoni has a younger brother who she is very close with and they spend most of their time together when she isn’t working.
Her father lost his job recently when the Capitol sent in new machines that could do the work much better than any person. The factory cut more than half of the workers so they had been living off her mother’s small salary for the last few months, which wasn’t nearly enough to survive on. Leoni is friendly and has a knack for making friends, but she doesn’t quite have it in her to kill.
THE REAPING
On the day of the reaping, Leoni was as scared as anyone. She hated the games and was always terrified of being picked, especially this year as she had taken out tesserae because her family had been going through a rough patch since her father lost his job.
The odds were not in her favor; District Three doesn’t have as many people taking out tesserae as some of the poorer districts, so nine entries was quite a lot, and it ended up being enough to get picked.
She was terrified and knew she’d never forgive herself if she killed someone. It took everything she had not to break down as she made her way up to the stage.
Leoni's Reaping Outfit
THE TRIBUTE PARADE
Leoni was still partly in shock. Yesterday she had been building mini remote-control hovercrafts with her brother. Now, she was standing on a coal black chariot about to ride through the streets of the Capitol. Her outfit was the strangest thing she had ever seen. She was wearing a tight black jumpsuit covered in metal plating, all shaped to look like cogs and gears and the like. Her hands had bronze claws on them, and she was holding a torch in each hand.
The idea was that her stylist would light the torches just before they went out. The heat would move the silver cogs on the side of the chariot and, if everything went right, a few small golden sparks would fly out from the back. The whole thing sounded a little far fetched and extremely terrifying.
“3, 2, 1, and go!”
The big doors at the front of the room opened and the District One chariot rolled out. One of the difficult things about being from District Three was that in all the pre-games events: the chariot ride, private training sessions, and interviews, they were surrounded by Careers. Two before and one after, it made them easy to forget. The sparks were supposed to be an attempt to stop this.
Leoni’s stylist carefully lit the torches. A couple of seconds later, the cogs began to turn. Leoni waited for the fire to snake down the wood and burn her hands but somehow, they didn’t. Perhaps it was just her relief that she wasn’t being burned alive, but Leoni couldn’t help but smile. She was still smiling when the District Three chariot rolled out onto the street.
Leoni's Parade Outfit
TRAINING
Leoni Veneden received a training score of 10.
Training days
Private sessions. The moment where the gamemakers would decide whether or not she had the makings of a victor. The moment that would decide whether or not she gained sponsors. She needed to perform well. Leoni paused, and thought back over the last few days of training.
She’d tried to get around to as many stations as possible. As per her mentor’s instructions, she’d started off the first day by learning about edible plants and a few basic survival skills that may be useful in the arena. In the afternoon she’d started learning how use throwing knives because they were one of the few things you could always count on being in the arena. By the end of the day, she’d been able to throw with around 70% accuracy.
On day two, Leoni had worked more on her existing skills. She’d started off by learning to set traps and then began working out how to incorporate her own skills with technology to make them lethal or at least capable of wounding someone.
She had also experimented with barbed wire and how to incorporate that into her traps. On all three of the days, she had sat with the new alliance she had joined with her district partner, Neon.
At least she was prepared for the private session, Leoni thought to herself. Throughout training she had been keeping an eye out for things made of thin metals and stuff that ran on circuits and wires. The first idea had been to build something similar to those mini, remote-controlled hovercrafts she used to build as toys for her brother back home, but they didn’t have enough materials to do that in the training room. The new plan was to build some sort of trap.
Private session
“Leoni Veneden, District Three.”
This was it. Leoni stood up, took a deep breath, and walked into the room. The gamemakers were talking amongst themselves. Once again, being surrounded by career districts meant she was uninteresting to them. Come on, Leoni. She squared her shoulders and began to walk around the room collecting materials.
She then walked over to the survival skills station and began to set things up. About ten minutes later, she was finished. A thin strand of barbed wire was hidden in the grass making it nearly impossible to see unless you knew it was there.
Moment of truth. Since there was no one to test the contraption on, Leoni hauled over one of the big target dummies, carefully pushed it into the wire, and ran in the opposite direction. A second later, there was a loud bang! as the explosion was set off. When Leoni turned around, the dummy had been blown backwards and had barbed wire embedded in its left leg.
Leoni turned to look up at the gamemakers. She certainly had their attention now.
THE INTERVIEW
Hello, you look dazzling tonight! Tell us about your outfit.
Hi Caesar! I’m absolutely in love with my outfit. This dress is more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen, let alone worn. My stylist based the patterns and embellishment on circuit boards to represent me and my district. My favourite part is definitely my bracelet, though. It’s my district token and was made by my great-grandfather nearly 100 years ago. It’s been passed down in our family ever since. My father gave it to me after I was reaped.
How do you like being in the Capitol so far? What has been your favorite part?
The Capitol is such an exciting place! Everywhere I look it’s as though they’ve taken a piece of my wildest dreams and put them right in front of me. Back in District Three we spend months designing, creating, and perfecting these inventions but almost never get to see them in real life. Everything is so different but also so much more interesting than at home!
Any thoughts about the other tributes? Have you made any friends, or enemies?
I’m currently in an alliance with my district partner, Neon, and 5 other people whose name’s I’ll keep anonymous!
Do you think you have what it takes to become a victor? Who or what are you fighting for?
Do I have what it takes? I’d like to hope so. I may not be as strong or skilled with knives and swords as some of the other tributes, but I do have my own set of skills which I think I’ll keep secret for now.
Do you have any expectations for the arena? Perhaps a preferred terrain?
There are so many possibilities for what could be in the arena I really don’t know. My mentor and I have discussed a few ideas based on things that have happened so far. We did have a theory that there may be Vampire mutts in the arena due to the stakes in the cornucopia which would be terrifying! An ideal arena would probably be in the ruins of a factory or someplace similar because it would feel more like home, and I’d be able to utilise the materials around me.
What do you miss most from your home district? Any shoutouts for anyone back home?
As incredible as the Capitol is, I definitely miss home. More than that, I miss the people at home. My younger brother, of course, is the person I miss most. My parents both used to work full time at the factories, so we’ve always stuck together. He’s only twelve and is the one person above all who I’m fighting to come home to.
Leoni's Interview Outfit