FREYA LAUREY

freya laurey was born in district 9 of panem. her parents both worked to provide for themselves. her father worked in the fields, harvesting and threshing grain and her mother worked in the mill until after she gave birth to freya. the pregnancy was rough on her and made her weak and she didn't fully recover afterwards. she stayed at home after that, raising her daughter and weaving baskets and mats from grain stalks. freya was born deaf, something the doctor figured out a few weeks after freya's birth when an alarm went off and freya didn't respond to it.

they began learning to sign from another family in the community, and slowly began to teach signs to their growing daughter. despite the poverty and the constant hard work, they worked even harder to ensure freya was able to communicate. over time, more members of the community began to learn in order to engage with freya if they didn't already know. 

freya learned to work with her hands early on. she learned to weave from her mother and spent a lot of time helping her make and sell baskets. she learned to cook too. they weren't well off enough to have access to a lot of food, but they worked hard for what they had and made due with it. 

when freya was seven, her aunt and uncle died after untreated illness, leaving behind a one year olf daughter named hope. despite the strain on her family, freya's parents took hope in. hope became freya's younger sister instantly. she cared for her so deeply. she'd always wanted a sister, but she was starting to understand how tough it would be to have more than one child to care for. 

as soon as she was old enough, freya took out tesserae to help their family eat. her parents didn't want her too, but she insisted on it. she wanted to pull her weight and make sure they had more grain, especially when they didn't get to keep so much of the grain they harvested. all her life, freya thought that the people of district 9 deserved to keep what they worked so hard to harvest. her parents made sure she kept those thoughts to herself, it was dangerous to be thinking those things in panem, and freya had to understand that. just because she could sign not speak, didn't mean that it was safe for her to just say anything.

she thought she was safe for a good few years, there were so many kids in district 9 and so many more people who took out more tesserae than she did. when freya was seventeen years old, her name was drawn out of the bowl of hundreds of names. she didn't hear it until someone nudged her forward, and told her they'd drawn her name. freya began shaking before she was even up the stairs that lead to the stage. her district partner, asa smallwood, was from the other side of district 9 and being such a large district, they'd never met prior. his family had been even worse off than freya's and his name had been in the drawing many times. he was younger than her, fourteen years old. 

from the moment she was reaped and brought to the capitol, freya was fitted with technology that allowed other people's spoken language to be translated to sign for her in a contact lens, and translated her sign into spoken language. she hated it, but she understood it was to make her marketable. she didn't think she was going to win. she thought they were just making her someone to pity. she wasn't determined to win early on. she just didn't want to die painfully. the capitol loved asa though. they saw him as an underdog, and pitied him for being so young in the arena. they ate the district 9 pair up, but asa was the favorite.

during training, freya learned how to fight and how to survive. she'd been working in the fields with her father for years now. she was strong, and she picked up the art of killing quickly. she tried not to show it off though, somewhere along the line, she resolved to make herself as invisible as possible. she was good with a knife, with a scythe and even with a spear. what she wasn't good at was knowing when she was going to be attacked. she couldn't hear, and she didn't have that forewarning like the other tributes had. she knew she'd have to stay vigilant, find water, and most of all make alliances.

the easiest of those to secure was asa, but he wasn't keen on it at first. it took some convincing and their mentor had to step in and assure them both that the alliance was worth it. their mentor also brokered an alliance for them both with the male district 7 tribute.

their arena wasn't at all similar to the area freya grew up in. it was mountainous and wooded, with a large valley where the cornucopia was.

freya won her games when it came down to a fight between herself, the male tribute from district 7 and the female tribute from district 1. she triggered a rock slide down a cliff. the rocks killed the tribute from 7, but it injured her. her leg became trapped under a large boulder. she used a knife to kill the district one tribute when she came down the mountain to kill freya. she passed out from blood loss nearly immediately after she killed the district 1 tribute.

she was airlifted out of the arena, but the capitol wasn't able to save her leg. they replaced it with a prosthetic, and paraded her around as an underdog victor who survived despite all the odds (including her deafness). they insisted she use the bracelet and contact lens combination again during the press and following victory tour. the capitol pretended like they had saved her.

back home, freya moved herself and her family into the victor's village. she refused to allow hope to take tesserae. she didn't want her younger sister to go through what she did. every year from then on, she was forced to mentor children sent into the arena to die. she was forced to return to the capitol to attend parties and pretend she was so grateful to them.

her sentiments against the capitol only grew with time, when they kept bringing up her name as if they'd saved her from some horrible fate. when the 74th games came around, it had been eight years of this. freya was at her wit's end. when katniss's refusal to bend to the capitol's will sparked a rebellion, freya was all in. she just had to bide her time. plutarch heavensbee came to her before the quarter quell, attempting to get her to volunteer for the games, but freya refused. she agreed to help him and help katniss, but she wasn't going back into the arena. nine had other victors. those other victors weren't sympathetic to the rebellion though. it was a risk they had to take. before the quell, plutarch helped her escape to district 13. she couldn't take her family, but he told her he hoped to get them out before war broke out. in retallion for freya's disappearance, the capitol had her parents and hope killed. there was nothing plutarch could do to stop it without exposing himself.

in 13, freya became close with cressida, castor and pollux. they knew how to sign and freya found comfort in that. they became her closest friends and confidants. she didn't come to shoot propos and be a figurehead, freya came to fight and intended to be ready when the time came.

after the quarter quell, the rest of the victors they were able to save joined them in 13. she reconnected with those she already knew, and met katniss for the first time. the survivors of the bombing of twelve did as well. although most of them weren't in fighting form, things were starting to shape up into a real army.