There is no pain worse than that of remembrance.

★Character Name: Cadette Lance

★Gender: Female

★Age: 75

★District: Eight

★Physical Appearance: Old, withered, weak… age has wrinkled her skin and thinned her bones; everything about Cadette Lance sags. Once a girl made only of smiles, only faint laugh lines of the past remain on her face, for constant confusion wears her thin and constantly sends her tumbling back to painful moments. Seventy-five years of life are obvious in every wisp of white hair gracing her head, all sign of the blonde tendrils Cadette once possessed now gone with time. Only the caramel of her eyes remains youthful, but surrounded by deep bags and flabs of weathered skin, the way they sometimes sparkle is lost. Yet too often, there is none to be found- dulled by panic and grief as she relives times of distress.

★Personality: Caught between the confusion of a muddled mind and the pain of lucidity, there isn’t much personality most people are able to glean from this elderly woman. Constantly lost in a reality mingling with events that occurred sixty years previous, Cadette Lance is not nearly as youthful or sharp as she had been as a teenager. She has a hard time thinking and understanding things as of late, and though it is disappointing to have a brain that feels as though it is half made of only mush, Cadette has been forced to cope with a mental decline as of late. Often, she thinks she is somewhere else, with someone else, and it leads to a great deal of disorientation. Cadette is polite in her confusion, and the kindness in her heart still beats weakly, but the loneliness of her own world and the symptoms of the mental illness that has taken over her life have sent a ray of sadness crying out within her more strongly than it has at many times. Sometimes she thinks it is odd that she would not fall to depression until sixty years after her Games, when so many victors feel helpless or guilty afterwards- how she managed to evade it until old age. Age… age has been cruel to her.

★Past: Born to a tailor and a seamstress of a poorer background in District 8, Cadette wouldn’t say her childhood was easy, but she certainly didn’t live her first fifteen years of life starving in the streets. Even when food was scarce, the little girl always felt loved and happy- her brothers, Gunner, Flint, and Jet, were always there beside her. They were the three who taught her to fight- the rowdiness of three boys in the household rubbed off on the smallest Lance, and it was partially due to that training that she managed to survive her Games. After volunteering to find her moment in the spotlight at age fifteen, Cadette realized her life had been an illusion from a trigger the Gamemakers revealed to her- there was no Gunner, Flint, or Jet. She had buried the memories of their deaths as a small child, for it had been too much for her to bear.

Despite the following breakdown, the girl still found herself the final tribute. Her victory was rather quiet, and the news and spotlight passed quickly, for, as always, she had only ever been average in anything. Returning to the district of her childhood, Cadette began to cope with her grief and the traumatic memories she had protected herself from with large doses of therapy and giving back. With money from her victory, Cadette created a program supporting families in District 8 who had lost a parent or sibling that compensated for a proper burial and some financial support while they coped with their grief. It did not heal her completely to see others well, but it was something to be sure few would suffer exactly as she had before. Organization of the program busied her.

Over the years, she began to reconcile with her childhood friends, and developed a relationship with a young man from her past by the name of Tristan Creed. They married when she was twenty-four, him two years her senior. Together, they adopted a little girl named Luscie. But the happy family, unfortunately, didn’t last long- after three years, they divorced after Tristan’s numerous abuses of her victor’s fortune, and Cadette resumed the use of her maiden name. Full responsibility for her daughter consumed her life, and she tried her best to raise Luscie well by showing a good example of giving to the poor. When Luscie began to attend school, Cadette returned to her unfinished studies as well, for much of school had been missed during a childhood on the verge of poverty.

For a while, her life was uneventful. Cadette was content in believing her brothers were watching over her from above, guiding her through life. Few issues arose in her charity, and even seeing her ex-husband at Luscie’s wedding after twenty years of making himself scarce hadn’t been too harmful. Her first grandchild was born when she was forty-nine; another came three years later.

Brief grief for the tributes she mentored came and went, with the exception of victor Constantine Craine when Cadette was sixty-five, he sixteen. It was around that age when the symptoms being to show, though progressing very slowly- slight forgetfulness in everything she did, and memories less vivid than they had been in the past. At first, she’d passed it off as simple old age.

Years passed- she began to confuse her granddaughter and Luscie, and found memories of the past years out of her reach. Memories of the games and her childhood became more and more pungent, and as her hair lost all remaining blonde and her skin began to permanently sag, she found herself far more confused with everything in general. With her seventy-fourth birthday came the dreaded diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. Moments of lucidity come and go, but more often than not, Cadette is trapped a world that hasn’t existed for decades.

★Strengths: Unfortunately, Cadette’s only strength would have to be the kindness still left in her heart- she would genuinely care for an ally, despite that it would be difficult to help them. Don’t think that there’s no strength in those old bones, either- she can hit another tribute over the head with a pan if need be. Or something like that.

★Weaknesses: The most obvious of Cadette’s weaknesses would definitely be her age. Not much within her can stand any athletic activity, and her body is slowly beginning to fail her as it grows rusty. Secondly, the obvious weakness is the Alzheimer’s- it’s very, very easy to take advantage of a tribute who doesn’t know where they are and thinks their attacker is their brother.

★Other: