okay it’s time for our first introduction of one of my ocs!!
wren calloway!! (my favourite 🤫🤫🤫)
this is a little moodboard to get to know her better AND i’ll put her lore below
Wren was born October 30th, the year of the 31st games. She was always an isolated child. growing up desperately poor was never easy. Her parents, Fawn and Oscar Calloway owned “Calloway Dairy,” a struggiling dairy business which focused on more ethical animal treatment, which was actively driving them out of business.
Wren was the second child conceived by Fawn and Oscar. Their oldest (by 4 years,) Griffin, was a very animated and cheerful boy. Wren contrasted him deeply in comparison. she was often estranged from her peers at school, she was very quiet and ‘weird.’ She was sometimes picked on for her lack of social ques and ‘brains.’ As she aged, she became more of an outcast. her only friends being her brother and his friends and the animals on their farm. Wren often spent her days slightly envious of her brother Griffin. it was always easy for him to talk to people and make friends. it never got any easier for her.
Griffin always found a way to best Wren, it was always unintentional but his greatness always stirred something in Wren. Jealousy? Anger? she was never quite sure. He was better at bull riding (which was a family staple), academics, cow herding.. His greatness always found a way to make Wren quite useless, though she never voiced this feeling with anyone.
When Wren was 13, everything changed. Her brother got caught with a peacekeepers son, causing both Wren and her brother to be reaped for the 48th hunger games.
Wren was petrified as she entered the capitol for the first time. Her brother stayed by her side the entire time, trying desperately to assure her that she’d be home soon. Wren didn’t want to beleive him. The family needed Griffin much more than they needed Wren, she knew this rather plainly. She wished on every star that her death would be quick, and that her brother would win. Wren learned quickly that wishes didn’t come true.
throughout training Wren hardly did anything. she was much too intimidated by the much older tributes. She tried when requested but often did not do anything of value, which did not help with her chances to be sponsored or bet on. Griffin showed his strength, which was very prominent due to his years lugging hay bails around. Wren had a quite similar strength, but this remained concealed until she needed it.
during her private evaluation, Wren scored a three. leaving everyone to believe that she was a safe bet to watch die in the arena, she was quickly pushed to the side. Griffin scored a 7, giving him a solid chance to at least do okay. during her interview, it was hinted at often that Wren would die. A running gag wirh the interviewer and the audience. Wren struggled with social ques and hidden meanings, she didn’t understand why they kept laughing at her.
Her arena started off as an icy, frigid, landscape. Which worked terribly in the Calloway’s favour. They were used to the dry, earthy landscape of District 10. Griffin quickly found his sister in the beginning, taking her and running as far away as possible. The cold quickly got to them, causing them to get sick rather quickly.
surprisingly, the pair survived until the final 4. They had limited altercations with other tributes but came out mostly unscathed. Griffin had a kill under his belt, looting a large and heavy mace from the dead body. Their chances were looking much brighter. The snowy arena had melted into a sweltering desert giving the district 10 siblings more of an advantage on slightly more recognizable terrain. The unexpected, it was filled with different kinds of venomous mutts.
Griffin had found himself stung by a venomous scorpion. He didn’t tell his sister this. he felt fine and he didn’t want to worry her more than she was already clearly worried.
Unfortunately, they both had reason to be worried. The mutt which had stung Griffin had severe hallucinogenic properties, causing him to slowly descend into madness while on watch later the same night. Griffin violently attacked his sleeping sister. beginning to strangle her for an unknown reason.
Wren struggled, fear and adrenaline consuming her entire being. As she flailed, struggling to breathe, her hand inclosed on a jagged rock. She slammed it into the side of her older brothers skull, incapacitating him enough for her to begin to breathe once more.
Wren could have stopped there. But she was so overcome by fear and adrenaline that she contuined to violently slam the rock into Griffins head until his face was a bloody pulp. She was crazed, driven slightly mad with fear and shock about what she had just done. Covered in her now deceased brother’s blood, she began to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Slowly earning her the nickname “Mutt.” across the districts.
Wren had made it to the final three. she was on the hunt. fueled by rage and grief. luckily for her, the two remaining tributes who were originally allied had begun fighting each other. This distraction allowed a terrified, vengeful, and rage filled Wren swoop in and violently kill them both. Throughout the fight, Wren suffered a crucial cut to her left leg, which she fought through until the fight was over. Wren had ‘won’ the 48th hunger games.
The victory procedures were a blur for Wren. she had lost her left leg almost entirely in the surgery, and was constantly blinded by pain and discomfort as she got used to the new metal leg. All of Wrens truama and sadness began to manifest as anger and violence, causing her to often snap and attack everyone around her. Even the people who were just trying to help her. Wrens emotional and violent reactions helped solidify her as “The Mutt”.
Once the victory procedures ended, a 13 year old muzzled Wren returned home to find an angry mob waiting for her at the train station. Her district was horrified with how she had represented them. The captiol had also leaned into the districts use of the word “Mutt.” using it almost exclusively in all news about Wren. It was easy to use Wren as a force to manipulate the captiol citizens into believing the districts were second class to them, even feral in Wrens case.
Wren full sprinted to her new home in the victors village. locking herself inside and refusing to come out. This is where she would spend the next four years of her life. Isolated and alone. She refused to let anyone in, so overcome by anger, fear, and resentment towards everyone including herself. She pushed everyone away, being violently mean to everyone who once cared about her. until she was completely alone.
During this time, Fawn fell seriously ill. After the loss and her son and the “madness” of her young daughter. She was bedridden, slowly dying of a broken heart. Oscar couldn’t bear to leave her. They did not visit their surviving child once. This caused Calloway Dairy to truly crumble. Wrens winnings almost all went to her mothers medical care and supporting her family economically because they no longer worked. She did this despite them not seeing her.
