Name: Larisa Macbay
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Height: 5'5
Hair Color: Sandy blonde
Eye Color: Green
Dorm: Falke
Personality:Because most of her life was spent in the company of the same two people, Larisa often finds herself a little overwhelmed by the many different people she's encountered since leaving home. Although the chance at making new friends is exciting, her nervousness tops out way above that excitement. She's an awkward thing at first because of it, stumbling over her words and on occasion rambling hopelessly in an attempt at keeping conversations going. She tries very hard to be likeable, because she's never been without family before and having real friends would make it so much less lonely. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that she's a little too quick to change her opinions and decisions to match those of whoever she's trying to impress.
Once she's gotten past her nerves, however, she's a pretty cheerful person. She's friendly, quick to lend a hand when help is needed, and very curious about the world. She loves hearing stories about others' lives or learning new games to play. Sometimes she gets a little caught up in daydreams and can space out a little, but never when there are things to be done. She's very very good at focusing on tasks at hand and sees them through to the end with a steadfast determination no matter what. Although her potential for leadership is lacking, she is at least very good at following orders.
When angry or sad or just too stressed, she turns to busy work in an attempt to keep her mind off of things, which most often means she takes to cleaning whatever she can get her hands on. When that doesn't work she seeks out high places to climb and be alone in for a while. Generally she can work through her problems on her own like this, but sometimes even that fails. When things eat at her that badly, she's prone to bursting into tears or lashing out angrily depending on the situation. She's likely to apologize profusely for either later on, because she worries that acting out like that will make her seem too troublesome to others.
History:Larisa comes from a small farm within Wall Maria situated not far from a forest of giant trees. Although her family never really had much in the way of money, they were able to support themselves well enough to get by. Her early childhood was a happy one, with doting parents and a much older brother who played with her when he could. The only low point came when her mother fell ill and, despite their best efforts to help her recover, succumbed to her illness. They all coped in their own ways, and Larisa, now only just old enough to help with chores, coped by throwing herself at the work her mother would have done. It was a depressing struggle at first, but it got easier as time passed and gradually became simply routine.
Lev, her brother, had coped with the loss the same way he tended to deal with most things. He bottled it up during the day and dealt with on his own at night from a perch high up on the roof of their home, where he could watch the stars. She'd followed him up there one night, when she couldn't sleep no matter what she tried, and talking things out had helped so much. Eventually she'd asked why he spent so much time up there, when there were all sorts of other places he might have gone to think. He'd shrugged it off at first, but finally conceded that he liked having a change of view. Everything seemed different up high, easier to deal with somehow. It didn't make much sense to her at first, but it stuck with her all the same.
One night while they were sitting together, she found herself looking out at the forest instead of up to the sky. She'd been up close to the giant trees before, more than once in fact, and they were taller than anything she'd ever seen before, some even taller than the Walls, she was sure of it. If everything was different from up high, she couldn't help but wonder what life might look like from the tops of those trees. Unfortunately, they weren't exactly the sorts of trees that anyone could just climb, since the branches started so high up the trunk. So she put it to the back of her mind and there it stayed until suddenly, one day, she realized there
was a way to climb them.
It happened during a rare family visit to the city for supplies. As they'd passed through into the District, she'd noticed members of the Garrison up on the Wall. She wasn't sure what they were doing, maybe something needed repairs, and for a little while she didn't think much on it, too overwhelmed by being out amongst crowds of people. And then, in the marketplace, it had hit her. Those machines the military used to climb the Walls, if she could learn to use them then even those trees would be nothing to climb! Excited, she told her brother, but he laughed it off, reminding her she'd have to actually join the military to get anywhere near the gear.
It took weeks and weeks to convince Lev and her dad that she was serious, that she really did want to join. Maybe her brother hadn't even meant much by his words back when he'd said them, but they'd become important to her. She could make sense of herself and what she was supposed to be doing with her life if she just had a better vantage point to see it all from! Eventually they caved, and on the next trip to the city, she said her goodbyes and set out to follow her dream. Even if it did end up being silly, surely she'd learn enough from the experience to figure out where to go next.
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