Solomon

This is Shadow in the Mirror's first mutt-tribute

Appearance
Solomon is a new kind of mutt creation designed to represent the Capitol. He’s a mix of a salamander, a snake, a kelpie and a human.

He has a human’s form, a snake’s tong and eyes, a water salamander’s ears and gels and a kelpie’s green skin and hair. He has webbed fingers and toes with claws and scaled skin like a crocodile. He’s only 140 cm high and weights 35 kg. Do to his mutations he’s quite muscular for a little boy.

Personality
Instinctive – Solomon relies more on his instincts than taught knowledge. Think of it more as animal instincts of survival than gut feelings.

Simple minded – Solomon thinks and acts more as an animal than as a human. The reason is that his animal instincts are dominant.

Emotionless – He’s designed to be a cold-blooded killer therefore he do not fell remorse when killing. Neither do he thinks it’s wrong to kill tributes – it’s just a part of the Game.

Killing – If feeling threatened he will protect and kill in self-defence.

Dominant – Being a male with strong animal instincts, Solomon is very dominant and does not like being around other males (of any species). He will try to kill males out of pure instincts while females are more acceptable.

Caring – Solomon is not just an animal without feelings. He’s caring too: If it’s safe he will stay by a dying persons side until the person dies (no matter the gender). While waiting he will stroke the person’s head and face gently just like his mother used to do to calm him down. He won’t do this to his own victims and it won’t be an act of remorse or sadness, more as a gesture or as an act of respect.

Strengths
No remorse – Solomon doesn’t feel remorse when killing. To him it’s just the way of nature: Kill or be killed.

Swimming – He’s an incredibly fast swimmer thanks to his webbed hands and feet as well as his ability to breath under water. He’s definitely most dangerous in water.

Fishing – He’s an excellent fisher. He prefers to fish on his own but his just as good with fishing tools.

Camouflage – His green coloured skin makes it very easy for him to hide in lakes, woods and fields.

Sharp senses – Like a snake Solomon can smell with his tong but not just that, he can track a prey’s movements by the smell of it. He’s hearing is very sharp as well. It’s not like he can hear a heartbeat miles any! It’s just a bit better than human’s.

Dreams
Getting his freedom – the Capitol has promised to set him and his mother free if he wins the Game.

Fears
Anything should happen to his mother. Labs. Peacekeepers. Being in small places or caught in nets.

Weaknesses
Claustrophobic – As a result of having been locked up his entire life, he is now terrified of small places. An exception is underwater caves.

Mute – In order to make him into an under water creature the scientists had to make some modifications on his trachea which resulted in damaging the vocal flap. Therefore he doesn’t have a language. He can only hiss, snarl and snap to express him self vocally. He does use a simple type of sign languages (since most people do not understand the official type of sign languages) when communicating with people.

Backstory
When the Capitol began to participate in the Games they wanted their tributes to win. But the Districts had a huge benefit: They had trained for the Games for decades and the Capitol had not! In order for the Capitol tributes to become victors, they had to be supernaturally good. Therefore the Capitol created a new project: Designing the best tribute ever. They contacted the lab in District 14 and the first mutt-tributes were created. Year after year the mutt-tributes became better and better but they weren’t good enough for the Capitol (nothing seems to be) and the District 14 scientists went one step further. Instead of creating a tribute outside the womb, the scientists decided to try and modify a humane embryo.

A pregnant widow and earlier elite swimmer from District 4 was chosen and brought to the lab in District 14.

Doing the entire pregnancy the embryo was modified using the newest Capitol and District 3 technology and lots of chemicals. When the baby boy was born his mother named him Solomon. The mother Maria was allowed to travel back to District 4 but she chose to stay in the lab to be with her baby. Even thought he had been turned into a monster he was still her little boy.

Solomon grew up in the lab surrounded by scientists and peacekeepers (in case he turned out too violent or uncontrollable). The only loving person in his life was his mother who he tied a very close bond to (almost pet like). At the age of five his training for the games started. Up until then his abilities to swimming, fishing and tracking (mostly his mother) had been observed in order to develop a training program.

The plan was to make peacekeepers teach him to fight and Victors from the Career Districts should have taught him to survive the games. But all on his own Solomon showed them how he was able to survive the arena on his own using his instincts and special abilities when they tested him in a small arena – normally used to test mutts in.

At the age of 12 Solomon’s name was enrolled in the games and the Capitol couldn’t wait to see their “adorable pet monster tribute” in the arena. They didn’t have to wait long.