Nysalia Solt, Wanderer

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My name is Nysalia.
But it's Sally to you.
I'm a freaking female.
I've lived in this forsaken place
commonly known as Panem for nineteen years.
I'm positive that I'm asexual.
I hate most people.
I'm pretty sure I hate you too.

Hello, hello, hello.
I'm wakin' up at the start
of the end of the world.
But it's feeling just like
every other morning before.

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a p p e a r a n c e :

People like to whisper things, to talk behind the backs of others, to pretend as if other people cannot hear their nasty thoughts spoken aloud so clearly. It is a little terrifying, how much stronger people feel once they are in a group. Alone, one would never say harsh things, not to someones face. But with a group... oh, with a group, people begin to forget that there are people with feelings around.

It's a good thing that I've stopped caring.

I am pretty average looking. Or at least, if you ask me, that's what I believe. Some men and women say other things, call me unfriendly names that are meant to dig deep beneath my skin and lodge there, like a thorn - though these can't be removed. I suppose that some of these names became true because I really did take up such occupations, but never, ever by choice. But like I said before, I've stopped caring.

I have hair the colour of chestnuts. This isn't a special colour, not in the very least. Many in District 8 are born with dark hair, some even have black hair. The special ones, but unlucky ones I believe, are born with light hair, like the sun. When I was younger I used to envy those girls. With their light hair; innocent smiles; eyes the colour of the sky. My hair is dark and straight, the colour of chestnuts, and of mud. My eyes are of the same colour. I've heard a neighbour call them 'unsettling' or even 'disturbing' which is a tad ridiculous, if you ask me. My eyes just happen to be dark, but unsettling seems to go hand in hand with me.

But enough about my hair and eyes. No one actually cares about that. I've always been slim. Not by choice, really. I had none. Since my family is rather large, all meals are sparse and you're lucky to even get a morsel in the end. I dislike being bony (or brittle as some might say), but I'm quick with my knife, so make no mistake. People have made that mistake before in their attempt to take advantage of me. I'm tall, over average. I haven't ever measured my height before because no one actually cares about how tall another person is. But I'm taller than most girls I know, certainly taller than any of my siblings and sometimes even taller than some men. Which is good.

I have a long scar that reaches from my navel to the point where my breasts begin. It's red and ugly looking, but I like it. I've certainly never been ashamed of it. The scar is a last relic of my time in District 8. It's a time that I don't like to be reminded of and that I will only repeat this one time. But then, I might as well be thankful for the scar. If I hadn't attacked the Peacekeeper and if he hadn't cut me for it, I might never have ended in the Detention Center, and then, never would have found Maddox. And I have Maddox to thank for my very life.

The cars are moving like
a half a mile an hour and I
started staring at the passengers
and waving goodbye
can you tell me what was ever really
special about me all this time?[/i][/color]

p e r s o n a l i t y :

I've learned early on that if I want to be anything, if I want to survive; then I can only count on myself for it. Not on my family, not on 'friends' and certainly not on the government. No one can be trusted. You'd expect me to get along well with my family. After all, I have eight brothers and sisters and two parents to top it all off. With so many siblings, you would expect me to have made at least a single friend. It's not that I never loved them. I did. I do. I don't know. But our relationship has always been a strained one. It's easy to sink into nonbeing when you live in a crowded household.

It's in Maddox that I found my first friend. It took a while because I'm generally not that open. I like to keep to myself and I'm distrustful of strangers as a rule, but I owe him my life - as I said before - and he asked for nothing. Now my family would grant favours only for something in return. I was just fourteen when my siblings pressured me into granting Peacekeepers favours in order to keep our family alive, in order to keep food on the table, even though it was my parents who were responsible for all the damage in the first place.

People easily think that I am cold, that I am bitter and angry all of the time. That's not true. I'm cautious, I'm careful, I'm distrustful, sure. But I'm not cold. The government is stone cold. The Capitol. They are what I hate more than anything else on this earth. Capitolites. I would never do anything out of pure hatred or cruelty. I do not enjoy seeing others suffer for my entertainment, not like the Capitolites do. Those who never had to starve a day of their lives, who never lost their youngest siblings to the Hunger Games and watched them get butchered on live television, those who never had to plausibly fear anything for even a minute. It is those people that I hate.

There is no justice in this world, so I make my own. I've found a like-minded person in Maddox. So don't tell me that I am bitter. Sure, I am angry. I admit that I can be a little aggressive, a bit sharp of tongue, sometimes. If you don't insult me, you'll be fine. I'm quick with words, but even quicker with my knife.
Oh... and never call my Nysalia. It's a silly name that my parents thought up of for a laugh. They thought up all of my siblings' names for a laugh. It made us stick out even more than we already did, given our situation. I'm Sally, or Sal. Nothing else. I warn you.

I'm quick to anger, but on the bright side, I don't manage to hold a grudge for very long. Some say that I'm uncontrollable, but that isn't true. I just hate being told what to do, I refuse to be bossed around by anyone at all. I like being on my own, I enjoy my independence. I've threatened people before, I've been quick to snap and throw a fit. There is one person whom I will listen to always and that is Maddox. But then I owe him everything, so the payback is a small one.

I refuse to be one of those people who claim that they are not afraid of anything. That isn't possible and anyone who says so is a fool. I fear my dreams, I fear the ghosts of my past that show up in them. I fear the shadows that spring up in the night, that wrap themselves around you and threaten to suffocate. I can fight humans, but I can't fight my demons. Not even with my knife. So maybe I am gullible for believing those things. In demons and ghosts and things that go bump in the night. But darkness is alive, breathing, pulsating and always watching.
I don't believe you if you tell me that you feel comfortable in it.

I will never be in a relationship with anyone. Now, you may laugh and shake your head and in your wise, age-old voice try to tell me that I will find love and then I'll believe. But I've never been attracted to anyone. I've loved people, I really love Maddox. I like him a lot, but not like that. I have never felt for another person like that, with butterflies in my stomach, my heart going one hundred kilometres per hour - no. After what I've experienced, you may say, it's understandable. Sure, I've been used by burly, disgusting men in ways I wouldn't fathom to repeat. But even before that I've never been attracted to another person like that. I can love, but not that kind of love. I think someone said that it's called being asexual, but I am unsure of that.

I did say that I hate people, well most people, up there. That's no exaggeration. I find most people bothersome and infuriating. So it is quite true.

If there is one thing that I am not and will never be, it is a traitor. Once I pledge my loyalty to a cause, I remain loyal to that very cause. I am loyal to Maddox. I admire him. He is probably the only person that I swear I would risk my life for. But apart from Maddox, I still remain loyal to those that I can call 'friends' - though I still find them hard to trust. I would never, ever abandon a cause that I believe in.

I think you turn,
turn the clock,
but I don't really know.
and I can't remember caring
for an hour or so.[/i]

h i s t o r y :

I do not like to talk about my past. It is meant to be forgotten and be just that, passed. But I will grant you the favour and tell my story. Just this once and you must promise to listen carefully because I hate to repeat myself.

I was born nineteen years ago in a little cinderblock house on the corner between Blight and Fifth Street. It's not a very busy neighbourhood, but it's filled with the hungry and poor and thus, it's desolate. I mean, District 8 is certainly not the cleanest of places. Due to the large amount of factory work taking place here, the air is polluted by thick plumes of smoke that billow out from the factories. Those who work in the factories are known as 'Hands' and it's a thankless job that usually results in asthma or even death. Day by day, I would stare out of the fogged up windows and watch as women and men returned from work, their faces drawn, their features more and more haggard. You slowly die from the work you need to do to stay alive. That's the irony of it. I vowed then never to work in a factory.

I used to do well in school. I liked to learn and school was one of the only places where I could be free. My parents had always been penniless, but at least they used to be hard workers and they cared. About us and about each other. Mother and father loved one another. They did. Before father lost his job because arthritis made his hands useless for work and before he developed his fondness for alcohol. Mother used to sing then. She would stand in the kitchen, singing, usually with a baby or two held in her arms. That was one of the problems we had. She should have realised that it was hard enough to feed herself and father, much less some children. Instead she went and got pregnant nine times.

There's Noche, he's the oldest. Dark hair, tall, mysterious eyes and scrawny. Then comes Tully (she's dead now). She had hair like soot, but eyes that were light and blue and people said that her laughter used to make even the most pessimistic neighbours smile. She was the happiest amongst us all, the laughter.
Meggie has red hair, we don't know where she got it from. Her fiery hair and almond eyes made her popular amongst her clients. Then there's me.
Denesia and Rex are twins. They both have matching brown hair, a little lighter than mine and green, intelligent looking eyes. They're both a little on the shorter side, but starved nonetheless. I used to get along best with Denesia, whom everyone liked to call Denise.
Lynesse is the innocence. With her black hair and blue eyes, she doesn't look ordinary. Sheltered, protected by her older siblings, life has been made simpler for her.
Mina looks a little like me. Her hair is of the same colour, but her eyes aren't labelled as 'unsettling'. She is a smart one, even though she's still very young, it's apparent. Noche said that she'll do well in school. She would have before she died.
Last, there's Lazarus. Curly hair, bright eyes and dimples. He shouldn't have been born into this cruel, cruel world.

Tully, Rex and Mina were lost to the Hunger Games. I don't even remember when that was. But enough about my siblings...

After father lost his job, things started going downhill for us. I was thirteen at the time. Tully was already dead. I watched my oldest sister die on live television. It was then that I started hating the Capitol and its corrupt games of senseless killing. I also started noticing the strange looks that other people gave me. Perhaps it had something to do with my sister, Meggie's job. The men would call after me when I left school. They'd be standing with their backs to the wall, outside of the factory during their lunch hours, hooting and hollering. I would quicken my pace, often dragging the then six-year old Lynesse and the ten-year old Denesia with me, until they started crying because I was hurting them by pulling on their arms. It would earn me a talking to from my mother, after Lynesse told on me once we arrived home.

Progressively, I started noting what the men were calling out to me and it sickened me. 'Come over here and we'll see if you're as good as your sister!' 'Come on, Nysalia, your sisters can watch.' 'Who'll feed them now that your dad's got no job?'
Our family wasn't doing well and the entire neighbourhood knew it. They thought that I couldn't hear them when they spoke, whispering and exchanging significant looks whenever I walked past them with one of my little siblings in tow. Noche, as the oldest, had to take up a job along with school. He was still too young with his fifteen years to be out of school, so he had to continue that even though he spoke of nothing but quitting school.

That's when Meggie told me more about her part time job, a disgusting job she took on to keep food on the table while father was fading away through his excessive drinking problem. Now he was even beginning to lash out at the younger ones and at mother. Father and mother would be fighting at night when he came home completely pissed without even a single coin. Mother would throw the dishrag at him and he would hit her so hard that she would fly across the room. Then he'd turn on Lynesse, Mina or Lazarus; those that were too young to defend themselves. Plus, Noche and Meggie were always gone, working until the early hours of the morning and couldn't help them. Denesia and I knew better and knew to hide. Now I feel bad for not stepping in and defending my younger sisters and brother.

When I turned fourteen, Noche and Meggie took me aside and said that I was finally old enough to help them earn some money. That's when Meggie took me with her on the job. That's when the names the neighbours kept shouting after me finally came true. For a few copper coins, I'd let a Peacekeeper, or even one of the factory workers who had shouted after me, do whatever they want with me. I learned how to stop feeling anything. Maybe that's why people think I'm bitter. I started keeping a knife in my socks, just in case I needed to defend myself from one of the clients.

The one time father tried to hit me, I dodged his flying fists and pulled out my knife. I told him that next time I wouldn't just pull it out and that I would make use of it. He never tried to hit me again. I was sixteen years old when a Peacekeeper slapped me across the face after I refused to do him a favour. When he pulled back to backhand me again, I instinctively stabbed him with my knife. I was exceptionally lucky that I did not kill him. I got sent to the Detention Center to do my time, but not before the Peacekeeper that I attacked got a hold of me, had his buddies pin me down, and cut me from my navel to my left breast, diagonally across my stomach.

The Detention Center was a horrible place. I don't like to recount my experiences there. I got battered and bruised and emotionally scarred until I started fearing even my own shadow. When I closed my eyes then, I would see ghosts and shadows that moved, clawing towards me in the never ending dark. When they realised how terrified I had become of the dark, they switched off the lights in my cell, forever trapping me in an endless loop of my nightmares. Eventually I escaped. I don't know how it happened, what I did or how I got into the forest, but I managed. I fled, injured and scared and hurt beyond what I ever imagined possible. I think I might have been seventeen, nearing eighteen.

I collapsed and slept on the forest floor, not caring about wolves and bears and hunters or the Peacekeepers that were bound to find me there. I was exhausted, physically and mentally pushed to my limits. It was there that Maddox found me. He was everything that I wanted to be. Noble, a hero, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. I had never met someone quite like him before and I immediately swore my fealty to him. All of the sudden, the thought of being alone with my dreams of terror and the ghosts that haunt inside me, was not a particularly uplifting one. So I've become his shadow; living in the forest, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. I know that Maddox isn't a fan of the term 'thief' and prefers 'vigilante', but I'm not too picky about those kind of things.

The minute he saved my life, I vowed in secret to do the same for him one day: just another reason why I dislike leaving his side.

Of course I would still like to have my revenge. To slit up the Peacekeeper who did the same to me all those years ago. But somehow I think that Maddox wouldn't approve of it.

Started crying
and I couldn't stop myself
started running
but there's nowhere to run to.
I sat down on the street
took a look at myself.[/i][/color]

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c o d e w o r d :

f a c e c l a i m :

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