Briar Ackerman | District 7

On the surface, I'm just an average quiet teenager from District 7. Some people have called me pretty, once upon a time. But no one's said it in a while. My curly hair seems to soak up the humidity in the air, making it tangle and frizz pretty easily. I try to keep the chocolate brown mass pulled back off my face as much as possible. It makes it a little easier to manage, but it never seems to stay secured for long. But for a scar that slices through the right one, my eyebrows are arched high and deep brown. My eyes are too big for my long, slender face and they droop at the outside corners. People would always tell me I'd grow into them, but at seventeen, I think I'm stuck with them. They're the same brown as my hair, save for a ring of light green around the edges. The whole package gives me the impression that I've been dipped in mud headfirst. The ridge in the middle of my nose betrays a break that never quite healed properly and my lips rarely turn up in a smile, set more in a passive expression.

I'm tall, an inch or two shy of six feet. But I'm thin, "a waif" someone once called me. It comes from not having enough to eat, but I suppose that's normal in this place. My neck is thin, giving it the illusion that it's too long for my body. I wear whatever light cotton clothes I can find to cover my pale skin, which does well to hide the scars and bruises that paint it. Most of my height is contained in my legs, which despite the little nourishment we get are very powerful. I blame the climbing that comes with my job. And the running. I've never tried, but I bet I could outrun even the Peacekeepers. Maybe someday.

I've heard people refer to me as quiet. Or sullen. I guess maybe that's true. I don't smile that much. There hasn't been much to smile about. Not for a while anyway. And I don't really say much. When I do talk, my voice is very quiet. Just a learned behavior I guess. I go to school, I go to work, I come home. There isn't a lot of time for friends. Besides, friends tend to notice things and start asking questions. Friends get you hurt. It's easier to just keep my head down and not attract attention. Blending into the background is much better than being in the spotlight.

I prefer to be alone if I can help it. When I find myself in a group of people, I get skittish. I've been known to jerk back when someone touches me. Even larger crowds can overwhelm me and I have to get away. That's where the running comes in. I have a few sanctuaries scattered throughout the area, places where I can go when life gets to be too much, although I never stay too long. I learned that lesson a long time ago.

I do love to cook though. Baking especially. I've gotten pretty good at it over the years and now I’m pretty much responsible for every meal my family eats. I especially love baking for Willow, my- my baby sister. She's two years old. I'd do anything for her, and I have the scars to prove it. I'm a bit of a momma wolf when it comes to Willow. All I have to do is think of someone hurting her and I can feel my normally calm demeanor cracking. I don't know what I'll do when it comes time for her first Reaping.

I'm the oldest and only daughter of Miriam and Dale Ackerman. They named me Briar, because my mother's pregnancy was difficult but something beautiful, me, came from it. We lived in a little house on the edge of the forests in District 7. I can still remember waking up to the smell of pine and cedar in the spring. I adored my father, worshiped the ground he walked on. He worked in the forests everyday, and everyday I'd wait for him to come home, kicking my small feet back and forth on the front porch of our home. Over time, I was joined by my younger brother, David, just eighteen months younger than me. It was as nice a life as one could expect in the Districts.

But it couldn't last. Shortly after I turned ten, tragedy struck. My father went into work and didn’t come back home that night. Apparently his harness snapped and he fell. My mom took it hard. We all did. Everyone told my brother it was time to take care of everyone. That he was the man of the house now. I guess that’s when we really started stealing. We weren’t old enough to take out tesserae, so we became a team. A good one. The two of us could hit the market and come back with enough food to feed us and our mother for a while if we rationed it properly. She never knew. She just thought that we were making what little money she earned in the mill stretch as far as we could. We never got caught, although it came close a few times. To this day I still think some people covered for us with the Peacekeepers.

A couple years later, we thought our troubles would be getting better. Mom told me and David that she had fallen in love again. His name was Caleb and he was going to be our stepfather. And for a while it was better. The extra income meant we didn’t have to worry about food as much, and Mom really did seem happy. He’d never be my father, but if he really loved Mom, then I thought there was no harm in letting my guard down a little.

I’ll never forget the first time it happened though. I was fourteen, and I had been working late in the mill, sweeping up the sawdust and woodchips that seemed to blanket the floor. It was dark by the time I left, and Caleb was waiting for me. He said he’d walk with me back home, that a girl my age should be walking alone at night. Then he tried to hold my hand, to kiss me. I fought back, disgusted, but he was bigger, stronger. When he was done, he just left me there, laying in the grass and crying.

I tried to tell my mother what had happened. She got angry with me. She told me that she knew I wasn’t being fair to Caleb. That he wasn’t trying to replace my father, but I had never given him a chance to be a part of my family. And now I was making up stories to get him in trouble. I told David. He believed me, and tried to stand up to Caleb, without Mom knowing. He got a black eye for his trouble. Caleb has made it pretty clear what will happen if we ever try to tell anyone again.

Before I would have thought about running away, as soon as David was able. But with Willow in the family now... I can’t leave her. I have to stay. To protect her. So I’ll endure what I have to, be called a whore and worse, until I can get us all out of here.

((OOC note: Willow is actually Briar’s daughter, being raised in the family as her sister. It’s actually a fairly common practice with teenage pregnancy. It’s obviously not common knowledge and not something Briar would just tell anyone. But right before Willow was born, Briar dropped off the face of the earth for a little while.))