Mahogany Booker [wanderer] WIP

I'm not quite sure I'd fall into the category of "normal looking". Sure I'm still as human as the next person, but they're all blonde hair blue eyes. They're like little clones of eachother. I swear, there's hardly any individuality anymore; everyone just seems to have to look like someone nowdays.

But anyways, enough about that. I feel that I've taken it upon myself to stand out from the crowd, but not in a bad way; just in a way that I feel I express myself best in.

My hair is definately not like most other boys': it's long -- starting roughly just below my mouth line and trailing back and down to just above the base of my neck. It's also straight, though not pinstraight. Pinstraight is just too.... eh.... straight; there's no definition to it. My hair, though, I think is a good volume: it has some bounce, a very small lift to it, if that makes sense. Thickness! I believe that my clear things up a bit. If you haven't noticed already, my hair is black, though not all the way through. The tips of the bangs that usually cover my right eye are a dark amber brown; such a calm color. The brown at the ends of my hair goes down the right side of my bottom hairline, though the calm color stops about halfway behind my head. And since we're on the subject of hair, I would just like to mention that I usually have a little tuft of black hair at the end of my chin. I'm not quite sure if you'd call it a goatee or something else, but oh well; that doesn't really matter.

I wouldn't exactly say that my face is a pretty one to look at. My cheekbones don't really jut out noticably, but there is a distinct bump where they are under my skin. My eyes -- though the right one is always hidden behind a sheet of hair -- are quite large and a dark muddy brown color. Kind of awkward, really; they seem a bit unproportionate on my face. And my nose -- oh, goodness, please don't get me started on my nose. It's big and a clunker; there's nothing really good I can say about it. And no, just because I have a big nose does not mean I can smell better, so please don't ask me. I've been through that question too many times. My neck, too, is a bit longer than average. Not that this really is a problem, but when major body parts above my collarbone are mostly not-proportional to each other, it makes me feel bad.

My arms are fairly tone from being a wanderer. The indentions of where the muscles are underneath are defined, but not to a large extent. I'm not "buff", as you may call it, like other people, especially some of those Career boys. My muscles don't come from swinging around swords or attacking dummies, nope; mine comes from lugging around logs, building temporary shelters and climbing things. There's white burn scars all over my left arm and hand from an encounter with fire, but I'll get to that later.

Now, my torso (the one thing that labels your manhood other than the nether regions) is not really something to write home about. Just think of it this way: I am not the type to do hardcore workouts, considering that I find wandering around the wilderness to be enough of exercise. Athletes are toned and defined -- wanderers typically aren't. I may be thick-boned, but that doesn't mean I've got an automatic six pack. My stomach, though flat, really has no muscle line at all unless you count that little dent that shows where my ribcage ends. I guess that's just part of what I get living off plants and small animals whenever I can get a hold of them in the forest. It doesn't really matter, though. On a side note, in case you need to know, my belly button is an innie.

My legs are not chicken legs by any means. Walking around constantly and being chased away by angry bar tenders has really made them strong. Other than my arms, they're probably the most muscular and pretty to look at limbs on me. The lines that indicate where my muscles end and begin, also showing off those years of hard labor in the woods to stay alive. The lower half of my right leg, though, is gone; during the fire incident, a flaming log had fallen on my leg below the knee, crushing and burning it. Taia had thought it best to just cut it off since the burns were so severe, and since the bone had been crushed she said it was easier for her to cut through it. I've got a peg-leg, though; Taia helped me fashion it from wood, and we put a cloth lining in the part that my leg goes into so I don't get too many slivers.

My clothing usually consists of anything I can find, really; whether they be threadbare, old torn-up shirts or brand new ones people leave behind for some odd reason. I'm not really afraid to go out and about in ragged clothes -- my policy is as such: If it fits and it can stay up, it works. I like to stick with dark clothing, but honestly, I don't care. I just tend to like darker colors more.

I'm certainly not the brightest tool in the shed; I wasn't the best in my class, whenever I was there. I guess that's what sort of led up to my "if-it-doesn't-mean-anything-to-me-then-just-skip-it" point of view. If I don't feel that a situation will be of any benefit to me, I'll just skip out on it. If people complain, so what? They should make things more interesting if they really want me to come. My loyalties, too, lie with very few people, if even that. I just don't feel that loyalties are really worth anything because in the end, all you're going to be left with is yourself. You can only count on yourself, which is also why I go by "If you want it done right, just do it yourself". Simply put, yeah? Some people may see this as an "act of kindness" or whatever since I'm taking workload from them, but really, it's not. I just don't trust other people to do things right.

I don't see my loss of half a limb as such a big deal. Other people are all, "Woe is me! I cannot walk!" Pft. Those people just can't handle themselves in a non-perverted way. Having only half a leg means I'm still just as kick-ass as everybody else, but just don't expect me to really run away from anything. I'm just too damn good to run from a fight -- .... not really. Because I physically can't run very well, I'm pretty much forced to stay and fight my fights, which hasn't ended very well a few times; I personally don't try to provoke fights, but it's a different story when I'm drunk. I figure I'm a decent fighter since I can never run away from one, but no one's ever properly trained me. I'm not afraid to stay behind and fight either, since, well, I can't run. But if you make fun of me for being gimpy, I'll impale you right then and there -- not really, but you get my gist.

I am deathly afraid of fire -- seriously. Ever since Taia's house burned down and I got trapped, I never look at fire the same way. It's a curse, it's the devil's own tongue, it's hell contained in a fireplace; I don't even like fireplaces, for cying out loud! I even flinch away from little tiny flaming matches; I swear, you never know when that flame could just jump right out at you and burn you like it did me. I have the scars all over my arm and leg to prove to you how much I despise that element. I don't care that it gives life-saving warmth or cooks food, I won't get near it. I'd rather eat raw meat and suffer through the cold than be next to a fire.

On a happier note, I do like to joke around. I may pull pranks or threaten people every now and then, but I usually don't mean any real harm. What's the fun in a joke if someone actually does end up hurt? Then it's no fun at all. The whole point of a prank/joke is to scare someone to death without hurting them physically. Besides, as the saying goes, "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt." Very true.

The only thing I love more than anything is alcohol. It really is an acquired taste since it's so bitter, but heck, it tastes so good. Any kind of alcoholic drink is good to me, so I'm not picky about specific kinds or colors. You may say I'm addicted, but I prefer to call it a deep passion for great tasting beverages. I also tend to get drunk often and I've been told that I'm the outgoing kind of drunkie. I never remember much when waking up with a hangover, but I've woken up to some pretty strange things.

Well, now; you're just a nosey person. But anyway.

I don't remember very much from my early childhood, but Taia, the old lady that raised me, told me that one of her traveling merchants found me alone in District 6, wailing and red-faced. My parents were nowhere to be found, so the merchant took me back to District 10 and handed me over to Taia.

I grew up with Taia, an elderly lady who owned a little ferry buisness in what she called the bayou of the river, using her little canoe-ish boats to take both people and goods through the bayou to the other side. She was a nice old woman, teaching me the ways of the area like a nature guru. She took me along with her when she paddled stuff back and forth, and let me tell you, she was a strong old lady. Not only that, but she was a hard drinker, too. Everytime crates of alcohol would come in, she'd keep one or two for herself and ship off the rest. That was when my addiction deep passion for the drink began. Taia let me try some and even though it was bitter, I liked the way it tickled my tongue, so I took a few bottles.

At first all the intake of alcohol made me sick as a dog, but eventually I became accustomed to it. I would take at least one bottle with me whenever I would go on shipping runs and no one seemed to protest.

I enjoyed the peace of the shipping routes; no one was there to yell at me or anything, so I was just left with myself and the critters. I became really good at memorizing trails (or else you'd be dead for getting lost), and we got paid pretty fairly for our time delivering stuff. We just hid the fact that there was less alcohol being delivered than was given to us. Other than that, people relied on us.

Eventually, though, the word got out about our alcohol hoarding. I guess the bottlers just wanted to get rid of us for good because in the middle of the night when I was about twelve, our little shanty house-on-stilts was on fire.

I woke up to flames devouring the walls, so instant panic set in. I flew out of bed and ran to find Taia, but she was nowhere to be found. Of course, looking for her wasted my precious escape time, so just as I was running for the door, one of the two long beams that held up the ceiling fell and hit my left calf, trapping me as the house burned. I was screaming, pretty much; the thick flaming wooden beam was burning my skin and crushing my tibia and fibula bones. I tried to shove the beam off with my left arm, but the place where I put my hand was burnt to ashes so it went right through, burning my arm like hell itself before I could yank it free. The fire hurt so bad -- so utterly bad that I could feel my skin crisping and turning black. I couldn't pull myself free, even with pushing the beam with my other foot.

Taia literally came out of nowhere and knocked the beam right off my leg in a fit of superhuman strength. She grabbed onto the back of my shirt and hauled me out of the house faster than I could have imagined; it was also the first clear look at my leg: the skin was such a grotesque black and red and crispy that I fainted.

When I woke up, I found that I was missing half my leg, a rope was tied tightly around my thigh, and cloth was wrapped around the stump just below my knee. Taia was already fashioning something out of wood. My arm felt terrible, but she had put some kind of goo on it so at least the stinging was gone. I didn't know where we were, but at least there was no fire.

Turned out that she was making a makeshift leg for me (or rather, leveling the end of a cut off tree branch), so I was soon able to walk again. I stayed with Taia in the bayou for a few more years until I saw myself fit enough to go out on my own, which I did. I said my farewells, thanked her for everything she had done for me, then set off from District 10 to become a wanderer.

I still have my drinking issues, which is partially due to the fact that I look older than I actually am. I'm able to get into bars and clubs without people really giving me a second glance, other than my leg. It's pretty awesome.

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