Briar Ash of the Wanderers

With hair the color of bronze that brushes her shoulders ever so slightly, Alyssa "Briar" Ash stands proud and as straight as she can with her obvious limp. With her height of 5' 7" and her weight of 134 lb, she's rather average when it comes to those areas. Nothing besides the limp, the hair color and the eye color really stand out. Especially when she's seen in the green of trees half the time.

Her arms and legs are skinny, her feet bare, her bitten fingernails always have dirt underneath them, and she always has the scent of nature coming off of her. You can't call her beautiful, nor ugly, just simply...her. Her face is heart shaped, and her lips are thin and pale while her nose is small but sharp. Underneath short black lashes and pale eyebrows, gray eyes stare out.

Briar is a myriad of traits. Her three years of wandering had made her grow quiet and bottle her emotions up. To new people, she would seem calm and collected, intelligent and logical. But the inside of her mind runs wild, and she can't seem to ever let it out properly. Her only window to express them are her eyes, yet no one seems to notice.

To old and close friends, they know Briar's subject to mood swings. When she does let them spill, they realize that she is much more than is shown at first glance. One moment she could be perfectly calm and content, yet the next, she could be angry at you for something only she knows. You could leave her while she's happy, and come back to tears.

But even to old friends, she can't express things right. No one ever really knows how deep Briar's fear of her old home and past runs. She can't seem to find some one to really confide in. Over three years of being alone, Briar's developed a sense that she can't really trust any one around her.

A young girl names Alyssa was born in District 11 into a small family of just four people, which later became three, in the year of the 40th Hunger Games. Upon growing up, she was found to have a green thumb, her plants baring a few more pieces of fruit than others. But that only meant the more the Capitol took. Her parents, though proud, grew skinnier and skinnier through the ages. No matter how hard she and her older brother, Max, worked, they all still starved.

So by the age of 9, Alyssa learned how to sneak fruit away. At the same time, her brother would do the same thing. For several months, hunger was staved off. The Ash family lived with fuller bellies, and their lost weight returned little by little. All seemed perfectly well.

Until the Peacekeepers caught Max. It was just after Alyssa's 10th when commotion in the gardens grew every one's attention. The scene that was revealed was of a struggling Max being carried off to become an Avox, under the accusation of stealing from the whole of Panem. The Ash family was devastated, and for a little while, Alyssa stopped stealing.

Food seemed to last just a bit longer on the table at home with Max now gone. But the silence had carried on much longer than any food. Eventually, the loss of stolen food had caught up with them, and the Ash family had begun to starve again. In order to live, Alyssa began once again, only a lot more cautious as to not get caught. And this time, less food was taken.

Still, the Peacekeepers found out, and she was dragged away at the young age of 13 to become an Avox. Like her brother, Alyssa struggled and fought against them. At first, she couldn't break free. But the chance came when just a moment, the Peacekeepers had let down their guard, and Alyssa ran away into the forest.

She had successfully escaped the dreaded fate of an Avox, and became a wanderer. But the consequences of running so carelessly had cost her the ability to walk straight. Along the way of her escape, she had tripped into a briar patch and had badly twisted her ankle. Once it had been healed, her foot was a bad angle, and she couldn't stop the limp that followed. At the same time, she took on the name Briar for two reasons. One was to hide from searching Peacekeepers, and the other was to forget her past, forget her parents whom she had left behind. For surely, they would face a punishment instead for a run away 'thief' they would dub her. From that moment, she was known as Briar.

And so, for the next 3 years, Briar continued to live on her own, living the forest. She taught herself how to fasten and shoot a bow, though it was never really good. She grew her own food, and used a broken, stolen sickle to help harvest. Briar often visited the lower districts, but never again approached 11. Briar of the Ash family had become frightened of her past life of starvation and work. She began openly hating the Capitol and its system of cruelty.