Rumex ~District 10~

(He is the one on the left in the picture).

Rumex has not changed much in appearance since he was young besides growing a bit taller, his face still has a boyish look to it besides the fact that it's rather gaunt from hunger, his body is thin on account of this too. His green eyes have dark shadows underneath them and are sunk into his face from lack of sleep, and his lips are cracked. His fingernails are dirty and broken short, his hands are hard and callused from the stick he uses for shepherding.

He has straight, short black hair and pale skin, all of those, along with the rest of him, usually has dirt or hay in it, he's rarely completely clean. His clothes have permanent stains on them, many of which he can't identify since they are hand-me-downs, and have patches or stitches from being torn. His least worn out clothes are (pictured) a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt with a black, short sleeved jacket that has a yellow-orange collar, interior, and bands around the sleeves.

Rumex is pretty much scared of everything. He can find a reason to fear anything and usually does, he is almost constantly shaking with fear. Gaining his full trust is near impossible, although he does allow himself to trust others quite a bit, he can never shake off his paranoia and caution completely. He is very hard to anger and rarely breaks any rules, especially ones set by the Capital.

His fear does make him paranoid and very easy to bully around or harass, but it can also drive him to be brutal, he will attack relentlessly and viciously if pushed far enough. This rarely happens, it all depends on where his mind takes him in response to the situation (in simpler words, he can allow horrible things to happen to him without a fuss or flip out over something simple).

Although he is scared of many things, he does try to make friends, even if he has a lot of trouble talking to people and usually stutters when talking to someone he doesn't know well or when he is nervous. When someone tries to become his friend, it startles him at first, but he prefers it over him picking friends since he doesn't think he's very good at starting conversations. Rumex is not very influenced by peer pressure which has cost him a few friends.

His family has raised sheep for as long as he has known, and he is glad that his family takes care of one of the more docile breeds of livestock. He and his mother split up the work of watching the flock of sheep because his father was crippled when caught up in a stampede from a neighbor's herd of cattle, and now has a lame leg that makes defending them hard, but he can still groom them and do other small tasks, but he mostly stays at home. They are aided by a shepherd dog that cost a lot to buy, but has proved useful, she belongs to the whole family, but Rumex is the most attached to her.

He goes to school everyday, then he comes home and goes to sleep, and he spends the night watching the sheep, although he does doze at times. His parents are not sure what caused him to be so fearful, but having him work during the night is an attempt to have him get over his fears, so far it's only helped him face them at times. They don't force him to work that much and are glad to take over his shifts if he has plans to go with others after school and needs sleep, but he usually just follows his routine despite them wanting him to interact with other kids.

He mostly keeps to himself during school, Rumex does get bullied occasionally, but he rarely gets physical beatings since he can be freaked out just as easily through words. He likes the organization that the teachers try to maintain and tries to follow instructions as well as he can, which means he doesn't talk during class if he can help it, but he does like to during break times. Neither of his parents have been sent to the Hunger Games, nor anyone else he knows personally, but he dreads watching them as they give him nightmares for months after they are through.