William Scarlett - Wanderer

William Scarlett
Twenty years of age
Male
Wanderer
odair
Fc is Nicholas Braun
Theme: Deer In The Headlights by Owl City

The young man known as William Scarlett, (Though he prefers to be called Will. That's Will with two L's. And he can tell when someone says it wrong.) is in the most basic of descriptions a lad of 5'10, weighing in at 160 pounds; which makes him in most terms: Average. But as he would tell you, The average person is more likely to live longer. That was one of Wills attempts at dry humor. He's not very good at it, nor does he have a real grasp on what is actually funny. But more on that later.Top to bottom is better than bottom to top. Or so he says. Regardless, we will start describing this lad with his hair and work our way down to his boots. His coiffure is a dark sienna, and depending on the light, might appear to be black rather than a deep brown. He keeps it in a bristly comb over that makes his hair stick out at odd angles. It is a very unruly style that mirrors his current lifestyle, bereft of many of the things he once took for granted.

His forehead sits neatly underneath his hair; something he is glad of. when he was younger he met a boy whose forehead jutted out like a neanderthal. That boy was teased mercilessly by other youths and Will learned the value of dissociating one's self with the undesired at an early age. In his opinion, when a majority of people look down upon a minority, it's generally more acceptable and safe to side with the majority. Even if the majority is dead-wrong. Usually. Will is more of a follower and less of a leader if you haven't guessed by now. But on to the rest of his looks. Will's eyebrows are a prominent feature, moving around his face like fuzzy caterpillars when he exaggerates an emotion. Making faces is a favorite past-time of his. Leers, frowns, smiles, grins; all of those are taken out of proportion. It's pretty easy to see what he's feeling when an ear to ear grin is plastered across his face.

Speaking of his ears, Will is very self-conscious about what he considers to be floppy eye-sores that jut out the sides of his heads. In recent days he has let his hair grow in length long enough to cover a feature he feels makes him look like an idiot. Wills eyes are blue, if I haven't mentioned it yet. They are a pale ice-blue. A startling shade to see if he is staring at someone unblinking. He's not trying to be weird, he's just making up stories in his head about the adventures he and the person in question could have together.
...

No not that type of story, get your head out of the gutter. Will just has a penchant for telling tall tales. His imagination is one of his most valuable tools as it helps him to escape the harsh reality that is his life almost every single day. It's more run to pretend that one is a dashing hero rather than a loser who shirks his duties to hang out with his friends. That is.. If he really had any.

The middle of his face is taken up by his nose. Someone once said it was bulbous, and since then he has taken great pains to draw attention away from it; walking around with his head down and trying to seem cooler than he really is. It helps his self-image or so he thinks. His lips are full, and framed by a light smattering of an incoming beard and mustache. He's been trying to grow facial hair for a few years now, convinced that the ladies dig a man with a beard. Mountain men are all the rage right? Will must have heard that somewhere, because he used to think that being clean-shaven was the way to go.

Will's self image is not the greatest.

When it comes to his body, Will tries to keep in shape, sure that he is built and buff. In reality, he is rather lean and rangy; a product of wandering the open forest that surrounds all the districts. A scrounger who often finds himself subsisting upon natures smallest bounties. You don't learn how to hunt in District seven after all, and it's best not to draw attention to yourself anyway. If someone were to observe him in his unnatural habitat they would see Will sprinting through the forest arms and legs akimbo as his limbs are very gangling, and some would say, just a tad to long for his body. All in all, his frame leans towards unimpressive.

***

Will's personality, in a word used most by those who knew him in his district; Annoying. It's not that he tries to be annoying on purpose, but rather that many people cannot stand his sense of humor. It's a special brand of funny that is really not all that funny. He tries to take stabs at other people as often as he takes stabs at himself, but more often than not, rather than sounding witty, he just comes off as obnoxious. A prime example would be an incident in his past where upon seeing of district sevens many lumberjacks discharged from service due to a severed forearm, he had tried to cheer up the unfortunate man. However, his words did nothing to comfort the man, who instead gave Will a black eye with his remaining fist. To this day, Will is not completely sure why his hilarious query of asking the man whether or not he needed a hand merited such a violent reaction. Some people right?

It's situations like the one above that have prevented him from making many friends. But not for lack of trying. He sees it as perfectly acceptable to follow other people around; riding the coattails of the infinitely more popular. It's a great honor for Will when they ask him to do things,whether that be to share his food with them, or to take the blame for some devious prank. At least he gets included right? At the age of twenty, you'd think he'd have learned some common sense, but he just assumes everyone has the best of interests towards him. After all, that's what he thinks of them and it's only fair. A remark about him being a man-child did sting for quite some time though.

What does the term man-child mean anyway? Will took it as someone trying to say that he never really grew up and eventually managed to turn it into a positive term in his head. So what if he didn't care about jobs and wood and dating and all of that? It was much more fun to spend time idly wandering throughout the district; sitting with his peers after hours, never really fitting in, but not making a complete fool of himself. At least the teens younger than him thought he was cool. Even if they bossed him around almost as much as their older siblings. Will would do just about anything to fit in.

***

Will was born to one of the many,many lumber-jacking families in district seven. As the first and only child, it is quite likely that he grew up a bit spoiled. Always wanting to be the center of attention. Always wanting to be under the spotlight but always winding up in the wings. Despite his doting parents, Will was not the best at social interaction. At a younger age most kids just found him weird. He was the boy that ate paste and thought it would be a good joke to drop a beetle down a girls shirt. More often than not those actions would earn him a severed reprimanding from the person in charge. His parents would always tell him that it was not his fault, but rather the loss of the person who he tried to befriend for not accepting him. Will took those words to heart, believing that everyone wanted to be his friend, it was just that some were less willing than others.

As he grew older, the other kids began to take advantage of his friendly nature, getting him to do their homework or run errands fro them under the pretense of hanging out with later. They rarely did. But he never blamed them for what he considered to be their own short-comings. It wasn't until he matured a bit that began to feel a bit put out that people would lie to him so much. It was so hard to find friends in those days. Upon reaching young adulthood it was assumed that Will would become a lumberjack, despite his frame. However, he was simply not interested in anything to do with lumber, or paper-making or anything else. Not to mention that he was tired of people trying to interfere with his life. It was then that the trees beyond the districts borders began to look more inviting than they ever had before.

There are many reasons for why someone would seek to flee their home. For some, it is a hatred of the capitol and their barbaric games. For others, it is one too many tangles with the brutal Peace-Keepers. In Will's case the decision to leave his home was decided out of boredom. It came to a point where he felt that no one was going to pay him any attention. A dumb reason mayhaps, but Will was never one to think things through. And so, with nothing more than his parent's larder and a pocketful of dreams, Will hopped the fence one starry night and vanished into the forest.

Perhaps he could find some friends there.