Vera Rossin - D4

Vera is a fairly average looking girl, or, at least she thinks of herself as such. Her hair, which is long, falling just past her shoulders, is a light chocolate brown color with a few strands of lighter color scattered here and there. Her eyes, which would normally be a dark brown color, are a lighter color than they should be due to her disability, and often appear to have a slightly clouded look to them, and many people tend to find it strange. In contrast, her skin is often quite tan due to the various days she spends outside and out near the water. But despite how she thinks of herself, Vera is often one that attracts attention, whether she wants to or not. She stands at 5'4", and even though she weighs about 139 pounds, she still holds a certain grace with the way her body is thin yet lean. True, she doesn't exactly have any sort of muscle that may show, but she is strong enough to the point that it is a healthy amount of muscle. If anything, the heaviest thing she would probably be able to pick up would be somewhere around 30 pounds, at least. Also, even if she's blind, Vera is more than capable of taking care of herself. After all, most know that if one sense is damaged in any sort of way, the others become stronger to compensate for this loss, and Vera is certainly know exception. She can hear exceptionally well, detecting most noises and sounds that normal people wouldn't be able to hear, and her sense of smell is almost just as amazing in both intensity and the range from which it can pick up different scents.

Now, living in District 4, Vera is certainly not what some people would call unfortunate. Her clothing style is rather stylish, though part of it is because her mother tends to choose what she wears for her, despite the constant times she has asked her not to. When she can get away with it, Vera prefers what she likes to think of as comfortable clothes. In short, a nice pair of shorts and a tank top or light, airy shirt of some sort. On average, she prefers not to were shoes either, because to her they are merely a nuisance. But, whenever her mother gets a hold of her, Vera is normally dressed in a more girly fashion, such as skirts and blouses. As for Reaping Day, well...her mother normally manages to pull out some sort of fancy dress to force upon her daughter no matter what the protests will hold.

If you're looking for the girl whose going to jump into action at a moment's notice, you might want to go and look for someone else. Vera certainly isn't going to be the girl you want to find. She isn't exactly the type of girl whose comfortable with every single person she meets, and certainly won't be the one jumping up to speak to you immediately. No, she's more the type to hang back in a crowd, the one whose normally off on her own and prefers to just keep away from people. Yes, Vera is the quiet, awkward, shy girl that many people often don't bother with. But that's perfectly fine with her, because she isn't one to care all to much about people ignoring her all the time, and she prefers to be on her own as it is.

Under the shell she hides in though, Vera is a rather sweet girl. She's kind, caring for others because she has learned over the years to appreciate what one has because you'll never know when you can lose it. She'd be the friend that, if you needed support, she would be there right along with you, a shoulder to cry on. But the people she'd do this for a few due to her shy nature. She doesn't have many friends, for often times she is found as strange, and there even a few people that will, at times, make fun of her for her disability. And it is for these reasons that she isn't always very trusting of people either.

People would think that because she's shy, Vera would be no threat to anyone, no matter what the circumstances were. But in truth, she can become an entirely different person when angered or upset. When she trains herself she almost goes into this state where, well, she's not exactly herself anymore. She becomes more of a calculated person, dangerous even. But anger, well that isn't something that shows itself too much. It takes a lot to get her angry since she tends to be extremely level-headed, but whenever she does become angry, it's not always a nice scene, and Vera will, a lot of the time, feel ashamed of herself afterwards.

Vera, from the very beginning, was pampered by her mother and father. They always choose to see her as their pride and joy, the child that would bring fame to their family. Then again, being the only child your parents ever had can do that to you. But I guess when your parents also discover you're born blind, one way to drown the disappointment would be to shower your kid with gifts. Well, that's what Vera always believed anyways. She knew that her parents saw her blindness as a flaw in the perfection they had wanted her to be, a guaranteed way to be sure that your family would never gain any sort of respect, especially if she was ever reaped to go into the Games.

Regardless of the reasons for why she was receiving the treatment, Vera's childhood was truly a good one. On average, the majority of what she asked for was normally given to her on a daily basis. Not that she cared for most of the possessions she got from her parents. She never told them that though. She always led them on, let them believe that she was grateful for every gift she received. But when one can't see, appreciation for objects falls drastically. Such was the case for Vera, and often times it was the more simple objects that most people never cared for that fascinated her the most. It was the shells that one could find on the shores of District Four that intrigued her the most. The rough texture of each shell was always something different, something knew for her to explore. She would sit for hours when she didn't have school and just sit with the shells, listening to the ocean and running her fingers over the different textures that made them what they were.

But eventually her parents grew tired of her constant trips to the beach, claiming that due to her blindness that she could get hurt easily, the bad things would happen to her if she didn't stay at home and inside like a good girl. But she never listened. She had grown tired of listening to her parents a long, long time ago and was certainly far from listening to them at the time. Each day she'd go to school, but as soon as they were let out the only place she would go would be the coast, for, like the majority of District Four, she loved the sea and the water, though she had come to appreciate it much more than others could. Every day it would be the same thing. Just sit and listen with the bag of shells by her side, allowing the sea to just take her somewhere else in her mind.

Nowadays she'll still sneak out to head to the coast, and at times she's even gotten some training in, for she started herself since she was eleven due to her parents refusal to train her. After all, she was basically dead to them already as it was. Of course she likes to believe she's strong enough since she trains herself at least four times a week, but frankly she knows how much of a disadvantage her lack of sight is. Often times the only thing she'll practice with is an old fishing spear she discover in a back closet in her house one day, and believes she has grown rather handy with it, for she'll often stand out in the water, tossing pieces of bread into the water, and it is only through listening to her surroundings that she is successful in spearing her "prey". Vera knows that it's strange for her to be practicing at all, but in her life it's the only real thing she sees as being exciting.

FC: Alexandra Chando