Ashford Winn, District 7

Ash is Six-foot-nothing, weighing in at 205lbs. He wished he was a bit taller, but he never complained about it. His body is well proportioned, toned where it needed to be, but it didn’t look like he had a lick of fat on him, just muscle. His hair is a rich dark brown, with a red tint in the sunlight. His eyes are a honey brown, pretty boring compared to his sisters radiant eyes, but they represent him; warm, laid-back, and a shit starter.

While he sounds pretty normal looking, he has some flaws. His hands are rough from all the axe work and hauling wood around. In his gleaming row of white teeth, his front top tooth is chipped from getting in a fight when he was eight. His hair grows too fast for his liking, so it always turns into this shaggy mess of brown waves. He has three big scars on his chest like he got in a fight with a mountain lion, but it was from falling out of a 20ft. tree that shattered his arm and left him out of work from weeks.

Ash is as well rounded as he possibly could be with all the stuff he’s been through; one sister’s tragic death, the other’s break with reality, losing both of his parents all within a three year time frame. That’s enough to send anyone into a mental break down but he just couldn’t. He had to become stronger than he was, not just for his little sister, but for survival. For this, he doesn’t like taking help. He was just too strong minded. He worked hard, providing for his grandma and little sister the best he could because they were the only family he had left.

Ash is big on family. Family came first to him. It has always been like that, ever since he was little. He’d look after his sisters for his parents when they worked late. If there wasn’t enough food, which wasn’t very often, he’d give what he had to Izza and Bela because he felt like he had to, like it was his duty. He was just a natural born protector, especially after Izza died, when Bela became sick. She was basically a little girl trapped in a maturing woman’s body. He always worried that she’d get chosen for the games, never fearing for himself. How would she be able to protect herself? He wouldn’t be able to protect her if she was chosen. He was a guy; he wouldn’t be allowed to volunteer for her. When she turned 18, he sighed in relief. She was safe and he’d still be able to protect her. He always will.

Even with all his love for his sister, he is mildly short tempered. Things get to him a lot easier than it would someone else. He would sometimes lose his temper with her or with anyone really. He hated repeating himself, it was one of the things he loathed the most but seemed to have to do it often, especially with Bela. He would have to cool down, remove himself from whatever was causing him to become agitated, or it would lead to some kind of fight. Arguments, usually, but Ash was also known for going off and socking someone if it got to that point.

He didn’t like fakeness or pitty, neither does anyone else, but the thing with Ash was that he was blunt. He would sometimes lack that filter from his brain to his mouth and rarely apologized for it because it was the truest form of whatever he felt. When he was younger, everyone would apologize for what his family was going through and it was seem nice enough, but he knew the truth. He would hear whispers about how someone should’ve been taking better care of them or see people stare or hear them make comments about his sister but they’d smile in his face. He hated that. He figured that’s where he got all his anger issues from.

Ashford Winn, only child for five years, which meant he was pretty much as spoiled as you could get in District 7. When he got two younger twin sisters, that’s when life changed. He wasn’t the center of his parent’s world and became an older brother with one unbelievable responsibility. He became the protector of his little sisters. As soon as he was old enough, Ash became the babysitter, having to spend most of his days watching over the two, teaching them what he knew. Sometimes, he would take the longer way home so he would have more time to hang out with his friends. He didn’t want to go home and watch his sisters. One day he went off with his friends to a little creek, he didn’t think it was a big deal, not until he came home and found out Izza had died.

Everything, from that day on, changed for Ashford. He no longer slacked off. He went from school to home and watched over Bela. She had become catatonic after Izza’s and he felt guilty about it, for everything, like it was his fault. His parents barely paid attention to him anymore. They just babied his little sister. Despite his guilt, he became jealous of her, sometimes he even disliked her. It wasn’t like she was the only one suffering. So he lashed out, made his presence known by causing chaos, which only made things worse and, often times, landed him a few good beatings from his father. He began to hate all of them. Then his parents died.

There were so many times when he wanted to run away, but he had nowhere to go. Besides, it wasn’t like he could leave Bela. When he moved in with his grandma, things changed. He was so used to watching Bela get coddled but now his grandma was forcing her to do stuff on her own. At first, it bothered him. He would try to do it for her because he felt bad and because he hated seeing her struggle with something, but after a lot of lectures and seeing his sister’s progress and how happy it made her, he let her fend for herself as much as she could.

Before Ash finished school and took up a job as an ax man, chopping down trees to supply the capital and surrounding districts. It wasn’t amazing pay, but it was enough to keep food on the table and get them some of the basics that they needed. It was hard work, he’d come home tired, sweaty, but as soon as he got home he’d relieve his grandma from any chores. He often worried about being chosen for the games, he didn’t know how his aging grandmother and disconnected sister would survive without him. Sure, his grandmother had a job as a apothecary and could probably mange as far as money went, he just didn’t think she could deal with Bela by herself. When he turned 18, he didn’t have to worry about being chosen for the games anymore, just how him and his family were going survive and not be another ‘victim’ of hunger in their district.

Face Claim- John Mayer