Skylark Jennings, District 4

Ah, to describe Lark... a sixteen-year-old girl of about 5'6" - average height for a not-so-average girl. Pale skinned, but not ivory. Tan-able pale skin, if you will. You know, the kind that turns a honey color when you're in the sun too much, but never freckles? Very nice skin, really. And her hair: blonde, wavy, reaching to the middle of her back. She has bangs, too, usually swept to her right. Perhaps she likes it this way, the better to hide her light brown eyes.

Lark is relatively thin, or at least not waif-like. She has enough muscle on her to call her athletic. It's all from her swimming, you know. She looks almost as graceful on land as she does in the water. Not that anyone notices that about her. No, they wouldn't notice her big, sweet doe eyes or her gently curvy figure. Her personality overrides her generally pleasing looks.

As I mentioned, Skylark isn't the most pleasing individual to be around. She has this annoying tendency to speak her mind. Imagine. How she's avoided the Peacekeepers' wrath for the past sixteen years is beyond me, but there you are.

I suppose she's well enough, once you get to know her. Her family - well, her mother - says that she's kind, loyal to the death. She would do anything for someone she cares about. The problem is, I say, that she doesn't let anybody get close. I think it's a wall she's put up, that smug little front of hers - a wall to keep her from being hurt the way she was when her daddy left.

Anyway, the side that we all see from her is a troublemaker. I keep my children well away from her. Who knows how they'd behave if they spent time with the like of her! She's always got something to say about everything that goes on. Always some snarky little remark coming out of her pretty little mouth. She's defiant, she has an attitude, and her temper! My, you'd imagine she was raised by sharks or something - but wait, I think they might have better manners!

In any case, she's a loner. She sticks to the edge of a crowd, but she's not a wallflower, though she's pretty enough to be one, I suppose. And she's righteous. When she speaks out, it's to make people see what is right, even if it's only her who believes it. But you can't help but believe what she says sometimes, she makes so much sense. But we're afraid of her, we are. She's going to get us all into trouble one day, you mark my words.

I blame her daddy, I do. He was all fine and dandy when she was little. He taught her how to swim, how to fish, how to dive. He even taught her how to make the dolphins come to her, like they did to him. No one knows what got into him that night he left, but leave he did. Poor Skylark was seven, old enough to remember how wonderful he was before and old enough to remember the pain it brought when he left.

Her mama never remarried. She just retreated into herself, poor thing. Skylark was the only one who kept her going - literally and figuratively. Her mama has always been so proud of her, and she's always found ways to provide for her mama. At least there's that for you, her family loyalty. Skylark started working at fourteen, as a pearl diver. She found those pearls in places nobody even thought to look, putting all those skills her daddy taught her to the test. Some say she almost drowned once and dolphins brought her to shore. But I say that's silly.

She's brave in the water, Skylark is. In the face of any adversary, really. But she hasn't really had many close friends, and she hasn't been with any boys, so I don't know how brave she really is, after all. I think she's scared of being left again, like her daddy left her nine years back. She's so mistrustful, and so cold and distant. Yet, sometimes, you can see the yearning in her for something more. Companionship. Poor girl.

She trains almost every day. She keeps her mama fed, for sure, but she's not rich, and she could be selected for the Hunger Games just as easily as any other child. She's most comfortable in the water, when she's practicing swimming, diving, or using nets and spears. But she trains on land, too, not that we have much to offer her. She mostly runs, in the morning and at night. When she can she picks up hand-to-hand combat and dabbles in herbs. Her mama used to be a healer, back before her daddy left. She's not one to volunteer for the Games - in fact, she thinks they're all wrong - but she's sure going to be prepared if she's reaped.