Denali Clyburn, Avox

Denali is a petite girl, falling just shy of 5 feet. There's nothing quite unique about her, she's one who easily gets lost in the crowd. Her body is entirely lean, almost to the point of seeing her ribs. The one thing that stands out about her, though they are rarely seen, are her amazingly long legs. Her body is almost entirely legs, but nobody knows that about her because Avox's are not people that others look at for beauty. She has blond hair that falls half-way down her back. Its not the most gorgeous of hair, its usually slightly matted, but that doesn't really bother her. When in doubt, put it in pigtails.

Her face is slightly angled, but her cheeks still retain all her baby fat. Her lips are thin and almost always motionless, frowning and smiling don't come easily to Denali anymore. Her bright blue eyes are the only truly lively things about her. In the right light they look as blue as the sky, but normally they look dark and clouded. Without that spark of joy she used to possess, Denali's blue skies are usually grey.

Denali has no way of communicating, she doesn't know sign language at all. Without any way of outward expression, she keeps everything to herself. It sometimes bottles up inside her to the point that she can't contain it, and she lets it out. Whether that's good energy she's letting out or bad, I'd watch out if I were you. But just because she's an Avox now doesn't mean she's not the least bit happy. Well, maybe not on the outside, but on the inside. She still has the imagination of a child. Its silly, she knows, but she dreams of the day when there'll be no more Avoxes, and maybe she can get a new tongue. But that's just childish, she knows she is a slave to the Capitol now.

Denali is very hesitant in doing important tasks because she is afraid of failure. For example, if she is asked to do fold the laundry, but make sure she folds the shirts a certain way and put the clothes in certain drawers, it sparks something inside her. When she goes to fold the shirts, she'll take a few minutes to ponder on exactly what her master told her. Overthinking, it can be a gift or curse, to Denali, the later. Sometimes her over thinking and hesitation have gotten her in trouble, but she's learned over time to control herself.

One thing you learn quickly about Denali, she is very gullible. You can tell the girl anything and she'll immediately believe it. Up until she was 10 she believed that fairies were the ones that put the dew on the grass in the morning, or at least, that's what her older brother's told her. Another word to describe her might just be naive, she'll just follow anyone or anything blindly. She's just learned that if you do what you're told, you're a good girl in the eyes of Capitol.

Her life wasn't always this way, Denali used to be the sole daughter to a pair of hunters in District 9. Her father and mother were average hunters, they were able to catch enough game to send to the Capitol and still manage to feed their family. However, Denali's coming into the world wasn't exactly planned. Her parents never expected they'd have another child, let alone a girl, after having 5 boys: Darryl, Raffali, Seth, Jacob, and Freeman. But nonetheless, Denali certainly came into this world, but never got the attention her brothers got. Her parents simply thought of her as another mouth to feed and normally paid minimal attention to her.

Growing up with 5 older brothers was never easy. She was constantly locked in closets, locked outside, and had her toys stolen by her brothers. They were pests, but they were her pests. Denali loved them dearly, they were all she had in this world. Even her parents, she didn't mind their lack of attention, sometimes she welcomed it. It allowed her to sneak off into the woods and play dollies by herself, without fear of intrusion. It was her own secret garden, so to say.

But not everything was so peaceful in the Clyburn family. Her mother and father felt that with 8 mouths to feed, they didn't receive enough money or enough food to feed all the children. At age 8, Denali would earn a few dollars here and there by walking pets or raking leaves out of people's yards while her family hunted. They were simple jobs. But when Denali was 10, her older siblings and her parents, ran a much more risky business. Or maybe the better word was, illegal. The 7 older family members would sneak out of the house in the dead of night to go and hunt outside the district, selling the meat to wanderers and buyers who snuck out from neighboring districts, in the black market of District 9, and sometimes keep a little extra for themselves.

For a while they were able to keep this up, with naive, little Denali living under the belief that everything was alright in her family. But when Denali was 11, in the dead of night, Peacekeepers from the Capitol came and took all of her family, including her, to the Capitol for interrogation. They had been ratted out by a member of a neighboring district, claiming they were all in on it. The family tried to convince them that they were innocent, but the Capitol would take no lies from people as wicked as them. They planned to take all but the little girl to the interrogation room, possibly leaving them Avoxes, or killing them. Seeing the unfairness in it, the brothers swore that Denali was in on it too, that she had done a good number of the hunting. Denali didn't understand the severity of the crime, and did not speak out for herself. She was sentenced for lying to the Capitol, trespassing in forbidden territory, and numerous accounts of stealing food. With that, she was sentenced to be an Avox for the rest of her life.

To this day she does not know the fate of her family, whether they too are Avoxes, prisoners to the Capitol, or just plain dead. She wishes for the day she'll return to her home, see her family, and once again return to her secret garden.