Ruby Burn

This is a tribute made up by Pippycat. Please don't use her without permission.

She is a member of the Burn Family.

She is probably one of the characters I have spent the most time on, which makes her one I am extremely proud of (it's always the 12-year-olds I spend the most time on... and 12-year-olds are almost never victors...)

Ruby


Name: Ruby Burn

Age: 12

Birthday: July 21st (July's birthstone is the ruby)

District: 6 (5, 3, 9, 13, 7)

Gender: Female

Weapons: Ruby doesn't like violence, but since she has to choose a weapon she'll choose a dagger or any kind of knife.

Personality: Ruby is a sweet, fragile little girl who is kind to everyone. She can be quiet, and sort of serious, but she really cares about other people and other living things. She likes to make people smile, and has a soft voice that can make even the harshest of words sound sweet and innocent. But she would never say anything harsh, unless you were trying to hurt someone she loved.

She gets attatched to people easily. It's really easy for Ruby to feel guilty, and she hates the feeling. Everything she can, she will blame herself for something bad that has happened. She doesn't want to grow up, and wants to stay a young girl forever, hoping that one day she might be able to know that someone like her parents will come along, and she'll know that they love her and protect her. She's used to being the protector, not the protected.

Appearance: Ruby is short for her age, and is a small little girl. She has long, messy, caramel-red hair with little flecks of orange-red in it, and flushed cheeks with freckles dotting her face. She has dark brown eyes, and a big, warm smile.

Skills: Ruby is very resourceful and good with healing (using plants, ect.), and is very smart.

Weaknesses: Ruby isn't strong, and is easily heartbroken since she gets attatcked to other people too easily. She also is a bad runner.

Token: A stolen gold necklace, from when she visited the District 6 hob

Alliance: Ruby wouldn't want to go alone, so she would request to make an alliance with other young tributes or nice tributes. If neither would work, she would go with the anti-Careers.

Fears: Ruby is scared of feeling guilt. She's felt enough of it before, and she doesn't need to anymore. She wants to be confident.

Reasons for Winning: If Ruby wins, she knows she can go back home to what's left of her sad, crumbling family, and that she and her siblings who have had a rough life can have a better one moving in to the victor's village. She wants to win for her siblings, not herself.

Backstory
Ruby lived in a big family in District 6. She was the first out of eight children, so she had seven younger siblings to take care of. She loved them all, and her family was having a rough time since they lived in the poorest part of one of the biggest districts, with a big family. Her parents could barely take care of themselves.

When Ruby was eleven, she woke up one night to screaming. She realized quickly that it was her mother screaming, so she ran to her parents' room to see what was happening. Her father was crying, and he tried to tell Ruby that it was alright, her mother was just scared. But Ruby was smart enough to know something was going on.

It turned out, her mother was very sick, but it wasn't just a usual virus that went around. This sickness made its victims pretty much go insane, and Ruby knew she had to do something. District 6 had a black-market trade of the morphling, so Ruby wondered, there must be other medicines out there in the trade, shouldn't there? So Ruby, a mere 11-year-old girl, the next day instead of going off to school with the rest of her siblings, went off to the hob of District 6.

What she didn't know, was that her brother Marcus was following her. He was the second-oldest, being a 10-year-old. He asked Ruby what she was doing, but it was hard to lie when she had tried her best to disguise herself. She just told him he had to go back to school and get to a safe place, but he insisted on following her. "You might get hurt." She told him.

"I don't want you to get hurt!" Marcus insisted, so Ruby shook her head and gave him a disguise, too.

The two of them made their way to the District 6 Hob, and Ruby quickly realized that this was no place for a little child like her. She looked around and blended in with everyone as best she could, until she saw something that caught her eye: it was a golden necklace, and it looked like real gold (of course, Ruby wouldn't know any better if it were real or not living a life in a district with no gold to be seen. So the necklace might be fake). She stole it, and slipped it into her pocket under her hood. Then she realized she had lost sight of the one thing that probably mattered the most: Marcus.

She heard him scream, and saw Peacekeepers barging in. They started firing their guns, and Ruby saw one last glimpse of Marcus before he too, was shot through the heart. She started crying, and ran out as fast as she could. When she got home that night, she expected her father to hear about her and Marcus not being present in school. He didn't say a thing, just acted distant, like he was in a land very far off.

''I wish I was in a magic kingdom somewhere else. ''Ruby thought, as she sat down by the fire to tell her father that Marcus was gone. He would wonder where his son was, eventually. He held small Kelly, who was only 2, in his lap. She wouldn't understand what had happened. Ruby sighed, ''I wish my whole family was. Marcus probably already is... ''she told her father, and he just told her it was time to go to sleep, and that she must have been daydreaming. But when Marcus didn't come home a few days later, her father knew.

Soon after, Ruby's mom died of her illness. Ruby's whole family was devistated, but her father was the most. He would just stare off into the distance with a serious expression on his face, or sing a song in a flat tone to Kelly and Meadow, the youngest siblings who probably didn't even know how to miss their mother and Marcus; and would probably forget they even existed. Ruby felt so much guilt. She should have stopped Marcus from following her, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten hurt. Instead, she held up the golden neckace, and on nights when she was sad, held it up to the light and watched it gleam, pretending her whole family was still safe.

One day, there was a knock at the door. Ruby went to go answer it, being the one who now took care of her whole family, skipping school on days when things got rough. When she looked through the peep hole, her heart immediately started to pound faster and faster. Peacekeepers were at her door. She opened the door cautiously, and gave her most confident, formal greeting she gave every guest.

"Hello, this is the house of the Burn family. What have you come for?"

One of the two Peacekeepers' eyes fell on Ruby's golden necklace, and panic shot through her, making her start sobbing uncontrollably and begging the two not to kill her. "PLEASE! I CAN EXPLAIN WHY I STOLE IT, I CAN EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED!"

Something -- for once since he had been too depressed to do anything but sing for his family -- had clicked inside her father's brain that had made him come running. "What is it! State your business!" He demanded of the Peacekeepers and Ruby, bravely.

Ruby sank to the floor in a giant heap right by the door, knowing that she could have given excuses and said her necklace wasn't stolen. But instead, she had broken down and given it away. Now she was going to die, and her family would be helpless and die also.

"That girl, your daughter, has stolen something from the district." The Peacekeeper replied, and grabbed Ruby's hands violently to tie them behind her back. She struggled so much, that he couldn't tie the rope, and just had to hold her like that. "We have no choice but to execute her now."

"Take me instead." Her father demanded.

Ruby screamed and cried, "NO! DON'T DO IT!" She didn't want her father to die for her. Marcus already had, she wouldn't let him.

Her father told Ruby and her siblings one last word before he was taken: "run."

Ruby would have liked to pretend he had said "I love you", but at that moment in time almost nothing mattered except the fact that she and her family lived. As the door slammed in her face and her father was taken, Ruby cried. Her siblings all knew that something was wrong, but they didn't want to ask. If Ruby -- the one who protected them, fed them, and was the oldest and wisest -- was crying, they had no choice but to be scared, too.

Soon after, though, Ruby couldn't feed them anymore. It came down to how much food each child got a day, because Ruby didn't have money and was too scared to go out into the district, for fear of Peacekeepers. And last time she had gone disguised hadn't gone well. The next of her family members went of starvation, and was the youngest. Little Kelly.

Ruby felt horrible. she had been too scared, so she hadn't gone outside the house for food. And for what? So that Kelly could die? That was three people who had died for her, and she had done next to nothing for them.

Ruby knew what she had to do. She started stealing food, and when they had a good stash again, she told her remaining family her plan. Ryan, twin sisters Maralynn and Caralynn, her brother Hyde, and her small sister Meadow listened carefully. Ruby was twelve, and soon they would have to attend Reapings. So, she decided that they were going to run away to District 7. There, they could live in the woods, or move in to the district.

The kids got packed, and Ruby led them all into the streets of District 6. The district was so huge, that they could barely find their way around. But soon, Ruby found the fence. She tested its electricity level by throwing a rock at it, and found it wasn't electrified. She told Ryan, the now second oldest, to climb first, so she could make sure they were all safe. She would climb last. If any of them got hurt, it was going to be her.

Ruby turned back towards the city nervously, and saw Peacekeepers talking to each other. Ryan was only halfway up the fence. "Go." She told her siblings. "Go!"

Caralynn jumped on the fence along with Ryan, but the rest of the siblings were too scared. "We'll meet you on the other side!" Ruby told them, and ran off with Maralynn, Hyde and Meadow. The fence turned on. The Peacekeepers made it do that, and Ruby heard Ryan's screams. Caralynn must have been caught or made it to the other side, because she wasn't screaming. When the fence was safe again, Ruby climbed it along with Maralynn and Meadow. They found Caralynn, and the five camped out in the forest. She realized, she would do anything for them. And for once, even though she had done so much wrong, she didn't feel as guilty.

But, they got caught. Dragged to the District 6 child home by Peacekeepers, and kept in small two-person rooms. Ruby was put in a room with Meadow, but Caralynn got one with a mean girl who always picked on Maralynn and her siblings. The children there were treated horribly, beaten and put to work. For some reason, whenever Ruby tried to protect Meadow, Maralynn, Caralynn and Hyde, she became the center for bullying and hate. She was forced to take tesserae for everyone in the child home. One night, when Ruby was too late to help Caralynn, and Caralynn was beaten so hard that it caused her death, right in front of her twin sister Maralynn.

When the next Reaping came around, it was Ruby who had to go. Her name was picked, but it was no surprise: the reaping bowl was absolutely gushing with slips of paper that probably all read "Ruby Burn". She walked to the stage with a grim expression on her face, but nothing could mask the pain she felt inside.

(1,713 words! Took forever ;-;)

Games Strategies
Interview Angle: Ruby will act sweet and kind, answering questions politely and in a manner that makes her seem very smart. If they ask about back home, she will start to get teary and talk about her siblings, and how much she loves them and how much they rely on her, hoping that the audience will feel for her in that way. She will hopefully be wearing something cute, so when she leaves, she can blush, smile, and sort of skip off the stage, wiping any extra tears.

Bloodbath Strategy: Ruby, with her alliance, will only go to the bloodbath if they want to, and will only go for a backpack or two and a weapon sfor herself and the others, then quickly leave.

Games Strategy: She will spend the games getting to know her alliance, helping each other out, and most importantly, surviving. When the feast comes, she will either go first or last, depending on the situation and how her allies feel. If her and her alliance get very far, she will eventually leave them, taking what is hers and running off in the night. During the final battle, she will hide until there is one other tribute left, then throw a knife at them long-distance, so they will never know what hit them.

Private Training Strategy: Ruby will go for an average to high score, since she doesn't want to stand out as weak, yet she doesn't want to stand out as a threat, either. She will throw knives long-distance, and then use her dagger skills to slash at targets. She will also show her resourcefulness.

Family
Parents:

Mother(Aged 30 - eceased), Father(Aged 32 - deceased)

Siblings: Marcus(Brother, aged 10 - deceased), Ryan(Brother, aged 9 - deceased), Maralynn(Sister, aged 8 - alive), Caralynn(Sister, aged 8 - deceased), Hyde(Brother, aged 7 - alive), Meadow(Sister, aged 5 - alive), Kelly(Sister, aged 4 - deceased)

Cousins: Amber Burn(Aged 13 (fate varies)), Scarlet Burn (Aged 15 (fate varies))

Games Participated In
1. The 96th Hunger Games - The Reincarnation Games

Hosted by: Marinalacrosse

District: 6

Placing: 8th of 28

2. The Appalachian Games (The 334th Hunger Games)

Hosted by: YourFavoriteSalmon

District: 6

Placing: TBA

Extra: She allied with Viola Schismino(7), Cora Sparks(5), and Mary Pacifica(4). On day 2 their alliance was attacked by Welson Dare(5), and he ended up slashing Viola in the side, injuring Cora and Ruby, and being stabbed through the heart by Cora and dying. TBC

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