Maple Shade

Name: Maple Shade

District: Capitol

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Height: 5'8

Appearance: Maple has shoulder-length, scene-styled ochreous hair that is died an unusual snowy white in the front. She has deep orange eyes with the slightest glow, making them the most gorgeous part about her yet genuinely mysterious at the same time. Her skin is tanned and flawless, and her dark, thin eyebrows add a fierce touch to her face. She's quite slender and long-legged, and is no doubt rather pretty.

Personality: When you first meet her Maple won't exactly come across as friendly. She's not the type of person to sugar-coat the words she speaks and is brutally honest. She's not afraid to state what she thinks, and if someone tells her that she's rude, she'll calmly reply, "I'm not rude more than I am simply honest." If she realizes she's hurt someone's feelings, she won't apologize, saying that there's really no need to as she never meant to hurt the person's feelings. Maybe she does, though. Maybe she's a downright bully though she just doesn't want to admit it and make herself seem like a bad person. There are certain people that she likes, though. If you agree with her and treat her like she's your leader, then she'll tolerate you. You can't agree with absolutely everything she says or drown her compliments, however, because then she'll think you're just being annoying. You also have to be smart and logical, not a ditzy, ill-educated person that doesn't exactly know how to think. Maple is pretty intelligent herself and she always thinks before she does something. The same doesn't go for speaking, however; she won't think before she talks, she just lets everything she knows she wants to say come out. She's quite rebellious and she rarely listens to someone else's crap.

Weapons: Maple's favorite weapon is the '''morning star. '''She can wield it perfectly and, let's be honest, has killed several people using it in the past. She states that it is as deadly as a mace, yet smaller, lighter, and easier to slash at her target. She can also use steel claws and she excels in using throwing axes.

Backstory: Maple used to be normal. She used to be a happy young girl, wealthy and cared for in one of the richest parts of the Capitol, living in comfort with her parents. She might be an only child but she also had lots of friends, and she never felt like she was alone or sad. Everyone liked her because she was so sweet and kind. She had a great sense of humor and she loved to play games with the other kids her age. Everything took a turn for the worse, however, one night when she was just eight years old. She was quietly and obediently doing her homework while her mom was watching TV. She got up to go to the bathroom, and left the room, leaving Maple alone. She simply shrugged and continued to write down math problems as she was supposed to, when she started hearing these weird noises. It was a strange, deep ringing noise, and it made Maple unable to concentrate. Being the curious little girl that she was at the time, she stood up and walked closer to where the sound was coming from. She opened the two wooden doors to her kitchen and gasped when she saw that the noise was simply a vibrating turquoise gem. She slowly made her way up to where the glowing object rested on her kitchen table. She placed a shaking hand on it, gasping when a shock ran through her body the moment she touched it. "Where did this come from?" she wondered out loud. She heard the door to her mother's bathroom open and close, and she jumped up in surprise. She shoved the gem into her pocket and walked back out into the living room. Her mother noticed the worry in her eyes and asked if there was anything wrong. "Not at all," Maple said convincingly, and her usual grin spread back across her face. The next day, she walked home from school because her dad forgot to pick her up, and her mom was at a meeting at where she worked. She slipped silently into her house, pausing when she heard her father's voice growling from down the hallway. She snuck in behind a book shelf and watched as he took apart the kitchen, yelling, "Where is it? Where's the gem?!" He started muttering about how he needed that to hypnotize his "wretched wife" and later kill her while she was under his spell. Maple let out a quiet gasp. Her father froze and turned around, eyes wide. "Who's there? Maple, honey, are you there?" Maple's hands were shaking by her sides. I can't let him kill mommy, she thought. Fear overtook her body and she had no idea what she was doing as she leaped out from behind the bookshelf and shoved her dad onto the floor. Tears were building up in her eyes. "I heard everything," she whispered, her voice panicked. Mr. Shade told her to calm down, that he was just angry at her mother and he didn't mean a word he said. But Maple couldn't believe this. She pulled the gem out of her pocket, and tore her necklace that she had worn around her neck. "You said this gem could hypnotize mom? Well, can't it hypnotize you, as well?" Her father shook his head. "Only the true owner of that gem cannot be hypnotized by it, and that's me." Maple grinned. "No, it must be me," she replied. "As I stared right at it when I discovered it and I am still here, controlled by no one whatsoever." By this point she had managed to attach the gem to her silver necklace and she swung it back and forth, slowly. After several minutes, her dad's eyes had closed, and she realized that he was under her spell. She said that he would do anything she said and obey her every command, the moment he awoke. She then told him to open his eyes and he started struggling to get up, but Maple calmly told him to lay still. He obeyed, all because of the hypnotization spell that lay upon him. Maple smirked and rose to her feet, before going into the kitchen. She came back out with a knife in her hand. It all happened so quickly; just like that, she placed the blade of the knife to her father's throat and slit it. She placed the knife in his hand before stumbling out of her house, her head spinning. What had she just done? She leaned against a payphone booth and put one hand over her heart, trying to find her breath, before her knees gave out and she collapsed to the ground, unconscious. She later woke up on the same sidewalk, in the middle of the night. The memory of her killing her own father came flooding back to her. She tried to ignore it but she knew that would haunt her for the rest of her life. She couldn't return to her home, not when objects around the house would remind her of her father and the way she murdered him in cold blood. She tried to tell herself that it was good she killed him, that he would've killed her mother if not for her, but she just didn't feel right about it. She glanced at the blue gem on her neck, and she scowled. She tore the necklace off and tossed it into the middle of the street, before running down the sidewalk. After just several moments she tripped and crashed into a warehouse, gasping loudly when she saw a boy about her age, stabbing a knife deep into the heart of another child. He saw her and stepped away from the corpse, his eyes widening. "Y-You... you can't tell anyone about this..." he whispered. Maple saw how beaten up and depressed the boy looked. He told her that the only reason he killed this person was because he bullied him often and he couldn't take it any more. He said he hadn't realized what he had done, that he just grabbed a knife and stabbed the other boy before he could even think about that. Maple told him that she killed her own father on accident, and that she wouldn't tell anyone about what he did as long as he didn't tell anyone about what she did. The boy introduced himself as Iras. Iras and Maple didn't necessarily talk for about a year, until one day when Iras was walking home from school and he came across Maple, sitting down with her back propped up against a brick wall. He understood that she wouldn't be able to go to school in fear of being caught by her mother, but he had no idea why she was here, behind this house. Maple explained to him that while he was at school, getting an education and wasting most of his life with homework and his studies, she had started a killing business. There had been a strange change in her personality over the months since the two teenagers met. Killing her father turned her into some form of psychopath - not that she wanted to be one, it just kind of happened. Turns out, there were quite a few other psychopaths in the Capitol as well, not just her, and they needed her advice on how to kill their arch nemesis or someone they really wanted gone. After more and more crazy killers found out about Maple, she started holding meetings in the basement of an abandoned house, deep in the woods. If she herself wanted someone killed, she would send one of her "students" out to take them out for her if she wasn't feeling up to it. She did often feel up to it, though. However, if they didn't obey her orders, she would teach them a lesson. She became very strict and demanding, although she kept a typical, rude teenage girl mask on in order to hide who she truly was.

Reaped or Volunteered: Volunteered

Strengths: Maple is very swift; she can run for long distances for a pretty fair amount of time without stopping to rest her legs or catch her breath. She's not exactly intelligent with facts that most students in Panem learn, however she is logical and she doesn't come up with pointless ideas or do stupid things. She's very strong despite her size, and is also flexible and agile. She's a great actress and is trained hunter, whether it be hunting for food or for a victim to kill. Maple is also a pretty good climber.

Weaknesses: Maple has often tried to swim but she has proved to be not the best at it. She often gets ahead of herself and can be blinded by her overconfidence. She's very hostile, which wards off allies, and is quite untrustworthy. She's not the best at plant identifying, as well as several other typical survival skills.

Fear(s): Atychiphobia - the fear of failure.

Interview Angle: Maple doesn't care whether people like her or not - she never has, and she'll be herself despite whatever her mentor tells her. Being herself might bring sponsors, however, if some people in the audience are hardcore Hunger Games fans that love the tributes that yearn to kill and crave the blood of the other children that are competing. She'll be a bit rude and harsh to the interview, as well as smart, clever, and confident, and a girl that's full of secrets that are to be revealed only when she's in the arena.

Bloodbath Strategy: Maple will race towards the Cornucopia and grab her weapon of choice, preferably a morning star but if there is none, she'll grab a pair of steel claws or a throwing axe. Even if it be a simple knife, however, she'll start taking out any tributes that are around her. She'll jump out at clueless tributes from behind them and slit their throat or stab them through the chest, snap their necks or bring her weapon to their throat, digging the through the flesh and grinning with satisfaction as their eyes roll to the back of their head and they crumple uselessly to the ground. She'll prove to be a threat to the tributes that escape, promising them that she'll get to them eventually.

Games Strategy: Maple will stay with the Careers for the first half of the Games. She'll try to cooperate with them, but if they get on her nerves she might just lose it and make sure their life meets the spiked sphere of her morning star as they sleep. Even if she doesn't come to the point where they annoy her greatly and she wants to murder them, she'll do this eventually, probably around the day before the feast or so - because if she ends up staying alive for that long, she knows she's attending the feast alone. She'll betray her allies during the night, stealing some of the supplies but not the extra items that will slow her down. Just a couple of weapons and some food and water to last her a few days, and maybe some medicine if there is some. She will disappear from the Career's camp as fast as she can, and start to remain hidden. She will come out at night, her throat scratchy and dry and longing for the taste and texture of blood.

Alliance: Careers

Token: Blue gem