Peyton Hayes is anything but subtle.

She is blunt, vulgar, and generally just a nasty person to cross paths with. It is not at all unlikely that she suffers from borderline personality disorder as a result of her personally traumatic upbringing. She is a product of a strict religious upbringing in the Union. Peyton decided she was an atheist at an early age, which obviously did not go over well with her overbearing zealot parents, who only became more restrictive and oppressive. There were several attempts at suicide between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, one of which has left both of her wrists heavily scarred.

At age twenty, Peyton finally abandoned her parents and defected to the Confederacy, where she found the freedom she sought all her life. Her unique, crass personality seems to suit her well in her new career as a pirate. When she was twenty-one, she had her left arm tattooed from her wrist up to her neck with a vivid green, tangled, thorny vine of black roses. Whether this is symbolic for the death of her past life or a visual warning to others, much like a poisonous animal is patterned with bright colors, is unknown, as she discusses little about herself. What is known is that she has adopted it as her personal symbol, and created her own faction known as the Black Rose Corsairs.