Elkie Swift {District 9}

Elkie stands at about average height. She is closer to tall, although not in a towering sort of way. Her legs, which take up about three fifths of her body, are firms and muscled from running through the forest since she was a child. Her biceps, well-shaped from years working in her family butchery, are in sharp contrast to her forearms, which are thin and bony. Her waist is thin, but her ribs protrude slightly. Her breasts are nearly flat against the aforementioned rib cage.

As her status as a merchant may suggest, Elkie's skin is white as can be. Her skin has absolutely no ability to hold a tan, as much as it burns in the sun. It always returns to its pasty white color, with only her scattered freckles remaining as a reminder of the pain. Her hair, which is as red as the sunburns she often gets, falls down to her middle back. The soft red hair and sandpaper rough pale skin frame her thin face.

Elkie's face is much less mature than the appearance of her stature and age. In fact, her face somewhat resembles that of a child. Her chin is square, but small, and flows right into her angled jawline and high cheekbones. Her eyes are large pools of a plain, almost lifeless grey, but so much light dances in them that parts almost blend into the whites of her eyes. Her cheeks are always a delicate pink, spreading to the rest of her face when she's embarrassed, mad, sad, or really just when she feels any emotion other than pure neutrality. Elkie's straight, large nose also scrunches at any strong feeling. From the front, it seems to blend into her face seamlessly, but the moment she turns her face, you can see how disproportionately large it is in comparison to the rest of her face. Her lips, slim and pink, are often chapped from hard work and lack of water.

As with anyone else in District Nine, Elkie's clothes are meager and near colorless. She often wears a simple set of shirts and pants, maybe sometimes a skirt instead. Of course, the fanciest clothes she owns are for special events, like the reaping. It's a simple peach and yellow sun dress, though it's been washed so many times the yellow and peach closely resemble the same color of off tan. The only jewelry she owns are made up of animal hide and assorted animal bones, and they are also only for special occasions.

Elkie is not the type to succumb to bitterness. Despite the hard life of those in the Districts, which she has had her fair share of, she rarely lets herself show pain. Outwardly, she's a very strong, go-getter type who would just smile and move on if someone came up to her and pushed her over, whether it be emotionally or physically. Patience is her strong suit, as demonstrated by years of dealing with her ever dependent brother. Her sweet demeanor can be just as comforting as it is infuriating. There are so many things that she just lets slide, and it annoys people ranging from those who love to those who want to hurt her. She can come off as a bit overbearing, too, which people may see as either a pro or a con.

Her best friend, Crista Paonne, and her brother, Evander Swift, are the only ones who know the Elkie that she hides deep within herself. Crista first realized it after Aero Hirsch, the friendly neighborhood pervert, grabbed Elkie's butt and pushed her into the mud on a rainy day. She had ran straight to Crista's house and cried on her bed for hours. Eventually, Elkie revealed to the merchant girl something that only Evander had known. Every few months, something would happen that would break her, her walls would come down, and she would bawl for a long while.

After the incident, Crista began noticing things that Elkie did to make herself believe she remained in control. She would clean her house, take charge of the butcher shop, or even go hunting with Evander (though she wasn't that good). Elkie did subtle things that would ease her mind, like cracking her knuckles three times, scrubbing her hands over and over again before going to chop meat, or several other rituals to ease her mind. This brief moment of weakness was also what drove the boundary between Crista and Elkie away, what made them go from acquaintances to best friends.

One could only wonder why Elkie always needed to be in control of the situation. There are many reasons, of course. One is that she grew up in District Nine of all places, which isn't exactly a fantastic district. She has seen horrible, horrible acts of cruelty and destruction and all that makes her desperate to be in control of anything. Another reason would be the slight pressure from her mother to achieve greatness, a side effect of being the first surviving child of Mr. and Mrs. Swift. Elkie has always wanted to be able to control her own life, and Ursa Swift pushes her own wishes onto her.

Although Elkie's only really wish is to see her family fed and safe, she's always had a deep, fantastical wish to be a dancer. Since she was a child, she'd always spun around and practiced the dance moves she'd seen when the family television had shown the commercials during the Games. This has always been the source of much of her whimsical attitude and carefree nature, however completely constructed.

Elkie has a tendency to lie to protect herself and others. She lies to everyone, even Crista and Evander. She's somewhat hypocritical on that point, because if anyone ever lies to her, she won't talk to them for weeks. She is known to hold a grudge to repeat offenders against her patience and kindness. However, when she sees someone really hurting, she's known to drop the grudge. This is due to her complete inability to be stubborn and her trait of being somewhat of a pushover.

Elkie's parents met on a spring morning. It was raining outside, pouring really. Sixteen year old Ursa Ryker, the only daughter of a family of hunters, stumbled into the butchery. She was searching for Mr. Swift, the butcher who always paid well for game she'd trapped and had had to sneak past the Peacekeepers. Mr. Swift was not in sight. Instead, Orion Swift spoke up and asked her what her business was. Ursa recognized him from school, where they were in the same grade, and knew him as Mr. Swift's oldest son. After bartering ruthlessly for ten minutes, they settled on a price that Ursa was not happy with, but was pleased with because she was fairly certain Orion wasn't happy with it either.

After that, Orion was sure to work in the front of the store. Ursa and Orion eventually fell in love after a few years of their constant bickering, got married, and moved into the butcher shop. It would be two more years before they got pregnant. It would be another four years and three miscarriages later before they finally had a child. Beautiful baby girl Elkie Addra Swift came into the world on such a similar spring day to the one her parents met on, for the briefest moment Ursa was certain that there was something that had blessed her. But, as with all lone survivors, the hopes and wishes that had been meant for those fallen fell on her shoulders. It was a great burden to bear for such a small child, but she would never know it. Eighteen months after Elkie's birth, Ursa and Orion birthed a son, Evander Swift.

Elkie and Evander grew up very close to each other. The first time Evander said her name, it came out as "Ellie" and the nickname stuck, but only for Evander. Elkie would let no one else call her that. By the time she started attending school, she was so attached to her baby brother that she cried for hours at the thought of not being with him all day.

After the pain of separation had subsided, Elkie let herself make friends. Her first friend was a girl named Hunter Hauer, who gave her bright pink ribbon that was worn so much that it was stripped to shreds. She died later that winter of exposure to the elements. That was the first real experience she had with loss, though she really didn't understand it. Evander came to school a year later, resuming their almost codependent nature. Their care for each other helped them through their early years, but started to hinder them as time went on. Elkie wasn't making friends and was completely dependent on Evander. When he was sick, or helping out with hunting, she didn't know what to do with herself.

On one such day when she was ten, Elkie was wading through the weeds surrounding the school alone. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a young girl in her class. She was the tailor's daughter, dancing in the grass like she didn't have a care in the world. She remembered her name, Crista Paonne, and said it quietly. Crista heard her and spun her head around to her.

Crista and Elkie became friends, dancing through the grass after school and playing a game where they were birds or butterflies, depending on the day. Out of the control of the Capitol and the Hunger Games. Evander, of course, was jealous of her new found friendship. Elkie began choosing to spend time with Crista instead of her brother. Evander lashed out against the rejection of his sister and demanded attention. Elkie immediately dropped Crista and returned to spending all her time with Evander. Crista angrily retaliated by calling her horrible names that Elkie shrugged off simply. This only infuriated Crista more, and she stormed off to her house. Later that night, Elkie succumbed to her first breakdown of many more to follow. She fell into her bed and sobbed until the sun came up and she was forced to get out of bed and go to school. There, she ignored Crista completely and acted like the previous night had never happened. She and Crista eventually made up, and Elkie learned how to balance her friendship between Evander and Crista.

Elkie's first reaping was a dark day. She didn't sleep the night before, didn't say a word in the morning, and got ready in silence. She dressed in her fanciest shirt and her one pink skirt. She wore her mother's jewelry from her first reaping, and the pink ribbon that Hunter Hauer had given her seven years before. She wandered over to the area reserved for the twelve year old girls. There, she found Crista. As the announcer began going through her usual spiel, Crista and Elkie looped hands. The moments before the escort spoke the name of the tribute were some of the longest moments of her life. The agonizing tick of her heels as she walked from the reaping ball to the microphone. Oddly, in the milliseconds where the escort's words were forming on her lips, all Elkie could think of was Crista's beautiful green dress from her shop that was stained and had moth holes, and how genuinely jealous she was.

"I volunteer."

Elkie never heard the chosen girl's name. Instead, she turned to find the wide eyes of Ember Milan. She only knew her by name, as "that crazy Milan girl", and that she was just a few years older than her. She had another breakdown the night Ember Milan died in the Games.

After the Games, her mother began to take her and her brother out hunting regularly. Evander was good at the bow, but Elkie didn't really like going hunting. Somehow, seeing the animal alive made it much harder to butcher and sell to the people of District Nine. But she continued going out there with Evander anyways, checking the traps for dead game, if only to be closer to her mom and brother. She much preferred working at the shop, where her father taught her how to clean, cut, and sell the extra animals brought to her by her mother, brother, and the others in the District.

After a while, the Capitol banned most hunting for the District. The citizens began to transfer from hunting to working in factories, but the Swift family continued to work the forest and sell animals to the Capitol and their people. Of course, they suffered hardship as the people adjusted to their meager pay at the factories. People rarely bought from the butcher shop, and it became difficult to feed and support themselves. To make ends meet, Evander and Elkie began hunting daily. They followed in their mother's footsteps, hiding more and more game from the Peacekeepers. They kept it from themselves, to eat, to sell in their store.

When Elkie and Crista were fifteen, the blonde tailor inherited the family shop. Her parents were killed in a small outbreak of a deadly disease that killed within hours. Crista Paonne and her two year old baby sister, Aves Paonne, were orphaned within days of the outbreak. Despite their inability to take care of just themselves, the Swifts took Christa and Aves in, agreeing to look after them until Christa turned eighteen and could care for Aves herself. Over the next few years, Elkie grew close to Aves, absolutely adoring the child. She was sure to absolutely spoil the darling. Well, spoil as much as possible in District Nine.

By the time of the Sixtieth Hunger Games reaping, seventeen year old Elkie had managed to harden herself to the emotions the reapings brought on. She always focused on simple things. How pretty Aves' golden blonde hair looked in its natural curls, how young Evander looked compared to the other sixteen year old boys, and how jealous she was of Crista's collection of ruined dresses from the tailor shop, gifts from the merchants and workers all vying for her affection. It was not fool proof, as she would still have one of her mental breaks, but it helped her get through the pain.

Face Claim: Bryce Dallas Howard

I'm so glad to be back here!