Cedar Birling, District 7 [Done]

Cedar Birling::23::District 7::

The Big Guy
Thinking about things
Mouth words
Other people’s words
Awesomesauce

::Appearance::

There is no one more awesomesauce than Cedar Birling. Why? Because, brah, he’s the epitome of smartness and handsome…ness. He’s got a wicked body that may or may not have put on a few pounds between the last time that he was eligible for reaping, on account of the fact that he started eating all sorts of fried meals (but come on, they taste so good and are so much easier to prepare). So he’s put on a more manly shape, that’s all. It’s not like he looks like some of the other loggers, they all look like they swallowed beach balls. And he doesn’t burp half or pick his nose half as much as they do. And he especially doesn’t eat it after doing so.

I guess you could say his awesomeness is predicated on his ability to indubitably say that… he’s awesome. Except none of those words make sense to Cedar, so don’t ask him what any of them mean. He just know that he’s grown up big and burly and good lookin’ enough to land himself a sweet best friend in Alder. It also helps when he has three little sisters that get scared pretty easily, so his relatively mountain man-ish size is good in situations involving a lot of crying over shadows and pretend animals in the darkness. He’s got rough hands from the time out cutting down logs, ever since he joined up with the logging camp at the age of fourteen.

He started growing a beard at the age of eighteen after his sisters poked fun at how young he looked without one. He tends to wear jeans and plaid shirt—clothes aren’t really his thing. He’s just as comfortable walking around naked as he is in all his trimmings for fieldwork. He also never leaves home without his lucky rabbit’s foot, which he kisses two times and always puts in his back left pocket. It’s from a rabbit he trapped when he was thirteen, the last time that he went hunting with his father. It’s just about the only thing that’s sentimental to him in the whole world. He’ll spend a whole day searching for it if it goes missing.

::Personality::

Super sweet and truly the craziest fake-dad you’ll ever see. He loves all his sisters like they’re his kids, being at least ten years older than his sisters. He gets along quite well with Holly, the oldest, and sees her as his biggest helper around the house. Cherry is the wild child that he’s always on the lookout for, seeing as she likes to go off and do her own thing (much to his chagrin), and the two of them get into fights more often than not. Euptellea is the youngest, and quietest of the three. Cedar takes care to make sure that she gets to spend as much time with him as possible. She’s a really unfortunate looking girl—there is no easy way of saying that she is pretty homely—and Cedar does his best to make sure that she feels beautiful.

He keeps his spirits up, tall like the trees in the district, because he knows that he has to be strong. It hit him hard when he lost his parents, but he just reminds himself how awesome it is to be alive every day, and doesn’t feel so bad. It could be a lot worse for the four of them if he didn’t keep his spirits so high. Part of it also has to do with his simple nature. He’s not the tree with the most branches, so sometimes he gets confused about the meanings of certain things. He takes the world as it is which can lead to misunderstandings, especially when Alder is particularly sarcastic to him. He just likes to be upfront with how he feels, rather than beating around the bush.

When he’s alone—which he rarely is, save for when he might be working deep in the forest—Cedar likes to imagine a fantasy world. He likes to think of himself with a big family and a house up in the trees, far away and living off the land. He thinks nature is just about as amazing and mystical and totally cool as it can get. It’s why he loves every waking moment of going out and logging; he can’t spend enough time outdoors. A view of nature takes his breath away—he couldn’t live a day without it. He doesn’t need to be the boss, or to have nice things. All he needs is a good friendship and some people to guide him in the right direction.

::History::

Cedar was the first child to his parents Moss and Beech. They raised him with all the love and affection that the two could ever give, both being loggers in the heart of district seven. After ten long years of trying to have kids, they finally popped some babies out of Moss’ baby cannon, giving way to his three sisters, Holly, Cherry, and Euptellea. They lived in a tiny little thatched roofed house on the edge of the woods, but it was a pleasant home. His mother and father were warm, never yelled, and food always seemed to be plentiful. Cedar learned how to pick roots and berries, and the rest of their money was spent on meat.

When he was thirteen, the whole world seemed to be in front of Cedar. He’d survived his first reaping, his sisters were growing up well, and his mother and father were blissfully married. But the whole thing went KABOOM when a set of logging machinery malfunctioned. His mother and father both lost their heads in the ensuing accident—literally, they came clean off—and left poor cedar in charge of a three, two, and one year old back home. Sure, his aunts and uncles helped out, but much of his life has been spent taking care of his younger siblings.

It’s why his childhood has lasted so long, even into his twenties. He hasn’t forgotten how to be a kid because he never really got a chance to be one. And so he spent so much time with his siblings, trying to play the happy, fun father figure that he forget sometimes he needs to be an adult. Sure he makes dinner and helps to pay the bills, but little things he forgets. He gives them more leeway, like staying out until all hours or eating whatever they want, than he really should. And it’s not because he’s not a good guy, he just plain doesn’t know any better.

Alder’s helped to change some of that. Ever since the two met, they’ve been inseparable. She’s helped to figure out a few things about growing up—being a man of the house, not being quite so dim as he really is. It’s her gentle hand that’s helped to move him forward some. So much so that he’s started to get a little confused as to whether or not this is a friendship or something more. But there’s a fear there, one that he hides behind his supposed buffoonery, because he doesn’t want to get hurt. If he lost Alder, he might not be able to play the happy little clown that he is. And he knows that his sisters still have a lot of growing to do.

codeword: Odair