Deidre McCrea 7

Deidre has long black hair which she almost always keeps up, almond shaped brown eyes, sharp cheek bones, pale lips, and a long face. There’s a J-shaped scar going from behind her ear to about halfway up her right cheek, she’s learned to deal with it. Her skin is freckled with scars and there’s an unusual, unsettling array of freckles just beneath her bottom eyelashes and along the divot above the cheekbone. Deidre stands at 5’4’’ and has a small build, usually fluctuating between too-skinny and starving. Her mother and father were both good looking, tanned and sharp-featured, and their three children never dwelled too far from their parents or their looks. Malva (16) and Cowan (19), Deidre’s two older siblings are both rather attractive, Malva considerably so, but all three siblings, like the entirety of the family, are almost identical in looks.
Deidre doesn’t embrace these looks, though. She doesn’t find much use in spending an extra twenty minutes in front of the mirror trying to make herself look more like her sister. Simple is perfect for Deidre. A shirt, a tight ponytail, shorts, and gloves are fine for her. Her knees are knobby, her arms are short and her elbows are sharp. Growing up in District seven has helped her to use her skills to the best of her ability.
Her mother always encourages the extra work and the extra money is usually needed and because of this each child has their own job in District Seven. Her small size and quickness had her weaving through questionable branches and testing them out, and when and if they fell she was in charge of gathering them.

In the summer months of Deidre’s tenth year, there was a terrible accident in the forest, a terrible accident that killed half a dozen lumberjacks and turned Mr. McCrea into a right arm amputee. He’d always had such a strong spirit and determination, which Deidre clung to and developed as a young child, but Mr. McCrea’s arm was his pride and when that left, so did he. Distraught, Mrs. McCrea followed suit not soon after that. They returned a year or so later, of course, but in that year it was as if Deidre’s trust had just leapt up and left town with them, though not returning when they did. She never really did put much trust in anyone besides her siblings and the thought of ever trusting anyone besides the two had her nauseous.
Deidre’s mouth is a bit untamed, which could turn the generally okay girl into a bitterly savage one who Cowan has to restrain. Deidre’s guilt nags at her conscience almost constantly after a mistake or discipline takes place, but she’s also speedy on foot and with her hands. Her anger comes in great puffs and she usually lashes out whenever her feelings turn for the worst. When she devotes herself to something, she wraps herself in it, and is determined to protect or fight to acclaim it, with such a ferocity that Deidre comes off as a bit emotionless or selfish. But it is rare for Deidre to reveal what she wants, and to those who don’t pay much attention to the girl, she looks like an easy target; she looks weak. To her family she is kind, funny, and trusting. To others she is quiet and angry, mostly known as the youngest McCrea child.
Her peers at school know well enough of the family whose parents ran off once and left a fourteen year old boy to fend and feed for his younger sisters. After the children were abandoned, most kids and neighbors avoided them, not expecting them to last more than two months. When they lasted a whole year, the name ‘McCrea’ was spoken at dinner along most of District seven. Cowan became especially popular, never shy of a crowd. People wanted to know about them, and they did learn quite a bit about the two eldest McCreas. Deidre refused the crowd, only making an exception when walking to the district school with her siblings.

Deidre McCrea was born into a family of four, and made the fifth. She grew up with two older siblings, one sister, Malva, and a brother, Cowan. Her parents were born and raised in District seven, nothing special brought them together. She’s raised not eating enough food, but not starving either. Deidre knows that living in seven meant that sacrifices had to be made and if that meant going hungry for a couple weeks of the year, then she was only slightly agitated by it.
When her parents left, Deidre couldn’t find it in herself to trust her father again and made it known in the house. He left shortly after to live closer to the district square. She forgave her mother a year after she returned, but when Deidre refused to forgive her father, Mrs. McCrea harvested a bit of hard feelings for her youngest child. They rarely talk.
She attends school and goes about her days sticking close to her siblings in that clingy sort of younger sibling way. She never ventured too far from the two, from the beginning, but in the past couple years she has developed a sense of her own person.
She works in the lumber forest like most of the district, climbing trees. She’s very good at it, considering its most all she’s been doing for the past seven years of her life. Besides moving tree limbs, of course. She’s able to identify which trees are easy to climb and which ones aren’t. Deidre’s familiar with tracking, too.

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