Fern Ponderosa - D7 [finished]

There's a certain delicateness to Fern's facial features, something that calls to mind a doe or a porcelain doll. Her eyes are instantly interesting, large and framed by thick, but stubby lashes, the minty green irises seems to reflect the evergreen of the forests where she loses herself for hours on end.

Her lips are full, and Fern curves them into a close-mouthed grin when she's amused or pleased. But she despises her trollish, stubby nose -- and don't get her started on the elephantine ears. Still, she does her best to hide them with her wavy, light brown hair. The honeyed tresses, as her mother call them, are easy enough to brush around her ears, but when she's at school or reading, she often ties her hair up into a ponytail, as it helps her think.

Honestly, though, Fern is satisfied with her appearance. She's right in that comfortable state between average and pretty, caught in the undefinable divide of a cross between the two. Her figure is decidedly average, although she's still trying to adjust to her newly minted curves that sprang up suddenly six months ago. She also grew a few inches over the past year, and as a result, can often be found tripping over her own feet. There is a soft roundness to her figure, brought on from years reading indoors or under the shade of a tree instead of out running with the other children.

FC: Claire Danes

Fern is quiet, bookish. Growing up with three siblings, she never felt the need to make many close friends in the neighborhood or at school. She is polite, as her mother demands, and quick-witted, as her father insists. She is a young, young fifteen, with all the world to discover.

She is not popular at school or even frequently noticed. She falls quietly into the background, surveying the activities of others and noting what was going on around her.

She is able to hold decent conversation but rarely chooses to do so outside of her home -- her family and few close friends are the only ones she regularly converses with, believing there wasn't a need for anyone else. There's a certain awkwardness about her that means most of her classmates let her keep to herself.

As the oldest sister in a family of two girls and two boys, Fern is extremely proud of her siblings. Her older brother, Ash, is her mother's pride and joy, and while he teases his siblings constantly, Fern adores him. Bay, her younger brother, is stubborn and usually a pain, and Willow, the youngest, is Fern in miniature, but with twice the spunk.

Even in her own family, Fern is the quietest. Although her father often keeps to himself, the rest shout over each other and make constant noise. And while Fern tries to be patient with them all, there are days when she just wants to get away from the clamor and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Deep down, she wants to explore the world and see all the things she's read about. But deeper down, she knows that it probably won't ever happen -- people very rarely leave their district. Besides, she'd be too afraid of leaving everything else behind.

Fern grew up listening to stories; it was the one thing that could soothe her to sleep as a baby -- her mother's soft words weaving tales of magical worlds and lands far, far away.

As Fern grew older, it was still the stories that she craved. Thankfully, Fern was raised in District Seven, where products like paper are widely more available than in any other district. As a result, books were less of a rarity, although still far too expensive for an average citizen to regularly consume. So, for her birthday each year, her parents would pool their resources together and buy her a book. Fern has them lined up on a shelf in their bedroom -- thirteen books, one for each year since the time she was three years old.

Fern has practically memorized every word from each of the thirteen books, and their spines are worn and their pages frayed. They mean the world to her, and she loves nothing more than to hide away for an evening in the woods, reading one for the fifteenth time.

Fern's childhood was a fairly happy one. Of course, her upbringing was modest -- her father did fairly well one of the hundreds of lumberjacks, and they lived comfortably enough, although the children were always a little hungry, and the clothes were always worn. Still, they grew up, all four of them, happy enough. On bad years, when her father didn't do as well, one of them had to take a tessera, but that pretty much ended when Fern's older brother, Ash, became a teenager and worked part-time in the lumberyard.

The Hunger Games were a part of their life, but only in the way of every citizen in Panem -- there was that building fear, that gnawing anxiety, growing more intense until the reaping. And then, immense relief, pity for the families who lost someone, and knowledge it would all happen again next year.

Fern, as with her love of books, liked learning. She was always the slowest during outside drills at school, always the worst at playground games, but school was where she found her sanctuary. Having resources like that was lucky for most citizen in Panem -- there were kids in districts who had far less than they did, had far fewer years before they left school.

But still, there wasn't much time left before she left school and went to work -- in the factories or the printer's shops. But even when she no longer could go to school, Fern knew she would still have one new book, each year, on her birthday, to take her away to a new world once again.