Ebba Zercha ~ District Four ~ Finished

To be blunt about it, Ebba is just an average looking girl. The only reason she ever gets noticed is her ginger hair, a shade lighter and redder than the normal colour you'd expect and imagine when one is described as ginger. It reaches just below her chest in a style that can only be described as untamed, tousled waves. Her pale skin, which is quite strange for a District Four Inhabitant, makes her hair stand out even more so, though in the warmer months her skin goes an even tanned colour, bringing with it more freckles than she already has.

Ebba has a pale, oval shaped face, with an upturned 'button' nose, as her mother refers to it. She has quite rounded, dark coloured eyebrows, which are quite thick and high up on her face. They make her face seem more warm and inviting, which is something she is thankful for, as sometimes her facial expressions can make her seem like she might lash out at someone at any given moment, due to the passion and fire that burn in her sea green eyes. Her eyes are almond shaped, leaning more towards blue than green. Her nose and cheeks are splattered with light orange, faded freckles, and the rest of her body is dotted with them here and there, from the amount of time she spends in the sun, unboubtedly. Ebba constantly looks as though she is pouting, with her small, pink lips always puckered as though she is waiting for a kiss or has tasted something sour. The cheeky smile that is often plastered upon her face is quite contagious, as is her laugh, which is loud and often obnoxious sounding but difficult to resist.

Ebba isn't overly weak, though she is small built. She stands at 5'7", which may seem tall or average depending on the beholder, but because of her lack of weight she seems short. She has muscle tone in her arms and legs, from her love of swimming most likely, but she doesn't seem as well fed as the others in her district, who are all treated quite well because of their closeness to the capitol. Though she is quite petite looking, she has broad shoulders from her frequent swimming in the ocean; an advantage of living in a coastal district.

With a melodic sort of voice that sounds almost teasing, Ebba is known to be very cheeky and is often being scolded for sarcasm that isn't actually there when she speaks to those whom are deemed 'respected' in the District and otherwise.

Ebba's personality is often misconstrued, due to her body language, voice and facial expressions. Upon first meeting her, one might think she was snarky and rude, but in actual fact that is not the case...or at least, not always the case. Ebba is a firm believer in the saying 'treat others as you would like to be treated', though she has warped the meaning to suit her rather playful, almost smug disposition. If she feels like someone is giving her cheek, she'll give it right back, because, after all, if they are treating her that way, that must be how they wish to be treated too. If someone is rude to her, she'll dish it right back. However, her warped meaning of the phrase isn't always a negative thing, as when someone is kind to her, she will be kind back.

Naming someone a name with a meaning often has no real relation to their eventual personality, however in the case of Ebba, it does. With her name meaning 'flowing tide' it denotes that her personality is not wishy washy, but more that she is quite calm, but will not let anyone or anything stand in her way of getting to where she needs to go. If she is set on something, she will continue to try until she gets there or dies. Because of this, she is known to be stubborn and headstrong, and will quite happily pick a fight with someone if they get in the way of her ambitions. It also means that she is extremely, not hyper-active, but more energetic. She is always going somewhere, doing something. She dislikes to waste the day.

Smugness and playfullness aren't always good qualities to have when living in Panem, in fear of being done in by the Capitol, but Ebba seems to enjoy the fact that her personality is rather unsavoury. Her family often worry about her, for fear that she might say something wrong, seeing as she has a rather bad case of bluntness and open mouth, insert foot. She can be painfully honest, though it depends whom with sometimes. Her personality can be slightly different depending on context and company. Her near sarcastic sounding voice sometimes lands her into trouble, even if she doesn't mean any harm but what she says.

Ebba isn't stupid. She knows what's going on, she knows quite a lot of things, in fact. She might even be classed as intelligent, and has ambitions that she is determined to fill.

Ever determined, ever headstrong. That sums up Ebba's personality quite well.

Being born to two slack parents does wonders for your personality. Not being told off, being left to roam around without a care, never being scolded; It makes for a rather complacent child. Ebba was the epitome of complacence, her twin brother Tidus and herself being the least restrained children in the district, or so they thought. While they were never rich, they always had enough to get by, with two incomes and a helping hand from their older brother too. Once again, the perfect ingredients needed to make complacency. Their parents, Zada and River, were what could be described as 'hippies', laid back and happy to let their kids do whatever while they earned the money for the family.

That was, of course, until the twins twelfth year, when they happened to get a bit too cosy with being underwater in the ocean and both nearly drowned. A Peacekeeper saved them, thinking they were attempting to escape before the Reaping began. Their parents became a lot stricter then, making sure they knew where they were, always monitoring what they did. It wasn't until Ebba grew older that she realised the Peacekeepers were just waiting for them to slip up, day old hate turning into constant suspicion.

Though, this constant monitoring by both parents was short lived. By Ebba's thirteenth birthday, she was beginning to rebel, fighting with her parents, becoming headstrong, losing the bond with her twin brother Tidus. Life became difficult, their older brother having been 'moved' elsewhere for more work, the Capitol's way of saying he'd probably been killed for some reason. This meant their money supply was significantly shortened, and Tidus had to begin working at the tender age of thirteen, leaving Ebba at a loss as to what to do with herself. She decided that trying to play the happy families game wasn't going to work, nor was being bitter about it, so she instead chose to cover things with humour and cheek, and to just worry her parents by the blunt way she acted and spoke.

"I wish you'd die, Zada!"
Those five little words will haunt Ebba for the rest of her life. Nearing her fourteenth birthday, her mother got into a fight with her over her complete lack of better judgement and manners. The argument escalated and her mother slapped her across the face. Those five words ended the argument and Ebba left the house. She didn't regret the words at all, she felt utterly liberated for saying them, in fact. Now, she wishes that she'd looked at her mother for a fraction longer, held her tight, done something. Her mother went for a swim in the ocean after that, to calm her nerves. Ebba didn't see her alive again.

The next time Ebba saw her mother, her lips were blue, her skin white, hair plastered to her face from seawater and seaweed littered her battered body on the shore. Then, the regret kicked in. Her stinging words had killed her mother, adding another burden to the family's finances. Only two incomes held up three near adults, and while it got them by, when her father began to drink excessively the money went nowhere. It started off with a drink a week, then a drink a night, then two, then a jug, then a whole slab in the blink of an eye. There wasn't a time when he wasn't blind drunk, gambling and tottering down the streets of District Four, making Ebba's family the laughing stock. That was when her warped phrase, 'Treat others as you would like to be treated,' kicked into play. She sneered back at people passing her down the street, gawking at 'the drunkards child'. She'd throw a punch at a girl her age laughing at her from the seat nearby at school. She'd scream and abuse the men on the dock, offering to pay her for 'her services' to keep her father drunk.

Then, the time came when the alcohol was too strong for her father. Ebba was nearly fifteen at the time, and her father had a heart attack on board a boat. He'd died almost immediately, leaving little to no money for the two remaining twins, alone in the world. They were forced to fend for themselves, until their uncle stepped in and adopted them into his home, his wife also dead and his children old enough to live by themselves.

That's essentially where Ebba's life is at now, longing for that complacency she had once more, for the kindness and fretting her parents gave her.