Ravena Kavieria [District Eight]

Ravena Kavieria - Eighteen - District Eight

Her eyes, once full of life, hope, and passion, now seem dull and lifeless, even when she's angry. Her mother used to tell her, "You have the prettiest eyes," and maybe she did. Her eyes have always been large and dark brown, and even though they haven't changed at all, without her excitement, the shape and color mean nothing. She has small bags underneath her eyes, but not because of her stress or condition. Her mother always had the same exact problem, so she can easily blame the fault on heredity.

When she was still living with her family, she kept her dark brown hair neat and tidy. She always used to take good care of herself, but now her hair is matted and tangled. The last time that she cut it was when she was sixteen years old, and in the past two years it has grown past her shoulders and to her waist. Right in the middle of her forehead, her hair comes together and forms a widow's peak.

If anything, the shape of her face has stayed the same. Her cheekbones are more high and prominent then most other peoples', her nose is of a medium size, and her forehead is wide.

After she left home- or was forced to leave home- she resorted to becoming a thief to feed herself. On several occasions when she had first taken up this new hobby (if you could call it that) she wasn't cautious enough and was caught. Her punishments were never pleasant, and she gained the scars as a reminder to her as to what she had done. Many of them were deep and took a long while to heal correctly, the largest one sitting clear on her face, starting at the top of her right cheek and slanting towards her lip, where she had been purposely cut by someone's knife.

It isn't some silly blemish towards her appearance that she would consider her greatest fault, though. Her strength has always been the problem. She was never strong, in fact, back at the time when she lived with her parents, her father always had to lift heavy objects for her. It always shamed her that he could lift things so easily, and she couldn't. When she left home, she made a promise to herself to become stronger, and she did.. but barely. If she were to be caught stealing again, it wouldn't be hard to overpower her and hurt her- which always happened.

She's more lean then anything else. When she was younger, she always believed that she would stay short forever (she was only about 4'11" at the time), but when she was about thirteen years old, she started to grow at a miraculous pace. Now, at age eighteen, she's obviously stopped growing and reaches a height of about 5'8". Most of that height is in her legs, but that doesn't make her any faster. She was never quite the athlete, but if she needs to run away from a bad situation, you can bet she can do it, though now she is hardly ever caught. Even though at first she wasn't a very talented thief, she has learned to be more silent and cautious about it.

Clothing is always a problem for her. Not because she worries about the latest style of anything- that would be a miracle- but because clothes are hard for her to get. She steals money a lot of the time, yes, but never enough to buy clothing. Because of this, she hardly ever has new clothes, and the clothing that she does have is worn out, which only adds to her image of poor hygiene.

While her appearance has evolved a lot over the years, her personality has changed even more. When she was young, her mind was filled with all kinds of dreams. She was going to be the strongest, the fastest, the best person that she could possibly be. She was going to be beautiful and people would look up to her.

Many years later, all dreams like that are gone from her mind, because reality had set in several years ago and she realized that she was probably never going to rise above anything other then a worker, like her parents. Being important was an impossibility in the Districts. When she realized this, she lost hope that she had anything in store for her when she grew up. She was going to work her whole life in the Districts and never amount to anything.

It used to be that she could walk up to any person on the street and strike up a conversation with them without fear, even if she hadn't even seen the person before in her life. She could look a person straight in the eyes and never have to look away in embarrassment. But that was when she was younger and naive about everything. It was almost as if she was in her own little bubble, where conflict wasn't a word and everyone was a friend.

Then of course life in the Districts made those thoughts impossible. She quickly learned that life wasn't perfect and that not everyone was a friend. People whom she thought were her friends actually hated her, and soon she became self-conscious of how she acted and retracted into her bubble for safety and began to talk to people much less. She became shy around everyone in fear that if she did say something people would judge her for it, but this didn't help anything. She sunk so far into her bubble that people still criticized her, and they made fun of her even more, until the day that she was finally too tired of hearing it. Like any normal human she finally began to stand up for herself and a sense of pride was installed in her after being so put-down over the years. So sick of feeling small and useless, she began to fight any kids that said something about her and quickly made others fear her. While people still rarely talked to her, no one would criticize her aloud in fear that she would hurt them for it. She was quite the bully, and her parents never did much to teach her otherwise. They were too busy working to support the large family to worry about the things she did or what kind of a person she was turning into. She now speaks her mind about everything and isn't afraid to defend herself and note the flaws of others.

At the same time, Rave desperately craved the attention of her parents. They rarely paid attention to her- the oldest child of 6- so she struggled to make them listen to her and help her. As much as she tried to talk to them they always had other things to do and other children to worry about, so she tried even harder to get their attention. She began picking fights with kids she didn't even know, ones who were vastly stronger then her, hoping that if her parents saw her beat up, they would give her the attention she lacked. Nonetheless, her parents were still far too busy to even notice her black eyes. Even when they were notified about the fights, they simply grew more tired of her. Ignored at school, ignored at home, Ravena became more independent and swore to herself that the only person she could really trust was herself. Friendship and love became something foreign to her, but she was okay with that. However, the loneliness sometimes gets to her and she wonders what it would be like to have those friends, to have her family back, to have someone to love.

If there is one thing that isn't negative about Ravena, it is her intelligence. Cunning and observant, she's skilled at watching others and manipulating them. Although she does speak in a rude manner on most occasions, she knows what to say and how to say it if she needs something for her own benefit, if of course, she's talking to someone who doesn't already know her. If she were to try that on someone who already knew her personality, they would clearly know that she was lying and trying to manipulate them.

Ravena was born on October 14th, just eighteen short years ago. She was the first child of two parents who could barely support even themselves, let alone a child. Her father worked picking cotton in the fields and her mother raised sheep, but neither of them created the actual clothes. With the more difficult jobs in the District they had some of the smaller wages and because of that lived in a run-down house amidst many. It was dinky little shack of a house, usually always filthy because no one ever bothered to clean up well enough. From the moment she was conscious of living there Ravena hated the place more then anything, and she was constantly trying to clean it up with fruitless efforts. The house had a dirt floor, three rooms (kitchen, living room, and one bedroom- they shared an outhouse outside), and in the winter the cold was so bad that the family had to stay close while they slept to keep warm. Their house lacked a fireplace, which would have made life during winter much easier for them.

If life had seemed hard, it only got worse when the other children were born. Five other children came consecutively during Ravena's childhood, with little means to support them. In an already crowded house with few places for children to sleep, all six of them were crammed into the living room to sleep. They were one of the poorest families in District Eight and Ravena was the one who took care of her brothers and sisters while her parents worked, though she hated it. She wanted nothing more then to move out of the house and leave them all to fend for themselves, because she couldn't stand her family much. Her parents ignored her and treated her like she was the worst child in existence (though she probably was, with all the fights she had started) and she rarely got gratitude from any of her siblings despite all she had done to help them. In her twisted, independent mind, she didn't need them. They hated her, so what was the point of caring for them?

Again, she lacked so much attention from her parents and was so tired of her siblings that she no longer wanted to be a part of the family. This became obvious to her parents when she was just sixteen, and they didn't hesitate to disown her and force her out of the house to fend for herself. It was then that she began stealing to feed and take care herself- the idea of working in the cotton fields for the rest of her life frightened her and she wanted no part in it- but at first she obviously had difficulties. She was caught on several occasions and scarred up on her arms and face, but she didn't mind. She had lost the incentive to worry about her appearance. Quickly though, she became more sly and stealthy about her theft and she became very skilled at it. She even started manipulating people into giving her food and even clothing, if she was able to convince them. She has lived like that for two years now, alone and committing crimes to take care of herself. She has no one to rely on, not any friends or family. This is beginning to bother her more and more, but she's too proud to admit it to anyone- if in fact people do talk to her. She's hated by many in her District, and loved by no one.