Willow Black - District 7

Name: Willow Black

Age: 18

Gender: Female

District/Area: 7

Appearance: 

A short girl at about 5.3 feet with straight blonde hair which frames her face and only just brushes her shoulders. Her figure is noticeably curvy, but if you look closer you'll see she's anything but dainty with her strong arms and the beginning of a sixpack. A number of small scars of varying size and age litter her legs and she has rather large feet with thick calluses. Most of the left side of her face is taken up by a large burn, running from just above her chin to over her left ear. She's not the type to spend hours preening and there's a good chance you'll find her with a few smudges of dirt somewhere and with her pale skin slightly sunburnt. Despite that, she's very particular about things like her hair, teeth and nails and so long as she has the time she keeps them clean and carefully clipped.

Dark, slender eyebrows stand out against her pale skin and her cat-like green-grey eyes give her a slightly mischevious appearance. She has a small crescent birthmark on her right shoulder by the base of her neck and a number of moles on her biceps. Light pink lips cover fairly white teeth, though she rarely reveals them when she smiles as one of them is chipped, and she has a prominent incisor. When she smiles it slightly pokes out from between her lips, making it seem like she has a single fang. Among her friends it's become a bit of an in joke to call it her vampire fang.

Personality:

Willow is a tomboy and she likes the title just fine. Having grown up with three older brothers and later ending up in a rather male-dominated line of work has made her more comfortable being 'one of the guys' instead of being viewed as the girl of the group. She's foulmouthed, cursing at the slightest provocation, and she greatly enjoys some friendly ribbing. Of course this does mean she's not always great at dealing with emotional matters and she tends to avoid talking about them. If you try to make her, expect a punch or two. Crying people is not something she really deals well with, as she sort of panics while trying to cheer people up. On the rare occasions she's brought to tears herself, she cries alone. Deep down she appreciate when people try to offer comfort, but the feeling is overshadowed by how ashamed she is to let others see her cry.

Her language turns some people off, but she makes it a point to be friendly with people until they give her reason not to be and she's a generally cheerful person. It's fairly easy to give her reason not to be friendly with you, though, as she's very impatient and she has quite the temper. The only ones who can get away with anything around her are children, as she tends to treat them much more gently than she does those her own age or older.

She does have a more feminine side, but it's not something she likes to acknowledge or talk about. She's acutely aware that, because of her gender and height, many of the men she works with will never fully respect her. This does give her a certain drive, making her work harder and longer to earn the respect she feels she's owed. She takes pride in being stronger or better at her job than some of the guys who worked in her field for about as long as she has. As such, height is a rather sensitive topic for her, as are things such as her love of dancing and her soft nature where children are concerned. Her sexuality is a major point of insecurity for her and when it is brought up, even casually, she often reacts aggressively or even violently.

While Willow is a very physical person, she's certainly no meathead. Her standard education was a little lacking, but she's very good at what her father's taught her and she is incredibly street smart. Blessed with the talent to think on her feet under pressure, she has little difficulty improvising to stay several steps ahead of everyone else.

History:

History was born as the youngest of 4 children, making her the only girl. Her father was the head forester and her mother a carpenter. Her father's job paid relatively well by itself and with her mother also bringing in money the family never had much trouble with basic expenses. Since Willow was the baby of the family her three brothers were highly protective of her, but as she grew older this attitude began to wear on her and by the time puberty rolled around she began laying down the law to the older boys. Sadly this was also when her parents' marriage finally ended.

While they came from a deep and honest love of his wife, her father's views of family life were vaguely sexist and this tended to grate on her mother. He argued that, since the boys were getting older, they could work and earn money for the family so that their mother could stop working and simply be a housewife. She loved her job, however, and had absolutely no intention of doing so. The discussion caused frequent arguments and the two drifted more and more apart. Eventually Willow's mother fell for a woman who lived a few houses down and she divorced her husband. It wasn't pretty.

Thanks to a great deal of effort on his part, the children stayed with their father and had little to no interaction with their mother. Willow saw her previously kind father grow more and more bitter and any mention of her mother or any sort of same sex relationship would set off hour long rants. He threw himself into his work and began taking Willow with him more and more often. Her brothers had gone through the same thing but showed no skill in their father's field of work. Willow, on the other hand, was actually very good at it. She learned to care for trees, recognize different plants and herbs and how to treat parasites, but she had too little patience for it. She liked the more physically demanding work and the moment she was old enough she joined her brothers and began work as a lumberjack.

She loved the work and made a number of great friends there, but she also soon realized that a number of the guys treated her differently for being a girl. She made it a point to improve in the ways these guys would notice, so she worked harder and longer and did her best to grow stronger. It was slow going, but most people certainly got the hint when one of her coworkers asked her out and she broke his nose. She got so into her work it began to worry her friends a little and one of them eventually dragged her away from her beloved trees to find a hobby. The friend's mother was involved with the organization of the upcomming summer festival, which involved a lot of dancing, and she often taught a few brief classes right before the festival so people at least wouldn't embarrase themselves. Willow complained bitterly about being dragged there at first, but soon found out two rather surprising things. She was good at it and, though she denied it furiously, she loved to dance. Her friend's mother only had a few traditional dances to teach her and Willow picked them up very, very quickly so pretty soon the older woman had nothing left to teach. In the greatest secrecy, Willow later tried to find more information on different dances and taught them to herself as best she could. When her eldest brother found her practicing one evening, she threatened castration if he ever told everyone.

Her life soon entered a bit of a pattern of eat, work, sleep, dance in secret, eat, sleep, work, play with the local kids, etc etc. She did well at her job and still had time to be with friends or family, but she'd begun to notice something about herself. While her female friends were fooling around and beginning relatioships, she was no more interested in the guys she worked with than when she was still a kid. Her female friends, however, were a different matter entirely. She knew what that meant and she also knew what it would mean if her father ever found out. He'd made his stance on things like this quite clear over the years and she loved her brothers, but knew they wouldn't go against her father. Where would she go if he threw her out? Her mother? If they spoke twice in a month that was a lot. Besides, it had taken her this long to get some of her colleague's to treat her with any kind of respect. This news would probably not help there. The only thing she could think to do in the end was to hide it as best she could. Nobody had to know.

Codeword: Odair

Other: A talented dancer with a love for sweets and cats, who can't hold her booze in the slightest.