Petra Gallagher // D12

Petra looks like she belongs to the seam. She has straight, long black hair that reaches halfway down her back. She wears it in a ponytail or bun to keep out of her way while she's working. Her olive skin is often coated in coal dust. Petra often has rings of exhaustion under her beautiful, wide dark brown eyes. She's short and skinny, with a hungry look that so many who live near her have. But her arms are muscular, shaped by hard days in the mines.

Petra tries to look her best, doing her best to wipe the coal dust off when she gets home in the evenings. But she always feels like it never completely goes away. She wears tight clothes, partly because she likes it and partly because she never bought clothes that fit properly. Petra has a friend who is into making tattoos with very cheap equipment. She is actually pretty good at it, given what she has to work with. As a result, Petra has a tattoo on her lower back of six birds in flight - they're pretty much identifiable as mockingjays, if you look really close.

Petra is still young and not completely beaten down. She likes to have a bit of fun. She'll talk and joke through her shift at the mines (occasionally getting in trouble for not focusing solely on her work). She likes singing, something she started doing for her younger siblings when she was trying to put them to sleep at night and discovered she liked. She likes dancing, too, though there's rarely music to find in District 12 to dance to. She likes to spend time with friends doing anything at all (often times hanging out at the Hub), and she's often picking up guys. She likes drinking when she can steal it (they can't spare the money for something they don't strictly need), but it's recreational for her rather than the necessity it is for her dad.

Petra is a loving, caring person. She considers her siblings like her own kids and will do anything for them. She protects them as best she can but, in this world, there's not that much she can do. But she's there for them whenever she can be, listening to their problems, offering advice and solutions, and trying to keep them out of any big trouble. Petra loves her father too, though she tries not to. And she'll often try to help him when she comes to her in some sort of trouble.

Having grown up in a rough neighborhood and with a tendency to get into trouble out of necessity, Petra is fully capable of looking after herself. She's no stranger to fighting, though she doesn't do it often and only when strictly necessary - it's not something she enjoys, at all. She's scrappy and clever in her own way, constantly trying to think of solutions.

Petra has deep abandonment issues, accompanied by a lack of self-esteem. At this point she doesn't really expect anyone to stick around, so she doesn't even try for a real committed relationship. She doesn't really expect anyone to love her or believe that they will, with the possible exception of her siblings.

Petra is the oldest of six children born to the Gallaghers. Her father has never been much of a father. He's almost constantly completely wasted, and is completely incompetent when it comes to raising his own children. Petra's mother was a little better, but she would often go on benders with her father, would disappear for days, or would simply refuse to get out of bed for a week. As a result, Petra was never really able to be a child. She had to grow up quick and learn how to look after herself - and, soon, her younger siblings.

Still, Petra was heartbroken when her mother disappeared for good. She was in her early teens, and she felt utterly abandoned and unloved. How could her mother just leave her? Her and her five siblings?! But Petra didn't have time to mourn or sort through her feelings. With her mother gone, and her father uninterested in filling the role, Petra was now the head of the household. The one responsible for making ends meet, making sure they were all fed, and that her siblings were taken care of.

The family scraped by for a few years, taking tessarae, stealing and bartering and scheming to get food on the table. As soon as Petra turned 18, she stopped attending school and got a job in the mines. She works as many hours as they'll let her. It's not enough. They still have to do all the same things they used to, but it's a little easier now that at least one of them are working.