Post by Aftershock on Feb 23, 2012 0:11:40 GMT -5
Name: Cairenn
Age: 16 (Born March 6, 3006)
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bi-Curious (leaning towards lesbian)
Rank: Greenrider
Appearance:
Soft angles surrounded by a thick mane of dark brown hair, deep brown eyes set within; meet Cairenn. Standing at a mere 5'2", Cairenn seems to have hit a lull in her growth... she may gain another inch or two in the next few turns, but it is doubtful; most likely, she'll remain on the shorter-than-average side for Pernese women. Definitely getting her looks from both parents, she has a deep chocolate color to her hair, which she has plenty of. Long locks are often teased to give her a bit of added height, but her hair is almost always straight. Her bangs are feathered across her forehead, swept to rest mostly over her right eye at an angle. Her eyes are also brown, though so dark in color that at times they appear almost black. She has a piercing gaze, hard with only the hint of something softer beneath.
She is a slender girl, and is likely to always be on the slimmer side as she grows older. Cairenn keeps herself clad in nice clothes; nothing fancy, but always nice. She doesn't let people forget that she's a girl, and she enjoys wearing skirts and dresses, but is equally comfortable in pants or shorts. Boots, sandals, regular shoes... this girl has at least one pair of them all, and then some. She also fancies some jewelry at times, especially things she has made herself. Colors that she often wears are blues, purples, and sometimes a pale khaki.
Overall, Cairenn has a young look about her... a look that will no doubt continue well into her late twenties, and perhaps even beyond that, if she takes care of herself.
Personality:
Cairenn is a girl of two minds... the side she shows to the outside world, and the inner part of her she protects from all but her closest friends. She wants to be like her aunt, but her lack of a strong female role model while she was growing up had it's effect, and while she presents a strong, confident demeanor to those she meets, this personality is actually only a thin veneer over the unsure and somewhat skittish core of her personality.
Cairenn enjoys everything involved in Candidacy and dragonriding, and inside she hopes that if she fakes her confidence and skill long enough, she'll end up becoming what she shows to others. Unfortunately, this aspect of her personality sometimes comes around to bite her in the rear, when she pushes herself to participate in something she has no actual skill or talent in and fails spectacularly. She rarely shows her embarrassment publicly when such a thing occurs, though if she has someone close enough to her they might end up with her sobbing on their shoulder a few hours after the incident.
Outside of showing off, Cairenn is a very private person. She's friendly enough, but many of her relationships are based purely on her for-show confident personality, and are weak and shallow at best. Her true friends, the ones she allows to see the her inside, are few and far between, and it doesn't take much to break her trust and cause her to cast you out from her inner circle. In fact, Cairenn is quite untrusting, always worried about being dumped or abandoned, and those close to her need to be careful that she doesn't have a paranoid fit and begin suspect them of betrayals that have not, or would not, occur. This paranoia might fade with age, if she finds enough trustworthy associates, but it will always be there, even if only minorly when she's older.
History:
3006 - 3016: Birth and Early Life
Carenna was a lovely young girl - she was kind, compassionate, and loving. Her kindness and soft-spoken nature, however, made it easy to manipulate, use, and walk all over her. She was the perfect woman to have as a wife to a Hyphen-born man... she would never question you, never stand up for herself, and would do her duty quietly. This, combined with her good looks, made her quite sought after by the men of Hyphen Hold... though her father was holding her like a bargaining chip to try and get something he wanted from one of the other Holders. If they wanted his daughter, they would have to go through him, or that's how he tried to make it work.
In reality, Carenna was not the angel she gave the appearance of. She hadn't been for quite some time, though of course she did what she needed to to make sure her father wasn't aware of this. So, when at 15 turns it was discovered she was pregnant, her father was not only surprised, but furious. How could he use her as a bargaining chip now that she was bearing a child? What man would want a girl with a child not their own... and Faranth forbid it be a baby girl she gave birth to. He'd be stuck with the two of them forever if that were the case.
Enter Easin - a smooth talking young man. Only a turn older than Carenna, he'd had his eyes on her for some time. Having been secretly wooing the young woman for the past few months, he was quite certain he was the father... Carenna wasn't the type to lay with more than one boy at a time, nor the type to lie (except to her father). So, when he showed up at her father's door offering to take Carenna as his wife, the man practically threw Carenna and her things out the door at him.
Easin had a small plot of land off his parents' land, and with the help of his father and brothers he managed to make a decent home for himself and his new bride-to-be. Joined in late 3005, the couple had little time to spend as a couple before their child was born a few months into 3006 - Cairenn. Newly Joined and young, Easin and Carenna were far from the perfect parents to the young girl. Carenna, of course, never had much of a say in the girl's upbringing. Easin's opinions of women mimicked that of both of Cairenn's grandfathers... they weren't worth much, and only good at cleaning, cooking, and giving birth to strapping young lads. A few months after Cairenn was born, her mother was pregnant again; apparently, Easin was determined to get a son from his wife, and the sooner the better.
He got that son, and Cairenn mostly fell into the background of the household when he was born. Little Eairen was the pride and joy of their father... Cairenn just a mistake he'd rather not talk about. She'd have no real use to him until she was old enough to be married off to someone else, at which point she'd be her husband's problem, not his. He constantly spoke ill of his daughter, even in front of her, to which her mother had no reply to defend Cairenn with. After all, Easin was her husband, and her husband couldn't be wrong.
Hyphen Hold wasn't a very friendly place to grow up in, especially for a little girl, but somehow that fact did little to break the girl's spirit. Out of the way of the rest of Pern, the only time she heard of riders was when the men of the Hold were muttering and cursing them. She'd been just a baby when the riders of Selenitas had come and and demanded the force-mining of firestone from Hyphen, and while she remembered her father bringing the subject up whenever dragonriders were mentioned as she grew up, she never really understood the reason behind their hatred at Hyphen personally.
It should go without saying, then, that Cairenn grew up with resentment towards both her father and her mother, rather than towards dragonriders like most of Hyphen. She had no real relationship with either of them, but luckily she did have one strong female figure in her life, someone she could look up to; her aunt, Roselle. Easin was not fond of his younger sister, but since he could pawn his daughter onto her daily and have Cairenn out of the way, and learning some skill set, he didn't complain much. As Cairenn grew, she began to see Roselle as the role model she was missing in her life, and yearned to be as independent and strong as her aunt was.
Being so out of the way in Hyphen, little else ever reached the girl's ears of the Weyrs of Pern. She knew the Northern Weyrs were at war, but didn't everyone? All she needed to know, as far as she was concerned, was that when Thread fell from Hyphen's skies, the dragonriders were there to scorch it and protect them.
Life went on, uneventful for the most part for the young girl. She continued to try to follow in her aunt's footsteps, until one fateful day in 3016. Hyphen hosted a Gather, and the 10-turn-old Cairenn had been so excited! Her first gather! Colors, tents, people from all over... it was magnificent. Unfortunately for Cairenn, her father would not allow her to go. Where her aunt would normally have championed on her behalf, Roselle could not afford to watch the child and her wares at the same time, so Cairenn was left home.
It was for the best, though, as Cairenn heard the horrible cries of dragons as some of their own disappeared between. She overhead her father telling her mother about the murders that had occurred in a hushed voice...only riders had been killed, so in Easin's mind, it wasn't much of a loss. Cairenn was kept home until everyone had cleared out of Hyphen after the Gather, and a few days later when she went to find her aunt, she found her missing. Asking her father where Roselle had gone, Easin assured Cairenn that Roselle had not been harmed during the brawling and chaos at the gather. However, he had no real answer as to where Roselle had gone for his distraught daughter... and now no babysitter, either.
Easin later learned from his younger brother, Selin, that Roselle had left the Hold with a dragonrider; she'd gone off to be one of them, he presumed. Easin shared this information with his wife, and told her never to tell the girl; he'd rather her stay around so he could marry her off, then have her go searching for her aunt. However, unknown to him or Carenn, Cairenn had overheard the two talking anyway, and learned the fate of her aunt despite her father's wishes.
Heartbroken by the realization that her aunt had left without so much as a goodbye to her, Cairenn fell into herself. She felt betrayed, and the next two turns passed by with little improvement in the girl's mood. She became more defiant of her father as she neared her teen-age years... a personality trait which he couldn't help but think she got from all the time prior she had spent with his sister.
3016 - 3018: Losing Roselle, Search, and Candidacy
Eairen was still the favored - the boy could do no wrong in their father's eyes, despite the fact that he was constantly getting in trouble around the Hold. Boys would be boys, after all, Cairenn's father said. The favoritism showed to him over Cairenn did nothing to help the siblings' relationship... they were never close to begin with, and thanks to her father's attitude, they never would be. Eairen became a pompous jerk, who held the fact he was favored over his sister's head. So what if she was the eldest, he claimed. He was a boy, and therefore he was better.
In 3017, the Selenitas Earthquake struck... though being in Hyphen, Cairenn and her family felt only the outlying effects of the natural disaster that (unknown to those at Hyphen at the time) destroyed Selenitas Weyr. Soon, however, the news that Selenitas Weyr was destroyed in the earthquake, and that the survivors had moved to another, unknown Weyr, spread, and Cairenn was momentarily torn... she didn't know what Weyr Roselle had been taken to, and so was unsure of her aunt's fate. Her father quickly made it clear he didn't care what had happened to his "troublesome sister", and Cairenn's shell of anger at her aunt abandoning her was cracked by the fact that Roselle might now be dead... though she kept such thoughts to herself, having no one to confide in even if she didn't keep her private thoughts so deeply buried inside herself.
And thus was life for Cairenn - stuck in Hyphen, a bold and vibrant soul whose flame was slowly getting dimmed with each Turn she remained trapped in her life.
Suddenly, around June of 3018, that all changed. On a normal morning for Cairenn, hauling a sack of ore to a blacksmith for her father, the young girl had a run-in with a dragonrider... quite literally. As she pulled herself off the ground, the dragonrider's identity was revealed to be none other than Cairenn's missing aunt, Roselle, come to Search the Hold for Candidates. Apparently, Roselle's dragon saw Candidacy potential in Cairenn, and an emotional rollercoaster of a reunion was had between Cairenn and her estranged aunt. Going with Cairenn, Roselle had a reunion with Cairenn's father as well, though this reunion was purely negative... after a confrontation that threatened to get violent, Cairenn found herself whisked away from her home on dragonback, Roselle having saved her niece from a life that would have mirrored her own to take her to Selenitas Weyr as a Candidate.
So, in a few short hours, Cairenn had been reunited with an aunt she thought dead, and taken away from the only life she had known (as terrible as that life might have been) to become a Candidate at New Selenitas Weyr. With the knowledge that a new dragon clutch would be hatching soon, she knew her life might certainly get even more interesting soon.
3018 - 3019 :Impressing Fun, First Hatching, Impressing Nildath, the Dragon War
Life as a Candidate was mostly happy for Cairenn... despite the chores, which she was used to anyway, she got to be away from her horrible family, and see her aunt occasionally. Things got especially interesting mid-3018, when an unexpected (and unaware) attendance to a salamandyr hatching in the dining hall resulted in Cairenn's Impression of the depressive brown salamandyr Fun.
Soon afterward, Cairenn attended her first Hatching, which happened to be Nitrath's maiden clutch, where she Impressed the golden-green dragon Nildath. Cairenn took to weyrling training with enthusiasm, if not skill, though Roselle did her part to help Cairenn with some of the lessons she had trouble mastering. Carienn also enjoyed being able to talk to her aunt as something closer to a peer, though still retaining her familial bond.
Though she was a weyrling, Cairenn could not help but hear about Selenitas' plans to ally with Benden to finally end the war in the North. Soon enough, the war was joined, and Cairenn got regular updates on the happenings in the North from her aunt (who, Cairenn was glad, only heard of the war herself from her dragonriding friends, as her dragon was not made for battle and so stayed at the Weyr). Quickly enough, word came that the war had been won, and as 3019 came to a close, so did Cairenn's weyrling training, and her class graduated just as the plans for the first Summit came to the Weyrs.
3019 - 3023: Pern Summit, Move to Inverness
As 3020 dawned, and the Pern Summit made it's declarations for the future of Hold/Weyr relations, Cairenn wasn't too bothered, though she wondered if banishing the crafters to Holds was the best idea. Nildath, however, was devastated, as it meant her favorite brother, Kormath, would be moving to a Hold, since his bonded was a crafter.
The assignments were distributed, and the newly-graduated Cairenn was happy to hear she was being assigned to Inverness along with her aunt Roselle, so she would not have to be separated from one of the few people she had any kind of a close relationship with. Soon, the move was made, and Cairenn and Roselle worked side by side helping to build their new home.
Life became quiet the next couple Turns, other than the interruption of Nildath's Flights... Cairenn's general distrust of men due to her examples of men growing up being her horrible father and brother, and having heard threatening stories of forced Joinings from her aunt, caused her to retreat to the weyr of her aunt when it finally happened, and during each following Flight, letting Roselle and Tserieth keep the human halves of her Chasers' bondpairs at bay as Fun sent her un-Lustful thoughts.
Soon, 3023 loomed, and the first Weyrleader Trials with them. Cairenn was unsure how this would directly affect her, but prepared for upheaval in the Weyr all the same.
Dragons/Whers/Fire Lizards/Salamandyrs:
Wolven Green
Hatched: August 3018
Age: 4
Name: Nildath
Color: Green (e2ff7c), Markings (fffd7c)
Appearance:
Nildath almost looks like a dwarf gold. She's built like a Queen instead of a Green, with a long, slim but powerful body whose silhouette is nearly identical to her mother's. Like Nitrath's, her wings are long and wide, giving her a level of endurance that few other greens will ever match. She's got muscle of the best type - the lean muscle that won't stand out garishly, no matter how hard she works. Her well-formed, equine head sits atop a long and proudly arched neck, and her tail is similarly lengthy, making her appear quite a bit longer than her (rather measly) 19-foot adult length. For while Nitrath is huge, Nildath is tiny; if you take just her body into account, Nildath is one of the smallest Greens at the Weyr. She will always look little, especially next to her mostly larger siblings.
Her color doesn't exactly help her look less like a miniature queen, either. She's green, yes, but it is an incredibly bright yellowy green that only looks anything but golden because her wingsails, nose, feet, and tail tip are actually gold. She's surprisingly matte, though, and always looks a bit dull, even after a good oiling. She'll never really glow before or during flight, and she's quiet enough about herself that it will take an especially perceptive dragon to notice her when she is ready to go up (or even when she is actually rising). Her lack of shine is for a good reason, though - Nildath has an incredibly soft hide when it is well cared for, although Hers is advised to bathe and oil her often, because her hide is quite sensitive to dryness and itches.
All in all, she's a pretty little dragon, pleasant-looking in a fairly unobtrusive way. Yes, her color is bright and loud, but something about her quiet, reserved manner and lack of shine make her easy to overlook. It has to be said, however, that there is a reason Greens aren't usually built like Queens. For a green, her endurance is fantastic, and she's got all the power a miniature queen could want, but she sacrifices a bit when it comes to speed and agility. If she were a queen, her long, thin form would improve her speed and agility drastically, but for a Green she's a bit lacking. As a result her flight patterns will be distinctly more queen-like than anything: moderately fast for as long as possible. This could be a disadvantage when she rises, as the dragons most suited to her style will be enormous bronzes; not exactly compatible with her little green body. She'll have a hard time avoiding agile blues and browns attempting to force catch... and she'll have an equally hard time avoiding enemies bent on shredding her soft hide.
Personality:
Nildath's a sweet dragon, quiet and unassuming and somewhat adorable. Her good qualities could fill a book - polite, respectful, kind, compassionate, positive, encouraging, loyal, sympathetic, empathetic, etc. etc. - but somehow she has the eternal bad luck to never be noticed or acknowledged for her goodness. Maybe it's because she's a bit shy, or eternally humble, or because she'd rather see someone else happy than herself... whatever it is, Nildath flies under the radar in a truly impressive manner. On the rare occasion that someone does realize exactly how much she contributed to some successful endeavor, she will immediately give credit to everyone else involved, while taking responsibility only for what went wrong.
Above anything, though, Nildath is an impressive support system for others. She's faithful to those who have shown her kindness, but more important she's faithful to those that need her (whether they know it or not), and once she has given someone her loyalty, it is very hard to lose. Only blatant outright rejection will send her away. Kormath will be an eternal favorite; in fact, the other dragon will get basically a free pass, and even the worst treatment will not drive Nildath away. Quesseth and Tirneth will also be loved from birth, and will be second only to Kormath when Nildath feels the need to choose company. She's a social dragon, though, and when her three favorite siblings aren't around, she's just as happy to lounge in a common area and chat with anyone that is around. She can be shy around the prettier males, but it tends to come out as nerves as opposed to an inability to communicate. Luckily for everyone, Nildath tends to be the best of company, able to cheer and entertain even the most curmudgeonly of dragons - she has a good sense of humor (although she will never tell a joke at the expense of anyone else), a humble sort of country streetsmarts, and a way with words that makes her one of the best storytellers in the Weyr.
In flight, Nildath is even shyer than normal. No showboating for her, no flirting or teasing or imperious commands. In fact, Nildath would rather as few dragons as possible know she's rising. If she could have only one male chase each time, she would be thrilled - that way she has less of them to turn down. Nildath is a monogamous sort, perfectly happy to remain faithful to the first dragon to catch her... as long as he is faithful in return. Few things make Nildath angry (and her anger is more of sharp disapproval than anything else) but faithless mates make her angry. Another thing that annoys her is fighting - she seems to have inherited her mother's dislike for violence, but where Nitrath actively and eloquently argues against it, Nildath just doesn't understand. She'll fight if she must, but she'll fight with a sort of folksy confusion that makes any death or injury she causes seem like a complete accident... because it is. This green is a gentle soul, and will never be truly comfortable in a wartorn world.
The Hanged Man Brown
DOB: June 3018
Age: 4
Color: Brown (#EE8262)
Looks To: Cairenn
Physical Appearance: Imagine a scene from the desert. The sunset dips under the sandy, gritty ground, covering the bramble and deadwood with a dusting of salmon pink. There is a definite mix of oranges and corals on this mandyr's skin, marking him as rather unique - not that he would be the first to readily acknowledge this. Warm and inviting, a stroke of rose melts down his body in a slow even drip down into notes of burnt sienna and finally into a healthy if somewhat faded base of brown ochre. It is a uniform swath of gradient, falling even over the bridge of his maw, just as it does at the tip of his tail. A glaze of translucent gold pools around the crown of his head, and mingles into his hide so clandestinely as to barely be noticed beyond the shimmering mirage like aura emitted in the full light of Rukbat. His wings carry further the scorched and sun baked theme, fanning out to a pale sample of Igen's earth - primarily tan with just a touch of blush. He is, for all intents an purposes, spotless, trading in blocks of pure color for a certain knotted quality to his limbs; fluting up his legs is the suggestion of wood grain bared for anyone lucky enough to manage a close look.
Finely built, the brown does not draw attention for his smaller size so much as the way he was sculpted. His face is a clear throwback to his firelizard ancestors, narrowed at the snout and widening into inquisitive eyes. Yet there is a distinct sweetness there underneath the stressed and heavy brow - the physical manifestations of his frustrations. The brown's frill is curiously missing, leaving the bony spars, sharpened yet delicate, promising some sort of danger in their cocked readiness. His wings bear the same elven beauty, sweeping and wistful, pulled into crescents upon his back. In midst of a glide, the long finger bones curve dramatically in a swallow like manner, carrying him efficiently and easily into quick turns and twists should he ever be so inclined to. His tail too proves to be blade like, tapering to a severe point. It maybe a tad flatter than normal overall, but otherwise up to par, and hardly distracting from his exotic appeal. Being slender in all the right places, signs of his feline bone structure come to surface at times, paired with a crease here and there to denote some corded muscle. He does come together to be a rather attractive treat to the eyes.
Personality: Born into the midst of an existential crisis, even as a tender young salamandyr, this creature has some supernatural sense of the way of the world as if it had been handed down to him by unseen scores of sages. He did not receive their knowledge alone however, but also their baggage, leaving a perpetual weight on the heart of someone who should otherwise be pure. Do not be surprised to find him sulky, or stoic, even seething and acerbic for his emotions rush to him like a man still barely resisting complete surrender and wallowing in an unhealthy sense of dread. It is so sad to see a creature with so much going for him, so strung out on negativity, but for the rosy brown this is a constant fact of his nature: he is a scapegoat, he is a lamb, he is willing if hesitant to throw himself to sacrifice. The brown is a martyr, but for whose benefit he subjects himself to such torture will never be clear. Perhaps it is for a greater good, perhaps it is for his bonded, or maybe it is for himself and he is simply killing himself time and time again for some form of enlightenment, enduring dread to flower into something better. No pain no gain right?
Coming to peace with his role as the eternal purveyor of doom, he has to make time to find other hobbies right? Right? Well, maybe. As it is, he seems perfectly content to be the perpetual devil on the shoulder of his bonded - of whom he is endearingly protective of - and occasionally add his wry commentary to the situation. Not without a taste for the offbeat, the brown likes to fill his curiosities with observation and an inquisitive eye, occasionally taking off to glide about his human counterpart and gain a closer look. He is slow and deliberate in these quests however - but he seems to take on all challenges with the same standards of delegation and planning. For as open as he is to experience, the brown mandyr rushes into nothing, even choices that appear to require a rushed and instant decision will be set aside for him to muse over preferring to allow the answers to present themselves in due time. As can be expected then he'll be the last to throw himself to such spur of the moment events as a green's mating run, finding it too easy to weigh in his head the pros and cons of participation and potential rejection. What he can commit to fully is perhaps the most the most important thing of all however - he is at one with his human. Hopefully misery loves company, because to whomever he bonds is absolutely stuck with him.
[X] By checking this box, I am saying that I have read the Rules and History, and will follow them.
Age: 16 (Born March 6, 3006)
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bi-Curious (leaning towards lesbian)
Rank: Greenrider
Appearance:
Soft angles surrounded by a thick mane of dark brown hair, deep brown eyes set within; meet Cairenn. Standing at a mere 5'2", Cairenn seems to have hit a lull in her growth... she may gain another inch or two in the next few turns, but it is doubtful; most likely, she'll remain on the shorter-than-average side for Pernese women. Definitely getting her looks from both parents, she has a deep chocolate color to her hair, which she has plenty of. Long locks are often teased to give her a bit of added height, but her hair is almost always straight. Her bangs are feathered across her forehead, swept to rest mostly over her right eye at an angle. Her eyes are also brown, though so dark in color that at times they appear almost black. She has a piercing gaze, hard with only the hint of something softer beneath.
She is a slender girl, and is likely to always be on the slimmer side as she grows older. Cairenn keeps herself clad in nice clothes; nothing fancy, but always nice. She doesn't let people forget that she's a girl, and she enjoys wearing skirts and dresses, but is equally comfortable in pants or shorts. Boots, sandals, regular shoes... this girl has at least one pair of them all, and then some. She also fancies some jewelry at times, especially things she has made herself. Colors that she often wears are blues, purples, and sometimes a pale khaki.
Overall, Cairenn has a young look about her... a look that will no doubt continue well into her late twenties, and perhaps even beyond that, if she takes care of herself.
Personality:
Cairenn is a girl of two minds... the side she shows to the outside world, and the inner part of her she protects from all but her closest friends. She wants to be like her aunt, but her lack of a strong female role model while she was growing up had it's effect, and while she presents a strong, confident demeanor to those she meets, this personality is actually only a thin veneer over the unsure and somewhat skittish core of her personality.
Cairenn enjoys everything involved in Candidacy and dragonriding, and inside she hopes that if she fakes her confidence and skill long enough, she'll end up becoming what she shows to others. Unfortunately, this aspect of her personality sometimes comes around to bite her in the rear, when she pushes herself to participate in something she has no actual skill or talent in and fails spectacularly. She rarely shows her embarrassment publicly when such a thing occurs, though if she has someone close enough to her they might end up with her sobbing on their shoulder a few hours after the incident.
Outside of showing off, Cairenn is a very private person. She's friendly enough, but many of her relationships are based purely on her for-show confident personality, and are weak and shallow at best. Her true friends, the ones she allows to see the her inside, are few and far between, and it doesn't take much to break her trust and cause her to cast you out from her inner circle. In fact, Cairenn is quite untrusting, always worried about being dumped or abandoned, and those close to her need to be careful that she doesn't have a paranoid fit and begin suspect them of betrayals that have not, or would not, occur. This paranoia might fade with age, if she finds enough trustworthy associates, but it will always be there, even if only minorly when she's older.
History:
3006 - 3016: Birth and Early Life
Carenna was a lovely young girl - she was kind, compassionate, and loving. Her kindness and soft-spoken nature, however, made it easy to manipulate, use, and walk all over her. She was the perfect woman to have as a wife to a Hyphen-born man... she would never question you, never stand up for herself, and would do her duty quietly. This, combined with her good looks, made her quite sought after by the men of Hyphen Hold... though her father was holding her like a bargaining chip to try and get something he wanted from one of the other Holders. If they wanted his daughter, they would have to go through him, or that's how he tried to make it work.
In reality, Carenna was not the angel she gave the appearance of. She hadn't been for quite some time, though of course she did what she needed to to make sure her father wasn't aware of this. So, when at 15 turns it was discovered she was pregnant, her father was not only surprised, but furious. How could he use her as a bargaining chip now that she was bearing a child? What man would want a girl with a child not their own... and Faranth forbid it be a baby girl she gave birth to. He'd be stuck with the two of them forever if that were the case.
Enter Easin - a smooth talking young man. Only a turn older than Carenna, he'd had his eyes on her for some time. Having been secretly wooing the young woman for the past few months, he was quite certain he was the father... Carenna wasn't the type to lay with more than one boy at a time, nor the type to lie (except to her father). So, when he showed up at her father's door offering to take Carenna as his wife, the man practically threw Carenna and her things out the door at him.
Easin had a small plot of land off his parents' land, and with the help of his father and brothers he managed to make a decent home for himself and his new bride-to-be. Joined in late 3005, the couple had little time to spend as a couple before their child was born a few months into 3006 - Cairenn. Newly Joined and young, Easin and Carenna were far from the perfect parents to the young girl. Carenna, of course, never had much of a say in the girl's upbringing. Easin's opinions of women mimicked that of both of Cairenn's grandfathers... they weren't worth much, and only good at cleaning, cooking, and giving birth to strapping young lads. A few months after Cairenn was born, her mother was pregnant again; apparently, Easin was determined to get a son from his wife, and the sooner the better.
He got that son, and Cairenn mostly fell into the background of the household when he was born. Little Eairen was the pride and joy of their father... Cairenn just a mistake he'd rather not talk about. She'd have no real use to him until she was old enough to be married off to someone else, at which point she'd be her husband's problem, not his. He constantly spoke ill of his daughter, even in front of her, to which her mother had no reply to defend Cairenn with. After all, Easin was her husband, and her husband couldn't be wrong.
Hyphen Hold wasn't a very friendly place to grow up in, especially for a little girl, but somehow that fact did little to break the girl's spirit. Out of the way of the rest of Pern, the only time she heard of riders was when the men of the Hold were muttering and cursing them. She'd been just a baby when the riders of Selenitas had come and and demanded the force-mining of firestone from Hyphen, and while she remembered her father bringing the subject up whenever dragonriders were mentioned as she grew up, she never really understood the reason behind their hatred at Hyphen personally.
It should go without saying, then, that Cairenn grew up with resentment towards both her father and her mother, rather than towards dragonriders like most of Hyphen. She had no real relationship with either of them, but luckily she did have one strong female figure in her life, someone she could look up to; her aunt, Roselle. Easin was not fond of his younger sister, but since he could pawn his daughter onto her daily and have Cairenn out of the way, and learning some skill set, he didn't complain much. As Cairenn grew, she began to see Roselle as the role model she was missing in her life, and yearned to be as independent and strong as her aunt was.
Being so out of the way in Hyphen, little else ever reached the girl's ears of the Weyrs of Pern. She knew the Northern Weyrs were at war, but didn't everyone? All she needed to know, as far as she was concerned, was that when Thread fell from Hyphen's skies, the dragonriders were there to scorch it and protect them.
Life went on, uneventful for the most part for the young girl. She continued to try to follow in her aunt's footsteps, until one fateful day in 3016. Hyphen hosted a Gather, and the 10-turn-old Cairenn had been so excited! Her first gather! Colors, tents, people from all over... it was magnificent. Unfortunately for Cairenn, her father would not allow her to go. Where her aunt would normally have championed on her behalf, Roselle could not afford to watch the child and her wares at the same time, so Cairenn was left home.
It was for the best, though, as Cairenn heard the horrible cries of dragons as some of their own disappeared between. She overhead her father telling her mother about the murders that had occurred in a hushed voice...only riders had been killed, so in Easin's mind, it wasn't much of a loss. Cairenn was kept home until everyone had cleared out of Hyphen after the Gather, and a few days later when she went to find her aunt, she found her missing. Asking her father where Roselle had gone, Easin assured Cairenn that Roselle had not been harmed during the brawling and chaos at the gather. However, he had no real answer as to where Roselle had gone for his distraught daughter... and now no babysitter, either.
Easin later learned from his younger brother, Selin, that Roselle had left the Hold with a dragonrider; she'd gone off to be one of them, he presumed. Easin shared this information with his wife, and told her never to tell the girl; he'd rather her stay around so he could marry her off, then have her go searching for her aunt. However, unknown to him or Carenn, Cairenn had overheard the two talking anyway, and learned the fate of her aunt despite her father's wishes.
Heartbroken by the realization that her aunt had left without so much as a goodbye to her, Cairenn fell into herself. She felt betrayed, and the next two turns passed by with little improvement in the girl's mood. She became more defiant of her father as she neared her teen-age years... a personality trait which he couldn't help but think she got from all the time prior she had spent with his sister.
3016 - 3018: Losing Roselle, Search, and Candidacy
Eairen was still the favored - the boy could do no wrong in their father's eyes, despite the fact that he was constantly getting in trouble around the Hold. Boys would be boys, after all, Cairenn's father said. The favoritism showed to him over Cairenn did nothing to help the siblings' relationship... they were never close to begin with, and thanks to her father's attitude, they never would be. Eairen became a pompous jerk, who held the fact he was favored over his sister's head. So what if she was the eldest, he claimed. He was a boy, and therefore he was better.
In 3017, the Selenitas Earthquake struck... though being in Hyphen, Cairenn and her family felt only the outlying effects of the natural disaster that (unknown to those at Hyphen at the time) destroyed Selenitas Weyr. Soon, however, the news that Selenitas Weyr was destroyed in the earthquake, and that the survivors had moved to another, unknown Weyr, spread, and Cairenn was momentarily torn... she didn't know what Weyr Roselle had been taken to, and so was unsure of her aunt's fate. Her father quickly made it clear he didn't care what had happened to his "troublesome sister", and Cairenn's shell of anger at her aunt abandoning her was cracked by the fact that Roselle might now be dead... though she kept such thoughts to herself, having no one to confide in even if she didn't keep her private thoughts so deeply buried inside herself.
And thus was life for Cairenn - stuck in Hyphen, a bold and vibrant soul whose flame was slowly getting dimmed with each Turn she remained trapped in her life.
Suddenly, around June of 3018, that all changed. On a normal morning for Cairenn, hauling a sack of ore to a blacksmith for her father, the young girl had a run-in with a dragonrider... quite literally. As she pulled herself off the ground, the dragonrider's identity was revealed to be none other than Cairenn's missing aunt, Roselle, come to Search the Hold for Candidates. Apparently, Roselle's dragon saw Candidacy potential in Cairenn, and an emotional rollercoaster of a reunion was had between Cairenn and her estranged aunt. Going with Cairenn, Roselle had a reunion with Cairenn's father as well, though this reunion was purely negative... after a confrontation that threatened to get violent, Cairenn found herself whisked away from her home on dragonback, Roselle having saved her niece from a life that would have mirrored her own to take her to Selenitas Weyr as a Candidate.
So, in a few short hours, Cairenn had been reunited with an aunt she thought dead, and taken away from the only life she had known (as terrible as that life might have been) to become a Candidate at New Selenitas Weyr. With the knowledge that a new dragon clutch would be hatching soon, she knew her life might certainly get even more interesting soon.
3018 - 3019 :Impressing Fun, First Hatching, Impressing Nildath, the Dragon War
Life as a Candidate was mostly happy for Cairenn... despite the chores, which she was used to anyway, she got to be away from her horrible family, and see her aunt occasionally. Things got especially interesting mid-3018, when an unexpected (and unaware) attendance to a salamandyr hatching in the dining hall resulted in Cairenn's Impression of the depressive brown salamandyr Fun.
Soon afterward, Cairenn attended her first Hatching, which happened to be Nitrath's maiden clutch, where she Impressed the golden-green dragon Nildath. Cairenn took to weyrling training with enthusiasm, if not skill, though Roselle did her part to help Cairenn with some of the lessons she had trouble mastering. Carienn also enjoyed being able to talk to her aunt as something closer to a peer, though still retaining her familial bond.
Though she was a weyrling, Cairenn could not help but hear about Selenitas' plans to ally with Benden to finally end the war in the North. Soon enough, the war was joined, and Cairenn got regular updates on the happenings in the North from her aunt (who, Cairenn was glad, only heard of the war herself from her dragonriding friends, as her dragon was not made for battle and so stayed at the Weyr). Quickly enough, word came that the war had been won, and as 3019 came to a close, so did Cairenn's weyrling training, and her class graduated just as the plans for the first Summit came to the Weyrs.
3019 - 3023: Pern Summit, Move to Inverness
As 3020 dawned, and the Pern Summit made it's declarations for the future of Hold/Weyr relations, Cairenn wasn't too bothered, though she wondered if banishing the crafters to Holds was the best idea. Nildath, however, was devastated, as it meant her favorite brother, Kormath, would be moving to a Hold, since his bonded was a crafter.
The assignments were distributed, and the newly-graduated Cairenn was happy to hear she was being assigned to Inverness along with her aunt Roselle, so she would not have to be separated from one of the few people she had any kind of a close relationship with. Soon, the move was made, and Cairenn and Roselle worked side by side helping to build their new home.
Life became quiet the next couple Turns, other than the interruption of Nildath's Flights... Cairenn's general distrust of men due to her examples of men growing up being her horrible father and brother, and having heard threatening stories of forced Joinings from her aunt, caused her to retreat to the weyr of her aunt when it finally happened, and during each following Flight, letting Roselle and Tserieth keep the human halves of her Chasers' bondpairs at bay as Fun sent her un-Lustful thoughts.
Soon, 3023 loomed, and the first Weyrleader Trials with them. Cairenn was unsure how this would directly affect her, but prepared for upheaval in the Weyr all the same.
Dragons/Whers/Fire Lizards/Salamandyrs:
Green Dragon Nildath
[/size][/center]Wolven Green
Hatched: August 3018
Age: 4
Name: Nildath
Color: Green (e2ff7c), Markings (fffd7c)
Appearance:
Nildath almost looks like a dwarf gold. She's built like a Queen instead of a Green, with a long, slim but powerful body whose silhouette is nearly identical to her mother's. Like Nitrath's, her wings are long and wide, giving her a level of endurance that few other greens will ever match. She's got muscle of the best type - the lean muscle that won't stand out garishly, no matter how hard she works. Her well-formed, equine head sits atop a long and proudly arched neck, and her tail is similarly lengthy, making her appear quite a bit longer than her (rather measly) 19-foot adult length. For while Nitrath is huge, Nildath is tiny; if you take just her body into account, Nildath is one of the smallest Greens at the Weyr. She will always look little, especially next to her mostly larger siblings.
Her color doesn't exactly help her look less like a miniature queen, either. She's green, yes, but it is an incredibly bright yellowy green that only looks anything but golden because her wingsails, nose, feet, and tail tip are actually gold. She's surprisingly matte, though, and always looks a bit dull, even after a good oiling. She'll never really glow before or during flight, and she's quiet enough about herself that it will take an especially perceptive dragon to notice her when she is ready to go up (or even when she is actually rising). Her lack of shine is for a good reason, though - Nildath has an incredibly soft hide when it is well cared for, although Hers is advised to bathe and oil her often, because her hide is quite sensitive to dryness and itches.
All in all, she's a pretty little dragon, pleasant-looking in a fairly unobtrusive way. Yes, her color is bright and loud, but something about her quiet, reserved manner and lack of shine make her easy to overlook. It has to be said, however, that there is a reason Greens aren't usually built like Queens. For a green, her endurance is fantastic, and she's got all the power a miniature queen could want, but she sacrifices a bit when it comes to speed and agility. If she were a queen, her long, thin form would improve her speed and agility drastically, but for a Green she's a bit lacking. As a result her flight patterns will be distinctly more queen-like than anything: moderately fast for as long as possible. This could be a disadvantage when she rises, as the dragons most suited to her style will be enormous bronzes; not exactly compatible with her little green body. She'll have a hard time avoiding agile blues and browns attempting to force catch... and she'll have an equally hard time avoiding enemies bent on shredding her soft hide.
Personality:
Nildath's a sweet dragon, quiet and unassuming and somewhat adorable. Her good qualities could fill a book - polite, respectful, kind, compassionate, positive, encouraging, loyal, sympathetic, empathetic, etc. etc. - but somehow she has the eternal bad luck to never be noticed or acknowledged for her goodness. Maybe it's because she's a bit shy, or eternally humble, or because she'd rather see someone else happy than herself... whatever it is, Nildath flies under the radar in a truly impressive manner. On the rare occasion that someone does realize exactly how much she contributed to some successful endeavor, she will immediately give credit to everyone else involved, while taking responsibility only for what went wrong.
Above anything, though, Nildath is an impressive support system for others. She's faithful to those who have shown her kindness, but more important she's faithful to those that need her (whether they know it or not), and once she has given someone her loyalty, it is very hard to lose. Only blatant outright rejection will send her away. Kormath will be an eternal favorite; in fact, the other dragon will get basically a free pass, and even the worst treatment will not drive Nildath away. Quesseth and Tirneth will also be loved from birth, and will be second only to Kormath when Nildath feels the need to choose company. She's a social dragon, though, and when her three favorite siblings aren't around, she's just as happy to lounge in a common area and chat with anyone that is around. She can be shy around the prettier males, but it tends to come out as nerves as opposed to an inability to communicate. Luckily for everyone, Nildath tends to be the best of company, able to cheer and entertain even the most curmudgeonly of dragons - she has a good sense of humor (although she will never tell a joke at the expense of anyone else), a humble sort of country streetsmarts, and a way with words that makes her one of the best storytellers in the Weyr.
In flight, Nildath is even shyer than normal. No showboating for her, no flirting or teasing or imperious commands. In fact, Nildath would rather as few dragons as possible know she's rising. If she could have only one male chase each time, she would be thrilled - that way she has less of them to turn down. Nildath is a monogamous sort, perfectly happy to remain faithful to the first dragon to catch her... as long as he is faithful in return. Few things make Nildath angry (and her anger is more of sharp disapproval than anything else) but faithless mates make her angry. Another thing that annoys her is fighting - she seems to have inherited her mother's dislike for violence, but where Nitrath actively and eloquently argues against it, Nildath just doesn't understand. She'll fight if she must, but she'll fight with a sort of folksy confusion that makes any death or injury she causes seem like a complete accident... because it is. This green is a gentle soul, and will never be truly comfortable in a wartorn world.
Brown Salamandyr Fun
[/center][/b]The Hanged Man Brown
DOB: June 3018
Age: 4
Color: Brown (#EE8262)
Looks To: Cairenn
Physical Appearance: Imagine a scene from the desert. The sunset dips under the sandy, gritty ground, covering the bramble and deadwood with a dusting of salmon pink. There is a definite mix of oranges and corals on this mandyr's skin, marking him as rather unique - not that he would be the first to readily acknowledge this. Warm and inviting, a stroke of rose melts down his body in a slow even drip down into notes of burnt sienna and finally into a healthy if somewhat faded base of brown ochre. It is a uniform swath of gradient, falling even over the bridge of his maw, just as it does at the tip of his tail. A glaze of translucent gold pools around the crown of his head, and mingles into his hide so clandestinely as to barely be noticed beyond the shimmering mirage like aura emitted in the full light of Rukbat. His wings carry further the scorched and sun baked theme, fanning out to a pale sample of Igen's earth - primarily tan with just a touch of blush. He is, for all intents an purposes, spotless, trading in blocks of pure color for a certain knotted quality to his limbs; fluting up his legs is the suggestion of wood grain bared for anyone lucky enough to manage a close look.
Finely built, the brown does not draw attention for his smaller size so much as the way he was sculpted. His face is a clear throwback to his firelizard ancestors, narrowed at the snout and widening into inquisitive eyes. Yet there is a distinct sweetness there underneath the stressed and heavy brow - the physical manifestations of his frustrations. The brown's frill is curiously missing, leaving the bony spars, sharpened yet delicate, promising some sort of danger in their cocked readiness. His wings bear the same elven beauty, sweeping and wistful, pulled into crescents upon his back. In midst of a glide, the long finger bones curve dramatically in a swallow like manner, carrying him efficiently and easily into quick turns and twists should he ever be so inclined to. His tail too proves to be blade like, tapering to a severe point. It maybe a tad flatter than normal overall, but otherwise up to par, and hardly distracting from his exotic appeal. Being slender in all the right places, signs of his feline bone structure come to surface at times, paired with a crease here and there to denote some corded muscle. He does come together to be a rather attractive treat to the eyes.
Personality: Born into the midst of an existential crisis, even as a tender young salamandyr, this creature has some supernatural sense of the way of the world as if it had been handed down to him by unseen scores of sages. He did not receive their knowledge alone however, but also their baggage, leaving a perpetual weight on the heart of someone who should otherwise be pure. Do not be surprised to find him sulky, or stoic, even seething and acerbic for his emotions rush to him like a man still barely resisting complete surrender and wallowing in an unhealthy sense of dread. It is so sad to see a creature with so much going for him, so strung out on negativity, but for the rosy brown this is a constant fact of his nature: he is a scapegoat, he is a lamb, he is willing if hesitant to throw himself to sacrifice. The brown is a martyr, but for whose benefit he subjects himself to such torture will never be clear. Perhaps it is for a greater good, perhaps it is for his bonded, or maybe it is for himself and he is simply killing himself time and time again for some form of enlightenment, enduring dread to flower into something better. No pain no gain right?
Coming to peace with his role as the eternal purveyor of doom, he has to make time to find other hobbies right? Right? Well, maybe. As it is, he seems perfectly content to be the perpetual devil on the shoulder of his bonded - of whom he is endearingly protective of - and occasionally add his wry commentary to the situation. Not without a taste for the offbeat, the brown likes to fill his curiosities with observation and an inquisitive eye, occasionally taking off to glide about his human counterpart and gain a closer look. He is slow and deliberate in these quests however - but he seems to take on all challenges with the same standards of delegation and planning. For as open as he is to experience, the brown mandyr rushes into nothing, even choices that appear to require a rushed and instant decision will be set aside for him to muse over preferring to allow the answers to present themselves in due time. As can be expected then he'll be the last to throw himself to such spur of the moment events as a green's mating run, finding it too easy to weigh in his head the pros and cons of participation and potential rejection. What he can commit to fully is perhaps the most the most important thing of all however - he is at one with his human. Hopefully misery loves company, because to whomever he bonds is absolutely stuck with him.
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