Character History
N’kir was born in Ursul Hold and grew up doing what most hold-bred children do: random chores, playing with other hold children, and learning random things at random times. His childhood was unspectacular. The only odd thing about it was that he had to be forced to play with the other hold children. It wasn’t that he was afraid of being with them because they made fun of him – though their teasing did develop eventually – but he simply did
not want to be around the other kids. His parents hoped he would grow out of it, but he never did.
At eight turns he asked to be sent to a Crafthall, though he didn’t specify which. His parents thought it would be good for him to go elsewhere and meet other people and immediately agreed, though they left it up to him to decide what craft to take up. They were at a stalemate for over a turn, N’kir not knowing what he wanted to do and his parents not wanting to decide for him. Eventually the family went to the hold’s Journeyman Harper, asking for some sort of advice. The Harper spoke to N’kir alone for a bit, and finally suggested going to the Harper hall at Fort Hold. While N’kir didn’t possess any particularly talent in music, the Harper assured his parents that there were many other courses of study there that could be easily learned. N’kir wasn’t opposed to the idea, and so before he was nine and a half turns, he was on a ship to go to Fort Hold.
It didn’t take long for the Harpers at the Crafthall to realize that N’kir was not cut out for anything remotely musical. However, he was a very good student and tried his hardest – they recognized his effort despite his near-silence both during and outside of lessons. He had the very basics of his craft down – he could somewhat hold a tune with a lot of effort, he could craft the most rudimentary instruments, and he technically had all the skills to walk the tables. However, he lacked the necessary people-skills that a general Journeyman Harper required. The subcraft of Archiving was brought to his attention when he was 14 turns, when one Journeywoman noticed his exceptional handwriting. The idea of staying away from others and working with books appealed greatly to him, and he spent another two turns studying, and finally walked the tables. Archiving was something he truly enjoyed – he loved learning about the history and traditions of Pern as he worked with the materials, and soon became very well-versed in it, being able to tell some of the oldest stories from memory, to those he cared to hold as an audience.
After spending some time in the Fort Hold archives, he was sent back to his home-hold’s Weyr – Trine - to work in their archives for a few turns. Being back on the Southern continent was a welcome change of pace – cold weather doesn’t really suit his preference – and being in a Weyr was a completely new experience. Two sevendays after he arrived there was a fully-hardened clutch on the sands. Though he had just begun his work in their archives he knew the importance of a hatching and decided to attend as a spectator, standing a bit off to the side from the stands, a bit hidden form the main crowd while still having a clear view of the sands and the nervous Candidates occupying them.
The hatching was as exciting as described in the records, and he was glad he had attended. He was about to slip out when he noticed that there were two unhatched eggs that the Weyrleader was on his way to crack open. He hadn’t read anything about such a thing, and watched as two strangely-colored dragons emerged. He had seen non-typical dragons around the Weyr and had found it odd, but didn’t worry too much about it. Now on the sands before the Candidates were two very small dragonets, one silver and one black. They both looked at the remaining candidates with pleasantly-colored blue-green swirling eyes. The silver found His among the male candidates very quickly, but the black was still without. The crowd whispered frantically as the dragonet’s eyes began to slowly shift from blue-green to grey. He suddenly began to trundle through the group, which had to shift out of its way to avoid being scratched. As his panic grey at not finding his and his eyes swirled faster, he began to screech out and toward the Candidates, who were not for him. There were whispers that he would soon go
between until suddenly the dragon stopped and spread his wings as much as he could. His eyes had changed suddenly back to blue-green, and they were locked on the figure standing away from the rest of the crowd, previously half-hidden by the group of Candidates. N’kir felt a new presence in his mind, and suddenly a strange voice chimed in over his own thoughts.
Why are you standing way over there? I almost did not find you! He could feel everyone staring at him as the very small, very dark-hided black hatchling walked up to him.
Come on, I’m hungry! At 20 turns, he had Impressed black Anoth.
He had little trouble raising the atypical dragonet – he went to the records and did a lot of research, glad to find that the scientists to hatch the first ones, and those after them, took very good notes. He of course had to give up his craft, but found himself down in the archives when Anoth didn’t need him.
