Approved by Tawny

Name: Alcine
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Rank: Dragon Candidate
Appearance: Alcine never grew out of her 'all limbs' phase of childhood, and at this point it seems likely that she'll keep her scrawny frame her entire life. She's exceptionally tall at 5'11", and her height only adds to the gauntness of her figure, her arms and legs long and bony. She never manages to quite look sickly, as there's a healthy flush to her pale skin and an alert gleam in her blue-grey eyes, but she's never put on more than the lean muscle in the entirety of her training. Her hands have nimble crafter's fingers that would have done well in a weaver hall, and the trademark tell for her is when she begins to wring her hands, either in distress or disgust.

Her face, like her body, is long and gaunt, with high cheekbones and thin features. Her eyes are mildly downturned at the corners, and her default expression looks wistful and a little sad. Her nose takes up a little too much of her face to be considered conventionally 'pretty', and her ears stick out particularly far without a veil of hair on her shaved head. Given the chance to grow, her hair is wispy, straight and blonde, though no one has seen it longer than about a centimeter for turns.

Personality: What are you holding there? How does it work? Alcine's first words must have been 'how' and 'why', and her curiosity hasn't abated since. She absorbs new material like a sponge and has a voracious appetite for knowledge, with little patience for those who learn more slowly than she. A textbook introvert, she prefers to keep to herself, though she warms up to anyone who could possibly give her something to read. If you want to get her talking, though, just ask her about dragons. She knows factoids by the dozen, and could sit for hours describing the smallest trivia (did you know the size of a bronze's gizzard is bigger than your head? That's amazing!). However, the combination of a low voice and a calm demeanor means she's often spoken over, and she's quick to keep quiet.

It's not enough to be intelligent, though, and Alcine is extremely critical of herself in all aspects of life. If she scores anything lower than the highest marks on an exam, she's put in a dour mood for the rest of the day, even on subjects where she's not known to excel. There was always more time to study, more practice to be done, more technique to be learned, and the unconscious mantra in the back of her mind is 'why haven't you tried hard enough?'. In group studies, she tends to go with the flow, bending to the will of stronger personalitites until she's received a particular assignment. However, once her place has been set, she has to be the best at what she's been tasked to do, or she considers herself a failure.

There are likely a few of her classmates who think the only words in her vocabulary are 'I'm sorry', and she's developed a reputation as something of a pushover. Even if challenged in an area of her own expertise, she is hesitant to defend herself, at least initially. She's a patient girl, and has no qualms about waiting until her opponent is at their weakest before she chooses to initiate confrontation, and the pushover act has done wonders in the past to make people underestimate her. Alcine has the potential, if fostered, to be completely ruthless and manipulative, her detached and intellectual personality perfect for isolating and destroying someone from the inside out. However, she knows from research that it is empathy that draws someone to a bondmate, and its a trait she tries to cultivate as much as she can, whether being a tutor to less-skilled pupils or just existing as a shoulder to cry on. She's learned over the years that most people don't like her honest and brusque brand of advice, so she's stopped trying to give it, but she's a good listener for anyone who wants to talk. She's not the sort to betray a person's trust while in confidence, but she also isn't afraid to use that information to her own advantage, should she need it. Because of her tendency to over-analyze people, she's shy about revealing much about herself, afraid that someone might be able to manipulate her the way she sees the potential to manipulate others. After all, the mind is such a frail, fragile thing in so many people, and the only thing she would ever want in her head was a bondmate she knows won't betray her.

History:
Alcine was born at High Reaches Hold to a Journeyman Harper of Melpomene and a minor courtier, in the midst of the skirmishes plaguing the area. She was too young to remember details, but all she heard growing up was the stories of its impact on their sizable hold. For a young one with a thirst for knowledge, she had something of an ideal childhood, trailing behind her harper father and miming his moves. Even as a child she had a good memory and deft hands, and it seemed that the girl was destined for a healers hall. However, at six years old she saw her first dragon, and from then all she was purely transfixed. Every question she asked was about dragons--how big they got, what they ate, how they flew--and while the trait was endearing at first, her father eventually tried to lead her back to healercraft, in the hopes that his daughter would choose something a little less militant for her lifelong career. Alcine could not be swayed, however, and the moment she was old enough she snuck herself away for the Searchrider's inspection, sure that her passion would be enough to whisk her away to candidacy. However, this particular Searchrider didn't seem to find the right stuff in the girl (perhaps clouded by the residual guilt from disobeying her father), and so she was left at the Hold, bawling for the better part of a day. She had tried so hard, so hard, but it hadn't been enough to impress a real rider, which meant that she could never be a rider herself! Disappointed beyond belief, she began to reluctantly prepare for placement in a craft hall.

Plague happened, and its influence reached even the holds, where hushed whispers worried about the state of the world without dragons in it. Alcine herself pored over books, as if the ten year old could find a secret cure to end the plague, but she ultimately had to watch it run its course, decimating the riders she so heavily revered. What came after was worse, though, seeing the effects of the civil war first hand as she started the first few years of healer apprenticeship. If only she had been a dragon rider, she could have stopped the suffering herself instead of patching up the aftermath, and as turns passed she begged and begged her father to allow her to try again. He maintained his reservations, having remembered her disappointed state each time she was refused, but with an increasing pressure to recruit more candidates she was eventually searched at the age of thirteen and permitted to make for High Reaches.

Weyr life was a new and exciting experience, and Alcine took to the first few weeks with absolute zeal, learning everything she could get her hands on. However, once basic training truly began, she slammed into a wall of grueling day-long exercise and painful conditioning. She excelled in the classroom, particularly in tactics and survival, but she was a mess in the ring, falling all over herself and quick to call for mercy. Having just grown into her legs, she was an awkward yearling, prone to bumps and bruises, and being an outsider left her the object of ridicule for most of their early training. However, late in her first year she was matched to spar with one of her prime bullies and pinned him almost instantly with her longer reach, holding him by the throat until he nearly blacked out. It's unclear if she would have continued to choke him if the candidate master hadn't pulled them apart, but after that scene she was largely left alone.

Alcine squired to a grumpy bluerider from the 3rd-2 wing with a reputation for whipping whimpy candidates into shape, and the first thing he did was limit her reading time, sometimes even pulling her out of class for specific training exercises. She'd proven she was smart, yes, but how much was that actually going to help her in the field if she couldn't wield a sword, a bow? The girl eventually took to some amount of archery and learned to use her reach in a sword-fight, but even with the additional tutelage she was always a subpar foot soldier, fit for only 5th wing according to her dragon-master. She stood for Hiraeth's last clutch of the pass but didn't Impress, much to the bluerider's chagrin, and while her classmates were tending to their newly bonded dragons she was doing double-time with her training, as if the blue-rider could beat worthiness into her. She stood for two more hatchings before threadfall arrived, and each time she returned dragonless her rider grew more and more exasperated. Some of his peers had been given three squires in the time he'd had one, was she just that dense? The relationship that grew between rider and squire was not one of affection but of growing resentment, the rider because his squire was beginning to earn him flak from his wingmates who teased that he'd picked a dud, and Alcine because she felt increasingly overwhelmed by his lack of trust. During the first turn of threadfall, Alcine watched as several of her former classmates--now riders--took to the skies and never returned, but instead of feeling grief all she could muster was a bitter sort of envy. They had died heroes, while she was stuck on the ground with decreasing chances of ever taking to the skies.

When she failed to Impress in Cinnamath's most recent clutch, something in her rider broke, and instead of trying to train her harder he began ignoring her studies entirely, helping her only in trying to choose a craft for when she inevitably aged out. Alcine had thought it would be a relief to have the man's scorn finally lifted from her shoulders, but she found his apathy to be an even greater affront, and out of an intense desire to prove him wrong she kept to her candidate duties, going so far as to ignore the texts on wherhandling he 'graciously' procured for her. Her twenty-first birthday looms on the horizon, and with it an impending sense of dread. If not dragon-riding...then what?