Name: Jacepi
Age: 42
Sex: Male
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual (with one specific person in mind)
Craft: Harper
Rank: Journeyman
Location: Harperhall closest to Western Weyr
Physical Description: Jacepi is tall, his frame is slender with the start of a beer belly. His hair is black and shaggy, his skin a light brown. He has dark brown eyes. He lost his arm during the first Threadfall and has a threadscore on his cheek. He hunches most of the time, hoping not to be noticed. His remaining arm shows the muscles of a guitar player, his fingers calloused.
Personality: Jacepi has the unfortunate trait of seeing the best in everyone, and proceeding to always expect the best despite experience. One might expect him to be embittered, but instead he focused on his craft. After Jacel was born, the majority of his attention went to the boy. He hoped in some way that by taking extra care of this son, he could make up for the mistakes of his first.
Jacepi is often caught thinking about the past. He lost the woman he loved eighteen turns ago, but he still can't understand why. What did he do wrong? He thought he'd done everything right. He thought he'd made her happy, that they could live their lives out together. This thought process can distract him, cause sudden desires to write a letter to Jarah, or plan a trip--that is always canceled- to the Weyr. Once there, Jacepi and Vanaryn constantly bicker.
Music is a huge part of Jacepi's life. It was a favorite pastime, even as a child. He loved playing the pipes and his guitar. Now he finds new ways to appreciate music. He can't play guitar with only one arm; but he still delights in the pipes. He was never much of a singer. He's begun to appreciate poetry more lately.
Jacepi is a bit of a hopeless romantic. Even after all this time, he still thinks of Vanaryn. It's taken him turns to get to where he could befriend her and be content with that. He loves seeing love begin to bloom among the older apprentices and among friends. And he loves to try to assist. Having faced heartbreak himself, he tries to ensure others don't make the same mistakes.
Having lived through such things, Jacepi is anxious around women and keen to avoid romantic advances himself. He fully supports and will encourage romance between others, but it's not for him. He has anxiety about straying too far from the hall, as well, after Threadfall.
Positive Trait List Devoted, loving, kind, romantic
Negative Trait List Anxious, lacking self confidence, dwells on the past
History: Jacepi was born to heartbreak, and that has seemed to follow him his whole life. Soon after he was born, his mother left his father, and him. She left them with a bag of marks and instructions to get the boy apprenticed to a Harper one day. She left a dragonback, and she wasn't heard from since. Despite that rough beginning, Jacepi had a good childhood. His father treated him as a special treasure. Anything Jacepi wanted, he could have. He was the only reminder of his wife he had.
At eight turns old, when the boy showed an interest in music, his mother's request was honored. He was sent to the Harperhall. He grew there, writing letters to his father at least twice a sevenday. They focused on copying down old songs from the records, and then, finally. Finally, he got to make his very first set of pipes. The boy loved them. He never went anywhere without them. That was, until he met Vannie and gifted them to her, at fifteen turns old. He'd heard the older boys talk of beautiful women, but his encounter with her left the normally talkative teenager speechless. He'd never met anyone like her.
She left, though, to the Weyr. Jacepi was heartbroken, but poured himself into his studies. He became a journeyman while she was away, at twenty one. She returned a dragonrider! He was astonished, and so in awe of her dragon. He fell in love with her. He sang songs, he played tunes, he wrote ridiculously cheesy sonnets just for her. He was going to propose...
And that was when true heartbreak struck the young man. He'd never imagined the sort of pain Vanaryn created in him when she said she'd be returning to the Weyr without him. He didn't understand. Shard it, he loved her!
She left all the same. About eight months later, he received a letter that twisted the knife she'd lodged in his chest. She'd given birth to a baby boy, and Jacepi knew it was his. He went to the Weyr as soon as he could, to see her and the baby. Things were said that weren't meant; he shouted at her. Had she known that entire time? Why? Why? They finally agreed that he be able to see Jarah as often as he liked. Vanaryn would bring him to the Hall if he wrote.
"As often as he liked" didn't happen, well, as often as he would've liked. He was a journeyman, he was assigned tasks and expected to carry them out, not worry about an infant. Not chase after a toddler. Not stop a five turn old from tantruming in the Hall. The man resented it. That his boy only visited for short periods of time. That he only visited the Weyr when a dragonrider could find the time to give him passage.
Ten turns passed so much more quickly than Jacepi would've liked. He met a few women--and ended up in the same position as his father, so many turns ago. The woman he'd been seeing left him with a screaming bundle. He'd had to find a wetnurse. He knew little about infants, apart from what he'd learned caring for Jarah, but he doted on that child.
Maybe a bit too much. He spoiled Jacel as if that could repair the ties between him and his older son. He tried to give the boy anything he could've wanted. Marks, though, was a big problem. It was hard to have enough marks for every day needs when you spent the majority of it at gathers.
It went on like this for seven turns. He was sent with a group of harpers to a nearby hold for a Gather. Jacel--oh, looking back on it, he was thankful for the fever that came. Jacel was ill that sevenday, and didn't go. Thread came back. He and two others from the group survived, but not in any good way. They'd had no healer with them, and Jacepi lost his arm. A threadscore now ran down his cheek. The nearby hold had massive damage, and the healers there were overwhelmed with injuries.
He stayed there for a sevenday before he was able to return home. He wasn't able to practice his craft; not the way he preferred. Money was tighter than ever. He was failing his son, just like he'd failed Jarah. He wrote to Vanaryn, asking if she could take him. Suggesting that when Jacel was old enough, he might become a dragonrider.
Other: This is Berri's fault.
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