Approved by Tsunake
Name: Caysine
Age: 24
Sex: Female
Orientation: Bisexual, currently leaning away from everyone.
Craft: Healer, focus in midwifery
Rank: Apprentice
Physical Description: Caysine is pretty, in an unintentional sort of way. She can’t really be bothered to worry about her looks, so she’s lucky she has it naturally. She is dark of complexion, naturally olive-skinned and further tanned on the arms and face, with black hair and dark brown eyes. Her figure is pretty enough; at slightly taller than five feet eight inches, she’s taller than many non-Ista women, but has never been worried about her height or weight—she is average for her size and has a narrow waist she likes emphasizing. She generally dresses in utilitarian clothes that mask dirt well, but when she cleans up for a Gather, it’s not all that surprising she’s considered a heartbreaker—she loves showing off her nice clothes and decent figure. She wears her hair short enough that she never has to worry about it obstructing her vision. Her eyes are large but pretty—‘doe’ eyes—and Caysine is extremely expressive in general; anything she’s is feeling is plain on her face, and she couldn’t stop this if she tried.
Personality: Passionate in everything she does, to a fault. Caysine subscribes to the philosophy of living life to the fullest. She works hard, and plays harder. All her energy is thrown into every moment of every day. Of course, this means that when something happens, good or bad, Caysine is going to react with the full force of her personality—which is quite…forceful. When she’s happy, she’s one of the most pleasant people in the world to be around. She loves seeing other people happy, particularly people she loves, and generally goes to great lengths to make sure everyone is. She’s not a Harper and never will be, but she has been known to randomly burst into song on good days. Unfortunately, those good days can turn into bad days in the blink of an eye.
Caysine has a temper and is quick to fly off the handle about things—‘fiery’ would be a good, nonthreatening, mostly innacurate sort of euphemism for her. She tries to rein this in around people she wants to avoid hurting, but it doesn’t often work. She has an opinion on most things and is never afraid to state it, to her occasional detriment.
What might appear to be apathy toward situations she doesn’t immediately have an opinion on is more likely crippling ambivalence; Caysine has extreme difficulty making quick decisions and tends to second-guess herself in the process of choosing things. But once she manages to force herself (or is forced) to make a decision, there’s not much that can shake her from her new stand. It is extremely rare that she backs down on or goes against a claim she’s made previously. She will even go so far as to refuse to admit that she’s wrong, even when she knows she is, and if caught in any sort of untruth or mistake, she tends to blatantly deny she said anything of the sort.
She also doesn’t apologize. A Caysine apology rarely comes in words. Ninety percent of her apologies are nonverbal. They can be something like returning something she refused to admit she had borrowed and forgotten to return, or it can be unexpected assistance in a task that needs to be finished. Oftentimes, she’ll simply find the person with whom she quarreled and sit down or work alongside them. When Caysine makes a verbal apology, it tends to either be to appease someone she doesn’t much respect (and is only halfheartedly made), or to immediately retract something she said when she went too far. Beyond that, she won’t say the words “I’m sorry” unless her life depends on it or she really wants someone to understand.
All of that said, this entire personality is currently a bit muted. Caysine has begun to think maybe she did the wrong thing in ending the relationship with Cordel. For the past few sevendays, she’s been working up the gumption to admit that she might have been wrong, and it’s been an alarmingly humbling experience. She’s had some time to do some serious introspecting, and in this case, she’s willing to admit she made a mistake.
Of course, there’s never a doubt that she’ll be back to her old self in no time.
History: Born to a beastcrafting family in charge of the animals that fed High Reaches Weyr, Caysine was initially raised to be a beastcrafter. From the time she could walk, she was spending time with the herdbeasts and wherries. However, when at age seven, the interest she showed was more in learning to bandage the animals and assisting with birthing, her parents began to think she would do better as a beasthealer. They were mistaken. It wasn’t the healing of animals Caysine was interested, but healing itself. And when she, at age ten, told her parents she was curious about it and wanted to learn, they gladly agreed and sent her to Healer Hall to apprentice.
The initial apprenticeship was nothing special; she learned everything the same way everyone else did. But when she started looking into things she was most curious about, midwifery came into play. She was extremely fond of babies and children, and looking after the birthing mothers seemed like a proper way to go about ensuring they were all right. Her goal might have originally been pediatrics, if midwifery hadn’t so fascinated her. She returned home for her nameday when she was fourteen, and her parents asked her to stay with them for a bit. She agreed, having been away from them for far too long. She was casually Searched (that is, a dragonman looked at her and said, ‘Eh, why not. Throw ‘er on the Sands’) and Stood for a few clutches while she was home. It was at a Touching that she met Cordel. She and the young man immediately hit it off, and they started seeing each other young, when Caysine was fifteen and Cordel sixteen.
The relationship was an excellent one, though it could likely be admitted that Cordel and Caysine both neglected a lot of their lives while they were together.
Nobody, including themselves, expected them to become as serious as they did. Caysine, content to be with someone so much more passionate and eager about his craft than she, put her Healing on hold, while Cordel immersed himself more deeply in it. They balanced the relationship well for long years, until things went sour. Doubtless both of them are aware of their mistakes and even moreso aware of the mistakes of the other, but it’s safe to say that they were both at fault for those things that happened that eventually destroyed their partnership.
After she and Cordel broke it off (as troubling for her as it was for him, and just as hard for her to get over), Caysine left the Weyr shortly after he did. She headed to Keroon, to stay with extended family and work informally with the beasthealers and midwives there for several months. She recently elected to return home (it’s where the heart is, after all), and stopped briefly at Healer Hall to speak to one of her old instructors about resuming training. When she heard about Cordel’s promotion, she went immediately home to High Reaches, not bothering to renew her apprenticeship. She spent about a sevenday with her family before deciding that she at least owed him a congratulations, if not…an admission that she was wrong in leaving him.
These are troubled times for her, and she’s not quite sure what her new plan of action is.
Pets: One flitt, blue Pyfol. He was a gift from a certain someone, and in spite of everything, Caysine still adores him. He’s as intense as his mistress: protective, noisy, demanding, and always ready to scold someone who’s managed to upset him. It takes him a while to warm up to people (hint: wherry is an extremely effective bribe).
Other/Talents: Caysine is a fairly competent healer in spite of her current lack of aspirations for further training or promotion. She also knows the basics about handling animals (mostly caprines and ovines, but also runners) from her early childhood and recent stay with family at Keroon.
Will this character be a candidate? She doesn’t even intend to be here long enough to see another clutch laid, never mind the fact that she’s too old.
