Approved by Tawny

Name: Aleck
Age: 20
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Craft/Rank: Smithcraft/Journeyman
History: Like many great scientific discoveries Aleck was an accident, or at least an unintended event, and had been going on for quite some time before anyone noticed. Too long, in fact, for a quick dither between to be a humane option from his mother's point of view. She took his existence as a consequence of her long-term relationship with the journeyman healer Bereck, which had ended not long ago due to their mutual obsession with their Crafts (a circumstance that went some way towards explaining her less than joyous reaction to her pregnancy diagnosis.) He was borne with good grace and patience, and named - and would have been promptly deposited in the creche had his father not strongly objected.

Bereck had been in the creche. Bereck had not liked the creche. Bereck would not have his son be raised in the creche. Bereck would do it himself.

Bereck's sleep schedule has never been the same since.

Aleck, in the ingenuously egocentric way of all immature creatures, was unaware. He was either a very easy or very difficult child depending on your point of view - easy because he was even-tempered and sweet from the start, but difficult because he was very resourceful, very curious, and very, very bright. (And once he got his gross motor skills under control, very, very mobile.) Most of the trouble he got into was propelled by a desire to know things rather than act out for attention from his busy father, though sometimes what he wanted to know was 'what is it like to pour dragon oil on the floor?' or 'is Dad really sleeping right now?' It's just as well that he lacks conscious memory of Bereck's frantic cross-referencing and amateur behavioral psychology experiments, because he'd be rather embarassed to have been so much trouble (and Bereck would probably prefer that no one remembered how his hair went white in the first place.) By the time solid memories started to form Aleck was a small person who asked about interesting (and difficult) things, the most harrowing part was over, and Bereck no longer privately thought of him as 'the creature.'

In fact, he was starting to genuinely enjoy his son.

Aleck didn't have the oddest upbringing in history, just perhaps the oddest any child so thoroughly enjoyed; a devoted intellectual parent was the best thing that could have happened to him. Bereck encouraged intelligent questions and let him read and experiment with things up to and including flamethrowers, on the basis that he'd find some way to do it anyway and might as well do it safely with proper instruction instead of blowing his head off and leveling the Lower Caverns. His time in the creche was less fulfilling; he was bored with group activities based on coloring inside the lines and as a small boy who knew difficult words found himself distanced from most of his peers. It was a little microcosm of society, and Aleck learned that adults appreciated you more when you were pleasant, not hateful, and that it was best not to let it be shown that things bothered you - or better yet, not let yourself be bothered by them at all.

By the time Aleck was eight athere was a problem: he was increasingly restless and bored in the creche, and Bereck was running out of books. It was time to apprentice him to a craft.

This would have been a simple matter, but Bereck had done his job too well. The usually tractable Aleck balked at the idea of restricting his study - he wanted to go on learning everything and maybe showing other people how to do it too, and wasn't there a craft where he could do that?

In the absence of demand for a 'person who just knows everything,' the answer was no. And so it came to pass that the boy learned one of the hard truths of the world: theory must give way to application. At least for several turns, until he secured a teaching position as a Master at one of the Halls - and even then, he would have to attend meetings and grade.

Waiting until older was not an option, any more than it was with Bereck. Death from boredom or major anarchy would have resulted. The only thing to do was experiment, lest there be Experiments. And so, with the help of a small pad of scrap paper, a charcoal stick and some called-in favors, Aleck embarked on what would be known in ancient Terran terms as a set of informational interviews, or 'field trips.' The findings were compiled into an inexpertly-bound document titled 'What Craft I Want To Do: A Reserch Paper by Aleck.' It concluded: 'I REALLY want to be an Aincientcrafter but they don't get jobs so I will be a Smith becaus they are sort of the same but not really, but they get jobs. I will use my Smith marks to reserch Aincient things so maybe peple will want them for jobs.'

Although Aleck's spelling improved his goal didn't change, and it quickly became apparent that he was suited for (and interested in) advanced studies and research. Around sixteen he transferred to the main Smithcraft Hall near Telgar - a move that left Bereck with mixed feelings, but no small amount of pride when his son walked the tables two turns later. Engrossed in his studies, Aleck was only tangentially aware of the mystweed crisis - it was happening and he heard about it, but papers and projects took precedence. It was the same for the murders, and the Fall - in all cases, his concern was primarily for how such problems were affecting his father and Berath.

The Dragonlights, on the other hand, seized him by the interests, and much father-son bonding was had over geeking out about them and visiting the demonstration - until it all went political, Bereck whisked them back to the Weyr. Aleck opted for making his way to the infirmary rather than stay in a little-used storeroom as Bereck had hoped, which was good for both of them, as he arrived in time to find his father being savaged by a wher. The next few weeks saw him trapped in a siege situation as Malvren slowly fell. When it became clear all was lost, Aleck evacuated to Trine, where he now does his best to see to his father's recovery at the same time as being admonished to take part in his newfound social life.
Description: Never brawny, Aleck was an awkward gangly stick through his teens and it still shows. At 20 and 6'0" he's started to fill out a bit, going from 'weedy' to a form kindly described as 'athletic' in build, though not habits. He's reasonably agile with quick reflexes, for all that he spends most of his time drafting diagrams or fiddling with some device, and his long hands and clever fingers lend themselves well to the work. His father's jaw and clear, thoughtful eyes give some maturity to an otherwise youthful face, balancing out a slightly upturned nose. His apparent age tends to flux with his mouth, which settles in a solemn curve when he's working and a casual sort of smile when he's not. His eyes are a startlingly intense bright blue and his brows a bit darker than his fluffy, brownish blond hair; it ranges from semi-short to mid-neck depending on how long he's gone without a haircut, and his swept-back bangs sometimes get in his eyes. He wears thick-lensed oval glasses that slide down his nose and dresses in an absentminded, functional style, often with collars undone and the sleeves rolled up.
Personality:
Intellectual
There's no two ways around it - Aleck is a nerd, and has been called the Pernese equivalent of the term since his early days. He enjoys information, both the acquisition and transmission thereof, and is highly intelligent in the academic sense, though it would be inaccurate to call him streetwise or 'sharp.' But if you ever need someone to shake upside down until square roots fall out, he's your weyrbrat.

Reserved
Possibly because he has been subject to the sort of antagonism particular to slight, bespectacled intellectuals who don't quite fit in, Aleck's become emotionally withdrawn over time. He feels, but he hides it beneath a smiling countenance and smooth-faced acceptance of behavior intended to rile him. He's practiced it for many years and he's very good, although someone who knows him well would be able to read the tiny differences in nearly identical smiles and discern his actual mood.

Passive
That said, it's difficult to get Aleck to actually care about most things (apart from technical information) beyond a casual level of 'take it or leave it' interest. This extends to actions leveled against him and especially people - he makes it a point to shrug and say "Eh." Therefore, he's slow to act and tends to let opportunities pass him by.

Devoted
Though he's chary with true affection, it's not without reason - those he cares about he cares about, and all the care he seems to lack for slights against himself is shown for family and friends - two very small categories, for all that they might superficially seem a decent size. His devotion extends to his work - he's thorough and persistent when working through technical problems, and he pays marvelous attention to detail.

Good-Humored
Although he's cultivated an overall lack of deep concern for the human race, Aleck's base nature is that of consideration and good humor, both in the 'easy-going' and 'mildly snarky when appropriate' sense. Let's face it; kid's a sweetheart.
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