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 Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:53 am
1. Introductory post
2. About C'ross
3. About Merceth
4. History
5. Relationships
6. Pets
7. RP Logs
8. Reserved
9. Reserved
10. Reserved
11. Memories
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:54 am
C’ROSS
Name: C’ross
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Prisoner: No
Crime: Impressing an idiot
Craft/Rank: Squadsecond
Appearance: C'ross looks older than his 38 years. He's seen a lot, and it shows - he has the kind of job that wears you down fast and burns you out faster. His dark hair is already starting to fade towards steel grey, with a streak of startling white left over from an old head injury. He has a strong profile with an aquiline nose, and a weathered complexion that speaks of turns of hard work outdoors. His eyes are green, but if you’re up in his personal space enough to notice that, then he’s probably about to forcibly eject you anyway.
While not especially handsome in the usual sense (he'd probably react better to 'striking' or 'imposing' as adjectives anyway) he is in excellent shape. C'ross is 6'2" and 220 pounds, pretty much all muscle. He’s a good solid brick wall, the kind that makes prisoners think twice about running into him. Fun fact: C'ross looks weird in civvies. Doesn't matter what it is. Even in plain clothes, something about him screams 'I should be in uniform right now.' Probably it's the posture.
Personality: A man of strong convictions and moral absolutes, C'ross has seen some of the worst that Pern has to offer without losing his scrupulous nature. Sure, his moral compass might have been battered and rusted a bit around the edges along the way, but it still works just fine.
It is important to remember, however, that good does not mean nice. Just because he has a conscience doesn't make him a charmer. Intense is, perhaps, the best adjective to describe C'ross in person. 'Downtime' is something that happens to other people, a mysterious and distant memory that perhaps he will someday revisit. In conversation, he is a mass of snark and vitriol with a garnish of no-nonsense, needling friends and foes alike with grim humor. Did he hurt your feelings by saying something mean? Quit your bitching and grow a pair. Cross isn't a complete b*****d all the time, and he does know how to rein it in when he has to, but he's simply not used to interacting with ordinary civilians.
Let's be blunt here: you don't want to be in C'ross' wing. You just don't. His dragon is a terror on four legs and wings, and C'ross himself is a harsh taskmaster. Granted, he would never ask anything of his wingriders that he doesn't also demand of himself, but given the bronzerider's exacting standards that isn't saying much. He didn't get to where he is by sitting around and playing nice with people, and when he tells his wing to jump he expects them to already be halfway in the air. He rarely loses his temper for real, but that doesn't stop him from 'encouraging' stragglers and underachievers with the sharp edge of his wit. Praise, rarely given, is grudging but always honest. Cross does follow his own code of honor, as damaged as that code might be. He is ruthless, but never pointlessly cruel. He might lead his men into situations where they will most likely be killed, but he will be right there with them, first in and last out. Civilians are not acceptable losses. And there is no such thing as a lost cause.
C'ross is slow to give anyone his complete trust, for reasons that should be obvious. (The man works with psychopaths on a daily basis.) When he's business, he's all business, and he will put aside any private feelings to work with someone who would be tactically useful. But on a personal level, it's hard to get to know him. There is presumably a softer side somewhere under the scars; he is very attached to his wing, in his own way, and will go well out of his way to do a favor for any of 'his' riders should they ever ask. And he is zealously loyal to his weyr - do not insult M’onk or Kaelyandra in front of him, or you'd best prepare to be verbally mauled. He is not an ambitious man, and seems far happier as a squadsecond than he would be as a Weyrleader.
Somewhere under the mile of bad road it takes to get there, apparently, there is a deeply buried hopeless romantic. C'ross is bisexual, but attracted primarily to men, something that he hides very very deep: while bronzes in modern Pern Impress to gay men as well as straight men, and C'ross is decades past the point where he would have a chance of Impressing bronze anyway, there are nonetheless certain... expectations, especially among the more conservative riders. It's still very much a boy's club, Pern is, and he has to be careful and discreet. His occasional liaisons with women serve to throw the suspicious off his heels, at any rate.
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:55 am
MERCETH
Name: Merceth
Color: Brown(…?)
Age: 22
Appearance: What is that? Is that a freakishly large brown? Is it a freakishly unshiny bronze? Who cares, it’s a freak of nature. It is generally accepted that Merceth is nonmetallic and therefore brown, which also conveniently serves to keep C’ross out of leadership positions, and Merceth out of queenflights where he might pass on that horrible DNA.
But Merceth is huge. Long limbs, long wings, long tail – he is handsomely proportionate, but rivals some of the smallest bronzes at 35 solid feet. His size is ameliorated by his build; the brown has a constantly whipcord-lean and hungry look about him. Literally hungry. No matter what other color his eye may turn, there is always a tinge of red to it – but only the one. The other one is a scarred socket where an eye used to be. His prodigious appetite is balanced by a constant frenetic energy that burns off the excess – never any spare fat on this dragon. In the air he is deceptively speedy for his size, but utterly lacking in finesse. He moves in the air rather like an oncoming train: very fast and virtually unstoppable, but good luck getting him to go where you want him to go and try not to be directly in front of him.
Merceth’s primary hide color is a dark, mottled brown, with an almost corroded quality to the color. From his eyes to the tip of his muzzle there is a paler, almost creamy mask, leading to a streak of lighter color fading down his throat and chest. This gives him a curiously hooded appearance, distinctive in combination with the abstract lighter patterns on his wing-membranes. He also has a very faint network of old, well-healed scars, mostly on his shoulders and chest, primarily from picking fights with other males.
Personality: Only with C’ross and Merceth could the words “you are the worst dragon and a disgrace to your color” be terms of endearment. Still, while the grumpy way they heckle each other may be startling to those used to a more… supportive dragon-rider relationship, there is obvious affection between the two even when they are cussing each other out.
It is explicitly apparent that the dragon provides the energy and the rider provides the discipline in this particular partnership. When placed on a task, Merceth is singularly focused, assaulting obstacles in his way as if they were physical opponents to be subdued. With C'ross' help, this focus is channeled into positive outlets. Indeed, the often grueling schedule of a guard dragon is good for Merceth, as it wears him out to the point where he is far more docile during his off shifts than he otherwise would be. Merceth is not much of a natural leader in his own right, and usually leaves the actual leading part up to C'ross, preferring instead to simply set the best example he can for the other dragons in the wing. Still, when it is needed, Merceth is not at all shy about speaking to other dragons, or even speaking directly to their riders with his usual blunt forwardness.
There is nothing cruel or malicious about Merceth. But he seems to be constantly on edge, and it is up to his rider to know when to give him his head and when to keep him on a tight leash. Despite Merceth’s obvious intelligence, there seems to be something animalistic about the way he moves and acts. He does not like being touched by those other than his rider, including dragonhealers, and while he is incapable of harming a human, he is still perfectly capable of expressing his displeasure. Given that he is downright huge, this is still terrifying. More than one apprentice has been sent scurrying off in tears – and probably flecked with dragonspit, to boot – after getting a full-throated roar six inches from their face. Still, he has a soft side and will, from time to time, grow fond of particular individuals. Maybe he'll get attached the beastcrafter who helps him sneak an extra herdbeast at feeding time. Or perhaps a particular healer, to the exclusion of all others. To those individuals whom he trusts, he is tame as a pup and even outright affectionate, readily offering his eyeridges for scritchies.
Merceth has very little interest in flights, and in general he doesn't even twitch a wing at rising females. Golds are a different matter, but C’ross has always held him back from pursuing them, for one reason or another. On the rare occasion that Merceth does take interest in a green, he is a vicious and aggressive Chaser: any other males in the sky should beware, because Merceth will battle with teeth and claws for the lead position.
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:56 am
History: Corloss was born to a smithcrafting family at Telgar Hold, the third child of four. His childhood was nothing out of the ordinary: traditional, stable, no particular traumas – well, not of the Dust or plague or abuse varieties. Not the big tragic tales. The patriarch of the family was a conservative, self-reliant man, believing fiercely in the sovereignty of the Holds. Dragonriders, to his eyes, were obsolete with the end of Thread, and none of his children would ever be sent off to those libertine Weyrs full of homosexuality and casual leeching off the hard work of good Holdfolk.
Corloss grew up largely self-reliant, the natural result of being one among many and generally expected to sort things out for himself if he could. It was assumed that he would go through his apprenticeship and become a smith himself in time, like his elder brothers before him, and then settle down and have a family. Daloros, the eldest, was the apple of their father’s eye; the youngest child, a girl, was their mother’s darling, and the other middle brother, Corloss’ elder by a turn, was a quiet solid boy who kept his head down and stayed out of trouble. Corloss, by contrast, was a gawky kid, seemingly made out of elbows, some of which belonged to other people. And he tried. He tried, passionately, at everything he did. He wanted to please his family. But while he had the patience and the focus and the drive to make things happen, he lacked the natural talent at the smithcraft that his brothers had. He would spend hours of work on a piece, working and reworking the hot metal, only to produce a piece still subpar to what they made in a single attempt. The only time he came alive was when he was testing the swords for their balance: with a blade in hand the graceless boy was graceful at last.
The constant burden of his father’s disappointment was a difficult burden to bear, especially on the shoulders of an eleven-year-old boy. Corloss expressed interest in the Dragon Watch when it opened, but his father scoffed: Dust was a blight on society, true, but the Watch was nothing more than the riders’ weak attempt to take advantage of the situation to make themselves relevant again. But the older the boys grew, the more rebellious Daloros became. It culminated when the older boy ran off to Telgar Weyr, and did not return… until three years later, when he arrived triumphant on dragonback as D’ros and stole Corloss away to join him.
Corloss was sixteen when he stood on the sands in the Candidate robe, fidgeting awkwardly and watching as dragon after dragon Impressed around him. Then his life changed, as a dark-hued hatchling spilled out onto the sands bugling in anger, and crimson eyes swung around to fix upon him. The dragonet advanced like a pouncing feline, forcing him to the ground and standing over him with mantled wings and claws drawing blood on his chest. C'ross honestly thought the hatchling would rip his throat out right then and there, up until the voice resounded in his mind and Impression was forged between them in bonds of steel.
He had never truly expected to Impress. But instead he got Merceth, for whom weyrlinghood was not so much a learning experience as a constant battle of wills. It took a good two turns until the two of them settled into a solid partnership. C’ross was sensible, dedicated, and generally unflappable in a crisis. While Merceth’s willful energy and unpredictable streak made him ill-suited for life at a weyrhold (he would have torn it to shreds in a matter of days) his frighteningly predatory focus made him very effective at hunting down and terrorizing criminals. The duo was rapidly deemed perfect for watch-work. The ensuing row with his father soured C'ross' relationship with the man for Turns to come.
He excelled in the watch. It did not help, of course, that his dragon was simultaneously enormous and unshiny, large enough to be a threat to the bronzeriders but not metallic enough to be one of the chosen elite. But C'ross demanded respect on his own merits, serving as wingrider and then wingsecond for many Turns before finally being promoted to a wing of his own. In that time, he saw a darker side of Pern that he had never been exposed to before. Dust addicts in the throes of withdrawal. Murderers, fraudsters, unrepentant criminals of all stripes. He had to come to terms with the grim reality that not everyone could be brought to justice, and sometimes no matter how hard you tried, you were just too late to save someone. On occasion he was obliged to use force - sometimes more force than he wanted to use - and found that it came frighteningly easy to him, a revelation that only increased his resolve to avoid being corrupted. It was a heavy weight to throw onto the shoulders of a formerly idealistic young man, and over time he grew more withdrawn and jaded, settling into the harsh attitudes that would characterize his career as a wingleader.
Two things happened in very short succession. A tangle with a particularly violent wherhandler-slash-Dust-runner ended in Merceth losing his eye, and D’ros vanished under mysterious circumstances. The brothers had happily kept in touch, despite being in different wings and frequently in different parts of Pern. But one mission, D’ros simply – did not return from. C’ross tried in vain to search for him, questioning his wingmates, searching the area where he’d been last seen… But it was as if D’ros and his dragon had simply vanished into thin air. Or between – but they did not reappear.
Merceth, thanks to his injury, lost his wingleader position. Clumsy in the air while recovering from the loss of his eye, he needed time to recover that the Watch was unwilling to give him. The demotion rankled, as it came from no fault of their own, but rather their willingness to put themselves in harm’s way rather than sending in wingmates to do the dirty work. The wingleader position passed to a bronzerider, and even after Merceth recovered, C’ross did not regain his original rank.
And so it came to pass that, strangely enough, C’ross was one of those who actively volunteered to move to Warden’s. The prison weyr might have looked like a demotion, but it was a place away from his old wingmates, where C’ross could start over with the process of proving himself a solid and reliable rider. And Merceth’s frenetic energy and aggressive tendencies served him well in the harsh environment and grueling schedules of Warden’s life.
C’ross began an on-again-off-again relationship with Squadsecond L’iv, a fierce woman whose drive to succeed rivaled his own. There was never any real love in it, just the occasional fierce, private liaison to relieve stress and work off some tension with… well, let’s call it brisk aerobic activity. When L’iv was promoted to Squadleader over C’ross, the brownrider bore her no ill will, and was rewarded with a position as her Squadsecond. The fraternization rankles at his conscience, but neither of them is the type to show favoritism or be particularly bothered by power imbalance issues.
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:57 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:58 am
 USELESS
Color: Green
Age: Adult
Appearance:
Personality: TERRIBLE ANIMAL
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 12:59 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:00 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:01 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:02 am
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Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:03 am
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