(Still trying to figure out where to go from here, but I wanted to get this in an Application before I lose the contest thread)

Name: Liana
Age: 15
Gender: female
Sexual Orientation: heterosexual
Craft/Rank: Bakercraft Journeyman
History: Liana was born to a family of farmers who have a small cothold beholden to Aquor Hold. Their holding is slightly isolated, about two hour’s walk to a small town-like collection of holds where they usually go for supplies, news and Harper lessons for the children. The family grows grain, keeps a small herd of caprines and has a couple runners for draft work. Her father also has a green flit, whose egg he bartered for in order to be able to send messages in case of emergencies. Liana is the middle child of the family’s three children. The oldest is her brother, a dutiful worker who’s good with the animals and crops, and likely to take over the cothold when their parents get too old. The youngest of the family is her little sister, the pet of the family. She’s the kind of sweet little girl who always does what she’s told, is polite, kind and charms all the adults while infuriating her older siblings. Or at least Liana, since her brother doesn’t seem to mind his youngest sister so much.

Liana’s parents are practical folk who don’t see much use to anything they don’t immediately need. They see no point in art or fancy learning, and while singing is all well and good for the Teaching Ballads and passing the time on stormy nights, they don’t pursue it just for entertainment’s sake. She always gets told “Why can’t you be more like your brother/sister?” and therefore asked to work harder, or be more polite, or otherwise be happy with what she’s got. Her parents frequently insist that they have a good holding, a sturdy house, flourishing crops, are healthy and well fed, and that she should be grateful. She’s never satisfied with this, and often retorts that there’s more than life to boring security, at which point she’s told to stop being fanciful and set to some sort of chore.

She’s not good with the animals, since the caprines always seem to like biting her and the large, thickly built runners intimidate her. She’s also poor at field work; after many months of increasingly impatient instruction she was still slow at tending the plants and never seemed to get the knack of things like weeding and pruning. So since she was unsuited for farm work, she was set to housework instead, learning domestic chores like cleaning, mending and cooking.

Liana took up Bakercraft, mainly for something to do. Her parents agreed to this because it was a good, practical skill, and because it was a craft she could be taught without having to go anywhere. There’s a Bakercraft Journeyman living in town who she’s entered into a somewhat loose apprenticeship under., and once in a while Liana checks in with the woman to get new recipes, or to spend an afternoon baking together and learning new tricks of the trade. She spends as much time and supplies as she’s allowed trying out new recipes or baking techniques, though her parents always insist that necessary foods be cooked first. At the last couple of the small, local Gathers her family attended, she plied her craft to sell bubbly pies and sweet rolls, which has earned her a (very few) marks. She hoards them carefully, hoping to earn enough to buy herself passage to a larger hold someday, maybe hitch a ride with some Traders or something. She’s often tempted to spend her marks on a new book, but makes do without. She reasons that book will interest her for a time, but a change of scenery could be her one chance to improve her life for good.

She has lots of time to think during chores, so constantly mulls over plans for how she could get away. Could she find a way to join the Traders? Or maybe join a craft that requires teaching farther off? She’s good with knitting and mending clothing, maybe Weavercraft. Or even join the Harpers, though her voice isn’t any more than fair. But her parents would never let her join any craft that they didn’t immediately need at their little cothold, and certainly not let her leave when she was needed to tend the hold. A favorite dream of hers is that a rider could come by on Search, pick her out and whisk her away to the Weyr to impress a dragon. Harper stories are full of that happening, and surely her parents wouldn’t refuse a rider. Even though the life of a rider is dangerous, or even if she never Impressed, at least she’d be away and doing something. But no riders ever came to their tiny little cothold, not once since she was born.

News comes rather infrequently to their middle-of-nowhere holding, so she knows little about the recent troubles with the weyrs and riders. The last she heard from a passing Harper is that the wherhandlers are trying to get more recognition for their craft, and causing a good deal of trouble with the weyrs. But he was drawn away to talk to someone more important than her, so she didn’t get to ask any more. She wonders what that might mean, but has no way to find out more and has to settle for the knowledge she has for now.
Description: Liana is slim and a little short for her age, about 5’3”. She keeps hoping she hasn’t reached her full growth and might gain a couple inches, but doesn’t think that’s likely any more. She has medium brown hair with a hint of curl to it, just enough to add a bit of texture, and usually wears it pulled back into a braid. Since she mostly does indoor work, she avoided getting the tanned, weathered face and callused hands of most farmers, so her skin is fairly clear, though it naturally has a slightly dusky shade to it. She has a slightly round face with a somewhat blunt-looking nose and even features that might be pretty if she didn’t often wear a bored or petulant expression. But when she’s learning something new and interesting, her brown eyes light up and her face is far more open and welcoming.
Personality: Liana is chronically bored with her life. She is frustrated at being stuck in a tiny cothold with no future, and wants more than anything to go out and do anything else. However, she is realistic about this; while she often wishes for something more interesting, even her dreams are within the realm of possibility. She never dreams of being found to be the long-lost heir of a Lord Holder, or running off to join the Runners. Instead, she figures out what might be possible, tries to plan how she could make them happen, and prepares for the most likely course of action. She enjoys the occasional possible dream that she can’t make happen, like hoping she might someday be Searched, but does not count on them.

She is a smart girl, quick to figure out puzzles and picks up new lessons rapidly. But she’s frustrated at the very limited opportunity for education in her home and feels that she rarely gets to learn anything new. She’s a good problem solver, handy at figuring out solutions to various tasks or difficulties. However, she doesn’t get to do much of that beyond things like adapting a recipe to work around missing items, or figuring out how their supplies will feed the family for the winter. Her skill at these makes her mom happily comment that she’ll make someone a good wife someday. She rather dislikes that this implies even her mom thinks of her only as a worker and someone’s potential wife.

She always wants to learn more, about anything. She’ll listen avidly to anyone talking about science, or geography, or history, or gossip…ok, so she wants to know about almost anything. Small-town gossip and local news bore her to tears, since it’s always the same stuff. Like, someone was seen with someone else, or that guy’s crops are doing poorly, or blah blah blah. How do people listen to that drivel? She’s enthusiastic about learning, but otherwise tends to feel stifled, which tends to make her grumpy. She eats up Harper stories and the few books she can get her hands on, even if they are mostly histories, Teaching Ballads or books about farming. She would collect books if she could, but they cost marks and she rarely has any to spend on herself.

Overall she’s obedient and does her work when told, though tends to grumble and drag her feet a bit when she’s feeling particularly cross. She also never volunteers for work if she can help it; she’d rather go off and reread her family’s few books. She usually comes off as aloof or uncaring, since she never bothers to act particularly friendly to people she finds boring, which includes most of the cotholders she tends to meet. But she’s much nicer to Traders and traveling Harpers, who at least bring news of the wider world, and maybe a book if she’s lucky. She will sometimes abandon her work to greet an arriving Harper or Trader and eagerly ask for the newest news, though gets back to her work if told (even if she complains the whole way). She sometimes ends up babysitting the neighbors’ small kids, which she doesn’t mind too much. Kids at least have an imagination, and can come up with far more interesting stories than anything the adults usually tell. She’s fairly good at keeping up with their energy, but when she gets worn out she can usually settle them down by diverting them with a story, song or impromptu science lesson.
Other:

Just so I don't lose the image link again, I will eventually be giving her this flit.