I'M SO SORRY ITS HUGE
Ai
Name: Ai
Age: 72
Gender: Female
Craft/Rank: Former Drudge, Current Jack of All Trades
Appearance: Ai is an age-rounded grandmotherly lady with short, thick fully-greyed hair.
Her hands and knuckles are scarred and calloused from hard work and training with the sword at her hip, and- for a grandmother of three and counting- she is an active woman. She favors a long, warm cloak despite the southern heat, as well as high boots. She never seems to get too warm, no matter what.
Her face is creased with harsh wrinkles around a set of small, round lips. Her eyes are iron hard and a dark brown, though they glitter with something that could resemble 'merryness', and soften when she is around children (of the human or dragon variety).
She has a thin series of parallel scars that goes from the forehead of the left side of her face, over her eye, and all the way down to her chin, an old wound that marks the day, over forty years ago, when she impressed the violent beauty that is her dragon.
She likes to wear reds and oranges, sometimes yellows. She also wears Emerald green, but only on special occasions.
Often, her clothes have to be brownish or easily muddied or flown in, so she compromises with shawl-scarves in the colors she favors. She has quite a lovely collection of them, and she is always wearing one.
Personality: Good
Cunning
Stubborn/Steadfast
Confident
Bad
Deeply Angry
Neutral
Diplomatic
Disciplined
Gentle Hearted
Ai is a woman reforged. When she impressed, she was a broken-souled drudge with no backbone, no will... nothing.
Afterward, with her bonded's ferocious training, she grew into a wrathful fireball, forged hot in her dragon's image.
But time- age and grandmotherhood- has cooled her down, tempered her into her own woman, no longer an extension of the dragon she loves but a person in her own right that will never be brought down again.
She still has a warriors mindset. She is full of fire and anger, the sort of deep anger that remains even though she has buried it beneath other aspects of herself. But its still there, and erupts into a hot, burning temper.
This doesn't mean that she is the ball of irrational rage that her dragon is. She is more of a disciplined warrior than her fiery barbarian princess, and actually prefers that things be resolved without bloodshed- not something her dragon agrees with, but its far more prudent.
Doesn't mean she'll back down though. She had enough of that in her youth and in the first few turns of her riderhood. Nobody, not even her dragon, will command her. She is through with that. She will do as she wishes with dignity, and will only give up her ground when she has good reason to do so.
She has also had enough of insecurity in her life. When she does something, she is always fairly confident in what shes doing. She's thought it through, turned it over in her head, planned it, talked to others about it, and then taken great care to implement it. She has twisted and bent it, shaped it and molded it and by the time anybody sees the outcome of the action, she has planned exactly what it will do and where it will go. And you had best help or stay out of her way because she won't stop.
She is not a soft lady by any means.
Unless you are a kid. She has a soft spot for youngsters. Being a grandmother, she understands that what they are going through is trying, especially if they are in a prison. She likes to mentor youngsters, particularly the quiet ones who she doesn't think will be real trouble later, give them some confidence and some sharding spine. If more kids had people to give them confidence, then there would be fewer unfortunate young souls in wardens and certainly fewer broken drudges.
Having been a drudge, and having had to endure quite a bit of thankless work, she has a soft spot for drudges.. To many, they are the invisible ones. To her, they are people, deserving of respect and pity, and of a hand when they want it. The large body of healercraft also garners her respect and sympathy. Sometimes they have a shitty job, especially at Wardens, and it is often thankless. But they do it anyway, and she likes that kind of dedication. It has nothing to do with her late weyrmate, truly. She simply appreciates the profession.
When she was younger, she was full of rage. Glorious, gleeful Rage from her dragon's endless store and a deep burning resentment from her own life.
But age has mellowed her into an introspective, disciplined woman who has gotten what she needs from life and is quite content.
Whatever her dragon might say, she isn't hungry for more power. In fact, a little less power seems like a good thing these days, and Wardens seems like a nice form of 'retirement'. She felt it was time to turn the reigns over to a younger queenrider, one she had trained and who was promising.
Its not the only reason she was sent there- Zamanateth being a horrific pain was the other reason- (and also the climate, heh heh) but it was the reason she volunteered before anybody could force her.
She knows she will slip up at times, but she also knows she'll just have to get used to not having quite as much power as before.
It might not be peaceful or uneventful, but, though she does want to have some form of retirement, she doesn't want uneventful. Life should be interesting.
Essentially, Ai is a complicated individual with a lot of anger balanced by a deep contentment with her life. She is hard as metal about what she feels and believes, and soft as a pillow where children are concerned.
But those hoping to take advantage of this should think twice and think well. This old granny is not to be taken lightly, and woe betide those who screw with her.
History: When Ai was seven she knew she had no hope. Perhaps she retained some youthful optimism, but by age seven she simply came to the realization that she would be a drudge for life.
At thirteen she was in her prime, full of optimism and rightgeous and wrathful resentment. By 14, that had died down to acceptance. By 15, she had broken. There was meaningless sex, a son she would care for and then never see again, a throwaway of throwaways among throwaways.
Resentment still burned, but a soul untended will die out, and by age 17 all that was left of her were embers and greyed out memories in a body bent and stiffened with labor.
She lived in Ista weyr, a clutch on the sands. But she was never Searched. She was worthless, a shadow of a person, untouchable.
Nobody expected this drudge girl to be anything more.
She wasn't even supposed to be in the Stands on that fateful day during the hatching. She was exiting the kitchens for the trash dumps with the typical sort of junk that a drudge would have to carry, when some high ranking servant in clean clothes asked... no... ordered her to clean up a mess in the stands, with nary more than a cursory glance at her.
She had no choice but to obey- she was but a lowly drudge. There was nothing she could do.
She approached with a bucket and cleaning tools in hand, walking to the area of the stands that the servant had off handedly indicated. The wealthy holder with a stain on his shirt being helped off the Stands was also a clue. Clearly, someone had gotten too drunk and had made a mess. A younger her would have grumbled something sarcastic. Instead she said nothing and made no sound as she dutifully began to clear up the mess.
She cared so little that when the screams started to come from the sands, she didn't even look up.
When the screams spread to the stands, she still didn't look.
Only when she felt a presence at her back did she turn around, and by then it was too late.
She was staring into the fiery eyes of a bloodstained gold hatchling. The Hatchling reached out a claw, and almost like a sharpened caress, drew it down along her face, tearing the skin. Those eyes never left hers the whole time.
The drudge girl was overwhelmed by a feeling of energy, of wild, chaotic, jubilant anger. And a love just as brutal and wild.
She was the dragon's. The dragon was hers.
It was like a raging sun storm had suddenly entered her mind, burning away the cobwebs of despair and kicking her lingering resentment into a burning wrathful flame. She sat there stunned, unsure of how to deal with this.
The gold decided for her. She ordered her to stand. She ordered her to follow. She ordered her to become stronger.
The drudge girl, now aware that she was Ai, could do nothing but obey.
For a rough turn, Ai was essentially an extension of her dragon Zamanateth. She could act on the rage that the dragon no longer, because of genetics and their bond, could. This garnered much scolding and wrath, which, being still very much in the drudge mindset, she cowed under to the fury of her bonded.
Zamanateth was not having any of this weakness. Every morning, bells before the weyrlingmaster's call, her dragon would wake her up and drill her. She was pushed hard, and pushed herself harder, and eventually she was hammered into a confident warrior woman who stood straight and tall.
Many worried about what Zamanateth's first flight would be like and how her rider would react, so when she began to get proddy the weyr 'encouraged' Ai to be guarded at all times in case she acted out.
On the day of her first flight, Ai was so overwhelmed by the lust and rage in her dragon's powerful mind that she was unable to prevent Zamanateth from eating the meat of her kills instead of just blooding it.
Zamanateth's first flight was short, but violent. She taunted the males, radiating lust and violence. They turned on each other and she turned on them. Quite a few males had to land, so damaged were they. Many feared that a few would go between from the pain, but fortunately most dropped away in terror before they reached that point- they were truly lucky, or had strong-willed riders.
Eventually one caught her.
Through that flight, Ai was out of control. She was a screaming monster, lost in something more like a flightwrath than a flight lust. A friendly bluerider grabbed her and locked her away from the flighted people before anybody could do anything they would regret. He guarded the door to her quarters herself, not responding to the begging and threats from the other side of the door.
Unfortunately, the 'flighties' in Zamanateth's flight caused a riot centered on Ai, and he had to take shelter in the room itself from the throngs of angry people who weren't entirely rational at that moment. How he kept his head between an angry mob and a shaken, truamatized, and dragon dominated woman who was intent on killing and/or having sex with him (possibly both) is a mystery, though it likely involved a large table.
Somehow he managed to hold the door and hold her off until she was calmed down and he was safe from assault. Nobody has figured out how he did it.
After the flight, he at least was able to give the emotionally drained girl a comforting hug and, with some sneaking and fandangling, a glass of cool milk. It wasnt warm, but it did the trick.
It was worried that, with such a volatile mother, the hatchlings were sure to be terrors.
The touching and hatching passed uneventfully to everybody's relief. No deaths, little blood, no dragons betweening.
The man was E'kan of Blue Pegasath, a nice enough guy who really preferred other guys but couldn't just leave a young lady such as herself in obvious distress and danger.
Him being the only person besides her dragon she had even truly been emotionally close to (even if that had been under the influence of dragonlust, and her previous sexual encounter had been emotionless and meaningless) She latched onto him with almost a fascination for someone so human compared to the fireball attached to her mind. They became friends. With a friend, Ai gained confidence in herself and in her ability to control the raging hurricane of her partner.
Some turns later, Zamanateth was ready to rise again.
There were many concerns, but this time Ai was determined to keep the reigns and not be taken for a wild ride. E'kan was her flight-buddy, there to get her inside where she wouldn't be bothered by the attentions of riders she didn't want, especially since she had no stand in (and to protect them from her if she was inflicted by Zamanateth's Flightwrath).
She forced the raging dragon to blood her kills. She forced Zamanateth to tone down the violence broadcast and to limit her attacks. She stood up to the dragon who had so often told her to stand up, to a response of great wrath and equally great pride.
Zamanateth didn't murder any dragons that day and was flown in a considerably less scarringly eventful flight.
Ai was exhausted and was somewhat out of it for days as she recovered from fighting against her partner's strong mind. Ever since the second flight, Ai began to diverge from her previous status as an extension of her dragon. She began to push back against the tide of influence her dragon exerted.
The friendship between her and the bluerider continued. It came to pass that E'kan and her fancied the same man, Vervin, a Journeyman healer in charge of supplies. They competed for his affections in a friendly way, each gently outdoing the other and then meeting to laugh about how absurd the whole game was (Zamanateth thought that Ai should just stab E'kan and be done with it). Ai ended up losing, and for a while, she and E'kan grew somewhat distant as he had a relationship with Vervin. She spent more and more time in the (questionable) company of her dragon.
A few turns later, Zamanateth was due to Rise again, and E'kan came to act as Ai's flight buddy. It was the first time they had seen each other in months. The flight was a bloody affair (still no dead dragons, though everybody was sure that Zamanateth was actually trying this time), though nowhere near as bloody as her first flight.
After she was out of the flight, they talked, heart to heart about the relationship and Vervin and they thought that the rift between them had resolved.
But no, things returned to what they had had before.
One day, a couple of turns later, the dragons wailed Pegasath's death. His rider had been stabbed by a desperate holder while delivering supplies.
The death of his lover hit Vervin very hard, and Ai felt very... wrong. Even though nothing about the situation was her fault. She stayed with him through his trying time.
Zamanateth's fourth flight came about a few turns after that, when the grief had begun to settle down. Vervin, in memory of E'kan, tried to act as her flight buddy.
He wasn't the same quality, however. He wasn't as strong willed against the flighties, and wasn't able to deal with her in the way that E'kan did (lack of available tables and the strength to use them, perhaps?) .
In the end, he became her stand in.
That flight was Zamanateth's bloodiest by far, with one dragon even falling from the sky and falling between forever as she danced in the bloodied air.
The bereft rider's subsequent suicide brought a great deal of scolding upon Ai and Zamanateth, which the laying of a sizable and extremely healthy set of eggs, including a large gold egg did little to offset.
Zamanateth had killed, and Ai should have done better. After enduring the scolding and hard looks she received around the weyr, she snapped, shouting angrily from a wooden box that she was an experienced queenrider, thank you, and that they should SHARDING RESPECT HER because OUT OF FOUR FLIGHTS only ONE dragon was killed! The hatching of that clutch was, ironically, one of the most peaceful and joyous hatchings that the weyr had seen in recent years, full of happy and playful hatchlings that brought a smile to the face of many observers.
She refused to back down even when the brother of the man whose dragon had died stood at her very door with a knife in hand.
Zamanateth wanted to tear him to shreds, but instead of listening to her dragon as she once might have done, Ai looked him right in the eye and spoke softly and rationally.
It was a miracle that she managed to talk him down from whatever he had been planning to do. It was a miracle that he walked away, unharmed and without harming anybody.
The hubbub died down after that.
Vervin was her weyrmate and stand in for just over three decades, and she bore four children by him.
All the flights after that proceeded as 'normal': bloody but Ai was gaining more and more control and, though Zamanateth mananged to take a few swipes, there were no more dragons falling from the sky. The clutches were average, a gold was born occasionally, and whenever she felt desperate and needy from the flight, there was Vervin ready and waiting.
They were old, and her children had born children of their own. She had a deep sense of pride and self, something that she had once fully lacked.
The very turn that she realized this feeling, Vervin fell and hurt his ankle. He recovered, but he was weakened from the lack of activity. He took sick not too soon after, picked up from a patient.
His weakened immune system couldn't fight it off, and he died after a full sevenday of fever.
T'shan, the man whose brother's dragon had been killed in flight all those turns ago returned to offer his condolences, and a few cups of good wine cemented forgiveness. With his help, she was able to apportion work off to find the time to cope with Vervin's passing and arrange for their children and grandchildren to attend a traditional funeral.
It says something for how steady and rooted she had become that, despite her sense of loss, she kept rooted firmly in the ground and kept on going with her life.
T'shan couldn't seem to stop visiting after he was forgiven, and the two became warm acquaintances. It took two turns for the friendship to become an affair, and six months for the affair to end peacefully and two turns more for that friendship, too, to grow distant but pleasant as they each went on with their lives.
Not too long afterwards, Ai started to set things up so that one of the younger golds could take over for her. She felt it was time to step down from her position and do other things with herself and Zamanateth. It took another turn to get everything in order and, just when she wondered just what she would do, exactly, when she did step down, the news came through:
Wardens Weyr, the prison weyr, was in need of a gold.
Zamanateth leapt at the idea of a weyr full of violent, scary people and Ai herself thought it might not be a bad idea. It would be different, in a warmer climate friendlier on her old bones and joints. It would be far from boring, and she would no longer be in charge, a responsibility she was glad to relinquish to an extent which she hoped to make clear to the Warden.
There had been some talk of whether Zamanateth should be allowed to stay at Ista due to her belligerent nature and age, and so Ai acted fast and volunteered in a dignified and forceful way, not wanting to allow the embarrassment of being asked or the disrespect of being forced.
Other stuff: Zamanateth gets very calm and languid when shes proddy. Its the calm before the storm, because when shes in a Flight she becomes a monstrous, shrieking tornado of claws and lustful fury.
Zamanateth
Name: Zamanateth
Color: Gold
Age: 55
Appearance: Zamanateth is a long, sleek, feline gold with a very toothy grin. She bears a light cross marking over her nose and front of her face, as well as two light bands on her wing. Her body is patterned in a way reminiscent of gilt chainmail, most prevalent at her legs.
Her eyes seem to always have at least a little red swirling in them, and very rarely ever are they white.
Personality: Good:
Fearless
Energetic
Confident
Bad:
Vicious/Bloody-Minded
Intimidating
Aggressive
Neutral:
Proud
Loud
Zamanateth is the kind of dragon that Kitti Ping had in mind when she made dragons genetically programmed to be unable to harm humans.
If that wasn't there, then Zamanateth would be an absolute tyrant, ruling from a pile of dragon and human bodies and glorying in her power while covered in blood and ichor.
As it is, she's just a terror and a braggart with the attitude of a feral wher and the patience of a solar flare.
She's loud, brash, and cruel. Other golds are subtle and cunning, but not Zam. She doesn't mince her words, and what you see is what you get, and what you get is a warrior queen, full of fire and pride. She would love nothing more than for everything to end in a glorious and dirty fight, and will taunt and posture to that end.
Her birth was bloody, her flights were bloody, and that was how she liked it. She fears nothing and nobody. Well, of course, she fears for her rider, but she is more likely to threaten and snarl than cower and give in.
She never does anything that isn't wholly on her own terms.
She hates cowards. Cowards should be stomped on and stomped on and STOMPED on until they die or get a spine. Thats her belief.
They have their uses, but what she loves is when someone stands up to her. Show her some damn guts, some damn backbone, some damn willful disobedience and she'll respect you. She might want to rip you to shreds, but she'll be delighted if you put up a fight back. She loves whers for the same reason. You'll have a better chance of getting on her good side if you follow her orders, but complain or fight them. If you just accept it she wont respect you, and if you show her your belly she might just slash it... unless her rider intervenes, which she usually does.
Unlike her rider, age hasn't mellowed her at all. Zamanateth is just as much a firey, energetic brat as she was before.
In fact, she's excited to be in Wardens Weyr. Things were so dull, but here... here theres a lot of violent, stubborn, angry minds. That suits her just fine.
In all, shes a nasty, nasty character whose energy can nevertheless be enlivening.
NoteWhy did The firey Zamanateth bond to the broken drudge nobody?
That was a subject of much contention and rumor in the weyr. Nobody knows, and the queen dragon herself couldn't tell you.
Perhaps it was the lingering embers of rage in the dulled mind? Perhaps it was some sense of what Ai could be if given the chance? Perhaps it was a mind that would be completely dominated by the dragon? Or maybe some bullshit mystical bond thing.
Whatever it was, they grew into each other.
Prompt Response: Impression! How the heck did it ever happen?
The drudge girl stared in shock at the blood-and-ichor stained gold dragon hatchling standing over her, eyes whirling red and orange and yellow. She didn't feel the pain in her face from a series of clawmarks along its side- courtesy of the dragon. She didn't hear the cries of the wounded in the stands and the grieving on the sands.
She was too busy feeling like she was on fire as the bright suns of the dragon's eyes bore through the grey resignation that had clouded her mind and, for the first time in a long while, illuminated a long abandoned hope.
She had been in the stands cleaning up after some spectating wealthy holder who had drunk too much and thrown up. Of course, they couldn't clean their own messes.
Not that the drudge girl cared. She was only seventeen and already she was becoming one of the dead-eyed broken women of the weyr who forever toiled without appreciation or kindness. She had had one child, born of flightlust and raised to be just like her. A nothing, unappreciated, taken from her arms to be raised as she worked.
It didnt matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing she did, she had learned, mattered much.
She had once been a firey child.
But as young as seven she had had no hope.
Hope died, and wrath was born. Then, as it burned with nothing to sustain it, wrath too began to die away.
Now, only embers of it remained in this drudge, this young woman who nobody thought much of. No Search would have found her.
So broken was she that, when a queen hatched on the sands and, not finding Hers among the candiates, began to purposefully maul them for daring to attempt to be Hers. She killed five on the sands and, frustrated, charged into the stands to screaming and blood.
The drudge girl only turned around when it was too late to run or move. The dragon- just a hatchling- loomed over her and, with a deliberate movement, scratched her face slowly, leaving bright red trails of pain.
The drudge girl's heart beat as rage, firey, wild emotions entered her mind, kicking the embers of her soul into something more alive. She was immersed in a sea of swirling rage and love, filled so full of feeling that she could do no more than stare.
Stand, AiMine.Ai. Ai was her name. It had been so long since she had used it, so long since anybody had cared.
Get up. You are Zamanateth's and I will make you truly worthy of being mine. Stand!The drudge girl could do nothing but obey, stunned.
Zamanateth surveyed her, he eyes slowing in their swirling red, bits of green sparking in their depths.
Acceptable. I can work with you.The dragon nudged her into motion.
Now feed me. Come. There is much work to be done. I will make you great, AiMine. You will see.The dragon turned to where her hatchmates were eating hungrily and began to trot off.
The drudge girl could do nothing but follow in awe, feeling like she had awoken from some horrible dream.
