Rider
Name: Teshy
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Homoromantic ace? Biromantic ace? Aromantic ace, makes occasional exceptions? NOT SURE.
Rank: Wingrider
Faction: Revolution
History: Teshy wasn't born into luxury, and she didn't have luxury thrust upon her. If anything, she happened to be in the right place at the right time late in life. Weyrbrats are not, on the whole, particularly desirable or interesting. Teshy was born to a Lower Caverns woman at Trine Weyr, to an unknown sire. She honestly doesn't know whether he was a rider or Weyrfolk or none of the above, but this never seemed to bother her. Honestly, very little bothered Teshy. She was raised in the creche and surrounded by other weyrbrats, and her life, on the whole, was uneventful for the first decade and a half, or so. Teshy wanted to Impress a dragon someday. This was her primary goal, from the time she was old enough to understand Impression to the time she was finally old enough to Stand. She went through a single clutch between coming of age and age fourteen, when she was thrust onto the Sands for the last time.
Usturith was gorgeous - a deep teal that almost looked blue in some lights - and she chose Teshy quickly. There was little fuss. There didn't need to be. Teshy was in love. But love quickly became lukewarm - not because Teshy wasn't still fiercely devoted to her gorgeous little green, but because by the time she graduated Weyrlinghood...she had realized where she stood in the hierarchy. She was just another greenrider, not sitting on a gold, or interesting because she had a useful blue, or noticed because she had a sickly black or silver or crimson. She was just...a greenrider in a sea of greenriders. She and Usturith were part of the background. It didn't suit Tesh at all, and she fought tooth and nail to improve that. Her Weyrlinghood was distinguished - as much as a greenrider's could be. Initially, it was just about attention, about recognition. But the fact that greens could hold little in the way of rank, well...rankled. Tesh was malcontent straight out of Weyrlinghood, but she wasn't always a blatant anarchist. That took significantly more time than two turns.
It was a bronzerider that made her question Weyr structure. She was nineteen at the time, a rider of five turns but still too young to be courted the way the bronzerider was courting her. Teshy didn't have much interest in anyone, but men in particular were of little interest to her, so when he took it upon himself to flirt with her, she barely noticed. He got more persistent. Never untoward, of course, but gifts found their way to her, some with a name attached to them, others from 'an admirer.' She ignored them, mostly, used the ones she wanted and discarded or gave away the ones she didn't. But when a set of beautiful (and expensive) white flight leathers came to her a few days before Usturith was due to Rise, with the bronzerider's name and a flowery love-note attached to them, Tesh was fed up. An attempt that blatant to bed her was just going too sharding far, and when Usturith went up, she waited for him to come to her weyr before telling him what she thought and locking him out.
She kept the jacket and wore it to spite him after that.
There were fights after it, of course. The bronzerider demanded the gifts back, saying that if she wasn't going to bed him, she didn't deserve them. Words were exchanged. The idea that the bronzerider was somehow entitled to her was bandied about. And Tesh gave up on Weyr hierarchy then and there. It got worse when that bronze flew a gold a few months later and the bronzerider ascended to a leadership position. Tesh had her eyes opened: the Weyr was run by sex, and not even by human sex, which would almost make sense. It was run by the whims of mating dragons, as if a bronze's ability to breed a queen somehow dictated his rider's leadership abilities. Disillusionment didn't even begin to cover it. Tesh wanted change, well before change decided it wanted her. She lobbied a little, malcontent as she was, but opportunities didn't exactly present themselves to her for quite some time.
Things began happening. Gold fertility decreased. Mystweed was discovered. Riders were sent out to find the stuff, but Teshy took no part in it. As far as she was concerned, gold fertility decreasing wasn't a problem. It seemed Trine's crimsons were breeding well enough, and Teshy wasn't entirely sure there was an issue with golds slowly dying out. Perhaps Weyr structure could change, if golds were not seen as the be-all, end-all of Pern. That proved stupid, of course. The rest of Pern was desperate to save the golds, and a greater fuss was made over them than ever. Still, Teshy more or less ignored it. It wasn't until the assassinations that things started to get interesting. Teshy was outraged that someone would attack Trine, of course, but...the disruption, mistrust, and unrest fascinated her. It was the first time she had seen the Weyr hierarchy threatened. It left an impression.
She was swayed against the Weyrs easily some turns before the Revolution proper by an enterprising wherhandler who promised the sort of practical, meritocratic world that Tesh had longed for since Impression. He was fascinating, a quiet man who spoke firmly and proudly about his beliefs and pointed out that if she helped, if she sided with them, it would be her own chance to make a difference in the world. All it took was gentle angling, and Teshy was caught. The return of Thread was only a brief distraction - one that solidifed Teshy's belief that greens were little more than fodder for the cannons. When it came time to attack the Weyrs, Teshy and Usturith threw themselves into the fight with gleeful abandon. She managed to get a knife into the bronzerider that set her off so many years before, and to this day considers that her crowning achievement.
Of course, when Trine failed to fall and the opposition fought back more fiercely than ever, Teshy wasn't stupid enough to stay around. People knew her face, knew what she had been doing. She and Usturith fled to Malvren, and settled comfortably into the background. Since Wing and Weyr structure now that Malvren's a wherhold have been...a little problematic, to say the least, Tesh hasn't exactly been sorted anywhere yet. She does what she needs to at the behest of the wherholders, and if that means she occasionally drifts between wings or takes to the skies to fight Thread under a certain wingleader, that's fine. She'd just much prefer to spend her spare time being a terrorist.
Description: [Image]
Teshy's of Northern Continent descent, and it shows. Pale of complexion with wavy black hair that falls to her shoulders, she's not exactly anyone who stands out in the crowd. Average height at five feet, four inches, she's stocky, with a strong build only emphasized by the fact that she moves purposefully, in a way that's more inherently masculine than feminine. Her face is sharp, with a pointed chin and thin brows that are almost always drawn together in a scowl. Her features, on the whole, are pretty - large blue eyes, plump lips, a straight nose - but Teshy rarely smiles, and her expressions of frustration and anger don't do anything to emphasize her features. Still, if she were to loosen up, she'd be a looker.
Personality:
Strengths:
- Passionate: Teshy lives in the moment, and she lives every moment like it might be her last. Every second of every day is lived with singleminded intensity. She believes that you get out of life what you put into it, and so she pours her soul into everything she does. And she loves it.
Egalitarian: Teshy wants people to be equal. She wants everyone to be equal. She's not naive about this, but she firmly believes in a society where everyone has an equal say and no minority is oppressed by the majority. She's not an idealist, though - she knows that there's going to need to be bloodshed before that comes to pass.
Driven: Teshy will work until she can't work anymore. She knows what she wants from life and she isn't afraid to go out there and get it. And if she doesn't get it right away, that's fine. She will keep right on working...and working, and working until she has what she wants. That's just how she is.
Fearless: It takes a lot to make Teshy think twice about an action or second-guess herself. There's almost nothing she's afraid of - certainly not death - and she's willing to go up against insurmountable odds or terrifying situations if it means doing it will get her closer to finishing the job.
Devoted: Once Teshy has decided something, or made a friend, or otherwise formed an attachment or alliance, she doesn't let it go frivolously. She's fiercely attached to her friends and family, inextricably tied to the cause of the revolution, and would lay down her life in a heartbeat for the chance to make her ideals a hundred percent reality.
- Rebellious: Teshy's not a huge fan of being told what to do. She bridles under command, fights with authority, and in general tends to deliberately disobey orders. She's a bit of an anarchist, extremely argumentative, and headstrong to the point of her own detriment.
Cold: When it comes to doing the things that need to be done, Teshy generally won't think too hard about it. If she needs to murder someone, then she needs to murder someone. She generally tries not to dwell on the emotional impact of her actions, preferring to just "turn off" her feelings, instead.
Consequentialist: Teshy believes that the end justifies the means. Full stop. If she has to burn a hold to the ground to advance the way of living she believes is right, then she will. She holds little regard for individual human lives, and in general believes ideals are more important than things.
Spiteful: If someone wrongs Teshy, she will go to great lengths to ensure that they suffer for it. She usually won't cause physical harm, but she's certainly not above making someone's life hell for a while if they insult or slight her in any way. Authority figures aren't exempt.
Jealous: Teshy does not like to share. At all. This can be anything - from her things to her relationships. Once Teshy has become attached to something or someone, she considers it hers, and generally regards anyone trying to share it without "asking nicely" as a threat. She's not exactly a great girlfriend.
Tesh is a revolutionary, through and through. Even as a slip of a weyrling, she realized that the Weyr hierarchy was inherently unfair, based not around capability or leadership, but instead around dragon sex and rider romance. That's not exactly her speed, and not the least of which because Teshy is completely uninterested in sexual partnerships. People just aren't interesting enough to her. And since she is entirely unmotivated by sexual feeling, the fact that the weyrs themselves appear to be designed completely around sex (exclusively heterosexual sex, at that) is both difficult-to-understand and incredibly off-putting. It made her uncomfortable from an early age, and the idea that somehow she was less worthy simply because she didn't fit the narrow Impression criteria of a gold plagued her for years. It was a long time before she was able to shake that central feeling of unworthiness that the Weyr had imposed on her - and an even longer time before she replaced it with something different.
Unfortunately, the 'something different' she replaced that awkwardness with was self-centeredness. Teshy believes in herself. She believes in herself to an unhealthy degree; Teshy, in fact, believes that she should rule the world. She doesn't actually want control - or rather, she doesn't want to do the day-to-day business of ruling the world. But she believes that she knows what is best for people, and that people should follow what she thinks. And it's true - Teshy has some very good ideas. At the core of her belief is the idea that everyone is equal and deserving of equal treatment. The problem with this is that Teshy completely understands that before equality can be had, all parties must have had some experience at being in a superior and inferior position. If she has to trample the Weyrs into the ground for a few years so they can understand the oppression that non-Weyrfolk have gone through, that's fine. They'll learn from it, and then true equality can be built. This is not, perhaps, the most astute understanding of how the world works. But it's pretty indicative of how Teshy works.
She's always loved dragons and wouldn't trade Usturith for the world, but since Threadfall began, she's quite aware that dragonriders exist to be disposable. Golds clutch vast numbers so that greens and blues can die in Threadfall - not for any other reason, as far as she can tell. And that rankles, because it means that she's been slated for cannon-fodder since Usturith broke shell. And Teshy? She's not going to accept that. The fact that her dragon is small and fast means her dragon is invaluable - let's see how Pern would like it if their blues and greens were to suddenly vanish. Benden would be the first to go, and certainly even the Weyrs that did hatch atypicals would vanish post-haste. Dragons, as far as Teshy is concerned, should be governed meritocratically, rather than based on whose dragonsex produces the most baby dragons. She's also acutely aware of the sexual criteria imposed on metallicriders - and as far as she's concerned, any dragon that limits itself based on whether its rider sleeps with members of the same or opposite genders is inherently flawed. Golds and bronzes are pointless.
She's practical, forward-looking, and incredibly utilitarian. She would slaughter someone to save a village, and she'd destroy a Weyr if she thought it was for the good of Pern. In fact, she blatantly wants to destroy the Weyrs for the good of Pern. The Weyr structure is unjust and oppressive, and Teshy earnestly thinks that she is doing the right thing. As far as she's concerned, the restructuring was necessary, and even the wherhandlers' less-than-complimentary views of dragons are absolutely justified, and needed. Unless the Wherholds are allowed their expression and dragonriders given the chance to learn what it's like to be controlled, nothing is going to change. She doesn't support long-term subjugation, but she believes in walking a mile in someone's shoes. Especially when the person doing the walking is a goldrider. There's a lot of resentment in Teshy for the way Pern's leadership has gone. She feels used by Pern, and she wants to do something about it.
This isn't to say she's evil. Teshy is not a sociopath; she has deep empathy for people and generally sympathizes with the downtrodden. She just also knows what it's like to feel used and taken for granted by the system. She encourages harsh methods because she believes they are the only way to incite real empathy in others. And on a persona level, she cares deeply for people. She fiercely loves her family and friends, perhaps even more strongly because she is almost never burdened with romantic feelings, and genuinely wants the world to be a better place. She's just...overzealous to a fault.
Other: Teshy is not entirely on board with everything the wherholders think. She just likes them better than the Weyrs.
Dragon
Name: Usturith
Age: 14
Colour: Green
Description: [Adult]
Usturith is a bit of an odd-looking green with an unmistakably lovely hide. Deep sea-green bordering on teal on the top of her body, she's veined with a forest green so dark as to be nearly black, giving her an appearance almost like that of some kind of rare stone, or enameled, overlapping plates of armor. Her underside is roughly the same color, but a bit lighter and slightly greyish, changing suddenly about midway down her ribs. This is contrasted by a flash of yellow-green so pale as to be nearly white that covers her lower jaw and throat. Her eyes are ringed in it as well.
Physically, she's long but proportionally small for her color, with a slightly-large head and a bit of a paunch to her. Her legs are short and splayed slightly, giving her a good turn of speed on the ground but not conducive to large movements. When she's on land, she's a sprinter - the exact opposite of how she is in the air. Her wings are enormous, well-suited to soaring but not particularly good for speed or agility. She has a penchant for laying completely sprawled out on ledges or rocks, wings spread to catch as much sun as possible.
- Size: Below Average
Build: Above Average
Personality: Usturith is one of those dragons that people tend to classify as "difficult" when they're being nice. Some of her qualities make her an excellent, capable fighting dragon. She's high-energy, intensely motivated, and fiercely independent. She gets things done on her own terms (as quickly as possible) and doesn't need to be told twice to do something. Usually. Unfortunately, she struggles with authority. Usturith doesn't do things without a good reason. If she thinks something is suicide, she won't do it. (The exception would be Threadfall; Usturith doesn't see Threadfighting as needlessly putting herself in danger, she sees it as her responsibility and is determined to do it to the best of her abilities.) She challenges authority because she needs to be able to respect and trust her leaders. It takes time to earn her respect, but once she has decided that someone knows what they're doing, she usually accedes.
Teshy is her life. Usturith knows her rider's shortcomings, but she also believes Teshy knows best. She will do everything in her power to advance Teshy's own agenda. This has resulted, in particular, in Usturith getting a reputation for hating humans. She doesn't; for the most part Usturith is uninterested in humans. She's just not the sort of dragon who's going to calmly lie down and watch someone stomp all over her rider. If she thinks someone is a danger to Teshy's health and well-being, she will hiss and snarl and puff herself up. She considers herself an excellent judge of character - and for the most part, she is. The problem is, she subscribes to a 'guilty until proven innocent' philosophy. She would rather imprison a hundred innocent men than let a guilty one go free - and so she has chased off as many 'good' allies as she has 'bad' ones. Still, when Teshy demands it of her, she will calm down. She's not completely impossible.
Her relationship with other dragons is...complicated. Usturith more or less enjoys the company of other chromatics, but she doesn't like golds. She also doesn't like bronzes. As far as she's concerned, both are awful puffed-up excuses for dragons. Golds can't even fly Thread, and in Usturith's rather singleminded worldview, that makes them useless. So the fact that only golds (and sometimes crimsons) can breed, and they are the ones that end up in charge...she's not a fan. Usturith just thinks that dragon hierarchy should be based on respect and ferocity, not hide color. Somewhat paradoxically, she's very fond of eggs, and tends to be protective of hatchlings. Even tough they're goldspawn, she'll fight to protect the younger generations - at least until they can survive on their own. She's similarly fond of children - it's too bad that Teshy doesn't want any, because Usturith thinks they're nice. She does not, however, bespeak unless it is absolutely necessary; she finds the behavior distasteful.
Other: RARARARAR?
