Handler
Name: Toska
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bi
Rank: Journeyman Wherhandler, former Sr. Apprentice Weaver
History: Toska grew up in a family of Farmcracters in the tropics of Nerat Hold, where “growing things” was so easy even tiny children could do it. Of course, growing the kinds of things her family actually grew – in particular, peppers, spices, and fussy tropical flowers – was by no means as simple as what children were taught to do, Toska was covered in plants literally before she could walk. While she herself was never involved in the craft, she was immersed in the processes of it and knows a great deal more about it than she could possibly ever need for a life as a non-Farmer. Her parents were good people, and good farmers, of the sort who quite firmly wished to ensure their children had good training and job security – but when young Toska displayed no more of an aptitude for Farmcrafting than she did for, say, acrobatics, they began to let her choose her own path. And initially, that path was ‘nothing in particular.’ Toska didn’t have interests.
For a time after she reached the proper age to apprentice, her parents were concerned she had no aptitudes whatsoever, and were quite worried she’d be forced into drudgery. And then Toska hit a growth spurt, shot up to a height of nearly six feet in two turns, and discovered the joys of needlepoint – all at very nearly the same time. So aged fourteen and even more awkward than most children her age, she was bundled off to Weavercraft hall and enrolled immediately as an apprentice. She did well for herself, learning the ins and outs of clothmaking and stitching quite readily, but Toska wasn’t the kind of girl who could sit for hours at a loom. Initially, she took to embroidery, because it could be done anywhere. But the lack of a meaningful finished product began to annoy her, and when she was eighteen, she instead turned to tailoring.
From there, she found herself interested in leather, and then wherhide – heavy product that offered a proper challenge when worked, and that was used by important people, like miners and smiths and dragonriders. Toska began tooling belts, then aprons, then jackets – not proper tannercraft, not the preparation of such things, but the careful changes, the alterations that made a jacket go from “useful” to “useful and beautiful.” And she was good at it. She was nineteen and prepared to walk the tables the following turn when she was Searched to Benden Weyr on a visit home to her family.
Though she was brought to the Weyr as a Candidate, her Holder’s natural suspicion of the Weyrs was only aggravated by discovering how the Weyr hierarchy actually worked. Anxious about the fact that dragon sex conferred power, and no longer watched by the Searchrider who had snatched her up, Toska turned away from Candidacy and sought work in the Lower Caverns, where she fell in with the folk who made the dragonriders’ flight leathers. It was different from the weavercraft she knew, but Toska wanted to learn it and the tanners and weavers were only too happy to teach her. Every pair of hands was a lightened load on the Weyr.
She missed the first clutch - the one she was Searched to Stand for - by virtue of being downstairs doing laundry when the call went up and simply ignoring it. The next clutch, she was actually found by the Searchrider who had initially brought her and forced onto the Sands, where she unsurprisingly didn't Impress. After watching a dragonet maul a girl standing next to her and getting away with only the barest of nicks, she became quite convinced that dragons were nothing but trouble, and formally resigned from Candidacy to commit herself instead to her work in the Lower Caverns. She didn't hate the Weyr, she just wanted no part of the craft of the dragonriders. With time, she found herself talking to some of Benden's own wherhandlers, even Master Keller himself once or twice. It seemed they were surprisingly like-minded about the strangeness of Weyrleadership, though everyone always seemed careful not to say it out loud.
When Threadfall returned, Toska was not prepared. None of Pern was prepared. But Benden wasn't the first place Thread fell, and when it did finally fall over Benden, they were better-prepared than Malvren had been. Barely. Toska was with a ground crew, and made stupid decisions in her haste to try and help her home. She was out, attempting to drown a Thread burrow, when she was caught in the hand by another piece she hadn't seen. It seared through her fingers, and she lost part of two in that Fall. It was an embarrassment and an encumbrance - and Toska learned. She stayed in the Lower Caverns the next time Thread fell.
When the Revolution came, Toska wasn't surprised. She had wherhandler friends, was aware of the quiet undercurrent, and though she didn't fight, she supported the wherhandlers when they overthrew Benden and established the Wherhold. Their bold refusal to accept the status quo entranced her, and she quietly threw her hat in with the 'handlers once the dust had settled. It took some time for her to make the transition from weaver to wherhandler, but eventually she completed her training and proved herself ready for a wher egg.
And what an egg it was. The gift - it was, in some ways, a gift - of an egg from a goldclutch sired by a bronze belonging to a close friend of hers proved to be more than Toska could ever have expected - hatching a tiny pinkish-gold creature who immediately christened herself Tosk upon blooding. Toska was enamored with the awful ugly animal, all legs and eyes and nostrils, and has been completely inseparable from her ever since. She's not quite sure she's ready to become a fighter for Benden, given what happened to the last gold that decided to tangle with the Resistance, but she's certainly ready to help in other ways. Ways that don't hurt Tosk.
Description: Toska’s not precisely the kind of person you forget easily. Standing imposingly tall at 6’1” with a lithe, athletic build, she stands out in nearly any crowd - by sheer virtue of height, if not sheer virtue of the goldhandler’s knots on her shoulder. Muscular from a life of hard physical labor, she’s not exactly curvy, but she carries herself proudly, with her head high, and walks with quiet confidence. She moves with all the grace of a feline, and everything about her suggests suppression, as if she may burst free of her own control at any moment. Her hands are very large, calloused from decades of hard work.
Very dark-skinned, with striking features and keen black-brown eyes, Toska’s about as far removed from most Pernese women as it’s possible to be. Her face is somewhat long, with a sharp, squarish jaw, high, pronounced cheekbones, and a rounded chin. Her nose is wide at the base and slightly flattened, her eyebrows strong and proudly arched, and her lips full. Her hair is black and would be intensely curly, if she didn’t shave her head once every six weeks. She dresses modestly, in wide-legged trousers and sleeveless shirts, and tends to favor jewel tones and bright colors. She has a particular fondness for jewelry.
Notably, she’s Threadscored on her right arm, from a bold and extremely reckless maneuver during her very first Threadfall. The wound healed cleanly, the scars themselves now nothing but thin pink lines along her forearm and hand – but she’s missing the tip of her ring finger and half her pinkie. She’s sensitive about this, generally keeping her hands in her pockets or clasped together to minimize notice.
Personality:
Strengths:
- Confident: Toska knows what she wants and how to get it. She's never been afraid to demand something she thinks she's entitled to, and she's also never been afraid to speak her mind. There's very little that flusters her, and she finds it remarkably easy to interact with people.
Independent: Toska relies on herself. She doesn't need to be told by other people to get work done, because she believes her own motivation is the best reward. Given her druthers, she's a bit of a solitary worker - other people frequently slow her down or don't behave up to her standards - but she'll join groups if she has to. She just tends to do her own thing, even then.
Practical: Letting problems get too big to solve is one of Toska's pet peeves. When confronted with weird or outlandish situations, she generally tries her hardest to find a quick solution as soon as possible, because otherwise things get out of control and hard to fix. She likes elegant quick fixes, though if something requires more time, she'll give it more time.
Gregarious: Toska likes company. She likes being in and around people - people are fun, and being around them makes her happy. She doesn't always like being with them - particularly if she's working - but she's always quite happy to sit down in the middle of a group and get sewing done while she talks, or other such things.
Hard-Working: Toska thrives on things being done - and being done well. She doesn't like being idle, and will throw herself wholeheartedly into anything that comes her way. She works quickly but makes an effort to be thorough, because if there's one thing she hates doing, it's going back in and fixing something that was done badly the first time.
- Prideful: Toska hates reminders that some people might think she's special - almost as much as she hates people thinking that she's only been successful in life because of her gold wher. Condescension and offers of help are met with vicious resistance; if she needs help she will ask for it - and she doesn't.
Tactless: Toska doesn't think before she speaks, and she rarely cares about the implications of her words. She's unafraid to flat-out insult people, and it's not all that common for her to care if she's upset someone or hurt their feelings. Having a gold wher hasn't helped this at all.
Conceited: Toska thinks she's hot stuff - not in any particularly arrogant way, so much as she simply is aware that she's bright, attractive, and owns a gold wher. When combined with her confidence, though, the general knowledge that she's pretty cool comes off as haughtiness.
Black-and-White Thinker: Toska prefers to deal in polarized issues. Either you're with her, or you're against her. Something is either good or bad. Shades of grey get in her way, and she really does not like dealing with it. This is ultimately why she sided with the wherhandlers - clearly Pern's old structure wasn't good, therefore it was awful and the wherhandlers were going to fix it. Simple as that.
Condescending: Toska talks down to people. It's not something she really intends to do, but she's taken it into her head that because she puts her highest emphasis on work ethic, everyone else should have to, and anyone who isn't successful just isn't trying hard enough. Her attempts at being encouraging tend to put people off.
Practical, straightforward, and genial, Toska rarely has time for fights or drama and tends to view everyone with a sort of good-natured condescension. In a wherhold ruled by aggression, where goldhandlers and their charges are expected to be domineering and bloodthirsty, she can be a little jarring – because nobody really expects a goldhandler to cheerfully greet and approach anyone, regardless of social status. Rank doesn’t seem to concern her overmuch. Nor does age, craft, time of origin, or the color of a bondmate. People are people, and they all get just about the same treatment: general, pleasant disinterest. Confidence is key to this forthright woman. That, and enthusiasm: Toska might not always be endearing or sweet-natured, but she’s certainly very ready and eager to do whatever she’s asked. The quicker she gets things done, the sooner she can take on another task; Toska thrives on being busy and making sure everything is thoroughly completed in a timely manner.
In general, she tends to view those not engaged with a bondmate or a craft as either useless (though she would never say that to their faces) or not trying hard enough. As far as she’s concerned, everyone has something they’re good at, and they should go out there and do it to the best of their abilities. This doesn’t necessarily mean she looks down on people of “lower” ranks – the world needs ditch-diggers, too, and Toska has the utmost respect for drudges, as long as those drudges aren’t squandering talent. She has great sympathy for people who are locked into a task they don’t want to do, or those who cannot advance on their own because of Pern’s outdated social structure. That’s another thing about Toska – she doesn’t like old Pern. Trine and the remaining Weyrs have tried and keep Pern in the dark ages, and Toska’s having none of that. Women are equal to men – if not better (and somewhere in the back of her mind, she’s quite convinced that women are both more logical and better leaders than men, otherwise men would Impress gold dragons and gold whers) – and the Weyrs’ social mores are about as interesting to her as wherrydung. And she’s not afraid to tell them so.
She admires physical prowess as much as intellectual skill, and if someone has both, they are on the fast track to earning Toska’s respect – something she doesn’t necessarily give out willingly. She’s a social butterfly and likes working with other people, but doesn’t tend to take orders or advice well if she thinks she has a better idea. Being a goldhandler hasn’t exactly helped matters any. She respects her equals as long as they are not blindingly stupid, but though she’s usually grudgingly open-minded about ideas and viewpoints, if someone is wrong, they are wrong, and Toska won’t hesitate to tell them. Needless to say, she often doesn't get on well with leadership.
She appreciates the value of help but won’t ask for it unless she desperately needs it, and if she does need it, she will ask for it. Pride is Toska’s deadly sin, and if she is offered help that she hasn’t asked for, she gets snappish and nasty. Even the slightest suggestion that she relies on her gold to grant her the respect she holds is the fast-track to Toska’s bad list, and while she rarely holds long grudges, it takes a while for her to regain respect for anyone who has slighted her. She generally avoids physical confrontation – not because she can’t take someone in a fight, but because it's a waste of her time - and prefers verbally cutting opponents down to size. She’s not the most eloquent of speakers, on the whole, but when it comes to curses, she is both creative and quick-thinking.
Romantically, Toska’s honestly not much of a catch. Not prudish but simply too busy or more interested in other things, it usually takes a Flight to get Toska into bed with anyone. Sex just gets in the way of other things she wants to do, and romantic relationships get in the way of getting work done. It’s possible she’ll grow out of it, but it’s more likely that her partners will be temporary at best.
Other:
Wher
Name: Tosk
Age: 6mo
Colour: Gold
Description: [Wherling]
From a distance, Tosk is deceptively pretty for a wher. She has the arched neck and regal figure of some of Igen’s best racing runnerbeasts. Up close, though, she’s not quite as pretty. Her face is slightly-dish-shaped, her eyes are disproportionately enormous, and her wings are short and twisted, even for a wher. There are a dozen little things that are slightly “off” with her, and she's smallish for her color. She makes up for it by being exceptionally agile, taking advantage of her compact form and speed in combat.
Personality: Tosk has yet to grow up, but there is little indication that she’ll grow out of a majority of her personality. She's earnest and forthright, eager to please, and always willing to do whatever Toska asks of her. Desperate to prove herself as worth more to than just eggs, she often overexerts herself. It’s up to Toska to keep her in line, because on her own, Tosk has no sense of propriety or decorum. Leadership is something she struggles with on a daily basis.
She hasn’t yet learned the finer points of self-restraint, and the fact that she’s a hulking great beast hasn't quite registered. Tosk tends to underestimate her own size and strength and hasn’t quite worked out how big she really is compared to things like humans. Obviously, she’s aware that they are fragile and light compared to her, but the opposite – that she’s big and strong compared to them – hasn’t quite worked its way into her head yet. She forgets that she frightens prey animals and has a tendency to knock Toska over when she’s nuzzling her. She still tries to climb into Toska's lap, and will delightedly cuddle anyone willing to give her positive attention. She has, at least, worked out that she needs to keep her loving physical tendencies more or less curtailed, and eventually she will learn what behavior is appropriate and what isn’t – not that she’ll care. She strives to be cheerful in spite of everything and is somewhat humbler than Toska.
When it comes to socializing with other whers, Tosk gets along better with chromatics than she does with metallics. Though she’s only ever met a few other golds, one of them her mother, she knows instinctively that she lacks a great deal of the natural authority that should come with her color, and tends to defer immediately to any wher older and larger than her. Similarly, bronzes make Tosk uncomfortable; she isn’t exactly rabidly excited to someday have eggs, and given her druthers she would, like her handler, prefer to maintain a distance from positions of absolute power. Color hierarchy makes her uneasy, and she tends to feel like she has to prove herself more because she’s a gold, rather than less.
I’s not that she doesn’t want to mate and mother a clutch, it’s just that she doesn’t want that to be all she does. She’s something of a romantic at heart, and quite susceptible to flattery. She doesn’t have the traditional gold ferocity – she’s never going to fight another gold over ‘her’ males – but she will be the sort who will sit and pine quietly if her chosen mate goes after every female that runs. It’s not jealousy, necessarily, just a desire to be some male’s “one and only.” She has almost no interest in humans that aren’t Toska.
Other:
