Approved by Con

Name: Bereck
Age: 43
Gender: Male
Rank: Masterhealer / Discharged rider
Appearance: Bereck is a man who looks older than his turns. He started going grey around thirty and these days most of his hair is white or very pale silver with a blaze of ruddy auburn hanging on in a stripe a couple of inches thick down the centre of his skull but even this is becoming flecked with white and silver. He has a widow's peak hairline, just beginning to deepen as he grows older.

The next factor that ages him is the cane, or rather the fact that he needs one to walk. The elegant silver headed stick is almost always held in his right hand when he walks as he favours the left leg, the limp and reliance on the prop becoming more notable in the cold or when he is especially tired, or just on a bad day when the pain flares up. The cause of the limp is plainly visible under his clothes; old deep scars mar his thigh, the marks of a large wher's teeth. The talon tracks of the same beast tear down his torso crossways several times and down his right side and arm too; these marks are plainly visible when his sleeves are rolled up to work. A close look at his face will reveal a few faint scars as well but you would have to either have very keen eyes or be seriously invading his personal space to spot those.

This aside he has a solid frame with a little middle-aged softness and quite strong shoulders, nothing like a labourer or a 'true' rider but strong enough to do his job that sometimes involves manipulating very large limbs. His face is similarly solid, he has a strong jaw and face shape in general and his lightly tanned features are lined, again beyond his turns, thanks to deep thought and stress. The beauty spot above the right hand corner of his mouth might be considered a flaw by some while others would dub it cute, and others again wouldn't care one way or the other. Still, it is an identifying mark.

What stands out most about Bereck are his eyes. They are an intensely bright blue and their gaze is sharply intelligent and observant, and often more than a little critical. The prominent white brows above those bright eyes are incredibly expressive; he can communicate fairly fine sentiment to people who know him well by differing half raises, twitches, knits, and other miscellaneous semaphore. When he's reading or doing other close up work he wears a pair of small, round, gold-rimmed eyeglasses and Disapproving looks are often aimed over the top of them at people who interrupt him.

Bereck is smartly dressed more or less invariably; smartly but not fancily! He doesn't tolerate frills, flashy embroidery, or overly wide sleeves that are difficult to roll up out of the way. Even his gather clothes are generally restrained but one extravagance in clothing he does indulge in is fur; he really hates the cold, it makes his scars hurt worse than usual, so all of his cloaks and a lot of his tunics are lined with fine fur. Two more extravagances he's often seen with are his firelizards; a medium sized slightly scarred green and a huge cuddly gold. The green is most often draped around his neck or standing on his shoulders giving the world at large a rather critical look while the gold will tend to be perched nearby with a friendly chirp for any passer-by.

One of the last things most might note about Bereck on first meeting him is that he's actually rather small, five foot eight at best. His usually excellent posture and confident manner can't hide his lack of height but still, some are mildly surprised when they come to stand shoulder to shoulder with him and find out just how low down his are.


Personality: Bereck is highly intelligent, essentially decent though not always friendly man whose main interests in life seem to be his work, discovering new things and drinking klah. A lot of klah. The amount of klah he drinks can mainly be attributed to his obsession with the first item on the list; he doesn't seem to know how to 'have a holiday' or 'take it easy', or anything else of that nature. His work as a healer means just about everything to him; he demands the best from himself at all times and can never forgive himself for a mistake or failure. Even if there was nothing he could have done to save somebody's life or limb he feels personally to blame if he can't make somebody - dragon or human - well again. Losing patients sends him deep into a melancholy gloom during which he questions his ability as a healer, and works even harder to compensate for his perceived failings. No matter how many people he saves it's the ones he loses that he remembers, and no matter how much he does he always despairs that he couldn't do more.

As he has been healing a long time and thus lost a lot of people there is a certain worn air to him a lot of the time; he has brushed shoulders with death on countless occasions, and he knows far too well that there is no justice in who they take. Bereck doesn’t believe there’s much justice anywhere in the world come to that; he’s rather cynical about human nature, and how the world is ordered, and about who gets ahead and why. In his slightly cranky and sometimes snarky way he struggles to make his corner of the world slightly better through his healing and through standing up for things and for people when it matters, but he fears that he makes little difference in the end. It’s not just in healing that he’s a perfectionist; in all aspects of life he feels he could always have done a better job.

Bereck is a calm pragmatic man in a crisis, raising his voice only in order to be heard over a hubbub and offering a steady strong presence to panicked patients and or friends, dragons, riders, and significant others. Outside of a crisis he's certainly not volatile but he is short on patience with idiots, people he thinks are idiots, loud people and bullies. Not given to physical violence or cussing streams he tends to deal with such people either with short barks or snarks to get out of his hair, or with long lectures about why they're idiots (and why they should then get out of his hair). Yes, he is a bit of a stick in the mud, and no an amusing string of practical jokes will not get him to change, it will just lead to a longer lecture. Once something has annoyed him he tends to stay in a grouchy mood either for the rest of the day, or until somebody cheers him up. The cheering up isn't actually hard to people that know him, a cup of klah made how he likes it or a similar small gesture will usually do the trick; he appreciates being thought of, and people paying enough attention to know the things he likes.

Bereck is not a dominant sort. He's not submissive and easily cowed, just generally disinterested in who's supposedly more important than whom outside of 'this is srs bizness and we need a chain of command right now'. He listens to good sense when he hears it if it comes from an apprentice or the Weyrhealer, and likewise ignores/corrects what he considers idiocy whether it comes from an apprentice or the anyone anywhere up the pecking order. Most of the time however he's convinced that he is in the right and he can't help but correct people whether they like it or not. He never sets out to correct in condescending tones but he can (and often does) come off as superior, and also disrespectful if he's admonishing somebody higher ranking than he is.

Tending towards the reserved, Bereck prefers to keep strong emotions to himself. He's hardly a flawless actor so observant people around him will probably be able to tell if something is bothering him, but good luck getting him to talk about it; he likes to keep private things private thank you so much, and trying to persuade him to discuss something he doesn't want to will earn you only Grump. Even with those he's close to he avoids discussing problems; he'll usually brush enquiries off or dismiss issues as unimportant, and once again prodding him only results in grouchiness. If he ever does want to talk about something he will do so in his own damn time, though that time is usually 'never' due to a combination of quiet pride, habitual self-reliance, and just not wanting to burden the people he cares about. While in general he tries to avoid getting overly enthused around people he's unfamiliar with too, he's not especially good at it if something awesome is present/being discussed. Try though he might he tends to geek out and ramble excitedly over things that fascinate him, only to realize he's doing so and trail off looking faintly embarrassed. People he's close to however can expect him to keep going on about whatever it is for a very long time, whether they're actually interested or not.


History:

The Condensed Version
- Bereck is born in I5-160; his parents are journeywoman healer Berinya and V'eck of bronze Uktith, they choose to look after him themselves as much as is possible.
- Bereck grows up not much liking other crèche kids and hangs around running little errands in the infirmary once old enough; he decides he wants to be a healer not a rider.
- His relationship with his father cools, he becomes an apprentice aged 10.
- When Bereck is 12 his mother suffers a severe head injury, followed by fits and weeks of unconsciousness. She awake with Anterograde amnesia, unpredictable moods and intermittent fits.
- Bereck travels to healer hall aged seventeen to study for journeyman knots, returns to the Weyr aged 18.
- Aged 19 he accidentally has a son with a friend of his. Woops. He ends up raising Aleck on his own/with crèche help after the first 8 months.
- Aged 21 he accidentally Impresses green Berath whilst attending a hatching in his capacity as a healer. Woops.
- Aged 23 he is still a pissed off Weyrling, and is crippled when bandits attack the Weyrling class he was out on a mock patrol with.
- He survives but will clearly never be able to serve, and receives an honourable discharge. Goes back to his work as a healer, acquires a green firelizard (Vena) as a helper.
- Aged 28 he meets Alina, they become a couple quickly.
- Aged 30 Bereck returns to Healer Hall to complete his studies for his Mastery. He returns three turns later having succeeded and acquires another firelizard (gold Aorta) as a larger helper, and also deterrent to firelizard mischief in the infirmary.
- The Dragonplague happens.
- In turn 195 Berath is injured by whers from Rutha while Bereck is treating wounded cotholders in a field hospital. Berath recovers with a few pretty new scars.
- In turn 199 Bereck acquires a squire. He's not thrilled by her at first but soon warms to her.
- Rensoua is injured by bandits while out on a mission with Bereck. As she recovers he gives her a gold firelizard egg, laid by Aorta (from the only clutch she has produced to date).
- Bad stuff happens with Rensoua re: her blood parents being addicts and her finding out Bereck uses it. They eventually reconcile and he resolves to stop using it to treat his chronic pain.
- Thread falls, lots of people die, Bereck is v busy.
- Rensoua Impresses brown Kyoth; Bereck is very proud, and thrilled for her, but worries about what her future holds.


The Long Version
Bereck was born in turn I5-160. His parents were journeywoman healer Berinya and V'eck of bronze Uktith, rider of second wing. V'eck was nineteen and Berinya eighteen, and both were highly idealistic and more than a bit naive. Convinced of their True Love they decided to take as much responsibility for their son as they could given they were both busy people, especially V'eck as he was quick to point out. If he was going to be a wingsecond in his twenty fifth turn then he had a lot of work to do!

Bereck's earliest distinct memories revolve around the infirmary, where he spent most of his time once he was old enough to be trusted not to get underfoot. He spent his time in one of the communal journeymans' offices with his mother while she did paperwork, or was watched by one of her friends if she was working with patients. Healers, the small boy decided, were very important. All the people he knew and liked best were healers (besides his father) and they were all very clever and largely tolerant of his incessant questions. So it was that at about six Bereck decided he was going to be a healer, and probably a rider too because that seemed to be rather expected of him and also he loved Uktith a lot.

When he got a little older Bereck worked out that if you were a rider that was all you were, no option to be a healer as well. Much as he loved Uktith therefore he decided he'd just have to be a healer and anyway he kind of had a dragon in Uktith so it was alright really. Not so far as V'eck was concerned it wasn't. V'eck planned for his son to Impress a bronze like he had and to become a wingsecond when he was twenty five, as he had failed to do. The bronze rider started trying to give Bereck lessons that he believed would put him at the top of the class when he became a candidate, planning for him to be noticed by an important rider - preferably first wing's wingleader - and chosen as a squire. Bereck's interest in all of this was exactly nil, in fact he was outright resentful of the whole thing as the lessons with his father were time he couldn't spend running errands in the infirmary.

Aged ten Bereck became an apprentice healer officially, receiving a set of knots from Weyrhealer Wen. V'eck promptly took the knots away leading to a huge row between him and Berinya. Eventually the knots were returned to Bereck but he never forgot or forgave, and neither did V'eck forgive his son's refusal to do his duty and step forward as a candidate. Berinya tried to bring her little family back together but without success, Bereck was living with them aged twelve but he and his father spoke only at need and usually in anger. Later in this turn Berinya's attempts to bring about reconciliation ended, as did her attempts at most things in fact. Rushing down a flight of stairs she tripped and struck her head. After two weeks of unsonciousness and fits she awoke but when she did she was different; her thoughts were slowed, her moods unpredictable and she had lost the ability to form new memories. Devastated by the loss of his mother - living or not, she was gone - Bereck turned to his father for comfort but the bronze rider pushed him away, unable to stand a reminder of his weyrmate. The loss of her took away the bronze rider's fire and drive too and he dropped from Second Wing down into one of the third tier wings.

Bereck abruptly found himself out of his parents' weyr and into the apprentice healer barracks, though honestly he should already have been there. He hated the loss of privacy, hated the other apprentices, hated most things in fact other than his craft and his Master. Master Wen however didn't have time to be latched onto as a substitute parent and nor did he have the inclination to play favorites and so though he was fond of and kind to Bereck, as he was this to all of his apprentices, he did not allow the kind of strong connection the young healer craved to form.

As the turns passed Bereck grew ever more obsessed with his work, he didn't try to make friends and wasn't interested in girls (or boys); the only relationship he kept up besides his continued attempts to connect closely with Wen was... well not really a relationship in his opinion, it's hard to have a relationship when every conversation you have with the other person goes more or less the same. Berinya was always confused when she woke up in the mornings, but she was always reassured that she'd just had an accident and was suffering from some memory loss that should be temporary. Seeing her twelve year old boy as an awkward skinny teenager was a shock for her every time but every time he reassured her that everything was fine and recounted a few stories from the last few turns for her; he and V'eck got along now, V'eck had moved up to First Wing, had made it to wingsecond and no doubt in time would become wingleader. More or less as soon as Bereck left the room Berinya would forget everything that had been said and so he would fairly often have the same conversation with her twice in the same day. Sometimes Bereck told her the truth but not often and only in moments of deep frustration because the truth made her cry; lies were better, lies and sitting with her doing some simple task for the infirmary together. Sometimes he wished that she'd just died instead of living on as a shadow of the woman who had loved him and cared for him so well but he never mentioned that to anyone, it was a wicked thing to think about your mother wasn't it?

Aged seventeen Bereck left High Reaches Weyr for Healer Hall to study for his journeyman knots. He felt guilty for leaving his mother behind but she had friends who visited her still, who promised to tell her how well he was doing at the Hall and that would just have to suffice. After a turn of study and assessment Bereck walked the tables and chose to begin specializing in trauma care and surgery in humans and dragons, much needed skills at a Weyr given the amount of trouble riders got themselves into. Bereck return to High Reaches Weyr soon after walking the tables and at last had his own private space; it was a tiny single room but it was his and he didn't have to share it with people who in his opinion had only a passing familiarity with cleanliness and organization.

Soon after his return to the Weyr Bereck met a tall blonde journeywoman healer named Alari and in her he made the first good friend he'd had in turns. It wasn't long before this turned into friends with benefits and... okay maybe they were less careful than they could have been. Wen was not impressed with either of them but Alari wanted to have the child and Bereck quickly agreed to raise it with her; he was not going to abandon his own child unlike some fathers. Aleck was born when Bereck was nineteen and at first everything went as well as could be expected. About eight months later however Alari, who had been unhappy for some time, decided that enough was enough; she had romanticized motherhood in her mind but found that the reality was not what she wanted from life at all. She transferred to Tillek Hold and that was the last Bereck heard of her.

Well, shaffing fine, he'd manage on his own then! Though Alari's departure and the consequent increase in parenting duties prompted Bereck to develop a polyphasic sleep schedule that saw him sleeping for about four hours a day Aleck still had to spend some time in the creche to allow the healer to keep up with his work. Bereck wasn't happy about it but he didn't have a lot of choice, there was nobody he trusted personally to watch his son so the Weyr's system would just have to fill the gap for the hours he wasn't able to be there.

Bereck had more or less settled into a routine by the time he was twenty one having grown into a rather stoic self-reliance and out of his desperate attempts to gain special affection from his Master. If he earned attention for his work that was excellent but he wasn't going to try to get it just for himself personally anymore, it was a waste of energy to try and he didn't need it in any case. Wanted, but didn't need. He didn't get into any major relationships but he had flings here and there, all fizzling out sooner or later as he or the woman in question lost interest/patience.

Stability, however, did not last for long. Having turned twenty-one Bereck knew that the chances of him Impressing a dragon were tiny especially - he believed - as somebody who didn't want one and so he felt safe in attending the next Hatching in his capacity as a healer. This turned out to be a miscalculation. Breaking protocol to run out onto the Sands and help a candidate who had been mauled by a bronze hatchling and then rescued by a green, Bereck was pretty sure that he was going to get a severe talking to from Wen at the very least but he believed it was the right thing to do and so he did it. After a quick initial binding of the candidate's injuries he carried her to the edge of the Sands where the other healers were. Turning around he saw the green hatchling who had saved the girl and assuming that it was hers he stepped out of its way. A moment later he realised his error when the hatchling's eyes whirled rainbow and she spoke to him; she was Berath and she was his.

When you're a rider that's all you are. Bereck didn't regret Berath, couldn't, but he was furious with the world and the system that forced him to submit to having his head shaved, that tore him from his comfortable little room and shoved him into weyrling barracks, that took his craft - his great passion - away from him. It more or less took Aleck away from him too, he could only see his son on rest days, in the sparse free time he was able to snatch if he ate meals fast enough, or did his work fast enough in the evenings. Full of resentment and impotent rage Bereck dug his heels in and refused to strive to catch up to the rest of the class, young people who had been preparing to Impress and hoping to Impress for at least the last two turns. He did homework assignments and he did them well but he refused to pick up a sword when the time for weapons drills came. A turn in he was assigned to squire for a veteran rider who was supposed to knock him into shape but still Bereck point blank refused to pick up a weapon. The rest of the class graduated to wings, Bereck did not.

Three turns after Impressing Berath, Bereck was still an angry Weyrling and a major thorn in the Weyrlingmaster's side. With a new class now coming through Bereck had to sit in on their lectures, ones he'd heard before, and do old assignments over again. Needless to say he was not pleased and nor was he made popular by his refusal to step up and become a true rider, even if only a member of fifth wing. Bereck met scorn with scorn; he knew what he wanted to do with his life and he happened to be very good at it! He would be much more use as a healer than just another pair of hands with a dragon attached to them but few if any cared to hear that, it was a great honour to be chosen by a dragon and he was dishonouring his by his actions and that was unforgivable even if she was just a green.

Bereck might have sat through many classes of Weyrlings if not for what happened out on a field exercise. The class was just beginning to take long flights together and a mock patrol trip was planned out eastwards. The Weyrlingmaster, taken ill with a cough and a fever assigned one of his assistants - B'ren of brown Noverth - to run the expedition. Perhaps patrols in the area could have been better. Perhaps B'ren should have stuck to the plan... B'ren should definitely have stuck to the plan; run the patrol flight, and return to the Weyr with the class. Instead of doing that he decided to prove his initiative to the Weyrlingmaster by incorporating another exercise into the day; the class would dive into a canyon, practicing a landing and then a take off in confined conditions. When the whole class (including a surly Bereck) had landed and dismounted B'ren launched into an impromptu lecture. "And so you see-" were his last words.

The bandits - fugitives from the law and former members of a Free Company disbanded by the Weyr for its violent actions - might have thought that they were about to be discovered by a true patrol and decided to strike while they had the element of surprise. Maybe they couldn't believe their luck when a class of near defenceless Weyrlings from the Weyr they hated landed right by their hidden camp in a cavern. Whatever their thoughts at the time, they struck. An arrow went through B'ren's skull and then through the eye of a brown weyrling killing both instantly, sending Noverth between with a cry of grief and the weyrling's rider Haven to his knees with a scream. More arrows flew from the cave striking riders and dragons, slaying some of each and wounding others. Bereck moved to drag a fellow green rider to safety even as Berath moved forward to block the arrows, bellowing to the younger dragons to get their riders and the wounded and get into the air.

The casualties might not have been so great if not for the whers. A green and a hulking brown sprung from the cave and charged, the green slipping past Berath to pounce on a bronze weyrling who was struggling to get into the air with an arrow sticking into his wing. As Berath spun to try to help him the brown surged past on the other side, to where Bereck was trying to get the injured rider he had been helping up onto his dragon. The young green gave a shrill cry of warning and Bereck turned just in time to see the brown mid leap. The green weyrling with her injured rider shot into the sky and the brown wher knocked Bereck to the ground, claws and fangs ripping his flesh like wet parchment. Berath wheeled around from the freshly slain green wher with a scream of rage, pain and terror and cuffed the brown back from her rider. The two became locked in combat as the last of the young pairs scrambled to get into the sky and out of arrow range. Many jumped between in panic trying to return to the Weyr and, untrained, were never seen again.

It was probably only the arrival of a true patrol - the riders of Second Wing, alerted by the dragon death cries - that saved any of the class at all. Half the wing moved to secure the Weyrlings, grasping them in mid-air to safely carry them between back to the Weyr while the other half moved in to deal with the bandits. Pressure on the brown wher's mind from several of the wing held it still and Berath took out its throat before taking to the sky at the wingleader's urging; a swift green had already dived to scoop up her unconscious rider, there was no reason for her to remain.

A few hours later the Weyr was counting and mourning its senseless losses. Eighteen of the twenty-nine strong class were gone, killed by the bandits or lost between. A few of those dead dragons left riders behind, though some not for very long. More riders died over the coming days and the healers expected Bereck - their former colleague - to join their number at any minute. As each minute, hour and day passed however he kept taking shallow breaths though he remained deeply unconscious. He woke for the first time weeks later when Berath was just beginning to recover from the wounds she had taken from arrows and whers alike, and though he was incoherent first with agony and then with the fellis he was given to ease the pain it gave the heavily scarred green hope that he would recover. Unable to communicate with her rider properly even when he was awake Berath occupied herself with looking after and distracting Aleck who, though very young, was old enough to know that being kept from seeing his father meant nothing good.

It was more than two months after the initial attack before Bereck was awake on a regular basis and at times on a low enough dose of fellis to be coherent. Aleck was allowed to see him then and the healers he had worked with before Impressing spent time with him too, as did the aging Master Wen. A rather more unexpected visitor about a month on again was the Weyrleader. He delivered a note from one of the Veterans' wings along with a set of knots; the note asked Bereck if he would like to join them next time he came to dinner. Once Bereck had accepted the items with a dazed and puzzled look the Weyrleader passed over a letter which conferred an honourable discharge on the green rider. Technically, the Weyrleader explained, this meant that he had briefly graduated from Weyrlinghood earning the rights of an adult rider but as he hadn't taken his oath he wasn't entitled to elide his name. Bereck failed to take much of this in properly at the time but he was grateful later, and grateful too for the compensation money he was entitled to as a rider crippled in the line of duty... sort of. He wasn't about to argue semantics when it went in his favour. He used the marks along with his savings from his time as a journeyman to buy a small firelizard egg for himself; he had a feeling that he would need the use of an extra little set of hands from then on. The egg hatched into a green who he named Vena Cava, usually referred to as Vena.

Bereck's discharge freed him not only from the stigma of being the weyrling who wouldn't graduate (mostly it did anyway, some people remembered), it allowed him to return to his crafting. As he continued to recover, first able to sit up unaided and then slowly learning to stand and walk again, he studied all the texts he could get hold of to bring himself back up to speed and progress his studies. More than half a turn after the massacre in the canyon Bereck was able to walk short distances by himself again, albeit with the aid of a cane. From there he continued to improve and as his health got better he spent more time on his craft. While the circumstances of coming back to healing were far from ideal Bereck finally started to feel happy again; he had his own room again, was able to have Aleck living with him again and was doing what he loved. The pain and limitations that remained with him were an acceptable exchange, in his own mind at least.

Aged twenty eight Bereck met a Starcrafter named Alina who had injured herself walking into a table. The pair clicked almost instantly and once Alina's leg was seen to Bereck asked her out for dinner and a study swap. Things progressed quickly from there and within a few months they were Weyrmates and managed to claim a nice little pair of rooms for themselves (well one for them and one for Aleck) down near the infirmary. Berath took a ledge up near the top of the weyrbowl, attached to an especially small weyr it was unoccupied and unlikely to become so in the near future.

Master Wen died when Bereck was thirty. Bereck had expected to care but not as much as he did when it finally happened after months of fading. He had never gained special affection from the Weyrhealer but Wen had been his role model and at least a caring presence in his life if not the replacement parent he had wanted. With Aleck just starting an apprenticeship and Alina back at Starcraft Hall studying for her Mastery Bereck felt a little at sea. After moping around for a couple of weeks however he gave himself a firm kick up the rear and transferred to Healer Hall to finish studying for his own Mastery; time away from his craft with Impression and injury had seen to it that he didn't make it in that turn as he had wanted to but moping wouldn't change that either, all he could do was move forward and so he did. At the Hall he was able to focus all of his energy into walking the tables once more rather than dealing with the day to day emergencies of the Weyr and he progressed rapidly. The only time off he took was to write notes to Aleck and Alina every day and visit each of them whenever time permitted, at least three times a week each for a couple of hours. Sleep is for people who don't have potent enough klah.

Bereck finally earned his Mastery aged thirty-three, still impressive in the great scheme of things but not quite what he had hoped for. He was glad it was done though and that he and Berath could move back to High Reaches Weyr, his dragon had been missing living with her kin and honestly he had missed the place too. Before going to the Weyr however he took a brief trip to Ista to purchase a gold firelizard egg for himself. It was a practical extravagance, he insisted, a gold firelizard established in the infirmary would deter others from causing a nuisance and her large size meant that she could help him with fetching and carrying far more than his green; even turns on from the incident in the canyon he needed a cane to walk and struggled with pain, taking fellis on a fairly regular basis (but only off duty) to deal with bad flare ups. The extra assistance a big firelizard could give would allow him to avoid asking people for help with little tasks that were difficult, needing others to help him always stabbed his pride and weighed down his self esteem and so why wouldn't he all he could to avoid having to ask? The gold hatched healthy and he named her Aorta.

For the first couple of months of turn 193 life was good for Bereck; he was living with Alina again, now a Master herself, in a beautiful set of quarters befitting two Masters. He was well respected by (most of) the other healers and took great pleasure in his work, in saving and improving lives. It wasn't entirely perfect - he didn't see Aleck as much as he would have liked and there were those painful, repetitive meetings with his mother to deal with again - but on the whole he was happy, right up until the dragons started to get sick. Over the last six months of the turn High Reaches lost near sixty percent of its dragonkin to the merciless ravages of the plague and Bereck amputated more gangrenous extremities than he can recall. Bereck - all of the healers - worked tirelessly to find a cure but the search was fruitless and at the start of turn 194 the disease petered out of its own accord. Countless dragonless men and women were left behind, though many did not linger for long, as were dragons and whers weakened or even crippled by the plague's effects.

In turn 194 Bereck slowly worked his way out of the pattern of work, work, eat, work, nap, work, eat, and so on that he had maintained through the plague. In part it had just become habit to do nothing but work but it was conscious at least to some degree too, punishment for what he perceived as personal failure. He always did have unattainably high standards for himself. Over the coming months he rearranged his schedule back to baseline levels of workaholism, though he never was able to forgive himself for not being able to do more for the dragonkin of the Weyr. In truth his recovery can be mainly attributed to the efforts and support of his weyrmate Alina, who had also seen him through the horrific months of the plague itself by making sure he ate and found him and put a blanket over him wherever he had fallen asleep. They married late in that turn; it was a private ceremony involving only the pair of them, Alina's close kin from her hold, Aleck, a harper, and of course Berath.

In 195 Bereck and Berath were called out to a field hospital that had been set up in a cavern to deal with the aftermath of a battle between High Reaches Hold and Ruatha. While Bereck worked inside Berath stood guard, and was the first to see a Hunt of whers leap from a precipice above them and glide down to attack. The green stepped forward to guard the cave mouth and was soon joined by a HR Hold Hunt. The clash was brief but brutal; the Ruathan Hunt outnumbered them by four and was led by a gold, a fact that was only just balanced out by Berath's presence. In the end the HR huntleader, a sleek green, succeeded in charging the gold wher while Berath mentally suppressed her and sending them both plunging to their deaths, along with the gold's handler. The rest of the Ruathan Hunt was routed but they escaped between before they could be captured. Berath was seriously wounded in the clash and had to spend a couple of sevendays recuperating before she could get into the air and back to High Reaches Weyr with the assistance of two large browns. The big tough green recovered with scars and a sometimes tender right forefoot to show for the experience, and life went on again.

In turn 199 Bereck found himself cornered by the candidatemaster, who was wearing the sort of cheerful grin he usually directed at his charges before leading them off on a four mile pre-dawn run. Bereck was suspicious and rightly so for after pleasantries the gold rider swiftly swooped in with a request; he had a very bright, very arrogant candidate who he felt needed dragging down off her high horse a bit. As Bereck had technically graduated from weyrlinghood he was eligible to take on a squire; Venk felt that assigning the troublesome candidate to a discharged rider who had never actually served might reign in her ego a little, and equally that Bereck would be able to keep her bright mind engaged. After some hesitation and grumbling about demands on his valuable time Bereck agreed, it would actually be quite satisfying to knock a dragon candidate down a couple of pegs. It didn't quite work out like that in the end.

Initially the candidate, Rensoua, was indeed less than thrilled with her assignment but Bereck was perhaps partially forgiven for undoubtedly stunting her amazing career when he introduced her to the personal library of books he and Alina had collected over the turns. At any rate, relations got easier from there and over time the pair become fond of one another as squires and their riders often are.

An incident involving Bereck being called to stabilize a wounded rider in the field and transport them back to the Weyr that led to Rensoua being wounded by a bandit as she (bravely and stupidly) engaged with one of them when things went wrong, buying time for Bereck get the casualty into the transport-cradle, brought the pair closer. While Rensoua was recovering Bereck gave her a gold firelizard egg from the first clutch Aorta had ever laid. It was perhaps an overly extravagant gift but Bereck didn't care; he was just relieved that his squire was alive and not crippled, and the look on her face when she saw the egg definitely made the few disparaging comments he got worthwhile.

Their relationship hit a snag a few months later... 'snag' is putting it rather lightly. Over the turns Bereck had continued to use fellis on a fairly regular basis usually perhaps once or twice a week but sometimes every evening though bad patch, though still never on duty or when he expected to see anyone other than Alina for a few hours. This did not quite go according to plan however; one evening Rensoua dropped by with a completed essay and... she knew, it would be hard for her not to recognise the signs of fellis affecting somebody given her birth parents had both been severe addicts.

A painful discussion followed the next day; Rensoua simply didn't feel able to cope with associating so closely with somebody who used the substance and Bereck's promise to quit entirely was one she'd heard all too often before. Rensoua left, intending to ask to be assigned to a different rider. Bereck was devastated; he had always been secretly ashamed of his use of the drug and now it had cost him his relationship with Rensoua who he had come to love as a daughter. Her departure seemed to confirm all his worst fears; that he was an addict, that people would judge him harshly if they knew, that it made him a lesser person, a bad person. Logical? No, but he wasn't exactly in the frame of mind to apply logic.

Fortunately candidatemaster Venk refused Rensoua's request; candidates do not get to ask for new riders to squire to based on personal preferences. If she ever wanted to be declared ready to stand, he said, she would have to report back to Bereck and continue her squireship. Eventually she did return to speak to the masterhealer and there was another awkward conversation, during which Bereck reiterated his promise to stop using fellis. Things were awkward for a while but trust was slowly rebuilt and Bereck kept his promise, though not without cost. While he couldn't deny shameful enjoyment of its insidious effects on the mind he hadn't been taking fellis for fun; giving up the relief from pain it offered was and remains a physical and mental strain.

When the new Pass began Bereck was swamped with work; the riders of Pern had trained as best they could but nobody was truly ready for those first falls and the losses and injuries were catastrophic. All the healers of the Weyr could do was put as many pairs back together as possible as quickly as possible so that they could get back out to fight. After the first turn and a half or so injuries started to decline as the adult riders grew used to the intense action of falls, though younger pairs continued to struggle more as they had less overall experience to draw on.

Bereck was half hoping that Rensoua might age out and be spared the dangerous life of a rider (not that he voiced the hope) but it was not to be; in the second turn of the Sixth Pass she Impressed to brown Kyoth. Seeing his squire - daughter in all but name - unite with her bondmate he was proud of course, and overjoyed for her, but he couldn't help but worry about what her future would hold.


Dragon

Name: Berath
Age: 22
Colour: Green
Feel of voice: A warm strong embrace, a broad wing to shelter you from harm, or the rain. A crackling fire in a homely hearth. A torch to light the way.
Appearance: ...That has to be a green, right? It's very very green, so it must be. Umm.... Well she's certainly an impressive lady. She's big, as big as an average blue, and her build is massively powerful. Her legs quite short, and her tail and neck aren't exactly long and sinuous either which only adds to her compact, stocky appearance. Wingspan however is something she doesn't lack; her wings are long and broad giving her excellent lift and good endurance in the air. Also notable are Berath's scars; her plain mossy hide is crisscrossed with old lacerations and bite marks, most of which look to be the work of whers. Some are so old that they've faded to almost nothing but there are some more recent looking ones too. (28' long, 6'8" to the shoulder).


Personality: Berath will look after you, Berath will look after everyone! As is perhaps fitting for her massive build Berath is a mother bear; woe betide anyone who harms one of hers, or one too weak to defend themselves! There is nothing she would not do to make sure those she loves are as safe and happy as can be, discounting of course her physical inability to willfully harm a human. She will fight a bronze dragon for you, she will take Thread for you, she will give her own life and even endanger her rider’s life to keep another safe, because she knows he shares her desire to keep people from harm.

Though roused easily to anger by attacks on those she loves and those she thinks need protection, in other circumstances she is a calm and steady sort. Stress is something that happens to other people, mostly her rider apparently; a great portion of her life has been spent trying to keep him from getting so stressed he explodes. She also spends a lot of time making sure that he does occasionally sleep and eat, and does the same for anyone else who she thinks takes too much upon themselves. She generally has a solid, straightforward and even blunt approach to this though so despite her best intentions it doesn’t always work and she can come off as being rather rude or bossy. If she is accused of this she will be mildly hurt, and say she was merely trying to be helpful!

If there is something one of hers or somebody who fits her ‘needs looking after’ category wants or needs, she will go to great lengths to get it or to see that is it got. No matter how much it puts her out, no matter if they could have got it or done it for themselves, she will do it for them. In this instance she is rather like a mother again, the one who will drop three children off at three different things of an evening having just been at work all day. She doesn’t see it as being taken advantage of even when somebody blatantly is just using her good nature to get away with being lazy; she is happy to help, and just wants to see people happy. Whether you want her kill that she was about to eat, or just to hug her silently without being pestered by questions she is more than happy to oblige.

It should be noted that Berath is slightly resentful towards golds. She tries very hard not to be, and feels guilty for feeling as she does, but she cannot help her jealousy. They can have hatchlings of their own, and she cannot. If a gold needs her help she will still be there for them but her manner will be stiff and formal, chilly not respectful. It's not their fault they have what she cannot have but that doesn't change how she feels.


Other: Bereck has two firelizards Vena Cava and Aorta Transferish from Sands with three RPs: x x x