Approved by Con

THE RIDER/HANDLER
Name: Miskael
Age: 20
Gender: Male

Appearance: Miskael is pretty sharding tall. Nearly six feet - well, more like five eleven and a half, but he can fudge the last half-inch with floofy hair and excessive enthusiasm, right? He's not THE tallest, especially around some of the built-like-a-brick-wall guys, but he's... still pretty darn tall, really. (Especially when you consider he's not even cis, he just kind of hit the genetic jackpot.) But he's not burly in the slightest. He's a beanpole, miles and miles of legs and not much in the way of breadth. Miskael's not completely without muscle: his limbs are wiry and strong, with some definition and toning to them, the kind you get from plenty of brisk physical activity. He's just naturally not inclined to be bulky. There are a few faint, old burn scars on his forearms from an accident with molten glass a long time ago. He's also got a bit of the ladyhips going on, but it's really not enough to make you turn your head unless you know what to look for. Miskael's been doing this for ten turns and he's pretty confident in the security of his illusion by now. (It helps that he's naturally got... well, nothing up top, even before you add in binding.)

He's black, with short frizzy hair of the kind that tends to floof uncontrollably. He shaved it during Candidacy, found that it made him look even more androgynous than usual, and as soon as he was allowed he let it grow out as it pleased. These days it's just enough length that it tends to form a bit of a silly halo around his head. Sometimes he'll throw a hat or a brightly colored bandana over it, but more often he'll just wear a set of slightly tinted flight goggles - the only splurge in his modest wardrobe. The rest of his clothing is fairly simple and practical, and more often than not looks slightly too big for his lean frame. His features are notably leaning towards the feminine side, attractive but not stunning. But he has an absolutely adorable smile, the kind that lights up the whole face and crinkles the corners of his dark eyes.

Personality: Get it done.

These are the words that Miskael seems to live by. It doesn't matter what you choose to do with your life. But whatever it is, do it right. Do it well. Apply yourself with passion and for Faranth's sake use your brain, don't just sit there and wait for others to tell you what to do. Miskael isn't a particularly intimidating individual - if anything, he tends to strike people as awkwardly shy and a little too softhearted for his own good - but there is a certain intensity about him that can be occasionally disconcerting. It means he dances cheerfully all over the line between "adorable" and "slightly unnerving."

As might be expected from this, he tends to devote himself to things wholeheartedly. And not just one thing. Miskael's got room in his life for a lot of passions. Dragonriding is the primary one, but he's also something of an amateur naturalist, happily filling up leatherbound journals full of meticulous notes and amateur sketches in charcoal or ink. He's utterly fascinated by dragons and their relatives: he used to be kind of obsessed with dragonriders from afar, and then someone introduced him to the real thing and he nearly had an aneurysm of pure delight. It was really no surprise to anyone when he Impressed Descanth, and now he's saving up bit by bit to buy himself a firelizard egg.

Miskael is very social, and enjoys being in the company of others. However, he's not someone who is at all comfortable grabbing the spotlight. He would rather simply be present, listening attentively, chiming in as he sees fit... But try to put him in a leader role and he'll immediately freeze up and fall to pieces. No, he's the guy who comes up with the ideas, toys with them until they're practical and realistic, and then hands them off to someone louder and more charismatic who can actually pitch those ideas. He's pretty casual about affection, at least of the platonic kind; Miskael is honestly not very interested in physical relationships, but he does love friendly or affectionate contact. Hugs are the best thing. If you're upset and you need a hug, go to Miskael, because he is good at them and gives them quite freely. The exception to this is people who get up all in his personal space without permission, whether in a physically aggressive or overtly sexual kind of way... He tends to react strongly negatively to this, and he's got zero compunctions about defending himself and his bodily autonomy.

While he's soft-spoken, he does have a sort of quiet infectious joie de vivre about him... as well as a strong streak of social justice activism. He's got weirdly progressive ideas for a Pernese man, ones that have been further radicalized by the libertine attitudes of the weyr. He does know when to keep his opinions to himself, and he tries not to force lectures on people... but yes, careless words from others can occasionally draw an impassioned speech out of him. A surprisingly level and grounded-in-logic impassioned speech, but a speech nonetheless.

He has a fascination with the exotic and the unknown, but tempered by a healthy dose of pragmatism and overall savviness. Horror movies don't really exist on Pern, but nonetheless Miskael seems to have an instinctive understanding of the tropes that ought to be avoided. You would never catch him, for instance, going down into the dark basement by himself. Or suggesting that the little team of survivors should split up to cover more ground. Or poking the dead thing with a stick to make sure it's really dead. And under all the sweetness and the smiles, there is a streak of absolutely uncompromising steely resolve. Miskael considers himself a 'practical pacifist', in that he avoids conflict and violence when possible, but also accepts the necessity of self-defense. On the other hand, if he is pushed to the point where self-defense is the only option remaining to him, all bets are off. If you're going to fight, don't be half-assed about it, that's how he sees it.

In essence, he gives off the impression that, if the apocalypse were to come to Pern tomorrow, he would be one of the survivors who found himself a blade and a flamethrower and a safe place to fortify, and he would live, shardit. And so would all the people he cares about.

History: Miskael is really, really exceptionally fortunate that he was born at Tillek.

He was born to a small, sane, and relatively stable family; they had been trying for several turns to conceive successfully, and the presence of a healthy young child was an absolute delight to them. If there was any disappointment regarding the child's sex, then it was fleeting at most.

Nonetheless, Miskael was aware from a very young age that there was something... not quite right, even before he could put the words to it. It took him a while to puzzle out - gender is a complex issue, and even more complex when it's inextricably tied into social role. No one can reasonably expect a seven-turn-old to sort out how much of his internal thoughts are gender identity and how much are a desire to escape the pressure of being the 'weaker' sex in a patriarchal society. Fortunately, it didn't matter much, thanks to Tillek's thoughts on men: either would have been an acceptable reason, though it turned out to be the former rather than the latter. His parents were more than happy for their eldest to be a son rather than a daughter, and as soon as he was deemed old enough Miskael was officially male in law as well as in spirit.

At around the same time, he was apprenticed to Glasscraft, to a somewhat irascible old mastercrafter who didn't give a flying green flit whether the new apprentice preferred skirts or trousers or a fetching wherhide loincloth, as long as he shut up and paid attention and didn't do anything stupid. He took to the craft immediately - there was one unlucky incident with molten glass when he was a bit too eager to experiment with his own projects, but if anything that just taught him the value of a bit of caution. Soon enough he'd progressed from sitting and watching, or fetching ingredients, into actually being permitted to create simple items by himself. Vials and beakers for the healers, glass beads for the weavers, brilliantly colored ornamental pieces for anyone with a few spare marks... He enjoyed the work, found a certain sense of pride in it.

And then he met a dragon. Specifically, he met a Searchdragon, at age fifteen, when his friend Lanakirene dragged him away from his work to participate in the yearly lineup. And that was... well, the beginning of the end. Miskael fell in love instantly. All dragonkin were magnificent beasts in his eyes, but there was a difference between the elderly wher who stalked the Hold and a real live dragon. Protectors of Pern! Fabled riders of legend and song! It's fair to say that the poor boy was more or less vibrating with excitement by the time the Searchdragon declared him to have some potential.

His family was... a little worried about the decision. While High Reaches had been taking Candidates from Tillek for a long time, the Weyr was still... not the same as the Hold. It was simultaneously better and not quite so kind to someone like Miskael, a concept that they struggled to impress upon him. They didn't expect trouble, but for everyone's peace of mind it would be better if he was discreet, and a little bit cautious about who he told. Lanakirene would know, naturally. For everyone else... well, Miskael already knew how to pitch his voice, how to bind, and how to strategically utilize a balled-up sock, among other skills. No reason to anticipate anything becoming an issue.

Life at the Weyr was... a bit of an adjustment. Okay, a lot of an adjustment. Miskael, with long-ingrained habits of being a profoundly private person, found living in the barracks to be virtually intolerable for the first few months, and he fardling near turned tail and went home. He stuck with it, though, mostly because dragons. And eventually even neurotic little introverts stuck in a communal space will find outlets to get some quiet time in. He made a habit of volunteering for chores in quieter, out of the way places like the records room and the infirmary. The rest of the time, he spent free hours by the lake, studying dragons and occasionally drawing close enough to ask their riders questions. And as he made friends amongst his fellow Candidates and amongst the riders, he began to mellow out and open up a little more; Miskael has never been unsociable, just the kind of person who needs a safe space to retreat to when there's too much going on. It was easy enough to find a rhythm that worked for him.

The obligatory first turn of training was likewise... hit and miss. Miskael excelled in every category that involved more thinking than doing: history, literacy, rider duties, teaching-songs, those were all well within the purview of his skills. Even the basic fitness wasn't difficult: Miskael was already well-used to maintaining his overall fitness, requiring a certain level of lean muscle mass to keep the body shape he preferred. The combat was... occasionally problematic, but he took to it far more readily when he finally sorted out the nuances of his complicated feelings regarding violence and the necessity thereof. He wasn't exactly the top of his class in all regards, but he performed well enough that netting a squiremaster wasn't difficult for him. It helped that Miskael didn't have aspirations of First Wing; despite the lack of prestige, he'd already decided his temperament and his intellect would be better applied elsewhere.

Four clutches went by: Hiraeth's, Evmeth's, Cinnamath's, then Evmeth's again. The first, that wasn't a concern. Few people Impress at their first Hatching, and if you do it's sheer blind luck. The second, he was a little disappointed, but not shaken. The third and fourth... things were starting to get worrying. His twenty-first birthday crept closer and closer; it was less than a turn away by the time he stood for his fifth Hatching, and Miskael knew it would be the last shot he had.

He stood anxiously through the first two thirds of the Impressions, dodged a few potential injuries, and felt his heart sink inch by inch. There were more than a few strong personalities towards the middle, and after the dust had settled and the maulers were mostly distributed to their respective riders (good luck, he thought) a curious-looking little piebald green rolled backwards out of her cracked shell. She shook herself off, trotted immediately over to the girls, and began inspecting one who'd gone down with a bad gash on her leg. He looked away, assuming Impression... and heard a voice in his head. Miskael! Over here, love, that's right. What are you doing all the way over there? I need to borrow those opposable thumbs of yours!

And that was Descanth. Calm, polite, in charge, and every inch his beautiful girl. She was worth the wait, and he told her so, once he had the opportunity. Weyrlinghood thus far for them has been more or less uneventful - neither of them are inclined much to pranks or rule-breaking, and there's been little opportunity for adventure when the babies aren't even old enough for their first flights yet. Someday Descanth's going to be big enough that Miskael will have to get used to being away from her for periods longer than the span of a lesson... but today is not that day. Yet.


THE DRAGON
Name: Descanth
Age: 6 months
Colour: Green
Feel of voice: The mellow timbre of a bowed string instrument. Distant birdsong. The warm green glow of sunlight dappled through leaves.

Appearance: Descanth is a petite twenty feet from nose to tail, lithe and sleek but strong nonetheless. Her build is rather akin to a racing runner's: a deep chest leading to a trim waist and surprisingly well-muscled haunches for quick takeoffs. Her wings are short and trim, like the rest of her, giving her maneuverability through tight spaces but not much in terms of gliding capacity. Overall her build speaks of a dragon with a devastating turn of speed, but little in terms of staying power save for her heart and sheer force of will.

Her hide is acid green marked with splashes of lighter celadon in an unpredictable piebald pattern. The very tip of her nose, tail, wing-fingers, and toes are dipped in dark forest green, a striking and pretty contrast.

Personality: Descanth flies in the face of the stereotype of the green as flighty, flirty, airheaded, and unreliable. Straightforward and utterly driven, she is every inch a Weyrleader's dragon... who happens to be attached to someone who never wants to be a leader. That doesn't seem to matter to her, though. There are limitations to draconic intelligence - there's only so much you can learn when your memory only lasts two weeks - but the green will be the first to tell you, she's quicker on the uptake than her rider sometimes. Miskael often insists, with great fondness, that Descanth is never wrong. This isn't quite true, but it tells you all you really need to know about their relationship.

Miskael and Descanth are partners. In many ways, they are two halves of a whole, even moreso than most dragons and riders. Oh sure, all dragonpairs are soulmates. But there's soulmates, and then there's inseparable. Miskael relies on his dragon, and Descanth rarely disappoints. The green likes being close to her rider, and is prone to following him wherever her petite size allows. She is another pair of eyes and ears, another set of limbs, as much a part of him as the ones he was born with. And in personality, she is a steady rock, clear-minded even in the midst of emergency. It is an advantage, in the sense that the two of them are rarely if ever confused on one another's needs. On the other hand... it's painfully clear that Miskael is not the kind of rider who would survive dragonlessness, under any circumstances.

Still, Descanth is professional because she has to be rather than because she wants to be. Her demeanor is more big-sisterly than motherly, and her guardian instinct is a powerful one. The younger and less colorist denizens of High Reaches will find her a far more agreeable creature than many of the larger dragons. She likes having her eyeridges scratched, and if any of the potential Candidates want to get used to dragons in a nonthreatening way, Descanth is as good a place as any to start. The problem is that between her demeanor and her rider's stature, neither of them are particularly intimidating. Dragons don't harm humans, obviously, but some of them can put up a good show of being frightening, and Descanth... really can't. Confident, yes. Vicious, no.

((OOC note - one might notice that Miskael's profile currently does not name a squiremaster! He has one! But I want to leave the option open for a PC adult rider to potentially pick up some shared history with him, once there are more adult riders around who could do the thing.))