Approved by Tawny
THE HANDLER
Name: Natalya
Age: 36
Gender: Female
Rank: Huntleader / Masterhandler
Appearance: Natalya is stunning. There's no two ways about it. She might not be universally beautiful, because there's no such thing. But she is eye-catching, because she makes a point to be. To her, appearances are a weapon, and one that she hones with just as much time and care as she hones her knives.
At the end of the day it's hard to tell which one is sharper, or more lethal.
Standing at a scant five foot three, Natalya is easily dwarfed by many of her fellow wherhandlers, let alone their whers. She has the lean, solid build of a gymnast, but coupled with hips and chest that no amount of muscle definition can conceal. More importantly, she has a talent for looking smaller and softer than she is when the situation demands it: more than one person has assumed her to be no threat at all, until they find out that even the strongest man has soft places where a knife fits perfectly. Natalya favors speed and flexibility over brute force, and her preferred method of combat is to never let anyone pin her down to begin with.
When she lets her hair grow out, it's a startling shock of flame red. Once upon a time she found it irritating, a too-recognizable mark that she concealed with different cuts and plant dyes. These days it doesn't matter as much, so she's let it grown out to a shoulder-length mass of waves around a heart-shaped face and blue-green eyes. As for her features, while undeniably pretty, Natalya's face isn't particularly expressive. It's the kind of face that lends itself more to aloof looks and intimidating glares than sweet girlish smiles. And consummate actress that she is, she rarely lets anything show there that isn't calculated and corrected to suit the outward appearance she wants to project.
For someone with a background like hers, there must be scars somewhere on her, but she keeps them to herself. When she's on the job, Natalya's clothing choices tend to be sensible: close-fitting, because stray fabric and trailing sleeves are a danger she avoids, but not showing much skin. She's even been known to loosely bind her chest to just keep it out of the way. For most of High Reaches, they won't see her out of either her wherhandler's uniform or the occasional Gather dress when she's out to impress. But when she's in private, that's a different story entirely: she sleeps in men’s loose linen shirts and other comfortable wear.
Personality: Natalya is a mystery wrapped in an enigma sewn up in contradictions. She wears masks with the same ease as someone else might shrug on a jacket, and if it sometimes seems like she is a different person depending on context, that's precisely how she wants it. She is a lady amongst the Holdfolk, a warrior amongst the wherhandlers, an unattainable prize or a sympathetic ear as the situation demands...
But she is always, always a wolf amongst the flock. Never an innocent. Guilelessness is the one trick that Natalya has never been able to successfully replicate; she can't pretend to be an unsullied soul, so she'll happily play the role of the femme fatale or the reformed villain. No matter where she is, she has her guard up: the only difference is whether that guard is physical, emotional, or both. Sometimes she'll show cracks in the armor, vulnerabilities calculated to goad overconfidence out of her opponent, but they're always chinks in an otherwise impenetrable facade. Natalya is aloof, distant, secretive, but paradoxically makes no secret of that fact. A lady should be a little bit of a mystery.
The huntleader is a practical person - or perhaps just a pragmatic one. She gets the job done. There wasn’t really any other option, when she was a tracker and a scout. It taught her how to make difficult decisions without second-guessing or agonizing overmuch about the moral implications. Now that she's grown and has a little distance, some of those moral implications are coming back to haunt her... But only in the dark hours of the night, when she lies awake, too troubled by dreams to sleep. The rest of the time, she compartmentalizes. Little bits of her upbringing shine through in her behavior. She takes delight in luxuries when she can get them, but can just as easily subsist on the barest of means. She has a few small precious items, but her personal effects are few and easily packed up at a moment's notice. She lives like she's constantly one step away from running… but where would a woman like Natalya run to? More importantly, what would she run from?
Principles don't mean much to Natalya, on the whole. She is loyal to a fault, but to people more than to ideas or governments. Weyrs fall. Holds fall. She’s experienced the brutality of a regime change firsthand, and she didn’t exactly come off on the lucky side. Ideals live only as long as the people who hold them. But people? Genuinely good people are rare. They deserve to survive. Honor, mercy, compassion, they're all pretty words for pretty concepts. Natalya will compromise all of them in a heartbeat if it means a bad man dies and a good man lives. The only real principle she holds to is that of debt - Natalya keeps careful track of whom she is indebted to, and those she will always repay.
As for her personal life? Natalya... doesn't have much of one, to be honest. Huntleadership currently takes up almost all of her time – she may be a master at wherhandling, but she’s still getting the hang of running a hunt. Overall she is a hands-off, results-driven leader: she doesn’t let ego get in the way, and if one of her subordinate handlers knows what they’re doing, they can relax in the knowledge that Natalya isn’t going to meddle with a good thing. Just don’t mistake hands-off for unobservant, because the full (and not inconsiderable) force of her attention is on her hunt all the time. She’s the kind who sits back and watches for what works and what doesn’t, quiet but attentive, intervening with a subtle hand wherever it’s necessary. Neither she nor Natask are afraid to show their teeth when an intimidation play is necessary, but Natalya is aware that she’s relatively young for a goldhandler, and she’d rather set a precedent of competence and professionalism rather than brute force.
Somewhere in the future, she'll be free to have her own life, make her own choices... But Natalya's learned that it doesn't pay to think that far ahead unless you're assuming a worst case scenario. There's too much that could go wrong between now and then. She’d rather be prepared for when the next inevitable storm comes.
History:
Natalya was Ruathan born and bred, firstborn daughter to a young couple with ambitions of greatness. Her father was an aspiring runner breeder from Keroon, who arrived in Ruatha with only the shirt on his back, the finest of his stock, his wherhandler brother for protection on the long road to Ruatha, and a keen eye for racing blood. Her mother was well-to-do but not particularly wealthy; together they raised their daughter with the manners and grace of a higher class, in hopes for a good match and a better life for her someday. But at the same time, they taught her how to be practical and frugal in her daily life; from the time she was old enough to darn a hem or help her mother with the cooking, Natalya was learning how to take a little and make it look like more. She was a quiet child, obedient and attentive, perhaps prone to unusual seriousness for a girl of her age but not often wayward. Above all else, she learned how to keep her thoughts to herself… especially when those thoughts were not appropriate for a ‘young lady’.
Life changed when Natalya was eight turns old. It was an accident. At least, it looked like an accident – and if someone cared to ensure that a certain handsome Keroon-blooded colt never got the chance to race, there was nothing that could be proved. A runner spooked in the barn, a lantern was kicked over, a fire started… Natalya doesn’t know. In the predawn hours she awoke into a roar of noise, thick choking smoke and chaos. The young girl was fortunate enough to sleep furthest from the stables; by the time the fire had spread to the house proper, it was much too far gone to be contained, but it had bought her enough time to wake and flee.
She survived the fire. Not much else did.
Her mother’s family was sympathetic, but ill-prepared to take a lost and frightened girl into their already overcrowded home within the Hold proper. She was young enough to need more close supervision than they could provide, but old enough to look after herself in terms of basic needs. And, unexpectedly, her uncle Vanoff the wherhandler had taken an interest in fostering her. The grizzled bluehandler had never had the opportunity at children of his own, and he claimed a kinship with his lost brother – Natalya was the only family, the only blood kin that he still had left in Ruatha. Surely he had a right to keep hold of that. It was… unorthodox, but it seemed at the time like the best possible choice for the girl.
It was a rocky relationship at first – life with wherhandlers was drastically different from her old one, but in some ways it was not so different at all. For one, they tolerated her newly sharpened temper far better. Vanoff roared with laughter the first time that she stood up to him, called her his little fierce one, and promised to teach her skills more interesting than dancing and sewing. Slowly Natalya discarded her old self and put on a new one: she kept her hair short and ran with the boys, the lads born and raised in wherhandling who would someday inherit whers of their own. And true to his word, Vanoff taught her what he felt a pretty young girl needed to know in a rough world. She learned to smile, to drop her eyes, to be modest and soft-spoken… and also how to carry and use a knife, where the weakest points are on a man, and a few other little skills of more questionable legality. (Natalya’s hands have always been small and light, well suited to sliding into a pocket and out again unnoticed.) Nonetheless, it was not a loving relationship; she was expected to earn her keep.
As soon as she was old enough, she applied formally for wher candidacy. It was not a popular choice for young women of Ruatha. Then again, it wasn’t as if her other prospects were much to speak of, and ultimately she was grudgingly accepted by the recruitment officer – because what else are you going to do, when she won’t stop coming to pester you until you give her a fighting chance at basic training? Her position was only solidified when she took out a male classmate or several during the combat assessment. Being at a Hold rather than a Weyr, Natalya at least didn’t have to deal with a horde of sulky, washed-out ex-dragon Candidates. Instead she just had to deal with the boys she’d grown up with, now counted as competition for every precious egg, and the occasional obnoxious rich son who’d bought into a higher rank.
Ultimately she was assigned as a squire to a small, tight-knit hunt run by a female greenhandler, a position she excelled in. By the time that Natalya was seventeen turns old, the tough scarred green was giving her the nod to take an egg from a clutch. Smallest and last-picked though that egg was, it hatched into a tiny, fragile-looking green. A green. A chance at, someday, a hunt of her own. A future for her.
Wherlinghood with Natalyask was… overwhelming. Unconditional love, in a life that had not experienced much of it, was perhaps the most bewildering part of the equation. Natalyask remained frail and not much of a fighter, even fully grown, but she was cunning. Independent and clever, with a dark dark green hide that blended well into shadows at night, Natalyask was a perfect wher for stealth and scouting. She was, every inch of her, perfect in Natalya’s eyes. The two of them never did acquire their own hunt, but they nonetheless earned a name for themselves as excellent trackers and exceptionally dirty fighters.
Natalya was twenty-six when the Ruathan Civil War began, and like every other handler in the Hold, she was fully ready to give whatever she could to her Hold’s defense. But her huntleader was wise enough to know that Natalyask would be wasted on the front lines. While the bulk of Gaedwin’s army marched to stamp out the initial raids from Nabol’s borders, Natalya and the others chosen as scouts were sent southwards to keep watch for invading forces from Fort. It was risky work: more than once Natalya was forced to actually leave her wher behind, hunkered down through the daylight hours, while she acted in the guise of a simple Hold woman to better gather information or throw off suspicion. The upside of this was that she missed the worst of the Great Dragonplague – the greenhandler spent the entirety of the epidemic roughing it between the outlying holds of Ruatha, far from any Weyr that could spread the infection.
It wasn’t enough, however, to save her home. When the attack finally came from Willeim’s forces, Natalya helped relay the warning. Ruatha’s army came in already battered and exhausted from the long forced march, and even scouts were drafted as makeshift cavalry. It would be Natalyask’s first and last time on the front lines.
Natalya only remembers bits and flashes of the battle of Hesting. The trauma of a broken bond – a bond twelve turns in the making, solid as steel and no less vital to her mind for being a wher rather than a dragon – wiped out the rest. She fought, and fought bitterly. Perhaps at some point she even thought to die on that hill with the last of the loyalists. But a self-preservation instinct stronger than anything else dragged her off the field before Fort’s soldiers could strike her down. Not long after, with Natalya licking her wounds in some quiet cothold, word came to her that Willeim was well and truly Ruatha’s Lord now, and that he was enacting brutal punishment against any who opposed him. The risk was too great for her to return, and her pride would not permit her to bow to the murderer of half her heart. Without a single farewell, Natalya vanished from the territories of Ruatha.
She hitched a ride north with a trader’s caravan, eventually coming to High Reaches. The Weyr, still recovering from the aftereffects of the plague and desperately trying to build up its numbers going into the Pass, accepted a soft-spoken Ruathan expatriate without question. For a turn or two, Natalya simply… drifted. She used her talents where she could, helping candidates and offering assistance to the Weyr’s resident wherhandlers, inasmuch as a wherless woman could. In particular she formed an unlikely friendship with a dragon Candidate dangerously close to aging out, which started as an argument of the relative merits of dragons versus whers and turned into a good-naturedly antagonistic friendship that helped drag Natalya out of her deep apathy.
A few turns before the dawn of the Pass, one of the High Reaches golds threw an unexpectedly shiny egg, with no immediately available master at hand. Natalya had been without a bond for nearly two turns, but she had twelve turns of experience prior to that. And her time spent with the wherhandlers hadn’t been in vain: enough of them could vouch that she had the knowledge to support her story. For lack of better options, she was permitted a chance to stand before the golden wher.
Natask wasn’t Natask for nearly a full month. Up until then, she was Spiderclaw more often than not, for the way she scuttled in Natalya’s wake on too-long legs. The bond didn’t fill a hole in Natalya’s heart the way that Natalyask had. That hole had long since scarred over. What the young gold gave her, instead, was drive. Natask’s dominant personality made it explicitly clear that she would not be content to remain in her mother’s hunt indefinitely; it took all of Natalya’s intelligence and cunning to convince the young gold that it would be in both of their best interests to bide their time. Natalya had been a scout and a spy before, not a leader. It would take time for her to carefully observe how hunts ran at High Reaches, and how the two of them should best proceed. Grudgingly, Natask acquiesced, and the two of them slowly built up a network of like-minded and interested pairs before they struck out on their own.
Natalya has only been officially a huntleader for a little over a turn. Thus far they have both performed admirably; their hunt plays naturally to Natalya’s strengths by working in tandem with the third wings, though they also perform other duties as needed. The two of them have a reputation for seeking out talent – not just combat strength, but cleverness and initiative – and aggressively recruiting. She’s also in the market for a squire, and she’s already got her eye on a few possibilities.
THE WHER
Name: Natask
Age: 6
Colour: Gold
Appearance: Faranth, Natask is tall. She towers over her petite handler in a frankly terrifying fashion, which only makes her look all the larger, and at a solid eighteen hands she can give some of the smallest green dragons a good run for their marks, too. And she’s not even remotely a pretty creature. Her posture is oddly hunched, a blunt head full of too many teeth held low at the end of a sloping neck and shoulder. She will never be a comfortable ride, and it took all of Natalya’s skill and balance to learn to sit her wher’s lolloping gait at full gallop. On the other hand, her bite force is utterly deadly, and her speed is deceptive. Natask moves like an ambush predator: she waits like a stone until the opportune moment, then strikes when her prey is too close to escape the inevitable conclusion.
Natask’s overall coloration is dark for a gold, perhaps easily mistaken for a bronze given its seemingly tarnished appearance. Over her back and haunches sits the only bright mark on her: a roughly hourglass-shaped patch of brilliant rosy-gold, often as not covered by the harness and wher-saddle when she’s working.
Personality: Natask is all the vicious urges that Natalya carefully keeps on a tight leash. Make no mistake: she's cold, ruthless, arrogant, and willing to commit violence at the slightest suggestion that someone might be insulting her handler.
She also obeys Natalya's every word without question.
That's the thing that most people don't get about the bond between the two of them. Natalya is in charge, one hundred percent of the time. Oh sure, sometimes Natask will throw her (metaphorical or literal) weight around a bit when she really wants someone to back off and she could use a huge dangerous animal as backup. But the dynamic between the two of them isn't a power play. They both want exactly the same things: Natask just doesn't care if getting those things involves killing everything in her path. Natalya, on the other hand, would like to avoid that outcome if at all possible. (Most of the time. On the rare occasion that Natalya and Natask are both thinking kill all men at the same time, the sentiment passes quickly, but anyone in the blast radius should get out of it in a hurry.)
When it comes to her fellow whers, though... Natask is a lady. Natask is a queen. Ambitious isn't the right word for her; ambition implies that she's striving for a higher status, but Natask thinks she's already there. She clearly considers herself on the same level as the most senior of the golds, status-wise, and expects to be treated as such. She doesn't take well to being commanded, and she takes even less well to being patronized. She'll take any order from Natalya without question, but anyone trying to go over her handler’s head and command Natask directly? They’re likely to be ignored unless the point is forced with metallic compulsion from a more dominant gold - and the way she looks at you clearly indicates she thinks you're a coward for having to resort to that. Don't forget that whers have longer memories than dragons, and provoking Natask is universally unwise.
As for her huntmates, Natask treats them as hers. She is not terribly affectionate with them, but she is protective to the point of possessiveness. When the time comes for her to run, she'll lead the males on a merry chase, but want nothing to do with them the rest of the time. Rumors that she eats her mates are wildly unfounded.
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