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Approved by Con

THE RIDER
Name: Jessan
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Rank: Journeyman Dragonhealer and Junior Queenrider
Appearance: Jessan is 5'11" in bare feet. She's just vain enough to wear small pumps in her daily life that take her to that even 6'and she walks with her chin tilted high in quiet confidence. Her skin is smooth and dark olive in color, unblemished save for the thick scarring on the outside of her arms from above her wrist to below her elbows. Don't play with explosive chemicals, kiddies. Jessan's features are sharp and long, and give her something of a fox-like appearance. Luckily, smiling softens her somewhat (along with face paints) and she smiles often. Her eyes are hazel, almond shaped, and framed with thick lashes that need no additives. Jessan wears her matte black hair long. She often binds the near length strands back into a french styled braid - as soon as that year and a half or so of Weyrlinghood ended, she grew her hair out. It's now more than halfway down her back.

Jessan is very slim with only the barest of hips to speak of. While she has a substantial chest, it's kept bound down pretty much the entire time she is awake. No one except a few healers, a few past lovers, and a tailor know about anything under the very covering clothes. --And they are substantial. Jessan wears high waisted dresses most of the time that go to the ground with tights underneath and shoes she spends too many marks on to look sensible, last forever, and feel amazing. Her collars are high and sleeves go past her wrists, though generally very loose save for bands at her wrists to keep them from going up. She only has a few different dresses she dolls up with jackets or shawls with the occasional bit of jewelry and always some form of makeup to help soften her features further.

Personality: Wolfs. Sheeps clothing. While Jess has the full range of human emotions, that doesn't mean she can't be a totally manipulative tunnelsnake. She keeps that part of herself to herself, thank you very much, as it is an unattractive quality in a lady and a therapist. She generally presents a gentle, empathetic face to the world, very good qualities all in all.

Jess-the-outside is sweet and compassionate, often offering a tender smile and speaking in soft, mild words. Every movement is as feminine as she can make it, right down to how she serves tea, and she does her best to appear balanced and unthreatening. When speaking to another person, she is very attentive to both their words and how they make those words, giving them as much affirmation that she can that she is indeed listening. Jessan chuckles rather then laughs, and would apparently prefer to settle down with a nice warm drink and a chat then anything else in the world.

Jess-the-inside is ... not so much that. She learned early on that people don't like to see past the masks of others and are genuinely upset when their assumptions are incorrect. She is well aware that she is petty, manipulative, and can be cutthroat when it comes to getting something she wants. Revenge isn't high on her priorities, preferring to do better and become higher up on the food chain than those who had insulted her. What better way to show you're better than by being better?

With her control it also needs to be stated that Jess has never raised her hand to another person (or animal, or reptile, or whatever) in violence, nor does she intend to. In another life, perhaps she'd have been a "Godmother" of some sort - in this one, she prefers to make friends where required... the sort to back her up should something go Horribly Wrong. Jess does not feel Right when she has no one to take care of, be it a human or an animal. She needs to be needed, to be loved and adored and looked up to. Sexual relationships aren't a goal, nor are romantic entanglements, and they aren't even required to be willing to hurt people for her - she is just comfortable being able to take care of people. In her own odd way, she cares. Those are the friends she will dote and love on, argue theoretical tooth and nail for... though not, really, fight. She has abandoned a friend - a 'dear' - in the past and will do so again if they choose to act in a way she cannot save them from.

Calling her an 'elitist' would not be untrue. Best of the best and none of the rest, all of that wherdung. Her issues (and contemplated self-harm) that stemmed from impressing Cinnamath were due to not being able to be the top of her field or being able to aspire to be something more then a figurehead to a society that dislikes women and goldriders. Her mastery, out of reach? Then she ought to be able to go for something better. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

And she hates it.

She is very determined to do something to change it.

History: It's the typical riches-to-rags story. A Journeyman healer and his wife had themselves a charming bundle of screaming infant. They live in High Reaches Hold and worked as apothecaries - potions, powders, ingredients, anything and everything they could get their hands on. Up until their daughters birth, they were quite well off. The famine happened a sevenday later.

Honestly they should have taken that as a sign.

Being in their line of business helped for a bit. Women needed contraceptives, people wanted to calm hungry children r feel full in some way. What the family couldn't sell to the Holders, they traded with other healers. With the price f what little food they had... it didn't last long.

Jessans father died shortly before the end of the lean times. Her mother never Walked the tables, having been an apprentice Healer once upon a time, and so she dragged the toddler to Healer Hall. While some grumbled about underfoot children, toddler Jessan sat quietly in the corner to watch people and play with small toys. She replaced the dolls with scrolls when old enough to read

By then, her mother had become a Journeyman and long since started teaching Jessan about the science of their former life. She encouraged Jessan and, when eight, the girl became an official apprentice. She kept to her studies and gained no companions until a boy two years to her senior came to the Hall as an apprentice. Old to be starting for sure but what Leslii lacked in social charm or youth he made up for in enthusiasm. Oh, yes, and the temper. There was also that.

He gravitated to Jessan. She said good things about him and calmed the tantrums. Once they were something along the lines of friends, she started to be more outgoing, talking, making friends, and Leslii... he calmed down. He was something of a shadow, one that seperated every so often and never hung around for long, but when not with their mentors or shifts, he often came around.

Life stayed simple for a long time. Jessan's mother worked towards her Mastery and Jessan turned to Dragonhealing instead of the assumed herbs and mixes after a fateful encounter with a Searchdragon whose rider came to visit friends. 'I like people and people need their dragons' remained her reason. Leslii started to specialize in the apothecary trade instead. All in all, things were good. Once his chemicals went haywire when she was with him. Jessan protected her face with her arms and... and, well, she wore long sleeves after that.

At twenty, Leslii walked the tables and went to work properly. Jessan followed suit and became a Journeyman at twenty. Wonderful! Fabulous.

And then Leslii not showing up as he always did to speak with her that evening. Then word by a sharding firelizard that Leslii assaulted someone that refused to purchase something-or-the-other - he stole the belongings on them as well in a fit of rage not even Jessan expected of him. She could not help him when the judgement came forward and he put into a work gang for the high sentence of ten years. The war kept people on their toes and paranoid of violence, after all. Jessan did not go to tell him goodbye.

Instead her and her mother went to High Reaches Weyr to see the hatching of the latest clutch. Jessan even put in a transfer request - with the plague so newly over and violence fresh in their minds, plenty of people at the Weyrs needed dragonhealers. During the plague she did what she could and High Reaches - High Reaches had new infants coming and Jessan a natural touch. She had her eyes on Mastery (and always appeared surprised when told someone had little doubt she would make it).

Jessan did not expect for there to be a murderous, rampaging little gold wher plowing from the eggs, nor did she think it would Impress to her once it clawed it's red-dripping path up to her seat in the Stands. Suddenly, she had a lapful of dragon that only looked the part of a wher.

Rainbow eyes met hers. Life as she knew it ended. Instead of aiming for a Mastery and doing a job she enjoyed, Jessan was forced to shave her head and be a Weyrling (and plotted quiet, ice-cold revenge on the person who took the razor to her). Not just any weyrling! Oh, no. A goldrider, sentenced to a lower ranking pay grade then a Master, stuck to an overly sexist Weyr, and no hope for a title of any actual importance. Her only saving thought to keep her from doing something, well, something drastic to herself was that as a goldrider she would be able to continue practicing her Craft.

Cinnamath was a good companion at any rate. Like Leslii, she reigned the dragon in. Greater success came with this then it did the human. Weyrlinghood passed in a blur of raging dragon and endless days turned to a sickly gold and babysitting eggs not her own. When Cinnamath rose for the first time, Jessan took a partner - and gained a child from it two thirds of a turn later.

The little boy went to the creche as a proper Weyrbrat would. It'd be a lie to say she didn't drop by every so often to watch him.

Another few turns, more politics she had no ability to do anything about, and Jessan buried herself in work and spending time with Cinnamath. The gold rose again with no sparkly daughter, though really, with more then two golds already it didn't matter. She lives her life, quietly, and waits for the day where she can change it.

THE DRAGON
Name: Cinnamath
Age: 7
Colour: Gold
Feel of voice: Like rocks breaking from a tall ledge and plummeting into the snow below, complete with teeth and booming volume.
Appearance: She is pretty damn ugly. No in the 'ugh, look at her big eyes' kind of ugly. Cinnamath is as close to a wher as a dragon is likely to get. She is wide and thick muscled with legs and a neck to match. Her tail is just as powerful (and one she uses as a tool for anger when she feels she needs to). She tips the scale for Golds, brushing at the very top of width and height. Her eyes are the only small part of her - they are beady on that square, flat head with its ridiculously powerful jaws.

Cinnamaths hide ought to be beautiful. On any other dragon, the glistening patina shade could make for a wonderful sight Sadly, this is Cinnamath. While burnished and lovely, there are sickly patches that are near bronze on her that form a pattern resembling the hard packed earth deprived of rain, cracked and pitted.

Jessan calls her 'My Beautiful'.

Personality: Where Jessan is gentle, Cinnamath is ferocious, all claws and jaws, harsh teeth and a loud mental voice she does not hesitate to use. To date she has never Commanded a person but what she knows how and looks forward to the day where she can destroy someones brain with a single order. (Jessan doesn't think it works like this. Cinnamath ignores her.) Cinnamath has absolutely no issues messing someones bondmate up and leaving scars to go with it. As with the Command, she's yet to go to the extreme with violence - no ones bondmate has yet fallen to claws or teeth. She is food possessive, Jessan possessive, and bloodthirsty when it comes to either of the two and Flights. She views dragon-ish hobbies as beneath her and is 100% convinced nothing shiny could live up to her own glory. Jessan is not self-concious and her raging murderbeast wher-dragon follows in suit: if Jessan calls her beautiful, then she is, and gives no frickle fracks what others might say. Pointing out a gold is ugly is a good way to get your bondmate chewed on or dragon-piss soaking you. Just sayin'.

She dotes on her children while they are still eggs and for as long as she remembers them after their birth an bonding. Once she forgets, honey badger doesn't give a s**t - they are hers to protect and fight for until they are bonded. Jessan doesn't remind her which ones are hers anyway. Cinnamath is acerbic on the outside and prone to snapping if she perceives someone as stupid but like Jessan, she doesn't let on just how far through the black hole she is. It would be dangerous. It could encourage others to look too carefully at her bonded. And no, she doesn't wish to be bestest best of friends - she thinks you're stupid, doesn't interact with others well, and honestly would prefer to chill with Whers if push came to shove. They don't insist on talking (and if they do, she can eat them.)

If you ask 'why is she like this?' just remember this vicious creature is bonded to Jessan (who likes and encourages vicious creatures) and, for all intents and purposes, the dragon equivilant to a honey badger and a female spotted hyena.

Other: Jessan will never introduce herself as Goldrider or any other title except Journeyman Dragonhealer, nor will she say 'of Gold Cinnamath'. Cinnamath is Cinnamath.

Tawny gave permission to change Jessan's Craft to Dragonhealing. Mindhealing was originally chosen due to her previous incarnations and discussion with Tawny about it too, so I assumed it'd be adequate. I don't think DB has an IC Dragonhealer yet, so it works out, and if we do, yaaaay more Dragonhealers. Someone trained in Draggunz in case of more seizures! (Hopefully no more ;; Poor bae)

All changes up there are highlighted in red~ P. sure I hit all of them.