Name: Weiren ("Wei")
Age: 25
Sex: Female
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
Craft: Starsmith
Rank: Journeyman
Accepted:
[Here.]Physical Description: Wei can be described as waifish, although she does carry some weight in her hips. Her black hair is wavy and generally split-ended, falling just shy of her waist. Her dark blue eyes are a bit droopy; "doe-eyed", would be the proper term. She often dresses slobbishly, usually loose robes of darker colors, sometimes blouses and skirts, and ties her hair back while outside, as though it's too much bother for her to keep tidy these days.
Personality: Calculating, driven, academic. Wei avoids intimacy with others, - particularly dragonriders, who she seems wary of, - but is very passionate about her research and studies. When caught up in research, she devotes everything she has to it - more often than not, at the cost of other obligations, or things like eating and bathing. When between spurts of energy, Wei is often frustrated and crabby, and not always pleasant to be around. Usually loosens up in the evening.
Her greatest ambition at this point is to become a Master, and thereby warrant apprentices of her own to further her studies, but Wei has not thought beyond that. She is unlikely to be interested in being a Craftsmaster at this point, being far too engrossed by her research to distract herself with administration. However, she has been successful in gaining the respect of her peers, and while it would be a difficult pill for many people to swallow, it may eventually become a focused goal of hers - particularly when the need for Starsmiths passes beyond a determination of flight conditions, and to whether or not Thread will be falling in a given region.
History: Wei's father was a Wingsecond at Fort Weyr, and predictably, she grew up a weyrbrat with heaps of expectations piled on her by her mother. This was all good and well for a while, but after an older sibling was injured at a Hatching while she was still very young, Wei contracted an insurmountable phobia of dragons. After a few rough-love attempts to snap her out of her fear (including a confrontation with her father's massive brown dragon, which ended with both child and dragon greatly distressed), it became clear that Wei didn't have a future on the Hatching Grounds, and she was encouraged to pursue other interests away from the Weyr.
She wound up staying at Fort Hold with a friend of the family, a Master Vintner of some influence called Balor. She was at first interested in pursue an apprenticeship with her new guardian; she spent a lot of time learning about the art of wine-making, and especially getting hands-on experience working in the vineyard. After a bad Turn, however, Wei soon began looking to the skies above, and the unfortunate weather that had led to a poor crop. Her interest grew beyond the scope of a vintner's worry for crops, and recognizing her interest, Balor took her firmly aside and informed her that she needed to either dedicate herself to Vintnercraft, or start looking for what she really wanted.
Taking his advice (and after, his eager help), Wei fell in with a trio of Starsmiths that were performing astrological research from Fort Hold. The men didn't think much of the twelve-Turns girl that came begging to apprentice under them, but with Balor's insistence, they accepted her as an apprentice.
She spent two years of apprenticeship with them, mostly cooking meals and cleaning, transcribing their research in a neater hand and sending it off to the Starhall. When their research at Fort Hold was completed, she asked that they allow her to go to Barrier Hold, where the Starhall was, so that she could commit to a more formal study. They grudgingly admitted that she'd been of help to them, and wrote her a letter of recommendation. With a little more help from Balor, she managed to secure a boat ride to the Southern Continent; making her good-byes, Wei struck out on her own to find her place among the Starsmiths.
Even with the letter, it took a good deal of persuasions to convince the Starhall to take her in; eventually, though, she was able to demonstrate her talent and drive, and they permitted her to study with them. Despite having spent most her apprenticeship thus far working on astrology, she proved fascinated by weather once allowed a full range of material to study, and quickly grew to stand out from her peers in her specialization.
Upon achieving Journeyman status at age twenty, Wei returned to Fort Hold for a time to celebrate her success with the Vintners that had become her de facto family. She spent a year among them once more, but was soon drawn to the coast in order to study the storm development patterns. For the past three years, she has been working at various Holds in order to gain a better understanding of how the weather operates as it passes along currents in the air from one region to the next. Most recently, she has come to Ista Weyr; she is driven to understand how the ocean contributes to stormy weather, and finds the Weyr to be the closest point to her ideal study point.
Other/Talents:
** Meteorology: Wei has specialized in weather prediction, and is driven to find a greater understanding of the processes involved in the formation of storms. She also is able to predict weather with fair accuracy over a span of a seven-day, presuming she has the data available to her.
** Distance Viewer: As a gift, Wei received a simple distance viewer from her Master at Barrier Hold. Although not extremely powerful, it does allow her a better look at the skies to check for cloud formations. In gratitude, she dutifully keeps astrological records from her viewpoint at Ista and sends them to her Master (who is very interested in the Red Star) at regular intervals.
** Liquor-Holder: Having passed her formative years under the roof of a Master Vintner, Wei is a surprisingly talented lush. She enjoys drinking alcohol, and the sense of inhibition that comes with it; one of the few times she seems to relax, in fact, is when she has a glass in her hand.
** Dragon-Phobic: Wei is terrified of dragons. Not flitts - those are cute, and small. And she can be in the room with a baby dragon, at least, and not freak out... too much. But she will
not. Go
near. A full-grown dragon. EEEEE-VER. She understands, intellectually, that she shouldn't be so unreasonably afraid. Her father was a dragonrider, after all. Dragonriders are good folks, and they keep their dragons under control... mostly, she's pretty sure. But she's just not interested, all right? So don't push her!
Name: Baro
Age: Hatched
Sex: Male
Color: Blue
Physical Description: A dark but vibrant blue, with three lighter blue dots framing the bottom of one eye. Baro is a bit big for his coloring - not by much, but a touch.
Personality: "Stupid lunk" is Wei's favored term for Baro. He's slothful enough, preferring greatly to roost out in the sun than engage in the acrobatics of other flits, and resists any sort of training or manners. Secretly, though, this is not because he's as dimglowed as she thinks he is; Baro is just smart enough to realize that if he drags his heels, the frustrated Starsmith is likely to give up on making him useful to her.
History: Wei won Baro's egg in a game of poker at a Gather in Ista and took him home, thinking to herself that a flit would be perfect for her work - surely, she would be able to train him to help her make weather observations from distances, or at least to deliver messages to the Smithhall in Barrier Hold! So she cared for the egg carefully, even using some of her limited funds to buy accomodations to spoil her new courier flit with once he'd hatched (such as a wooden roost, a warm little bed....)
When Baro cracked his shell, however, he set out to proving that there would be nothing of the sort happening - precisely by setting out to do nothing, and being an insufferable oaf. Wei still seems determined to train him to do
something of use, but it's impossible to say whether her will to make him work will overcome his will to do nothing at all.
Other/Talents: Unknown.
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