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 Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 4:46 am
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 5:22 am
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The rider and the riddler
The rider
Name: F'itz (Fitzwilliam)
Age: 48 turns
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Rank: Wingrider
History: Fitzwilliam was born to a beastcrafter and a frustrated rider at Benden Weyr. His childhood - spent in the creche - was average enough, but he was never one of the noisy boys; he preferred quiet pursuits, and often kept to his own company. He Impressed Brumath at his first clutch, aged barely 12 turns old. From then on, F'itz's loner tendencies increased sharply, but he never developed the cynicism displayed by his lifemate. With no desire to become a leader of men, F’itz has drifted quietly through life alongside Brumath; the pair are most dedicated to their duty and are at an age where they have a good deal of experience, but are still fit and supple enough to keep up with the younger pairs.
Description: F’itz is of a very wiry build; tough but not massively powerful. He is quite light skinned, stands a fairly average 5’10”, and both his hair and his eyes are grey. Facially he is pretty average on the whole, but has something of a beak of a nose. He gives off an air of sober dignity most of the time, and of aloofness. Over all, he looks like a hardened, competent man, but not somebody you’d ask out for a drink and a game of dice.
Personality: F’itz is sober, restrained man who mostly keeps himself to himself. He doesn’t dislike other people per-se, he just doesn’t really need them, and finds himself most content when relaxing alone with his dragon and a set of panpipes or a good book. He’ll speak if spoken to, and can in fact carry on a decent conversation, he just usually chooses not to. If he begins to tire of somebody he won’t shoo them off or be rude to them, his answers will just become shorter and shorter, and he won’t volunteer anything else to talk about of his own accord. Duty, politeness, and the proper way of doings things in general are very important to F’itz; he likes order and routine, and takes poorly to surprises, even nice ones. He has no desire to impose his own order on the world, however; he’s happy taking orders so long as his leader is competent and keeps a good schedule. If they’re not, he’ll take his complaints through the proper channels rather than either trying to take action on his own, or just moaning about it.
Laziness, either in his leaders or his peers, seriously annoys F'itz; lying around when off duty is fine by him, but slacking off when you aught to be working, or failing to give you best to a job is unacceptable in his eyes. If he sees somebody, especially a member of his wing, putting in less effort than he thinks they could, have no doubt he will abandon his usual stoicism to give them a firm talking to about Standards. It doesn't matter if they've finished early because they were efficient, they should spend the assigned time working on something, even if they have to find extra work to do. He doesn't care if they have a good reason for not being one hundred percent, unless the excuse is actual physical injury. He doesn't even really care if any effort they put into a task would be futile; to him it's the principle of the thing just as much as actual results achieved. As nobody likes a lecture, this habit doesn't exactly add to his popularity.
Unlike his dragon F’itz is not a cynical man but he isn’t the kind to always look on the sunny side either, rather he is a realist; given he doesn’t like surprises, he thinks possible outcomes through well and then decides to expect the one which seems most likely rather than to fear the worst or hope for the best. Very much like Brumath, however, he dislikes conflict. For one, arguments tend to play hell with your daily routines, and for another he considers fighting either verbally or physically somehow below him. He is not a proud man in general, but he considers himself a gentleman, and there is nothing quite as ingenteel as getting yourself worked up into a froth over something. He doesn’t look down on people who do have short tempers as such, it’s just something that he cannot imagine himself doing or being. The only thing that can get him worked up is a serious insult or threat to Brumath, but it would have to be really very serious indeed to set him off.
The colour of dragons doesn’t phase F’itz very much in general; so far as he sees long as they can do the job colour shouldn't be a factor in rank. In general it doesn’t affect how he treats other riders either; he’s as reserved and politely distant with greenriders as he is with goldriders; the only exception is brownriders, with whom he feels very faint camaraderie (very very faint but still.) As yet, he isn’t sure about atypical dragons one way or the other; he can see that they are as useful as any dragon once they’re fully grown, but he’s not convinced that all the extra care they need is worthwhile.
The riddler
Description: Brumath is an average brown. Average height, average length, average build, average wingspan. His hide is a pleasing shade, but again here he is understated. His eyes aren't so very average; they are almost always dull with cynical pessimism, only lighting up when the brown is turning an especially interesting theory over in his mind.
Personality: Sober and cynical, Brown Brumath did not have much choice in his assignment at Trine. For whatever reason he and His ended up there, he does take his job seriously - as always - but he just doesn't think it'll do much good. At least, not in the way they hope it will. Not a fan of conflict or ambition, Brumath spends most of his off time sunning himself and talking idly to the Flits and any dragons who happen by.
He's the sort to look past colour and rank and wonder more about what's behind your eyes then jump to conclusions. And, while he is cynical, he has a loping, ponderous manner of speaking that makes him sound more like a riddler then an intelligent, observant individual. It's no surprise then, that given he's from Benden and his reflexive riddles that few really seek him out - and it only strengthens his cynical point of view.
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 5:23 am
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 5:24 am
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Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 5:25 am
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Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2010 11:32 am
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Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:50 am
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"This is not right!"
He was aware of his dragon's words almost before he was aware of their return to warmth and breathable air. "Not right? Are you su- Gah!" A tangled clump of silver stuff swirled past his face. Thread. They'd appeared in the middle of a Threadfall, and apparently completely alone. A sudden sting of pain from Brumath made him catch his breath, and urge the brown between at the same moment. "Hurt?" was all he felt he had time to ask.
"Little. Slight seared, somewhat strung," Brumath responded. "We come out lower down, we fight. Ready with stone?"
"Ready."
The pair appeared once more, and F'itz found himself tossing firestone to his lifemate before he even took a breath of air. This was... This was what they had trained their entire lives for. They were not far now from compulsory retirement.
Brumath roared and blew a jet of fire into the darkened skies, searing Thread to nothing. It was an incredible feeling. They were one creature, just as they were when Brumath chased a rising female. This was what they were supposed to do. They had been boron for it, trained for it for so many turns, and they could do it. Another sting of pain, and flash between, then back out to flame again. More firestone. This was what they were supposed to do, and they could do it, but soon they would be told that they were too old. Put out to pasture. A pat on the back for the poor old things. Old cracked leathers left to gather dust.
"Dead more truly than death itself," Thread burned away, more firestone, "for what is a dragon and dragonman sitting in safety, relegated to simple, safe duties? So fades the will, so fades the mind, so fades the heart, so fades the pair into shadows in the mist." A huge clump came for them, and they turned, and burned it away. "Sooner to die fighting than to die aged and mad after turns of pointless existence. What is left to us? How many turns to soar in a wing? Not much. Not many. What then for us? What then?"
What then indeed. The tangles of Thread began to grow thinner and thinner, and before long the skies were clear. As dragon and man became fully aware of themselves as separate individuals again, each let out a heavy sigh. "There are things a retired pair can do, old man," F'itz said after some moments of silence, "candidate masters, weyrling masters, search riders; they can all be beyond the age they force you out of your wing."
"Yes," Brumath breathed out the last of the flame he had in his belly, "but to be chosen for such a role? Strange Brumath, quiet F'itz? No. I think not. We shall fade over time, blackness shall fill us as we push through each futile day. We can only hope that the fading is swift, that the end comes soon... Unless Thread falls soon, and with our numbers small they allow elder riders still to fight? A small hope. A foolish hope." It would be better not even to think of such things, then he could not be disappointed when they did not come true. "What will we do Mine?"
F'itz sighed again and shook his head, pushing his sooty goggles up onto his head and gazing out across the unfamiliar land. He had no idea. "Come on, old man," the silver-haired man gave his dragon's neck a pat, "let's find the others; we have a job to do here." He didn't like change, but he knew it had to come, and that he and His would have to figure out how to deal with it eventually. For now, however, all he felt able to do was push it to the back of his mind as he focused on their intended destination once more. What would they do?
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Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 1:40 pm
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Golds return soon to be followed by silver, by silver rain more deadly than flame, and flame burns in our hearts and we behold that sky-ruby growing ever closer. We shall fight. We shall not be denied. We have felt that perfection, that exhilaration. We are dragon, and dragonman, and we shall do our duty. When the time comes we shall rise with that flame in our hearts and breathe it out and sear the silver strands...
In the time until then, what of the new Weyrs with their new dragons? They say that Malvren seeks the secrets of the tinkerer in his house of glass. What do they stand to gain by such action? Why are they not content to wait their turn? They hate Benden, do they think to use the secrets to make some twisted version of them to poison our plants? Does their hatred run that deep? Or it not true hate, is it ambition? Strike us down, supplant our leaders with theirs, spread their strange colours? Brumath does not hate those strange ones, for what is colour? Tell me the colour of their hearts, that is what matters. Are the hearts of those dragon in Malvren good and green with ichor then, or are they twisted into something darker by that hate, or that ambition. Brumath does not hate them for their colour, he hates them for what they hoped to do...
Or is it true? Is it falsehood invented by our leaders? What could they stand to gain from that, perhaps they wish to make us hate the white, the black, the red and the silver. A red hatched here. Do they seek to make that the one and only, to make each heart here abhor the idea of smashing shells to let such dragons live? There are many possibilities, many more even that Brumath has considered. With that in mind, I Brumath must think more. I shall dig deep and I shall find the truth of the matter.
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Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 12:45 pm
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F’itz lay on his side on the narrow bunk, eyes closed as he feigned sleep. This was not the homecoming he had wanted, it felt like a cruel mockery of his wish to be once again surrounded by good Benden stone. The wounds the wher had given him throbbed agonizingly and he felt chilled right down to the bone. It didn’t bode well for him, and nor did that list up on the wall. People he had known had come down to his cell to sneer at him - ‘Look where your traditional ways have got you F’itz!’
He had ignored them as best he could and quietly told himself that not all on the wherhold side who had once known him hated him and revelled in his pain and fear, only those with the more extreme views had bothered to come down. Those with moderate opinions and those who would help him if they could despite differing ideology would stay away.
Brumath shifted restlessly against his mind, too distressed at their separation to speak. F’itz shivered and flexed his fingers, imagining soft brown hide beneath them. Being parted from his dragon was torture and of itself; the steady brown had been beside him day and night since he was a boy of twelve and knowing that he had no way of reaching him, that he might well never see him again, was… was….
F’itz clenched his fist and his jaw, he wouldn’t give his enemies the satisfaction of seeing him cry nor was he prepared to embarrass himself so before his young allies. If he could just remain strong and remain alive perhaps rescue would come, Trine would not abandon those who had fought for them and would certainly not abandon D’lin. Help would come… but would it come soon enough? How could it reach them here down in the depths of the earth? Even with the best will in the world they were far out of Trine’s reach, and the best they could hope for was a swift death in the ring. All they could do was wait.
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