Bastian
Name: Bastian
Age: 22
Gender: Male
Candidate: Yes
Craft/Rank: Journeyman Woodcrafter
Appearance:
Looking at Bastian, you'd say he was in that stage where his body hasn't quite grown into itself yet, only he's quite old enough to have left that stage by now. He's tall (just over six feet) and lanky and his hands and feet are a bit oversized. He tends to move like he's boxed in, with his arms close to his body and his shoulders hunched, because years of working in a woodshop have taught him that he is sadly prone to bumping things if he lets his arms swing free. The habit simply followed him out of the shop and into his everyday life. On the flipside, he's decently good at maneuvering through tight spaces since he's skinny enough to manage it, and when he does want to get somewhere he usually does so with the least amount of stopping possible, all in one fluid movement (or series of contortions). He is absolutely MADE of angles.
His skin is a rich brown, as are his eyes, which are heavily-lidded. His hair is straight, black, and quite long. He usually wears it back and out of his face, but no matter how often he ties it back strands will come loose to hang by his ears and flop into field of vision, causing one of his physical ticks to be jerking his head to either side to flip them back out of the way. His most noticeable facial feature is his nose, though. It's huge and wedge-shaped and, like the rest of him, is probably sharp enough to cut something with.
He has five piercings: snakebites in his lower lip, two hoops in his left ear, and one in his right. He also has a few small scars on his hands from accidents while still learning the craft, though nothing debilitating.
Personality:
Bastian is not the easiest person to get close to. Though not mean or snobbish, he's not all that outgoing and tends to dislike making smalltalk with people beyond a courteous 'Hello' or the like unless he's already very close to them. To him it feels forced and painfully awkward. He's an introvert in that he has a finite amount of energy and patience for dealing with fluffy social situations, and once it's used up, he'll need some time to himself to recharge. He's perfectly fine with impersonal interactions like being given orders, though, and the fact that when he gets settled into something he tends to 'turn off' the outside world is one of the reasons he did so well as a Woodcrafter. He could spend (and has spent) hours working on the same project as ordained by his overseer and be perfectly happy so long as nobody jarred him out of it by trying to talk about the weather.
For this reason, he doesn't have many close friends, something which suits him just fine. If someone is interesting enough to get past formalities with him then he's perfectly pleased as punch to get to know them beyond a superficial awareness and will go out of his way to spend time with them, because being an introvert does not at all mean that he dislikes all interaction as a rule. He also will sometimes pursue friendships with those he finds particularly intriguing or admirable; a basic rule of thumb with Bastian is that 'Hello, nice weather' won't get much response beyond an acknowledgement but 'Hello, nice weather, let me tell you about this SUPER COOL THING that happened yesterday' will have his undivided attention.
Bastian is something of a spiritual person. His views on spirituality basically amount to 'we don't know what's out there, but there might very well be something, and if there is I intend to be on its good side'. He's also a little superstitious in the same vein, and has his own charms and rituals to ward off bad luck. The most important of these is a small roughly inch and a half square piece of scrap wood that his father carved for him into the shape of his mother's dragon. He wears it as a necklace and sort of protection charm drawing on their love for him, sometimes rubbing it if he especially wants things to go well. Now that he's come to Wardens he keeps it particularly close, and the dragon's front flank is starting to get glossy from being rubbed so often.
This spirituality is likely the fault of his father, who believed something similar and from a very young age with his stories instilled a great sense of mysticism in Bastian. Rituals and unexplained happenings and seemingly supernatural events all greatly appeal to him and reinforce his belief that there's some greater force or power in the world, even if he can't quite explain what it is or how it works (which is why he keeps that belief largely private, because he doesn't feel he needs to explain it to anyone anyway).
Because of being raised by a Watch rider and a man who loved to talk constantly about the heroic and wondrous nature of dragons, Bastian is both very pro-Watch and very pro-dragon. They are one of the things about the universe he finds most wondrous, and he connects them to safety and sometimes to good luck.
In terms of sexuality, he's heterosexual heteroromantic as far as he knows, though he doesn't find anything objectionable in the thought of being romantic or sexual with another man if it's someone he very much likes. He's done precious little exploration into his sexuality either way; it's not something high on his priorities.
So, he's a socially reserved but easygoing young man with a good work ethic and his own quiet beliefs about life, the universe, everything, and dragons.
History:
Family:
Aston -- Master Woodcrafter
Sebra -- Watch rider of Green Cheryth, stationed at Southern Weyr
Bastion was born at Southern Weyr to a senior Greenrider and a Master Woodcrafter who had come to the Weyr to expand his craft in a place very different (and therefore much more exciting) from Lemos. His parents had him fairly late in life: his father was in his mid-fifties and his mother was pushing forty. Still, they were good parents to him, especially his father who had substantially more free time and flexibility in his schedule what with not being part of a squad. Instead of being amalgamated into the 'parentless' weyrbrat cresh, Bastian was raised primarily by his father Aston in his improvised workshop.
Though his father had gone into Woodcraft, his father before him had been a Harper who had a particular love of the old stories and songs. He had passed it onto his son who, in turn, passed it on to Bastian. The boy grew up saturated with stories of heroic dragons and their riders from before the end of thread, stories that Aston no doubt embellished even as he embellished dragon claws onto the feet of the furniture he made in his workshop for use in the Weyr. This, combined with having a mother in the Watch (who often featured in Aston's stories, performing great feats not really possible for a greenrider), produced a young man exceptionally pro-dragon and even more pro-Watch. Indeed, he even Stood at a Southern hatching as part of a deal with his father: Stand at the first hatching he was eligible for and, if he didn't Impress, go into Woodcraft, which Bastian already showed a talent for.
He didn't Impress. However, he took it in stride, assuming that whatever force governed his life had other plans for him and perhaps those plans were to do as he'd promised, make the journey to Lemos and begin his training at the craft hall. Work-filled but uneventful years of sweeping up woodchips and whittling and carving later and he had a Journeyman rank under his belt and a nagging wish to return to his home on the Southern Continent.
That he went to Wardens instead of staying permanently at Southern Weyr was a snap decision. After all, Southern already had a Master Woodcrafter, what on earth would they need him for? Wardens, very new and so deeply tied to the watch he believed very strongly in, likely needed skilled craftsmen more. This hunch was correct and he settled in very quickly, and has now been at Wardens for several months, quietly doing his thing.
Other stuff:
PICTURE! Just... imagine he's wearing Pern-appropriate clothing, this is a picture I drew for his original incarnation.
