Amaranta
Name: Amaranta, "Marti"
Age: 28ish
Gender: Female
Craft/Rank: Guard.
Appearance: Amaranta = boobs, hips and butt; she has a figure and she flaunts it like any other average person would who is confident and A-OK with how they look. But for the sake of this profile, here’s some better details:
She roughly stands at about 5’6” and at 140 or so pounds, making her basically pretty damn average. She’s got strength, as every guard needs it, but she appears more fleshy than “cut” in almost every physical aspect. Proportionally, things are pretty even given her height, though she has an hour-glass figure and is slightly rockin’ a J-Lo booty. Her face is ovular and actually a bit baby-ish, her cheeks round and her smile big and exuberant. Her eyes are a very dark brown, as is her hair, which is thick, semi-wavy, and falls past her shoulders when let down. Her skin tone has never been, nor ever will be, any shade of porcelain or ever considered “fair,” and sits happily in the “Tan” range. There are numerous little superficial scars on her hands, arms and shoulders from her previous 'craft' and her palms are calloused and rough. A few larger scars litter a shoulder, and hidden on her back in a nasty scar from a branding iron.
Personality: Loyal. That is the number one word to describe her and honestly it probably controls her life choices and personal relationships a little too much. While naturally questioning, she is brassy and far from anti social,l but gaining trust is something that comes with time and proof; she has a lot of ‘acquaintances’ but not as many ‘friends.’ But if trust and loyalty are given, than there's very little that will change it aside from blantant betrayal. And even then, the betrayal (which would have to be pretty serious given the time it takes her to give her loyalty and trust) would have to concern her personally. Unscrupulous and most morally questionable acts of her trusted friends that deal with someone else and are not being done TO HER are often pushed aside by Amaranta by her keeping to a mentality of “it’s not to me, so they’re still trust worthy to myself and thus I am loyal to them."
She has some difficulty admitting she’s wrong, namely in arguments that deal with topics she has experience in, such as smithing. This isn’t abundant pride or narcissism, merely just the fact that she likes to be right and believes that what she’s explaining is the truth. If the topic is something she really doesn’t know much about, such as herdbeasts or neuroscience or something, then yeah, she’d probably admit ignorance and being wrong. ... if it can be proven. She likes to snark and be sarcastic, occasionally poking innocent fun at people she thinks are being pretentious. But even she has enough tact to know when to shut up, and in the heat of incursions or raids -- when she's picked to Second -- she's all seriousness. The riders know more than she does on the subject, and she'll almost happily just point and shoot.
In her loyalty, she’ll stick by her friends, and in the process break rules, have some seemingly skewed morals or life choices, and maybe punch some faces. She isn’t a bad person or someone that needs to be condemned by any means, nor is she stupid (though it will often seem that way to some people). She may make some poor decisions, take falls for people who are thought not to deserve it, pass up some opportunities, and walk a thin line, but loyalty, love and trust are still under their universal definitions to her; they’re just looked at from a less than universal angle. If that makes sense.
History: Amaranta is a weyrbrat from Fort (everyone's from Fort. Srsly), raised in the foster atmosphere her whole life. She doesn’t know her biological parents and this sits fine with her. They obviously didn’t want her so why roll energy around trying to figure them out when she has perfectly caring foster figures who are actually in her life?
That being said, she had a normal childhood though got in trouble often and definitely caused a good amount of utter shenanigans. Moving into a craft did her some good in the focus department, but she was still a line walker and has never really regretted the majority of her actions.
While she's learned smithing, she's dabbled more in smuggling, the 'trade' being exercised throughout her teen years and petering off (as one might expect) only somewhat recently when she Impressed to Danverith at age 25. He was a dragon who would not tolerate such hooligans, and Marti was whipped into honest shape the moment the b*****d hatched.
Through weyrling hood they excelled well enough, though never as high as Dan's expectations were concerned. But things were OK. The goal was to get into the dragonguard, but by the time that was allowed, there came a turn of events. Six months ago an 'opportunity' came about concerning Warden's, and while Marti wasn't interested, she wasn't the one making decisions in the relationship. Danverith was, and playing guard at a prison full of maggots sounded perfectly right.
And so, here they are. At Warden's. Dan's happy, Marti ....is semi conflicted considering she knows a few inmates and uh, could have ended up here but on the other side of the bars.
Other stuff:
Name: Danverith
Color: Brown
Age: 3
Appearance: "Reinforcements? I am the reinforcements."
-Vagrant Story
Faranth, what the shards is that thing? It's like someone took a large piece of disgustingly oily, nearly transparent beige leather, draped it over some veins and ribs and an awful lot of teeth and left that pitiful mass of hobbly knees and awkward wings to try and march across the Hatching Sands. Danverith, it's not working, you look slimy and ridiculous. Stop it.
But don't be fooled by the fact that this brown was a small, pale and plain ugly hatchling: Danverith will grow up to be a terror. He will be huge even for a brown (think small bronze), all barrel chest and linebacker shoulders. His thin and soft weyrlinghood hide will toughen as he grows, becoming coarse and bumpy like a wher's. His coloration, too, will change: the ugly, near-transparent beige will darken into a rich, nearly black mahogany that gently blends into a lighter orange-brown on his wingsails, upper jaw and back. Though Danverith's chest is very broad and definitely solid and though he is burly to the point where his muscles have muscles, the brown's hindlimbs leave something to be desired. They're very short and underdeveloped for a dragon, just strong enough to not have a significant impact on his landing and takeoff. Because of that, his stature at odds with itself: Danverith's front marches like a soldier, and his back slinks cowardly along.
Blame it on his parents. This is what you get for having a large, muscular, chest-heavy male catch a large, muscular, chest-heavy gold: an enormous chest-heavy brown with awfully powerful jaws, jutting brow-ridges, stumpy headknobs and the look of a t-rex who is considering having you for dinner, and is not pleased with what he sees in the slightest.
...Actually, Danverith's teeth deserve special mention and a paragraph of their own. Most dragons have vaguely canine dentition with added molars. They routinely eat rocks to barf fire at everything. Yeah, that's pretty badass. Now picture that, but upped to eleven: where other dragons are canines, Danverith is a hyena. He can't crush diamonds between his jaws, but holy s**t. The general consensus is that the brown has too many teeth than he has any right to have, and that he will likely be a very destructive dragonet.
This displeasure Danverith will suffer in absolute, eerie silence. Generally, dragons roar or bugle or rumble or keen: Danverith will almost never raise his physical voice outside of combat. The thing is, he simply cannot - his vocal cords are small and malformed, which limits his vocal range to hisses and uncanny, rasping shrieks that are almost laughable when he's a hatchling, but quickly become pansshittingly terrifying once you realize that there's a sharding huge brown dragon coming at you like a hawk.
Personality: "If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day, you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on earth. You are not even human ******** beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian s**t. Because I am hard you will not like me, but the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. Here, you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Weyr. Do you maggots understand that?"
Full Metal Jacket, with some NW-appropriate modifications.
Danverith is a force of nature. Let's hope that his rider has the balls to handle a dragon-shaped tornado. He is drive and determination and painful amounts of perfectionism: a dragon that can and will steamroller his rider, a great deal of his siblings and their riders. Maybe their mentors as well, if he thinks that they don't have what it takes to perform their duties accordingly.
To elaborate: Danverith was born with the idea that everything and everyone has a place in this world and a duty to perform. Anyone failing to carry their own weight, anyone foisting their burdens on others are therefore subjects for contempt and loathing. Unfortunately, this hierarchical outlook presents a problem: Danverith is colourist. He doesn't have any issues with greens or blues or fellow browns , but he's probably going to hate on the new aberrant colors, the greys maybe more than most. One appeared rabid. Chaotic. No better than the prisoners he guards. And the yellows? Are they even yellow? Sneakgolds? Liars, all of them. As far as metallics go, it's pick-and-choose. Dan likes hard workers, those who have worth. Golds produce, so there's their worth. Bronzes... Again, pick-and-choose.
This brown's world is amazingly simple: everything and everyone can be neatly filed away into one of the two categories within his mind. These categories have absolutely nothing to do with the abstract and highly impractical concepts of good and evil. Since Danverith is all about practicality, his mind sorts people into two groups that actually make sense: things that are his to defend to the death (the Weyr, his rider), and there are things for him to rip, kill, and destroy. Everything else is up in the air until Danverith makes up his mind - and pray that he won't think of you as an enemy.
There are people and dragons that outrank him, and he will follow their orders to the letter and without question. However, that doesn't mean that his scale of worth completely corresponds with rank: if he thinks that his wingleader or wingsecond is not up to the task, Danverith's respect for them will wane and wane and wane. But that rarely happens: the brown is a grunt, not a general. At this point, anyways: he definitely has leadership potential. But for now, he shall remain obedient and unquestioning and willing to do anything for his Weyr: if he must fight, he will fight. If he must die, he will die. If he must go after an escapee, then... he will be utterly terrifying and...less than considerate. He'll gladly carry off someone screaming in his talons. Danverith is not one to succumb to all that squirming.
Danverith is a war dragon to the core: he's got a liking and definite promise for combat, he has a keen sense of hierarchy that will translate well to military discipline, and he generally plays well with others. Most others he will tolerate. Others he will respect, but never trust. Some will irritate the s**t out of him, and some he will loathe. For a lucky (?) few, Danverith may have something resembling adoration. Don't think, however, that Danverith is anywhere near affectionate - really, now, the words "Danverith" and "affection" do not belong in the same sentence. Even towards his rider. Especially towards his rider: even if he picked the best of the best on the Sands they will likely not live up to his expectations. And you bet your a** he's convinced himself that he can and will get them there, whether they like it or not.
Which is why Danverith's weyrlinghood was a continuous, torturous trial-by-pain for his rider and anyone who lagged behind.
*** Danverith was written by the absolutely amazing Pam <3.
