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Rider
Name: Idris
Age: 28
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Rank: Wingsecond (well, soon-to-be-Wingsecond)

History: Idris was the product of a difficult labor, which in a society like Pern is not usually conducive to a long life. Fortunately for the sake of this history, which would otherwise be very brief, her father was a Masterhealer. He managed to save the child thanks to a combination of quick action and the necessary resources already being on hand. He was not, however, able to save her mother, who died during the same difficult labor. And a Masterhealer's duty left no spare time and no good place to raise a little girl.

She was fostered off into the household of her mother's family, taken in by her aunt and raised as a proper young woman. They were a well-off family of Holders, neither lords nor ladies but still definitively upper class... and definitively traditional. But her father hadn't sent her off to be safe and sheltered and ignorant. There were certain things that girls needed to be taught. Idris spent her earliest days on arithmetic and history and music and etiquette, as taught by the Harpers and the other ladies of the household. And when her father could spare time to visit, she learned anatomy and the sciences and even a bit of self-defense technique. (Masterhealer Terris, having treated a few too many unfortunate injuries in his time, was of the opinion that such training was never inappropriate.) By the time she was old enough to rejoin her father at the Healer Hall, she had the seeds of a well-rounded education - one that to this day she endeavors to sustain.

She walked the tables at age nineteen, a young Journeyman, bright but still inexperienced. But while her father had focused primarily on human healing, finding satisfaction in difficult surgeries that saved lives, Idris was considering dragonhealing. She'd had no opportunity to work with the remarkable beasts up-close, but she wanted to... and as a result, she was sent south to Trine for her first Journeyman posting, to assist the dragonhealers at the Weyr. This was eight turns ago, before anyone had even heard of the Mystweed problem, but even back then some healers were interested in the differences between northern and southern dragons - if there were any to be discovered - and what long-term effects the atypical genetics might have on the population. Would crimson clutches ultimately weaken or strengthen the overall stock of the weyrs? Idris' assignment was to observe and report overall trends of draconic health, at the same time that she learned how to diagnose injury and illness in the great beasts.

She was understandably somewhat sidetracked from her mission when one of the crimsons took Flight and laid a clutch of healthy eggs. Idris was invited to stand, an invitation she gladly accepted - although she told herself it was just to see the hatchlings up close, and to observe the egg-cracking process used to hatch blacks, silvers, and crimsons. There was likely to be a black at least in the crimson clutch, and Idris had never actually seen it happen before.

The egg she thought would be a black, however, spilled out a handsome little silver, light on dark with neat little pale stockings on each leg. He wobbled to his feet, trembling, and turned rainbow bright eyes onto Idris. Idris! There you are! You can carry your Singhath the rest of the way - I don't want to fall in front of everyone.

And she did. She scooped him up in her arms and carried him off the sands, securely cradled against her chest, to where the waiting food was to sate his hunger. Weyrlinghood left no time for anything but Singhath: like all silvers he was a fragile and sickly thing, needing constant attention. Not that one would have ever been able to guess it from his demeanor. Singhath was a proud creature right out of the shell, and even when his legs and wings seemed to be growing too fast for the rest of his body, he moved with the grave deliberate strides of a wading bird. The two of them were quite the pair, the serious-eyed young woman and her serious dragon.

By the time they graduated weyrlinghood, Singhath had matured into a powerful creature, shaking off the curiously elongated look he'd once sported and filling out with solid muscle. Idris' experience as a healer had done him good, and apart from some periods of brief illness he wasn't all that far behind his traditionally colored clutchsiblings. He had no interest in chasing females - a fact for which Idris was grateful - but that didn't stop his rider from pursuing her own relationships, on her own schedule. And with weyrlinghood's restrictions over with... Well, there was a handsome guard by the name of Torigan that she'd been talking with for the past turn, long enough to form a solid friendship. It began as sparring, light knifework for Idris to keep her skills from getting rusty. The two got on well, and what began as playful sport and mutual interests turned into something more romantic.

The relationship lasted for several turns. Neither of them were inclined to rash decisions, and Idris spent quite a lot of serious consideration before she invited Torigan to be her long-term weyrmate. She spent even more serious consideration when she realized that she was with child. The couple sat down, discussed it, discussed the possibility of future life, and like good sensible people they settled on a mutually satisfactory solution. The Weyrs were in chaos at the time, with political disaster and rumors of assassination. But with no Thread on the horizon, there was no urgent reason why a dragonrider couldn't have a family... and if it turned out that they couldn't, the child would be fostered into the creche with the other weyrbrats, and they would have the satisfaction of knowing that at least they had tried.

The Red Star had other ideas.

All of Trine was taken by surprise in that brutal First Fall. Idris and Singhath did their part - they could do no less. They were needed, Singhath's flame searing at the ancient enemy of all dragons. But he was inexperienced, taken by surprise and unfamiliar with the realities of Threadfall. No amount of drills and practice could prepare them for the event that they'd had no reason to expect. And Singhath and Idris found themselves boxed in by a falling clump of Thread. Reacting instinctively, the silver betweened the both of them to safety.

The results were predictable - and to a healer's eye, unmistakable. The future fell apart. Torigan, torn between the pain of loss and fear of losing Idris and anger that she'd put herself in harm's way, became withdrawn. Idris made no attempt to draw him back. There wasn't room for another person in her life anymore, and so she quietly shut the door on that relationship - first metaphorically, then literally. She was once again alone. She couldn't blame Singhath, of course - death by Threadfall would have been worse, not better. It was her own lack of awareness that had let them be boxed in in the first place. And so she threw herself into drills, into memorizing every formation and maneuver, so that they would never be caught unawares again.

They fought in the Revolution, of course. Idris took lives. She isn't proud of it, but she had a blade in her hand and she hadn't forgotten all of Torigan's lessons. As for the guard, he went away - to Malvren or Benden or somewhere else, she didn't bother to find out. She didn't want to know. Idris tries not to let the fear of what might happen paralyze her, and knowing where her ex-weyrmate is would just make her worry about meeting him on the battlefield. And she and Singhath continued to fly and train and prepare for battle on two fronts: one against the whers, one against the sky itself.

Description: Tall, curiously pale, and terribly solemn, Idris gives off the impression of being a very serious young lady. Which is absolutely true. From her mother she inherited the fair northern complexion, along with impressive height and stately self-possessed carriage. For all that there is quite a bit of Idris to be had (nearly six feet of her, in fact) she always gives off the impression of being aware. Aware of herself, aware of what is around her... Every motion that Idris makes is deliberate, composed, precise. From her father she inherited the dark eyes, so deep a brown as to be nearly black, and the raven-dark, ramrod-straight hair that she keeps quite sensibly bobbed. (Getting Thread in your hair sounds to Idris like an unnecessary risk for the sake of vanity.)

The combination of dark hair and eyes with that pallid skin gives her a weirdly monochromatic appearance that further underscores her mildly unnerving solemnity... and the fact that she really doesn't emote much doesn't help either. Still, other than that, Idris is a fairly ordinary twenty-eight-turn-old woman. One who happens to have an impressive set of swordfighting muscles and a couple really interesting scars, but you're not going to get her shirt off to see them, so why are you asking?

Personality: Death holds no mystery for Idris. Sometimes she wishes that it did.

In short, she is someone who was forced to go from young lady to a warrior and leader very very quickly, and did it with admirable strength of character. Idris is not always calm and composed: that would indicate an alarming lack of emotional response. She responds with absolutely adequate levels of terror when faced with life-threatening danger, and typical bafflement when it comes to things she doesn't quite understand yet. It's just that she never permits it to paralyze her or prevent her from doing things. Some people, when confronted with a situation that they don't understand, or that makes them afraid, just freeze up. They wait for someone else: someone to rescue them, or give them an order, or they tell themselves this isn't my job. Idris has never met a job that isn't hers. Granted, if someone else is already doing it better than she can, she'll leave them to it with no fuss. But if she sees something that needs doing, she will do it, without complaint and with only a brief, impartial assessment of risk.

And, perhaps most tellingly, she won't ask for anyone to come with her. Could she accomplish things easier if she relied on others more often? Absolutely. Idris will ask for help if she needs it - but usually only after she's sure that she needs it, which generally involves her trying it on her own once and getting quite royally trounced. Self-sufficiency is just something that has been ingrained in her: there is only her and Singhath, and only the silver will always be with her. Others may be trusted for a while, but they are... impermanent. They will leave, eventually. Or she'll leave. Whichever comes first.

In the company of others, she tends to come off as older and more experienced than she really is: cool, composed, polite but aloof in a way that discourages familiarity. This tends to frustrate her, because Idris has no interest in being put on a pedestal, and nothing annoys her more than needless subservience. She was brought up as a young lady, and a proper Hold education includes plenty of etiquette classes, but she tends not to stand needlessly on ceremony when lives are at stake. Given the option, she tends to be relatively quiet and solitary, preferring a cup of klah and an evening at home over a glass of wine and a night out with a handsome gentleman. (Not to say that she never fancies the gentlemen... but Singhath doesn't chase, and Idris is... scarred, in ways that are not immediately visible.)

The problem with all this is that she tends to bottle things up. Idris does feel terror and grief as strongly as any other woman, but she can't allow others to see weakness in her, and she can't permit herself to slow down long enough to work through that terror and grief. Instead, she feels it in the moment, then quietly compartmentalizes it and puts it away to be sorted out later.

Other: n/a

Dragon
Name: Singhath
Age: 9
Colour: Silver (8e8999)
Size: Large
Build: Muscular

Description: Image here!

Singhath is a lot of dragon. He's a silver, to begin with. But even by metallic standards, he's a big silver. He's an enormous metallic lump of sturdy muscle, solid and surprisingly healthy for an atypical color. When he was a weyrling, his limbs, wings, and tail grew faster than the rest of him, giving him a rather ridiculous appearance like a shiny stork. But as time went on he filled out and solidified, and as an inevitable result of that he's put on some weight. He's not fat by any means, and the extra weight doesn't slow him down any. But the overall effect is less like a slender and elegant waterbird, and more like a jaguar or some other jungle feline: the impression of power at rest, languid but ready to coil like a spring at a moment's notice.

As for those long limbs and tail, those didn't so much go away as the rest of him caught up. Singhath is long in the body, with a deep chest and unusually powerful shoulders and forelegs for a dragon, but his neck is relatively short by comparison, with a large broad head and a thin whippy tail.

His overall color is a dark stormy grey with distinctive blue-violet undertones, but even if he lacked a metallic sheen, he would never be mistaken for a blue. All four of his legs end in neat silvery-white "stockings", with the tip of his tail and a blaze down his face dipped in the same color. His hindquarters are patterned with striping, the contrast of light and dark striking and immediately recognizable, and his wings fade out from dark at the base to light at the tips.

Personality: Singhath spends an awful lot of time and energy looking like he's expending as little as energy as possible. Ever seen a cat fall off a table, land on its feet, then lay down and casually lick its shoulder as if nothing happened? That's Singhath in a nutshell: languid and smooth and nonchalant. No living being can completely avoid ever being undignified, but that's not going to stop him from trying to shake it off as quickly as possible. The silver is a proud creature, bordering on vain - he knows that he's a handsome fellow, and he wants to look good. More importantly, he wants his rider to look good, because when he's doing well it reflects well on her. Unfortunately, it tends to make him look like he's not trying terribly hard, which might be why he and His were passed up for so long.

He's naturally a little on the reserved side; the silver will tolerate other dragons well, up to a point, and then when he is done playing nice he's done playing nice. Singhath will always give his rider clear notice when he's getting close to his breaking point, but he has been known to occasionally get into conflict with other large males who test his patience. Still, even then he tends to issue a sharp rebuke in the form of a rough cuff with a clawed forepaw or a scathing word in the right place, and then settle down again. Singhath doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't stay angry for more than the duration of a single encounter. And while he doesn't relish being touched by humans apart from his rider, he is sufficiently tolerant that if Idris asks him to bear a rider or humor a Candidate, he will do so.

In fact, overall Singhath is just a very tolerant creature. Getting all huffy about little things isn't cool. It's better to express your annoyance once, just so that everyone knows where you stand, and then set about getting things done anyway to prove that you're not going to let anyone else slow you down. When he's on the job, he tends to get things done quickly and efficiently. When he's not on the job, he's usually napping in the sun... or hunting. Singhath adores hunting (one of the reasons he's as sturdy as he is, Idris usually has to tell him to stop) and one of the surest signs that he's fond of another dragon is if he offers to catch something for them. Whether it's the jungles around Trine, the herdbeast pens, or even going fishing, Singhath always has time to catch himself - or someone else - a meal. As a silver, naturally he has no interest in females, but he will still occasionally take a shine to one dragon over another. He is naturally friendly towards his fellow atypicals, but for reasons unknown, he's also fond of blues.

His sense of humor tends towards the dryly sardonic, in contrast to Idris' complete lack of a sense of humor. If he gets her to even crack a smile at one of his witty one-liners, he considers it a resounding success. And for a dragon - the most pacifistic of the dragonkin - he has a fairly callous disregard for the lives of Wherholders. They made their choice. Singhath doesn't even have much of a political opinion on their ideals: they're enemies of Trine. If given the chance, they would try to hurt him and his rider. That's literally all he needs to know about them. His loyalty to his weyr is unquestioned and unquestioning, second only to his loyalty to Idris. Everyone else... Well. Everyone dies someday. In these savage times, best not to count on anyone's survival but your own.

Other: n/a