Name: Aldrey
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Rank: Senior Weyrling (bluerider)
Appearance: Handsome isn't likely to be the first choice of word people go to when glancing over the slender young man with his large, dark almond shaped eyes and thick black hair. Although he's not without the makings to be quite attractive, it's the combination of other traits, like his edgy, quiet nervousness, tendency to linger at the edges of things, and the apparently permanent dark circles under his already dark eyes combine with his high cheekbones and slightly long nose to make him look just a little bit disconcerting and unhealthy. He's more pleasant when he allows himself to smile just a little, which relieves his tendency to look owlish on top of everything else, and this seems to be slowly becoming more frequent since he has bonded to Pippith.
Personality:
Aldrey would probably be absolutely thrilled if he woke up in the morning with the ability to turn invisible. Not simply because it would allow him to move unseen and learn more things (Which he insists he does not mean in a 'bad' way), but he'd frankly just feel better if no one ever called him out to the spotlight. He's sort of a pleasant but easy to ignore fellow and he kind of likes it that way. Especially since as he gets older, it's easier to escape people joking about him possibly expiring in the middle of a chin up.
As far as Chivalry goes, well... he does certain parts of it very well. Especially the love from afar. His crushes tend to be elaborate fictions, which would make lovely Harpers tales, but which tend not to pan out. Truth be told the boy hasn't had a single relationship, other than the one with Pippith, that's turned out anywhere close to his shining dreams, and he's... ok he's sort of ok with that. Dream partners don't dump you, or tell you that you're skinny, creepy and pathetic.... or any of those things that cause emotional pain or require him to come out from his comfortable little corner of the world with Pip.
He's probably do better if he didn't seem to have a habit of falling for people who clearly and obviously don't find him their 'type', but unattainable love apparently has just the right measure of tragic beauty and... well... unobtainability, and he seems to have settled on the theory that what he never has can't hurt him, or... will hurt him less anyway.
His skills of mimicry and memorization are his strongest skill sets, and the memory ones are the ones he likes best. He loves learning new things, and putting together information scraps from different sources into a whole picture, which makes him sort of dangerous to gossip around, or near... since if Aldrey hears it, he's unlikely to forget it. He doesn't deliberately seek out to hurt people with gossip, but he sometimes accidentally drops information that might make people uncomfortable in the process of putting together his 'larger pictures', and apologies only go so far when you accidentally note that "Bluerider A was snogging brownrider C and their weyrmate B didn't know it, causing....Oh. Oh Sorry A and B. Er. Maybe he'll um.. go.. over here to finish figuring this out. Sorry. Sorry. SORRY."
For the same reasons, he's annoying at cards, and a great lesson demonstration with weapons that memorization is not the same as understanding. He struggles with weapons training still, having memorized forms and moves and holds, but stressful situations, even being on call for demonstration, can cause him to loose the threads and devolve into something more like untrained chaos. While he finds this embarrassing, he understands on a logical level how this would be helpful in teaching younger weyrlings or candidates how knowing the theory is not the same as doing.
History:
Aldrey is the oldest child in his moderately well off holder family, and the one that was largely expected not to survive early childhood. He was an underweight, fragile looking child, and never really seemed to flower, so much as kind of straggle along like a creeping vine that somehow manages to survive in spite of looking ready to wither at ay moment.
His unhealthy appearance (and tendency to sleep poorly, and to occasionally horrify everyone by occasionally screaming when he did...) only looked worse when his younger brother was born.
Healthy and large, his younger brother taxed his mother (who somewhat takes after her oldest son's slight build.) and was passed to a wet nurse, where he continued to grow and thrive, eventually outstripping his older brother in height, build, and weight even though he was three years younger. Aldrey felt outshone by his younger, bolder, more handsome brother early on, and quickly came to wonder if his brother shouldn't have been the first born instead. Clearly he was more charismatic and well off, better suited to be the head of the house... definitely more desirable for marriage...
He liked the idea of training as a Harper, figuring it would play more to his strengths, and maybe he could find a way to step quietly out of the way when there was a chance.
He didn't have the chance to broach this to his father before a dragon rider came to the halls, bringing messages and keeping an eye out for possible candidates, especially in the wake of the devastating plagues that had decimated the ranks of Pern's defenders, and while it was not surprising that the rider's attention turned to Aldrey's family... the fact that eyes fell to Aldrey was. Even to Aldrey. ESPECIALLY to Aldrey.
Surely they had the wrong person. They were looking for his younger brother right? His brother was everything you imagined dragon riders to be... he was just... Aldrey.
But it wasn't a mistake, and it WAS an opportunity, and if he aged out... maybe an opening to other things, so he seized on the chance to see what would happen.
What happened was at first... well... relatively predictable. His head was shorn, he donned the familiar bland gray robes, and proceeded to wheeze and claw his way through the immensely difficult physical rigors of candidacy, more difficult for someone who just honestly was not in the best physical shape at all. Jokes and bets were actually made on whether or not he would simply expire in the middle of an run or a chin up, and after putting a boy with a tendency to insomnia and night terrors into a communal barracks.... Even Aldrey has to admit that he's pretty sure at least a few of them kind of wished he would, bet's be damned. Not that he could help it, but being awakened at random nights because 'that annoying skinny kid is actually sleeping for once but now they're screaming and thrashing' is fun for exactly no one, and definitely not restful, and Aldrey compounded his other difficulties by occasionally trying to stay up on purpose, or to find someplace else to sleep, or even looked into sleeping droughts, which just made him even harder to wake up.... and waking someone up from a Night Terror is already nigh on impossible. ((He's still so... so.... sooooooooooo very sorry.))
He was eventually squired, though at first he was pretty sure this was less because of his skills and more because (in his opinion) his sponsored rider happened to think he was particularly hilarious and wanted a first hand look at the chaos. Honestly M'ere was probably more interested in his remarkable memory, and given M'ere... her motives may or may not have been entirely pure in her intent for them either... ((But that's something you would have to discuss with the clever woman herself.))
And some time later, maybe in a hair better shape than he was before, he found himself standing on the sands again, only this time in the path of an enthusiastic blue who bounced from his shell, sprang from the shell of another dragon ((who hatched shortly afterward in a ball of righteous fury looking for the culprit)) and barreled for him across the sands, knocking him off his feet before he had enough time to even shriek in terror.
Well... perhaps it's not so unusual to be charged, but he wasn't prepared to be bonded instead of jointed like cut of meat, let alone the good fortune not to be knocked out, or to startle his new partner into betweening (or anyone else's) due to his moment of raw terror. Being sat on and having the wind knocked out of him may have contributed to this, preventing more than a sad little wheeze of sound instead of a horrified scream.
He's still not entirely sure what Pip was thinking, but he takes such comfort from his dragon that he's not going to question his good fortune.
-----
Name: Pippith
Age: Six months
Colour: Blue
Feel of voice: Resonant and discordantly musical, with the undertone of bright rushing water and a chorus of distant croaking frogs.
Appearance:
Personality: Where Aldrey is retiring and fatalistic, and studious, Pippith can be somewhat short sited, but stubbornly optimistic and views the world through rose tinted glasses. Aldrey is wonderful! Food is wonderful! Flying is wonderful! Sure fighting thread is going to be dangerous but SO EXCITING! They're going to be the best ever! Nothing will ever touch them!
His optimism and loving behavior is a balm to Aldrey, who still suffers from Night terrors and an excessive consumption of Klah, and nights when the weary looking young rider might otherwise not sleep at all, he'll often be able to collapse into a deep sleep just by touching his dragon, and he does not look forward to missions that might separate them for any time.
Pip is a considerably more social animal than his rider, even a touch flirty, and loves to vocalize, and can be a bit brazen about chatting with people that aren't even his rider, though more frequently he just vocalizes, and his range is impressive.
In spite of being outgoing, he's not necessarily a bold dragon however, and his demonstration of being bright and outgoing do not go hand in hand with him being a bold warrior. He'd rather bluff his way out of conflict than actually fight.
This does not necessarily mean he avoids conflict, no he'll go through the motions, big talk, big words, big displays... but when it comes down to it, he'll cut and skedaddle from most direct confrontations.
His memory isn't the best either, and he relies on Aldrey considerably to make up for this, since he does have some notion of his short falls.
Other:
I'm sure this could use some more work but I cannot currently brain sufficiently.
