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Approved by Con

THE RIDER/HANDLER
Name: C'ross
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Appearance: C’ross is a fairly handsome man, if you're into the big tough-looking type. He'd probably react better to 'striking' or 'imposing' as adjectives, but in the right light... The broad jaw, the strong profile, the aquiline nose probably broken once or twice some time ago, the intensely green eyes all add up to a picture that’s not unpleasant. Granted, if you're up in his personal space far enough to see the color of his eyes, he's probably about to forcibly eject you. Point is, he could appeal to a certain kind of person. He rarely smiles, although the smile is unexpectedly pleasant and charming when he chooses to use it.

And he's definitely in shape. There's no doubt about that. Six foot two and 220 pounds, nearly all muscle. The combination of height, broad shoulders, and an overall impression of solidity make him a brick wall that not too many people want to tangle with in a fight. And you notice every inch of that six foot two, because C’ross has the impeccable posture of a soldier. Even out of his flight leathers and knots, nobody is going to mistake him for being anything but a rider. In plain clothes, something about him screams 'I should be in uniform right now'.

His complexion overall is naturally fair, a lingering relic of Northern blood, although the hard outdoors life of a rider has long since darkened him to a light, weathered tan. His hair is dark, somewhere between brown and black. Most of the time he keeps it slicked back, but when it's ruffled it sticks up around his head in unruly spikes. He tries not to let that happen.

Personality: To all appearances, C'ross is everything that you could hope for in an up-and-coming bluerider. He's brave. Selfless. Honorable. Trustworthy. He takes orders without question, and gives them without hesitation. Sure, maybe the guy is a little rough around the edges, but that's just how you get, growing up in a Weyr. He's tough, and that's what matters. And C'ross works pretty damn hard to make sure that this appearance does not slip.

The interior of C'ross' mind is a meticulously organized space. If one were to visualize it, think of it as a small room full of boxes. Unwanted thoughts and emotions - fear, grief, self-doubt, all those lingering psychological issues - they get sealed up in a box and put away, buried under other boxes. Then they can be quite comfortably ignored... at least until the room fills up with boxes entirely, at which point it becomes virtually impossible to move without bumping into a stack of unresolved issues. Likewise, C'ross mostly deals with his problems by not dealing with them. External problems, that's another issue altogether. If you need a criminal captured, a mystery solved, a crisis dealt with, those are easy. They're practical problems with practical solutions. It's the internal, philosophical stuff that he tends to lock away securely in hopes that they will simply cease to exist. Sometimes it even works. "Fake it until you make it" is a fine enough method for overcoming self-doubt, after all. But it doesn't change the fact that underneath his rock-hard veneer of complete assurance, he's a tangled mess.

C'ross more or less divides the world into three categories: there's those in his chain of command. There's the people he genuinely cares about. And then there's the rest of the dimglows. There's only room in C'ross' day to care about so many people, and he appoints that time and energy to only the people he considers to be worth the effort. Consider him living proof that good does not mean nice. Oh, he'll come to your rescue if you need the assistance of a rider. Just don't expect him to hang around after and be your new friend. It's part of the job. He gets in, he does the job, he goes away. If he spent all his time making friends, that would be less time spent protecting the Hold. Now stop complaining that he's not making smalltalk.

It's no surprise that when he does form a close bond with someone, he tends to seek out relationships where he is not the focus. He gravitates towards those who seem vulnerable: the shy, the soft-spoken, the broken birds of the world. Because if there is one place where C'ross shines, it is in being someone else's rock of support. He derives genuine satisfaction from being needed, and in return his loyalty and constant nature make him an excellent protector... at the same time it deflects anyone from ever noticing his own vulnerabilities. He's a surprisingly hopeless romantic, beneath the miles of bad road it takes to get there, and he can be gentle and affectionate when the moment calls for it. But these close bonds tend to be few and far between, reserved only for particular people that C'ross is willing to commit the time and effort to.

If you're lucky enough to be in his "chain of command" you get automatic respect. If you're lucky enough to be a close friend you get automatic support. As for the rest of the world? Well... C'ross is pretty much a jerk. He holds everyone else at arm's length to keep them away, and tends to be automatically suspicious of people rather than assuming the best. His upbringing taught him that it's okay to be blunt with your words, to be quicker with a criticism than a compliment, and not to think before you speak because if anyone's offended, that's their problem. He doesn't actively try to hurt anyone, but it's just inevitable that some people will deal with his abrasiveness better than others.

History: Corloss was born in the turn 175, twenty-five turns prior to the beginning of the Pass, to a bluerider and a brownrider - an unusual union, perhaps, less intuitive than a blue and a green mated pair. But weyrmated they were, their dragons close companions and the two riders equally close as lovers. They had transferred from Fort together in hopes of finding better conditions at High Reaches. This didn't mean that they had time to raise a child, and Corloss was foisted off swiftly into the creche. But he grew up at least knowing who his parents were: they weren't much a part of his life, but he was aware that they were riders of no particular renown and that his birth hadn't just been the casual result of a Flight-based hookup. He was also aware of two full-blooded siblings: his elder brother Daloros, and his younger sister Corva. Rare it might be for riders to have a proper family, but his parents were at least faithful to one another.

He was inherently serious and dutiful even as a child, in contrast to his siblings - especially Daloros, who was always the reckless cocky one, letting his natural charisma carry him along. With six turns age difference between them, their interests and their peer groups were too different to spend much time together – and Corloss, even at twelve turns, was sharp enough to know when an eighteen-turn-old didn’t want his little brother dogging at his heels. But the rest of the time, they were close as brothers could be. Corva, a few turns younger, was always on their heels, but the boys took care to make sure that she could always keep up. Life in the creche did not always contribute well to tight family bonds, but neither did it actively discourage them.

It is the right - some would say responsibility - of every weyrbrat to Stand for a clutch, but one might be surprised to hear that Corloss wasn't entirely certain that he did want to. (Daloros, of course, began standing as soon as they would physically let him. But maybe a boy can be forgiven for not always wanting to follow in someone else's footsteps.) He was a gawky, awkward-looking, anxious teenage boy: the kind who grew taller before he grew broader, and thus appeared to be made primarily out of elbows, some of them not even belonging to him. His other siblings had found their calling far more quickly than he did - Daloros Impressed at age eighteen to a good fine brown, becoming D'ros. Corva found an apprenticeship at the Healer Hall that took her far from High Reaches, though she kept in regular contact via letter. Her parents were upset with what they perceived as dereliction of her duty to Stand, but Corva made it explicitly clear that she was uninterested in dragonriding; Corva was a pacifist to the bone, unwilling to deal with even the basic combat training that all Candidates must go through. Healing was her calling: that was all she wanted to do, and the Hall was the best chance at it. And Corloss... wasn't sure where he was going with his life.

There was one thing that he was good at, and that was combat training. Corloss took to it like a dolphin who’d just been introduced to water after turns of trying to walk on land. His coordination improved with leaps and bounds, he turned from a gangling youngster into a solid brick wall of a young man, and he discovered confidence for the first time. He wasn't sure how he felt about the rest of Candidacy, but with a wooden training sword in his hand he felt... right, somehow. Quite frankly, he would have been happier posted to a Hold as a guard trainee, but after Corva's difficult departure he didn't have the heart to deal the family another blow like that; they were counting on him to at least try. If nothing else, he'd just have to suffer through no dragon wanting him until his twenty-first birthday, then he'd be free to leave of his own accord.

And then D'ros... vanished.

The brownrider didn't die. Corloss was insistent on this fact (perhaps despite all evidence to the contrary). Riders died in Threadfall, which would not begin for turns to come. Riders - especially competent, confident, utterly invincible brownriders - did not simply fail to return from missions. It was impossible.

And yet, the rest of his wing seemed willing to accept it. They were sympathetic to the distraught boy, but... well, they were riders. They were trained to accept the possibility of losing people. Further investigation seemed unlikely. It was a kind-eyed bronzerider named R'dall who suggested to Corloss that he might consider Standing, that having a dragon of his own would make it easier for him to find a lost rider, if D'ros did not return of his own accord. Corloss was Weyrbred; he'd been working around dragons, helping wash dragons, and doing chores for dragonriders since he was old enough to walk. He had all the traits of a potentially valuable squire. It's hard to say how much of R'dall's suggestion was kindness and how much was self-serving. But feeling utterly helpless, Corloss reluctantly agreed to at least try. It seemed... the only suitable tribute.

By the time he was sixteen turns of age, Corloss was R'dall's squire. And it seemed that all the elder rider could speak of was color. The bronzerider assured him that his chances of Impressing metallic were as good as anyone else's - better, even! Corloss was a hard worker and a bright young man. But before he could Stand for a single clutch... the dragon plague struck like a hammer-blow upon the face of Pern. Corloss was amongst the Candidates chosen to accompany Hiraeth's eggs into the Igen desert. R'dall did not; his bronze showed ominous signs of weakening, and while the healers did not think it was the plague, the elder rider simply couldn't risk passing any infection along to the clutch. The two parted with the grim resignation of those who might never see one another again.

The desert hatching was bloody, chaotic, and overall a terrifying first experience. Midway through, a bronze hatched, snarling right out of the shell with whirling-red eyes. Corloss stood his ground, determined to prove himself worthy to the hatchling - as he'd been coached to do by his squiremaster. The bronze screamed, an awful sound, then charged the boys. Before Corloss even knew what was happening, a blue he hadn't even seen had grasped the back of his white robe and hauled him out of the way. A Candidate boy standing directly beside Corloss was torn up like a sack of raw meat and sent off to the Healers, with murmurs that he might never Stand again. And Corloss... Corloss was looking up into a pair of concerned rainbow eyes on the most beautiful dark creature on the sands.

Nimith. His world.

Nimith was... he was everything Corloss had desired, and a few things that he hadn't realized that he desperately needed. Mature for his age right out of the egg, he was a calming and stabilizing influence on his young rider. Ironic, really, that a baby dragon would turn out to be such a useful mentor. But Nimith's gentle but firm presence quelled C'ross' more hotheaded tendencies and buoyed his shattered self-confidence. It was the strangest sensation: C'ross knew that there was nothing lesser about the stunningly intelligent and perceptive blue. It certainly didn't hurt that the Igen riders told tales of blueriding wingleaders being a common thing back home where they came from; it seemed that the High Reaches way of doing things, the one that C'ross had grown up with and had further impressed into him by his squiremaster, was not the only way. Maybe it wasn't even the correct way.

Those were not good thoughts to take back with him to High Reaches, and especially not to his notably hidebound former squiremaster. R'dall was disappointed that C'ross had Impressed blue. He was further disappointed that C'ross had picked up all manner of foolish notions from his time with the Igen riders, and he expressed that disappointment in no uncertain terms. Perhaps lingering stress from the plague was a factor; R'dall's bronze had survived, but sufficiently weakened that early retirement was looking like a necessity. Perhaps the long separation while Nimith grew enough to between was also a factor. But it was a hell of a row, nonetheless.

It didn't stop C'ross and Nimith from applying every iota of their not-inconsiderable abilities to the task of reaching First Wing. The fierce, ambitious blue and his equally driven rider were a hell of a combination right out of graduation. D'ros was... not forgotten, precisely, but so many turns had passed, and the plague... There's only so long that hope can hold out. Eventually C'ross had to learn to live for himself, rather than for other people. In the first turn of the Pass, after a particularly impressive showing in their first Threadfall, C'ross and Nimith successfully petitioned for a promotion to Second Wing. C'ross' lingering experience in combat training would serve him well, as would Nimith's natural temperament. They're not content to stop there, but they take life one step at a time.


THE DRAGON
Name: Nimith
Age: 10
Colour: Blue
Feel of voice: The wind that troubles the water. A silhouette of wings blacking out the stars. A guard-canine's sharp bark of warning. The clang of steel on steel.

Appearance: Nimith is lovely, but not by the standard that most dragons are. There's none of that weird serpentine sharpness to him. Rather, Nimith gives the impression of a particularly-well-bred attack dog, with a sharp muzzle, thin, backswept heaknobs, and a narrow profile with deep-set triangular eyes. His neck is short but graceful, entire form sleek and gleaming with muscle. He's not lanky, though. Broad-shouldered, with thick legs and a massive, muscular chest, he cuts a prim figure and moves crisply, with deliberate motions. If a dragon could salute, he would - and his presence tends to inspire that very motion in humans. His wings are narrow and pointed, like a falcon's, and he is capable of an astonishing turn of speed in dives. He's not built for stamina, but for the chase and the catch - and killing blow.

His hide is deep, deep midnight blue, nearly black but patterned subtly in steely blue-grey in such a way that he appears to ripple in sunlight. Those subtle markings are unbroken except by a pair of striking bars of cobalt across his shoulders and a streak of the same over each eye. They give him a surprisingly fierce, warlike appearance.

Personality: Grave. Deliberate. Thoughtful. And fiercely, unyieldingly devoted to doing what he believes is the right thing. Nimith is a dragon who is committed to his cause, and will defend it to the last breath in his body.

He's a dragon of few words, preferring actions and saving his speech for when he really needs it. He's not cold, though. Nimith will be polite and courteous to other dragons and even occasionally to humans, and he's always ready to listen and offer input when asked, but he's no good at small talk and in general tries to avoid it. Silence is not an uncomfortable thing for Nimith, who is perfectly content to let his rider do the talking for the most part. He bespeaks other riders only rarely, and generally with the permission of their dragons. Courtesy is important to him, as is all decorum. Rank matters to Nimith, who will always take care to be respectful to those in positions both above and below him. You cannot work without the men below you, and alienating your superiors is a good way to cripple yourself forever, C’ross. Please remember this.

That's not to say he's blindly obedient. Nim is nothing of the sort. He takes orders well, of course, but he also maintains a rigid code of honor. Nim is lawful good, with an even more robust moral compass than his own rider, and he would rather gut himself than take an order that goes against his conscience. The good of the many always comes before the good of the one, insofar as Nimith and his rider are the one - and Nim would rather get himself killed than allow harm to come to another. He reins it in for his rider's emotional sake, of course - no need to be reckless and kill himself only to leave his rider dragonless - but Nim is perfectly all right with refusing any order he considers improper. This isn't to say he doesn't see the occasional grim necessity. Nim would let a hundred people die if it meant saving the lives of a thousand - but he would not let a hundred people die to save the life of one. Not even his rider. This is C’ross's burden upon Impressing Nimith, and it's something his dragon will make explicitly clear as soon as possible. Nimith would die for C’ross immediately, but he also expects C’ross to be ready to die for what's right.

His relationship with his rider is a bit more professional than might be expected. Nimith has no illusions about the military nature of dragonriders, and understands that in order to function the most efficiently with the least emotional damage, the riderpair ought not to be completely dependent on one another any more than they have to be. Rider and dragon are two parts of a whole, but for maximum efficiency, they ought to be able to think and move independently. Nimith regards Corloss with unending affection, of course, and tolerates him in a sort of good-natured big brother way even when Corloss is being stupid, but he speaks to him like an equal. He will always be "C’ross," to Nimith. He will never be "mine" or "my love" or "ridermine." Diminutives have no place in a relationship between equals. He expects the same professionality from C’ross, though he would consent to being referred to as "Nim," should it become absolutely necessary.

He does have a fun side, though it's not much of one. Nimith enjoys games of strategy, and he also enjoys games of chance. Dragonpoker is the best of both worlds, and Nim is the kind of dragon who will encourage C’ross to get out every now and again and play the odds. He approves of drinking and merriment, even partakes in it himself. Music in particular is one of Nim's greatest loves, and he will always have a soft spot for Harpers (though he would never have Impressed one. What would he do with a wandering mind like that?). He's also mildly invested in C’ross's personal life, largely because sexual frustration detracts from working capacity. Sailors need their shore leave. Nim chases regularly, often females whose riders C’ross does not object to, but just as often he simply picks a female he considers exemplary. C’ross is an adult, he can find his own mate should he not like the one that's provided for him.

And he's ambitious. Not ruthless, though. Simply ambitious. Nim won't sabotage others, won't claw his way to victory, won't attack or scratch or bite to get what he wants. He believes that his own merit should be the only thing he is judged by. If it would only be through the failure of a counterpart that he rose to the top, Nim would consider the victory hollow. He helps those around him to excel because he believes in the cohesion of a group as a whole. This will make him an excellent wingrider when he is young, but will also make him an impeccable candidate for greater things as he grows. He is willing to climb as far as his rider wants to go - as long as C’ross is willing to put in the effort, too.

Written by tetrachrome!

Made the requisite adjustments! Hopefully that's more in line with this canon. <3