Name: Balkath
Size: Average
Build: Average
Personality: There is a beast inside Balkath, he knows it and he likes it not at all. This is a dragon at war with himself, fighting to be ruled by his noble intentions and to reject his base and selfish instincts. He can simply see too well how easy it would be to stab that person in the back, to arrange a little accident for that rival, to take advantage of that friend's generosity. He wants to be good, to do right, and such is his fear that he will fall to darkness that he holds himself to impossibly high standards. He will frequently work himself to the point of exhaustion if left unchecked and as a result he can find himself simply too weary to carry out vital duties.
All of this however does mean that you would have to go a very long way indeed to find a dragon who is harder working than Balkath and that he will cling to his principles harder than a limpet clings to a rock. His principles are pretty simple when it boils down to it: you don't hurt others for personal gain, you don't attack civilians, you don't drop your mates in the cacky, and you never leave a comrade behind.
Some of Balkath's principles will come up at odds with the way the world works in these unsettled times - the wherholds and the Weyrs have both attacked one anothers civilians - but Balkath will not bend or compromise. He's loyal to his people - of course he is and he wouldn't live in a Weyr if you paid him - but he will not take on duties that he thinks might put him on the slippery slope to cackling, villainous monologues, and doing whatever might be needful to achieve his own ends. The ends do not justify the means for Balkath and he is uncomfortably aware that though he is loyal to his people, if he had been hatched before the revolution he probably would have ended up on the side of the Weyrs simply because he couldn't countenance the ambush and slaughter of so many people that led to the formation of the wherhold faction.
While he is a rather serious character Balkath is not joyless or lacking a sense of humor; he likes to relax with friends or go for a brisk swim as much as the next dragon when he feels he can spare the time and he has a dry clever wit that he's not afraid to insert into conversation. Making friends in the first place is a little difficult for Balkath - he fears to reach out to people in case he somehow does wrong by them later - but a little patience with him will win anyone a true friend for life so long as they are basically decent to him.
If not for his unshakable moral core Balkath could be the very worst of the worst and given where he lives he would probably rise to the top of the pack rather quickly. As it is however he will probably find himself with rather less power in his youth but rather more friends, but if he should start to rise through the ranks despite his refusal to go against his personal code he is much more likely to remain there as there won't be a long line of people he has wronged waiting to stab him in the back.
Why me? What Balkath needs most of all is calm, kindness and understanding. Who better than Shalev to give him that? The dutiful blue also appreciates her work ethic and the fact that she too holds her personal morals very close to her heart. In return for all of this Balkath will give his rider all of himself, will work day in day out to help her achieve her goals whatever those may be, will stand beside her through any challenge and stand up with her against those who would try to do wrong to them or to those they care for.
Inspired by A dhampir in Balkan folklore is the child of a vampire and a human. The term is sometimes spelled dhampyre, dhamphir, or dhampyr. Dhampir powers are similar to those of vampires, but without the usual weaknesses. In recent vampire fiction, dhampir refers to any hybrid of one human and one vampire parent; they are half-breeds, not vampires themselves. The word dhampir derives from the Albanian language where pirё means "to drink", and dhёmbё or dham means "teeth", thus dhampir, "to drink with teeth".
Dhampir were often "professional" or semi-professional vampire hunters, and this role played some part in the vampire beliefs of the Balkans (especially in Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romani folk beliefs). In Bulgarian, the terms used to designate them included glog (lit. "hawthorn", the species of wood used for the stake), vampirdzhiya, vampirar, dzhadazhiya, svetocher. It was also believed that someone born on a Saturday could see a vampire when it was otherwise invisible (and sometimes other supernatural entities as well); similarly for the dhampir. In the case of the Sabbatarians, it was believed in some places that they needed to be fed meat from a sheep killed by a wolf (Bulgarian vâlkoedene); this would enable them not to fear the things that only they were able to see. In Croatian and Slovenian legends, the villages had their own vampire hunters that were called kresniks, whose spirits were able to turn into animals at night to fight off the vampire or kudlak.
