Approved by Con

Name: Zennaren
Age: 17
Gender: Female
Rank: Holder
Appearance: Zen is often classified as 'tall' like most of her family. Being the youngest of seven living and the only girl, Zen has been spared much of the hard work of her family and spends most of her time helping her mother tend the nets and learning how to run a home and business as the men work. Despite this, Zen has little in the way of curves and on appearances alone, is unlikely to attract a wealthy husband. With an empty chest for a dowry, her chances at a husband at all outside of a love-match appear slim.

Not that Zen is all that fussed over it. Her warm skin is dark from the sun and her thick black hair is kept short around her chin in a directly rebellious move against the fashions set by dragonriders. It's also just plain convenient, but she loves a good argument and opportunity to be superior about it.

Her fashion sense is otherwise conventional considering the climate and her age. She is fond of bright colorful skirts, short tops (especially if they sit lower across the collar) and unless she's working near the docks her feet are often bare. Zen rarely wears any decoration outside of her actual base garments. Jewelry, even the cheaper stuff is often outside of her reach though she does own a couple agate pendants strung on rough twine from the beaches near her home.

Personality:
Confident, Determined, Outgoing,
Prideful, flexible morality, competitive

Zen idolized her older brothers when she was small. She could almost always be found following one of them, watching what they were doing and later emulating them around her own friends. Lucky for her if not for the rest of their family: pride seemed to be a genetic trait and came naturally.

Nowadays, her hero-worship of her brothers has faded in favor of her own accomplishments and self-worth. Her attitude is less cocky self-importance, and more quiet confidence in her own abilities. At least, that's how she sees it. If someone else wants to get twisted up over it then they can just piss off. She's not interested in getting in a fight. She knows where her strengths lie and no one's mud slinging is going to cause her to doubt herself. Grumblings, mild insults, words spoken in the heat of the moment, she just lets them roll off her back with no shaffs given. Secretly, she loves it when her lack of reaction pisses someone off even more.

Competitiveness also seems to run in the family whether or not she wants to admit it. If someone is good at something, Zen wants to be better. This can lead to an emotional outburst should the target of her ambitions prove consistently difficult or out of reach. Zen will resort to whatever means necessary to get to the top. If it comes down to playing dirty she will do it. Lying, cheating, manipulation aren't beneath her. They're just tools to be used to get what or where she wants.

She always aims to be the best and if that means cheating well, she just sees it as using all of her resources. Zen isn't going to roll over and cry because someone broke the rules. She's already done it first. If they want to whine, that's their own problem and just shows how immature and weak they are. Still, Zen isn't a stranger to overreacting and melodrama, blowing things out of proportion and holding long lasting grudges is kind of her thing.

When caught, or called out on her less than honorable ways Zen will try and talk her way out of any sort of punishment, if that doesn't work (and it quite often doesn't) She'll still try to find some way to lessen the punishments effects on her either through dragging someone else along with her or weaseling her way into something less offensive than what was originally ordered. So far, not much has been found that has a real effect on her actions in the long term. Soon as her punishment is over she's right back to her games with a smug smile on her face.

History:

As the youngest of seven children child-rearing was old news to her parents by the time she was born. She was left to her own devices for the most part, their faith that between her brothers on land, and the dolphins in the ocean, their daughter couldn't come to any worse than any of the others had managed. At least, for the most part that was the way of things. On the other hand where her older brothers were set to helping their father out on the boat (or in the case of her eldest, whisked off to the weyr right after she was born) she was given chores and tasks that centered more around their home.

At an early age she learned the basics of tying and repairing nets alongside basic weaving techniques. Basic practical things that were common outside of the specialized craft skills. She was allowed to help sort the catch when the men came back to shore but that was it and only when they were short handed for one reason or another.

Zennaren put in as much work as her family required of her with no complaints but when the work was over, she was gone faster than you could blink. Play was just as much of a daily requirement as food was and Zennaren could give equal dedication to both with glee. Boys, girls, anyone it didn't matter who in the end Zennaren would jump into the first game or group she happened across. If she didn't know them then perfect it was time to meet (and impress!) new folks. Soon enough they would become a part of her social circle for good or ill. It was hard not to know someone in a small hold for long.

Eventually, as she neared puberty her parents started to reign her in some as they began to consider what they were going to do for her in terms of marriage. Her mother had suggested she follow in her mother's dreams and they supply her with an apprenticeship but that was out of the question. With five other boys (only two of which they'd been able to afford to send to the Fisher hall in Tillek) they couldn't afford the cost of an apprenticeship for her over their sons. At least not for a few turns. Till then she would need to learn everything she could about running the home (and whatever parts of the business her future husband might entrust to her care) Zen might also have been presented at Searches but with Ista at capacity it was a rare event when one of their three golds rose to breed.

The next five turns were spent in various degrees of tension between her and her parents as she grew progressively more rebellious over the fact that her future was being planned for her with little regards to her interest in the case. To spite her parents she kept hacking off her own hair instead of letting it grow long and abstained from jewelery, cosmetics or any other personal adornments that might make her a more attractive offer to the fathers of young men her age. It became a delight to the now young woman to practically hear her father grinding his teeth when he set eyes upon her ragged head and defiant posture even as she sat darning his jumpers quietly with her mother.

Two more turns went by as she played her game against her parents and her father exhausted his list of potential arrangements. It was in the fifth turn that her middle brother Renza (4th born and 3rd sent to the Fisher Hall in Tillek) sent word that he would be walking the tables and invited their parents to come visit for the occasion, then hop over to High Reaches to visit their eldest son Z'fer who offered to host them for a few days around the event.

Rezza and Offaren declined, the trip being too long and too far for them to be away from home but opted to allow Roffar, their second eldest (and journeyman of the same hall) to attend and after some convincing on the part of both siblings, Zennaren was allowed to go with. It was done in multiple parts over the course of a few days, the pair would sail to Ista where Z'fer on a day's leave would pick them up and bring them to Tillek. There they would be the guests of the Hall for an evening, attend the ceremony and following celebration the next day, then Z'fer would bring them back to High Reaches for a few days and put them up in one of the inns to experience weyrlife before taking them back to Ista where they would return home by ship. All in all the plan was to take about two sevendays from start to finish, maybe longer if the weather around the island turned sour. To Zennaren it was the most exciting thing she'd ever experienced up to this point.

Weyrlife, at least to someone who didn't live and work there, seemed not that much different than visiting a large hold. Only there were more dragons and a lot more flamboyant displays of wealth among the residents. The food, she would add, was quite the improvement. She and her brother got to see the riders drilling both in the air and on the ground, they stayed up late to watch the whers patrol by on occasion, Z'fer gave them a neat little purse of which they could use to peruse what was available on their own time.

Zennaren thrilled at everything around her. Especially as she got a chance to see the famous Sereth in real life, heavy with egg by another of the dragons from the past. There was nothing that disappointed Zennaren (other than being told no she could not just move here on a whim) in her visit and she swore secretly to herself that if her father did manage to find a match for her she would just take off and see if she could find a position in Ista Weyr.

With only a day or so left of their stay it was an ugly surprise when the weyr closed it's skies and quarantined the entire populace. It was even worse when the next day both she and her brother fell to the mysterious illness plaguing the weyr.