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**I played around with different ideas for reasoning behind her general aversion and anxiety to speech, and came up with 3 different possibilities after I posted this and went to bed. This is something I would rather work out via rp and seeing how her character goes before settling down with one specific reason.
the possibilities boil down to these:
1. just plain old social anxiety (though this would kinda go against her actually enjoying people's company)

2. Some sort of speech impediment such as Developmental Verbal Dyspraxia (basically, the brain knows what it wants to say, but can't get the message to the mouth right)

3. or she just simply doesn't like to talk, and as a result of not doing it so often, she's pretty bad at it, which in turn makes her avoid it more.

After rolling things around in my head, I'm leaning more towards something along the lines of #2, this being something that possibly has never been fully diagnosed with her, with most people just assuming she's shy and anxious when spoken to, and not that, in reality, she actually has real trouble conveying her thoughts and communicating. Perhaps its something that she herself isn't even fully aware of.

Edit 4/29
6pm cst:
Kinda realizing now that as she is, it would be kind of tough to interact with her on any extended basis @_@
Had a lot of fun writing her up though. Any suggestions?

((okay, I rewrote pretty big chunks of this, so I figured it would be easier to just re post the whole thing))

Name: Raisa (rah EE sah)
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Rank: Apprentice Healer
Appearance:

As a whole, Raisa is very average looking, and she likes it that way. Her appearance is generally neat, and well groomed, but plain. She has dark brown hair that, when hanging loose, reaches about midway down her back. Its generally kept tied back into a tight braid.

Her eyes are brown, and her skin is olive colored.
Raisa is a little on the shorter side, but not terribly so, and has an average- but toned build.

Personality:

One of the first things people often notice about Raisa is that she doesn't talk much, and when she does, its normally a short yes or no answer, or a quick nod- unless its someone she's particularly comfortable around. Most just presume her to be shy.

This demeanor stems from a stutter, and while its not severe enough that she can't be understood when she speaks, its something she is very self conscious about, even though her speech has notably improved since reaching her teenage years.
*'K' sounds, like in 'klah' and 'sh' as in 'shut' are her biggest problem sounds, and in public she avoids them as much as possible. (which is a shame, because she is rather fond of klah) Unfamiliar words/names sometimes can be a little shaky the first few times she says them.
*Raisa has a tendency to speak at a slower pace than most people, because slower speech usually means more stutter free speech.
In a conversation with a friend, or someone she is familiar with, she may go a few sentences without stumbling over a word, but if she feels that someone is being judgmental of how she speaks, it will rapidly become much worse.


Her typical lack of talking means she's generally willing go along with whatever is asked of her, which makes her an excellent assistant, but any sort of nudge (from a superior or a peer) for her to take the lead in a situation will often lead back to stuttering, or her forgetting things. She is far more comfortable as a follower rather than a leader.

Raisa will bend over backwards to help people that don't make her feel uncomfortable.
And while if someone occasionally tries to get her to pick up some of their chores, she'll go along with it to avoid confrontation, try to take advantage of her, or push her around too much, and she will absolutely put her foot down, and when she does, there's no passiveness about it.

Overall, she has a generally friendly demeanor, even if she can occasionally be too serious, and it takes a lot to make her angry.
Raisa looks for the best in people, and knowing what it feels like, is not quick to pass judgments on others.
On the flip side of this, this also means that she tends to be a bit too trusting and naive.

She is very quick to pick up on a person's habits and preferences. 'Does this journeyman prefer to use this type of bandage, or that type?' 'Is that other apprentice right handed or left handed?' If they've been around longer than a week, chances are Raisa can probably tell you.

Despite what on the surface seems like an excessively introverted nature, Raisa loves to be around people (and dragons). She likes to people watch in the dining hall, or wherever people congregate really. She believes everybody has an interesting story to tell, and would much rather be in a bustling room than alone.
A good story, music, and firelizards are the quickest ways to Raisa's good side, and to get her to give you more than a yes or no. She absolutely adores firelizards.


History:


Raisa is a weyrbrat. She has a few guesses as to her biological parents identity (assuming they still lived), and has a sneaking suspicion about a possible older sibling working in the kitchens, but no real actions or desires to discover her heritage beyond a few idle daydreams and mild curiosity.

Her general 'stay quiet and stay out of the way' demeanor can probably be traced back to having been a small child at the height of the plague. There were far more pressing concerns than a healthy toddler, and as she grew older and there was time for adults to devote to her, Raisa tended to shy away from it.

Enjoying others company, while at the same time having trouble communicating led to a lot of frustration in her younger years, until at around the age of 10, she came into possession of a very shabby old guitar. By no means was she any sort of natural when it came to music, and even presently, Raisa isn't particularly skilled (though by no means horrible) with the instrument, but learning to play allowed her to express herself, and interact with others in a way that was relaxing and easy- even in unfamiliar company, whereas speaking was and is often difficult and stressful for her.


She was very clumsy as a growing child, which at 13 resulted in a trip to the infirmary with a broken leg. Fortunately, the break healed fully. But it was an extended recovery process, which impeded on the time that she would have spent training as a candidate, and spending time around healers sparked an interest in the art.
As an attentive and unusually obedient child, Raisa probably would have made a good apprentice in just about any craft.
When, even after her injury healed, and she was cleared to go back to training as a Candidate, she quietly chose to continue doing small tasks asked of her by the Healers instead, and was officially apprenticed at 14.

It wasn't that she had any real qualms with the idea of being a Dragonrider, just that being a Healer felt more natural to her, and she felt more at home in the infirmary than she did around the other Candidates.

When it comes to a tense medical situation, Raisa very quickly showed that any anxieties or insecurities beyond that of a typical teenager she has are only when it comes to speaking. She is level headed and able to think on her feet, with a natural knack for staying out of the way of the more experienced healers, yet at the same time being able to be at their side, ready with the tool they were about to ask for. She doesn't shy away from a gruesome injury, and while she sometimes struggles to answer someone when they ask how her day was, and was hopeless when it came to interviewing a sick person, she shows no hesitation with holding a screaming patient down while the Masterhealer set a bone.