Name: Sh'en
Age: 26
Gender: Male
Sexual Orientation: Homosexual
Craft/Rank: Wingrider of Dauntless Wing
Description: Sh'en is a strapping young man with a muscular body, though more that of a dancer or an acrobat than a warrior. His face is slightly chubby, almost cherubic and is framed with soft white-blonde hair. His impish smile and the glitter in his grey eyes hint at a potential for mischief and fun.
He's on the short side, about 5'3, but he walks with an air of easy confidence, surprisingly graceful in his movements. He speaks with an equally easy and smooth drawl, which he does tighten up for people he respects. It is clear though, even then, that he isn't too invested in order and ritual.
When on duty Sh'en is usually armed with a simple dagger and a bow with arrows. Off duty – and when he can't get away with wearing his bow and quiver - he just wears his dagger, discretely. Sh'en prefers his clothing to be equally discrete. Even his uniform is minimally ornate, and he favors dark, soft, flexible, comfortable fabrics when he can.
Personality: Sh'en is an impish and charming young man, with an almost perpetual spring in his step and a keen eye for both mischief and trouble. He's a chatty guy who will talk to anyone about anything, even those people that most would never want to talk to. To him, everybody has a story – from the drudge cleaning the floors to the quiet wingrider drinking mead alone in the back of the dining hall – and he can at least try to get it out of them. Sometimes, he does well and gets a story – and sometimes some good information – for his trouble. Other times, it backfires. Despite this, Sh'en remains confident in his ability to talk his way into and out of any situation, and any failures to do so are dealt with in the moment and do not seem to bother him at all.
He is an acrobat and slightly reckless, and, though he usually has a pretty good idea of his own capabilities, he is always trying out new tricks. Sh'en will go where others might not want to go, the first to leap into the abyss. His role as a scouting and reconnaissance specialist suits him well – he is the first into any situation, and he leaves it when he is ready to do so. His innate control of his own body serve him well in that capacity, but they also work well for entertaining his wingmates. Dauntless wing has been through some rough patches in the time he's been there, and he likes to think that – between his bondmate's persistent cheer, his own confident optimism, and his ability to do amazing things with his body - he has helped raise his wing's morale.
Like his bondmate, he is pretty generally happy, or at least appears that way. He usually can come up with a quick joke or a witty phrase, and his smile is always handy. There is, however, a serious and calculating mind beneath all the mischief and jokes, and when the time calls for it, he abandons smiles and goes straight to business.
Although he is flighty at times in his personal relationships, Sh'en is extremely loyal to his wing and to those he is close to. Though he has gotten in trouble with his weyrmate for ending up in other men's beds and he's gotten reprimanded for pranks more than once, he is there when he is needed. He can be counted on, certainly, to get his job done.
Their Story:Shenja was born to a holder from a liason she had had with a trader. When he was nine, he and his older sister were shunted off into his father's caravan. His older sister, Diedre had an aptitude for math and bartering, Shenja an aptitude for persuasion, and they began to be trained in those skills by other members of the caravan. Aside from that, though, they were left to their own devices.
Shenja adored his sister dearly, and especially loved to mess with her. She adored and was annoyed by him in turn, and ended up in a role approximating his parental figure. She held very traditionalist views – that dragonriders were the heroes of Pern, that homosexuality was wrong, and so on. Shenja didn't share those views, but he respected her views, and he figured that as he got older he would see what truth there was in them.
Thread's return was troublesome, but they were part of a larger company and so had access to resources, warnings, and could get into Holds to shelter. What really posed a problem was the revolution. Many were not happy – unrest was bad for business and it meant that some of the routes that they used were no longer available. Diedre was shocked that the status quo had been so thoroughly upended. Shenja, for his part, was shocked at the idea that such violence could erupt at all.
But trading routes had to continue, even through troubles like the theft of dragon eggs at Trine weyr. While there, a search dragon picked out Shenja and Diedre from the rest of the traders, and Diedre, to her father's frustration, decided to do her duty as a Pernese citizen and Stand as a candidate. Shenja went with her, though he didn't think it would amount to anything. He made the best of it, however, and proceeded to explore the Weyr.
They touched the eggs, they did their lessons, and the day of the Hatching soon came. Diedre had dreams of somehow impressing gold or a big blue and being a hero of Pern. Shenja had no expectations and no motive save for supporting his sister.
So he was surprised when the second green to impress, Kalteth, chose him. The Hatching changed the lives of the twins forever.
Diedre did not impress at all. Seeing his impression to a Green as a sign of a lack of manliness on her brother's part (and a lack of ability on her part) she ended up having a heated fight with her brother, a conflict that did not resolve until nearly two turns later.
In the meantime, though, Sh'en and Kalteth grew up well, and Sh'en found himself allied with one of the wingleaders, Kleos of Crimson Moriath. He grew up, Kalteth grew up, they did their drills, and life was good. He ended up the lover of the artistic R'an of Blue Syriacuth, and life was good. But of course, life did not stop there.
The controversy of Sharath's clutch and subsequent death was not lost on Sh'en. It surrounded him, it's rumors all throughout the halls of Trine. Dauntless wing rose to fight in the wherwars and Sh'en rose with it, but it was soon determined that, although he had begun to practice with a bow, neither he nor Kalteth were built for the front lines.
The pair soon found their niche in reconnaissance, gathering intel for their wingleader on the wing or, in Sh'en's case, skulking on the ground. In the three years before the raid, he grew from an amateur snoop to a real, seasoned scout... just in time to help with the raid on Benden. From the sky, Sh'en and Kalteth kept Kleos up to date on the movements of whers, archers, and supplies, dodging angry rebel dragons, their riders, and arrows as well.
The stress of the war caused a rift between Sh'en and R'an, culminating in a major fight when R'an caught Sh'en with another man. The lovers broke it off messily, and it was a struggle to keep the drama out of the rest of Sh'en's life.
But Sh'en managed. His active eye-in-the-sky action required a degree of teamwork that he and Kalteth had never had to do before, and the concentration it required forcibly healed any injuries of the heart that he had sustained. They had to keep an eye to the ground while dodging the claws and flame of dragons and the weapons of their riders. Kalteth was not a battle dragon, happy to evade instead of flame her fellow dragon, but Sh'en had no such compunctions. Instead, he became more able with using his bow, shooting at riders and dragons when he and his Green were threatened. He even dropped small explosives on pockets of ground troops from the sky – or supplies, if they were allies. As they worked together in these trying battle scenarios, their bond grew closer and their roles became more specialized. Without worrying about fighting back, Kalteth was free to dodge, dart, hover and move in the air as she pleased. Without worrying about directing Kalteth, Sh'en could focus on doing his job and on fighting where necessary. The pair came out of the war closer than ever and, though he was upset from losing comrades in the fighting, Sh'en was bolstered with assurance of his own usefulness to others.
As that chapter of Pernese history came to an end, Sh'en's focus turned with his Wing's to the matter of color equality. As the discussion heated up, Sh'en busied himself gathering information and leverage and generally ensuring that, if the discussion became too heated, those on the side of color equality had other... options.
Change came without his help, however, and with it came swift and unfortunate fallout. As Dauntless joined the efforts against the rogue queens, Sh'en again found his place in the shadows, as a scout and stealthy supporter.
In the meantime, after the tragedies faced in the war and the battles against the Rogue Queens, Sh'en realized that, in such a dangerous time, he should probably clear his conscience. So, he made up his mind – he would make amends and apologies to R'an and see what he could do from there...
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