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Name: Lin
Age: 16
Sex: Female
Sexual Orientation: No time for that
Weyr: None
Rider Rank: Guard
Previous Rank/Craft: (Briefly) Weavercraft apprentice
Physical Description: For most of her life, Lin has been in a perpetual state of mild malnutrition, leaving her a little too gaunt to be pretty. Still, vestiges of the girl she could have been remain. She has large, dark brown eyes, a small upturned nose, and a small number of pale freckles across her nose. Her hair is short, jet black, and perfectly straight, always falling to the same state no matter how much she tries to mess it up. She's small for her age, looking several turns younger than she is, and very skinny, more childish than feminine in her appearance.

Personality: When two people talk about Lin, don't be surprised if it sounds like they're describing completely different people. Lin is a chameleon of sorts, changing her behavior to adapt to different situations. That's why, at times, she's the belligerent street punk, and at others, just a kind and friendly kid. She never voices any strong opinions except to stand up for herself, when needed. She tends to be slow to react, waiting for cues from others as to how she should feel; if they're interested, she's interested, if they're angry, she's angry. You'll rarely see her go against the majority. She's usually just one of a crowd.

In other ways, she becomes the opposite of other people. When there's a strong personality around, she becomes a follower, willing to listen and do as she's told. But if one's lacking, she will take control and become, instead, an energetic and confident leader. She can sit and listen to someone talk for hours without ever needing to argue or inject her own opinion. But if you're a quiet one, she'll suddenly become chatty, wanting to engage and bring you out from your shell. In the end, she's really just a people pleaser. One who's gotten very good at judging the personality of someone and warping herself to fit them. She has very little self-identity, but the three things that always stick with her are her sympathy, her self-reliance, and her thick skin.

This was a girl who was thrown into gang life at a young age and told to cope, then pulled out several turns later and forced to live in polite society. It goes without saying that she can adapt quickly to new situations. She doesn't need her hand held, she doesn't whine like a baby, she just gets on with things. Being in the center of turmoil is her life. She deals with it like driftwood: by putting up no resistance. She only stands up for herself when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, when people say jump, she jumps. If someone tells her to eat dirt.. well, it's not the worst things she ever tasted. Point is, if it's not gonna kill ya, than it's probably safer than the alternative. Pride is for idiots and people with too much to prove.

Lin is the sort who puts on a scowl, but smiles when no one's watching her. She's easily touched when witnessing acts of friendship and love. She's romantically minded, even if her practical nature forbids her from indulging in such naive fantasies. She was the down-to-earth daughter of a drug-addled mother who ran away from reality. She is uncharacteristically cruel to idealists, feeling a desire to crush their delusional fantasies and force them to face the harsh truth. Despite her rough nature, Lin's sympathies are easily aroused. She cares for the injured, downtrodden, and lonely. She rarely voices concern, but addresses it in a wordless, simple way. Hungry? She'll share food with you. Scared? She'll try to comfort you. Broke something? She'll try to fix or replace it. She's empathetic even if she doesn't want to be. She can't stand being around people who are suffering because she can't help but put herself in their shoes, and it hurts her as much as they're hurting. The only thing she won't do is defend people in confrontations. She means well, but it's just a whole lot safer not to get involved.

That's not to say she won't get up to trouble, though. To Lin, resourcefulness tends to be synonymous with 'petty theft'. Legality is all bullshit in her mind. If you're dumb enough to let yourself get robbed, then you deserve to have your stuff taken. If she sees an opportunity to get something she believes she needs, she will take it. Right off the belt of a guard if she needs to. This girl has quick fingers and a cool demeanor when it comes to perpetrating crimes without being noticed. Best not to play dice with her either. Between judging other people's emotions and controlling her own, she's become a master of bluffs.

When cornered, Lin is as belligerent and violent as any criminal. She's gotten scrappier since Brantath came around. It's hard not to be. There's a big difference between what Lin would put up with and what Brantath will. And every time she explains to him that sometimes it's more beneficial to let someone get away with hurting you he'll just nod and agree (oh, I see, you are so clever, Lin!) but the next time will jump in and defend her just the same.

Positive Trait List Resourceful, Kindhearted, Self-reliant
Negative Trait List Rough, Cowardly, Indecisive
History: Lin doesn't remember much about her life before her father's accident. Where they lived, what they did... Though she may wrack her brain for hours, the only things that come to her are scattered images. All she knows is that, for a time, they were happy. Her father went out to work in fields, her mother stayed home and wove on an old loom. It was all she wanted to grow up to be just like her mother, and find a man like her father to marry. They weren't rich, but there was food on their table, and firelizard eggs for her nameday, and really, what else could a child ask for?

But when she was young, still too young to remember the incident clearly, her father had been seriously injured in farming accident. That marked the start of the decline. Crippled and in immense pain, he started taking felis heavily- first prescribed, then later when the Healer cut him off, wherever he could get it. Her mother tried to support them for a while, thinking he would get back on his feet one day and return to work, but it only ever got worse. In her despair, she began to use the drug as well.

With him out of work, they were already struggling for money, and it soon became clear their current lifestyle was unsustainable. They moved to a smaller home in a larger Hold where felis was easier to come by, and switched from farming and weaving to gambling, thieving, cons, and anything that could get them quick money.

To support them, Lin began to work too. Taking odd jobs when she could, stealing when she couldn't. She was too young to really understand what was going on. She just knew that the only time her parents were happy was when she could bring them enough money to buy the 'medicine' they used, as they always called it. Still, no matter what they got, it was never enough. And her parents started to pull further and further away from reality. They fell heavily into debt to their dealers, always promising they could get the money if they just had a little more time.

Eventually, the group lost patience, and decided to take Lin as a partial payment. She couldn't remember if her parents fought the men who took her. If she had to guess, she'd say they were probably too drugged out to even notice. Still, the gang's purposes weren't as nefarious as they first sounded. Children were small and attracted less attention, so they were used to ferry drugs around, carry money, make deals, and basically do all of the leg work that could get the real dealers into trouble. Lin's quality of life might actually have gone up after she was taken. The dealers were strict and tyrannical, and got many of the kids addicted to drugs as a means of controlling them. But you got food as long as you did the work, and she had a roof over her head and others kids there that she liked. Strange as it sounded, for many turns, that drug gang was her home and her family.

Still, she knew she wouldn't be able to stay with them forever. The gang never kept a kid past 10. Lin was already 12, but she was small and lied about her age when she joined them. No one knew what happened to the older kids. The explanations ranged from the far-fetched ("Chop you up for meat and feed you to their whers!" ) to the slightly more plausible ("Sell you down the mines at Nabol" ). Either way, Lin had decided she wasn't going to stick around to find out. Of course, if escaping was easy, everyone would be doing it. But Lin was small, non-threatening, resourceful, and patient. She made herself useful to their captors, never showing signs of disobedience, and waited. So that when an opportunity finally presented itself, she could take. When she finally got her chance, Lin urged the other children to escape with her, but none of them were willing to take that chance. They'd all seen the beaten bodies of those who'd tried it in the past.

Escaping alone, Lin stowed away on a boat heading North, where she made friends with another little girl who brought her food and helped her during the journey. The girl was on her way to take up an apprenticeship at the Weaver Hall. Sadly, an illness spread through the ship, and the girl never made it to her destination. That was when an idea started to form for Lin.. She knew a little bit of weaving from her mother. Enough to pass for someone chosen to take up an apprenticeship. And she was small, she looked like she could be 9 or 10 easily. The girl was travelling alone. No one in the Hall knew what she looked like... It wasn't a plan she was proud of, but it was a plan.

For the first few months, Lin skated by with no problems. She might not be an expert weaver, but she was a genius at keeping a low profile. That is, until she received a letter saying the girl's sister had decided to come for a visit. Lin fled that night, taking everything she'd earned, and stealing as much as she was able, only leaving behind a note apologizing to the Hall and to the girl's family.

And so, her life as an artful dodger began. She had no other skills except to lie and steal, so that's what she did. But she was no master at that either, and she was caught on more than one occasion. Sometimes she would get away with just a split lip. Sometimes it was worse. It was when she was running away from one such encounter, that Lin was noticed by a Searcher. With the man chasing her not far behind, Lin hastily agreed to the rider's offer.

Lin, of course, had no intention of impressing. All she wanted was the free ride to the other side of the continent, but fortunately for her, Brantath had other ideas. Her impression was a whirl-wind. She was a late pickup for an understocked clutch and Stood just two days after she got there, before she had a chance to sneak away. Life at the Weyr was nice and, in truth, she enjoyed it. But she could never stop looking over her shoulder, afraid that her life as a criminal would one day catch up to her. And so, as soon as Brantath was old enough to be allowed leave, the two of them made their escape.

Like a kicked dog wandering back to its familiar home, Lin returned to Nabol. With no craft skills, it was her best shot at making money while hiding from the law, and honestly, she just didn't know anywhere else that well. Thread's return has Brantath up in arms, but as always, he is guided by Lin's wishes, and she's not as keen to return to a Weyr as he is, fearing they would be rejected for their criminal past.

Other: Anything else you want to add?

DRAGON
Name: Brantath
Age: 2
Color: Brown
Size: Please select actual meter length appropriate to their color and our size chart.
Physical Description: Brantath is going to start out hopelessly doofy-looking. He's got a fat little body and stubby little wings and skinny little hindlegs and a too-long neck. And it doesn't help that he just looks kind of... fluffy. His color is more cream than brown, albeit with fuzzy patches of brown on his head, back, and wings. In short, he is not the kind of hatchling that you ooh and ahh over, he's the kind that people chuckle and coo over. And it makes him mad.

As he gets older, however, his coloring will change drastically: his markings will grow more dramatic and elegant, lighter patches on dark. And while he'll always have a fat little tummy, he'll grow into that long neck, and he'll learn to use those strong wings to fly forever. Brantath's not all that big, but he will give bronzes a run for their money in the stamina department, just because flying in formation comes so naturally to him. He's a natural at finding the spot in a wing formation where he can soar effortlessly on the wind off another dragon's wings, and he can do so for hours at a time without any apparent difficulty.
Personality: Hey! HEY! Brantath is talking to you! HONK, ********, LISTEN UP!

Brantath is a classic example of a lot of bark and not a lot of bite. While Sparveth is just a vicious bundle of hate for all living things, Brantath tries to put up a whole lot of swagger to hide the fact that he's just... not very dangerous. The brown is highly possessive of his rider and highly territorial - he's definitely not going to stand for other weyrlings pushing him around or getting up in his space. But the worst that he's realistically going to do is hiss and puff up his wings and chase you around for a while. He simply doesn't have the killer instinct to do more than bluff.

But bluffing? Brantath is good at bluffing. Much like his rider, Brantath will try to be all things to all people, but rather than being a social chameleon, Brantath wants to be seen. More specifically, he wants to be seen as a good dragon. The best dragon. The biggest, baddest, best brown there is. And Brantath quite frankly seems equally comfortable in the presence of dragons of any personality. He can strut his stuff with the more flamboyant of them, stand guard with the quiet soldiers, or challenge those dragons of loftier intellects to a duel of sesquipedalian loquaciousness with equal fervor. (Ha! You thought Brantath was stupid, didn't you! Dead wrong!) He is - or at least wants to be - the Artful Dodger, cunning and tough and impossible to pin down.

He's highly adaptable and difficult to discourage: when Brantath encounters an obstacle, he lets it roll off him like water and then comes at it from a new angle, just as hard as before. His perseverance is one of his best qualities, and it will serve him and Lin quite well. Insults will be laughed off as if they are nothing. Attempts to get him to give up will likewise be laughed off.

Unlike some of his siblings, Brantath has no particular moral compass of his own. He is a force who could be guided with equal ease towards good or towards ill. While he means no genuine harm and certainly can't commit violence against humans, ideas like "personal property" don't necessarily mean a lot to him if Lin should choose to lead him in that direction. On the other hand, if she encourages him to become a guard, he will do so with equal enthusiasm, and he won't be half bad at it either.

Brantath's got a lot of swagger, but not a lot of purpose pinning him down. Like Lin, he is thick-skinned and resourceful, with a belligerent streak, but he lacks a core identity to drive him. Ultimately it is a choice that he will leave in her hands, but it is a choice that he will force her to consider. She won't be able to just go with the flow and blend into the crowd anymore with a dragon like Brantath around her... But no matter what direction she chooses to go, she'll have the best ally she could ask for backing her up.

Dragon Art or Proof of Obtainment: Transfer, pending art

Ready!