Name: Fela
Age: 26
Sex: Female
Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
Weyr: High Reaches Weyr
Rider Rank: Weyrling
Previous Rank/Craft: Mindhealer
Physical Description: A slightly stout woman at 5'1", with wavy honey blond hair usually tied back in a messy bun or in braided ringlets. She has some obvious musculature from her work and glittering blue-green eyes. The sun has weathered her skin, and there are some blotches on her arms and shoulders of discoloration just as much as there are sun spots all about her. Fela often smells good due to her need to have a set of perfumes on hand, and you can often tell where she's been just with a sniff.
Personality: Fela is the mother you never asked for and will never be rid of. She revels in being nosy about your affairs but also holding you close in those tough times, in scolding you while bandaging you up and cheering her loudest when you succeed. Her mannerisms are a little rough, but love isn't love if it isn't tough. She tells it like it is, whether her opinions are outrageous or part of the general consent. There's a little of that Southern Mother bless your heart in her, but usually she's upfront--especially around younger children.
She has a heart of gold and will happily remind you of it even if she has to pause and polish it back to a shine again. Fela has a way with jiving around most any person in the weyr, and very rarely is she an antagonist. Beware, though: she's a mama bear to a T and will fight you if you hurt someone close to her. Or that sobbing kid over there. The outer layer of a bustling mother is just one of many, and she'll show you fifty shades of scathing remarks accented with a punch if really pushed. In general, however, she is an attentive housewife of High Reaches, who likes to know everyone's business so that she can be there if something happens. Her observation skills have gotten her in and out of fixes in the past, but she's put it more to use in helping matters of the heart. She loves to be around people and will do her damndest to see them reach their goals.
She's really at her worst when she thinks certain people need to get together. Then Fela gets into aggressively eager matchmaking mode. Watch out.
Positive Trait List nurturing, hard working, flexible
Negative Trait List nosy, smothering, authoratative
History: A patient High Reaches weyrbrat, Fela grew up helping others in the creches, half because she asked for duties, and half because she was good at calming rowdy children down with made up games and songs. She was tapped as a mindhealer early on with the way she was able to maintain the peace between both older and younger children, her problem solving and intuition about each child a boon to the often overworked creche people. As a result she was sent to Fort Hold to mold that innate skill into a trade. Fela flourished among the other apprentices and journeymen at Healer Hall but eventually asked to be assigned to High Reaches once more, stating that she felt a calling to help her home and weyr.
Back home among her large family, Fela fell in and out of love with several men as she integrated herself back into weyrlife. It was there that she was Searched quite by accident--it happened just before she took the dragon's rider on a hot date, in fact, and may have been the sole cause of that man getting laid. (Celebratory sex is great sex!) It also served as a way to assuage her mother's constant pushes to get grandchildren already. But Ma, I can't worry about that right now: I have to save people and ride a sweet a** dragon doing it! Her mother argued candidacy didn't guarantee a dragon, but Fela's hope wouldn't be swayed.
It was a trying time when Thread suddenly returned. High Reaches was of course the most prepared in all of Pern, but even so there was a level of suffering and loss that Fela had never encountered before. She faced it head on and helped her people adjust to the new circumstances, be it facing the grief of lost loved ones, or coming to grips with the loss of a limb or other function. In conjunction with more skilled healers of the body, she kept close tabs on "her" patients and became a mother to them as they bonded. In turn, she began to take in younger candidates as the turns went by, acting as a guide especially to those who were new to living at the weyr. She barely remembered that she was a candidate herself some days, though innately she was always cautiously optimistic about being chosen. It was, after all, simply a quirk of fate that she had to help others first before she would get her due.
And eventually she did, albeit during her final turn as a candidate. With Sophrosunth at her side now, the two will surely set the world back on its axis.
Other: She's barren and has known for some time. While this is par for the course one way or another for female dragonriders, she wishes she was able to manage to give birth to at least one. This explains her fussing over others as she displaces that maternal frustration onto anyone remotely younger than her. Sometimes even older! It's a contended topic with her mother, however, as she believes Fela is simply making things up in order to avoid the responsibility of "real parenthood." (She does not believe Fela "adopting" people counts.)
DRAGON
Name: Sophrosunth
Origin of Name: Sôphrosunê is the Greek virtue of self-control, or temperance, a virtue that Aristotle says lies between self-indulgence (akolasia ) on the one hand and insensibility (anaisthêsia ) on the other. In its earliest uses (Homer) the word means "soundness of mind," "prudence," "discretion."
Personality Sophrosunth is the baseline temperature, the first light of dawn, the knowledge of what your favorite food tastes like, and the feeling of wind beneath your wings, all rolled in one: he is a known and stable quality. There are no tricks or lies from this blue, no hidden agendas or surprises waiting to happen. He is as he has always presented himself: a calming presence in the midst of his clutch's dramatics, an eye in the sometimes hurricane of emotion that besets his siblings.
His calling is to help right these imbalances and to offer counsel and emotional support, for he loves each of his siblings dearly and equally and would want for nothing so long as they are happy and at peace. Even from the egg, Sophrosunth is wise beyond his age, and while he would never stoop to thinking his way was best, he knows that some of his siblings have headstrong manners that need guidance. His words are rarely ever orders but earnest suggestions, hopeful words meant to help turn dragon and human alike towards the path they want to walk. If there is a perceived imbalance, he will turn his attention to it and broach the subject, but he will never force the issue. Nonetheless, he will stretch himself thin to tackle all problems within his grasp.
His quiet and gentle manner of approaching the world leaves things to be desired, however. Most notably, Sophrosunth will never engage in a heated argument; he would rather say his piece and bow his head to those more aggressive. Anger, or even the hint of it, frightens him easily. Similarly, his passive nature can often be construed as being on the fence or purposefully avoiding commitment to one solution or the other. The curse of seeing all sides is being sympathetic to them, and the blue has problems deciding what is "right" in that context. In focusing so much on others, Sophrosunth will rarely if ever think about his own needs, which can lead to his own stressful imbalances. After all, thinking of himself is "indulgence he cannot partake in." He can also, in general, just look like a stick in the mud compared to more lively dragons.
But his own needs matter very little. What matters is making sure that everything and everyone beyond him is at peace.
Positive Trait List: serene, intellectual, peacekeeper
Negative Trait List: too ascetic, submissive, perfectionist
Size: 30'
Physical Attributes: Sophrosunth is perfectly proportioned for his size, neither too stocky nor too slim, with thin slender claws that are a more dexterous than most and a long snout. In contrast, his knobs seem short and thick. His flying leans more towards the graceful side, though he isn't showy. While physically average, if prone to being underweight, this blue is particularly good at controlling his flame.
Additional Notes: An optimist at heart, he is the calm tails to Aurinkoth's much sunnier heads. Elzebuth's and the twins' hedonist tendencies have resulted in some interesting attempts to get him to live a little, though Sophrosunth continues to be an island in his own sea. Thanoth's dark jokes have provoked thoughtful responses behind the humor, at why we laugh at death. Eleusinth is at once much like him and not at all like him, as while both are rather intelligent and love quippy wordplay, Sophrosunth's more open minded views leave him completely bewildered as to why the other blue would only place stock in tradition; thus they can have either pleasant conversation or the most awkward not-arguments known to Pern. He has probably (tried to) counseled each sibling about something at one point or another and strives to maintain a positive bond with each; the more sensitive ones have certainly garnered some wing hugs and doting thoughts.
His favorite activity is to try and engage in philosophical conversations, to varying degrees of failure success. Sophrosunth also likes conversation of most any sort and doesn't mind playing devil's advocate if a heavy topic comes up. Things that tweak his mind are cherished, from the most clever riddle to the stupidest pun.
He will never chase unless he has a close bond with the green or gold, and even then he will be loathe to give in to his temptation. He doesn't mind watching, however, and sending loving thoughts to familiar dragons participating. Flightlust in general frightens him due to the loss of control he's seen happen and felt the beginnings of himself, and he has similar doubts about the way alcohol makes His so rowdy. Klah is disgusting, FelaHis, he doesn't understand why you would drink it.
