Age: 32
Sex: male
Sexual Orientation: heterosexual
Weyr: Western Weyr
Rider Rank: wingrider
Previous Rank/Craft: ---
Physical Description: Standing about 5’11” when his hair isn’t curling from humidity, R'bin is of basically average height. Like most dragonriders, he is fit, though he got a lanky start to things and never filled out all that much, though he has a surprisingly powerful grip and sufficient strength to keep up with a very slightly-larger-than-average brown dragon. His skin tends to freckle and both his eyes and hair are a dark enough brown that they pass for black in dim light. His teeth are a little crooked and the soles of his feet are hard as horn from a preference for being barefoot as much as possible.
Personality:
R'bin still walks around his weyr in a funny pattern from a time when Huarangith stuffed himself and then burped some solids on the floor, and rather than clean it up immediately, R'bin simply altered the paths he took from furs to entrance and suchlike until all of his friends lost the betting pool on how long it would take him to clean it up and one of them took one for the team. It wasn’t that he was unwilling to clean the mess up, per se, and it certainly wasn’t that he enjoyed having partially digested herdbeast gradually decaying on his floor, it just never seemed to be on the top of his to-do list. He’s always been like that, though. He procrastinates, rarely takes the initiative, and even claims he missed the first searchrider to come to his hold when he was a teen because was taking a nap. In truth, he couldn’t convince himself he really wanted to have all the responsibilities of a dragonrider (and also, maybe secretly, he was afraid he’d be measured and found wanting), so he used his fabled nap to leave it up to fate whether he made it back to the hold while the searchrider was still there (he didn’t actually nap, by the way, but instead hid out in his favorite napping spot trying to decide whether he should run back and ask to be given a chance). He usually finishes the story of missing a search by reminding listeners that he sleeps like a stone because his brain’s returning to its natural state. It’s not exactly laziness that makes him do this. He’s just not a self-starter (or a morning person), and he will second-guess himself right up to the point of no return, or missing out completely.
On a related note, R'bin is the person you never want to ask “what do you want to have for dinner?” He will suggest and then dismiss half a dozen things before his companions even have the opportunity to decide whether those are things they, too, might like, and ultimately conclude, “Whatever you want’s fine with me.” On the bright side, on the occasions when he turns out to be mistaken in thinking he’ll be fine with the group decision, he keeps his complaints to himself. Well, mostly. He has a real gift for unintentionally describing food in unappetizing ways, so in this particular example, he might say something about how a boiled tomato reminds him of a skinned rat or some such. Sometimes that kind of thing comes across as funny (that’s the goal), but it wouldn’t be hard to see it for criticism. R'bin would not want his companions to see his humor as critical, even when it takes the form of sarcasm.
R'bin’s insecurity is a large part of the reason he has such a difficult time making up his mind about things. He wants to please everyone, and to that end it’s a good thing he’s a creative thinker, because that’s a more or less impossible goal. It’s also why he has a whole host of half-mastered, basically useless skills: whenever he makes a new friend, falls, in with a new crowd, or finds a new interest he does his best to fit in quickly by adopting his peers’ mannerisms and pastimes and employing self-deprecating humor until he’s comfortable enough to turn his wit onto other subjects. In this way he has sort of learned to play pipes, sort of learned how runner races go, sort of learned to draw, sort of learned how to cut and style hair, sort of gotten good at several kinds of sport, and on and on. His hobbies tend to change before he ever acquires true mastery or knowledge of any of them, largely because he loses interest in things once he grasps the concept to his satisfaction, and then moves on to some new fun thing/group of people. The outcome is that R'bin has a lot of friendly acquaintances, but knows that none of them are really friends, and that feeds into his insecurity, too.
Part of the reason R'bin fits in easily (at least on a superficial level) is that he is very forgiving. Surprisingly, given his insecurity, his willingness to forgive and forget is probably not the result of being afraid to lose friends (though he’s definitely conflict avoidant). He simply doesn’t stay mad at people. Everyone, in his opinion, is flawed enough to make mistakes (here he would take time to list a few of his more entertaining ones to illustrate the point), and the fact that they’re called mistakes indicates they were not performed with malice aforethought. Holding grudges against people who make honest mistakes or tried but failed is just pointless. He includes himself in his blanket forgiveness, which is part of how he ends up in situations like the one mentioned earlier with Huarangith’s productive belch. It’s okay that he hasn’t cleaned it up. It doesn’t make him a bad person, and the only folks bothered by it ought to be himself and his dragon, and neither one of them were, so it’s really a nonissue. Obviously, being a human being, R'bin takes a dim view of calculated betrayals, but he’s fairly philosophical in those instances, too, even when he’s the victim. He figures there were probably signs that were missed, even if they were just as basic as failing to somehow realize that one’s betrayer is, in fact, a slimy wherry turd with the loyalty of a sand crab.
He’s had only one serious romantic relationship in his life, and he did nothing to deserve it. The lady took an interest in him, made the first move, and initiated every milestone thereafter. It wasn’t his being searched and then Impressing Huarangith that destroyed their relationship – Ness claimed that she could understand and live with that. Ultimately, it was her realization that she was the one doing all the work - even to the point of trying to find a position in the Weyr so they could be together - and he was making no effort to build the life that they always talked about, that she finally gave up on him. Their break-up was amicable, although she was secretly heart-broken, and he recalls the relationship with fondness, assigning minimal blame to his actions for the outcome, but ruminating for many nights on whether it was because she’d spotted some fatal flaw in his personality that was so awful she couldn’t bring herself to tell him about it, even though when he asked her “why?” she’d cited his apparent disinterest in actually doing any of the things they’d planned. This is how a lot of his relationships with other people go, with other people being expected to take the initiative once he’s positioned himself in their proximity, and with no hard feelings when they drift out of it.
Positive Trait List forgiving, curious, creative, joker
Negative Trait List unmotivated, dilettante-ish, indecisive, insecure
History:
R'bin’s childhood was nothing especially exciting. No one in his family practiced any craft. His parents were semi-skilled laborers who liked to leave their work at work at the end of the day, and simply go home and enjoy the company of friends and family. He had an astonishingly precocious and motivated younger sister, Reya, who baffled everyone else in the family and was the main reason he ever accomplished anything before being searched, even though she was a surprise child born eight years after R'bin. He spent a good deal of his youth either avoiding or entertaining her, depending on his mood. His parents never minded that their son was seemingly content to follow in their footsteps in terms of life goals (in fact, he didn’t really have even that much of a goal in mind, he just wanted to feel happy and secure), just as they never minded that their daughter was a tightly-wound enigma of ambition and work ethic. Whether their offspring tried, failed, succeeded, or didn’t try at all, they loved them just the same and told them they were proud of them.
The day R'bin was actually searched he was seventeen. He had been in his first (and only) serious relationship for about a year and he was feeling antsy about the increasingly pointed hints from Ness that he was smart enough to do more than semi-skilled labor for a living, and that it would be much easier to raise a family – or at least move in together - if he would apprentice to a crafter (like her father, who was a leatherworker with enough talent to keep his family from ever knowing hunger). She was a few turns his senior, and just at the cusp of being too old for a traditional search, so it seemed likely that when he was searched their relationship would come to an inevitable end. It was almost like an extreme form of unconscious ghosting on his part, although he couldn’t have known that he’d actually be deemed worthy of candidacy. After becoming a candidate, Ness continued to work to keep in touch with him, always understanding when he didn’t reciprocate – training to be a dragonrider is hard, time-consuming work, after all. She actually found a way to be at the hatching a turn later when R'bin Impressed Huarangith in Veniath and Zehavath's clutch, and was nearly as delighted by the bond as he was. R'bin was actually overwhelmed and snappish because he was convinced Huarangith had made a mistake. It wasn’t a mistake, though, and Huarangith turned out to be the perfect helpmate and companion for R'bin, his decisiveness and dedication pairing well with his gung-ho attitude to transform a mediocre candidate into a basically average weyrling, and eventually wingrider.
After Impressing R'bin made a half-hearted attempt to end things with Ness, citing the rule that weyrlings were not supposed to be in more-than-friendly relationships, and that he’d be an even worse partner now than he was as a candidate, but Ness loved him with an almost dragonish devotion and worked on finding a way to be employed in the Weyr so that when he was allowed to pursue more-than-friendly relationships again, they could get on with the life they’d dreamed about together back in the hold. It was his indifference to this idea that was the last straw there, and so R'bin was dumped not long after the hatching feast, while his handsome brown dragon slept, replete, a few feet away. He was not much fazed by this break-up, as he hadn’t really considered them together-together since a month or so after he was searched, and he was still overwhelmed with having another consciousness in his mind at all times. The happy-happy feelings of Impression probably had a similar effect to the hormones and chemicals allowing women who give birth to forget the very worst of the pain, making the separation painless (for him) and freeing him do devote himself wholly to Huarangith.
As weyrlings R'bin and Huarangith made a good team, with the brown frequently taking the lead, but happy to cede it to his rider whenever R'bin found something he wanted to pursue, and then supporting R'bin in his decision and defending him staunchly. Despite their very good working rapport, both dragon and rider knew they did not want to try for any sort of leadership position, and when Thread returned, R'bin found just the tiniest hint of direction and purpose which his life had been lacking up to this point, but it's a small, incipient thing, and only really flares up during actual Threadfall, so people don't tend to see the pair at their best during drills and rehearsals.
Other: I’m very rusty at this. Also, I hope I've guessed correctly for which clutch Huarangith would've come from.
DRAGON
Name: Huarangith
Age: 14
Color: brown
Size: 37’
Physical Description: Just barely above average size for a brown, what really stands out about Huarangith are the markings on his hide which give the casual viewer the impression that he sparkles just a very little. Well, that and his ruddy underside, which is what most human beings see when observing him up close. His apparently sparkling hide can in no way be interpreted as shimmering metallic hide of a bronze dragon, and since he is perfectly within the size range for a brown he would be astonished if someone mistook him for one.
Personality: Huarangith is very like his rider except for one key factor: he lacks R'bin’s insecurity, and that sometimes makes the two of them seem like drastically different individuals. Instead of second-guessing and wallowing in indecision, the brown is a self-assured, confident dragon who is unafraid to take risks because he genuinely believes that things will be fine (especially if R'bin is involved, because R'bin’s plans are the best plans). He supports R'bin's plans and passions whole-heartedly, and often pursues them with more dedication than R'bin himself, who is usually content simply to have had the idea. Huarangith is the one who wants to try implementing them. Not being the most creative of dragons himself, Huarangith loves all the directions R'bin’s mind can go in, and all the possibilities he can imagine. Except the bad and wrong ones, where R'bin thinks he will fail or that people don’t like him, or that he shouldn’t even try. That is when Huarangith’s not-so-inner cheerleader really comes out in force. One of his favorite things to do is to ask give R'bin "what if" scenarios and listen to the different possibilities his rider comes up with, almost like a form of storytelling. But when it comes to potential ideas, this brown is not as good at discerning between “what if” and “let’s try.” He will take an idea and run with it. It’s a good thing, really, that he has a rider with minimal motivation and the ability to question the wisdom of his decisions, because otherwise this brown would wear himself out trying to do ALL THE THINGS. Similarly, Huarangith always has an answer when asked for an opinion, sometimes past the point of stubbornness, and often on R'bin’s behalf when his human is unwilling or unable to make decisions. He will stick with things long past when R'bin has lost interest in them, and as such tends to form deeper relationships with other dragons and stronger feelings toward other humans than his rider does. He’s the dragon who will remind R'bin that they haven’t gotten the gang together to play sportball in a while, and then make the arrangements so all R'bin has to do is show up. Sometimes this leads to friction between the two, because Huarangith gets stubborn when R'bin refuses to at least try things. It might sound as if R'bin is holding Huarangith back, but in point of fact, the brown is self-aware enough to know that he is not an idea dragon, nor is he a particularly happy supervisor. He prefers to be an organizer, working toward a goal, according to a template, and collaborating with any interested parties.
Dragon Art or Proof of Obtainment:
