Age: 94
Nameday: 3481.05.03
Sex: female
Sexual Orientation: heterosexual
Weyr: High Reaches Weyr
Rider Rank: retired goldrider
Previous Rank/Craft: n/a
Physical Description: Drina grows her hair very long and mostly keeps it braided into a crown, even though it is grey and thinning. Her eyes are still brown and she still has all of her own front teeth (though some of her molars had to go quite a while ago). She carries extra weight around the hips, thighs, and tum, but everything sort of tugs downward, succumbing to age and gravity. Generally her clothing is chosen to hide her figure and keep warm simultaneously. It is rarely flattering. Her posture is rigidly erect, despite her diminutive size (she barely scrapes 5'), and although she has pain in her hips and shoulders especially, she does her best to move as if she doesn't. Her hands, arms, and shoulders are etched with countless crosshatched scars from serving for decades as firelizard perches.
Personality:
In her youth Drina was a very biddable young woman. Some of this came from Impressing at age 13 a young age, but a lot of it was simply that she has always preferred to avoid confrontation and other people because they represent the possibility for confrontation. Prior to Impressing Vicortath she was easily intimidated by people, and that didn't really change post-Impression, but riding a gold dragon allowed her to distance herself from the majority of people, and she simply did her best to be agreeable to those she couldn't avoid. She has spent a lot of her life getting bossed around by other goldriders and more assertive bronze and brownriders.
Now that she's lived for nearly a century and retired, Drina has become more assertive, but still rarely on her own behalf. She will stand up for others if she must, but she would rather allow a situation to unfold and later step in to ameliorate it. With people that sometimes means offering aid and comfort, even though she, herself, rarely feels comfortable around people. More often, she does her best to simply orchestrate things behind the scenes so that someone else is made aware of the problem and encouraged to do something about it. This means she rarely gets any credit for the good she attempts to do, but that's more than all right with her. Drina is more than happy not to be the recipient of thanks, praise, or attention, especially in her old age.
She is thoughtful, though, and because she is observant and inclined to extreme anxiety anxiously overplan she is usually very good at solving problems and planning ahead. The one exception to this is when it comes to firelizards. She has a weakness for firelizards which borders on ridiculous, and will adopt them with the slightest provocation. In her youth she was told by someone (she refuses to say who, but it was probably the father of her only living son) that it was unseemly for a goldrider to desire a fair of firelizards in addition to a gold dragon. It would make her appear ungrateful as well as uncouth (because who would want something as common as a firelizard when they already had a dragon?). Nowadays, the fastest way to get on her good side is to make a good impression on her collection of firelizards (whose bloodlines she has been tracking forever, though with no attempt to control it) or gift her with a firelizard egg.
Positive Trait List thoughtful; compassionate toward non-humans and humans in need; cooperative
Negative Trait List shy; anxious; pushover
History:
Searched at thirteen a young age from a cothold that no longer exists, Drina's childhood was one of hard work. In the cold months, when nothing grew, her parents sent her into town to learn history, letters, and figuring from the harper. Her parents were proud when she was Searched, but she never saw them after her first hatching because it was just too difficult for them to come to the Weyr for social calls, and Drina felt uncomfortable using her free time to go home. She was pretty sure her parents would be uncomfortable around Vicortath. Since Drina Impressed Vicortath at her very first hatching, she has effectively gone 80 years most of a century without seeing her parents (who are now very dead anyway).
Being a shy goldrider was a constant struggle for Drina, who felt a great deal of pressure from leadership to do and be more, and she considered herself fortunate to have a tireless advocate and ally in Vicortath, who never hesitated to tell people to back off. She nevertheless spent a good portion of her life perpetually sick to her stomach due to anxiety about failing to live up to everyone's expectations.
Things were made harder by Drina's unfortunate taste in men. When she was fifteen a handsome rider many years her senior but confident and fiercely protective took her under his wing, which was at first a relief, but as she got more mature and Vicortath rose for her maiden flight, he, too, began to pressure her. He thought that as close as they had grown (and they had, indeed, grown close - Drina fancied herself in love with him), his dragon should have caught Vicortath. When that didn't happen, he was bitterly disappointed, and Drina was miserable sorry that he was unhappy. Vicortath, while sorry for her rider's misery, said simply that she had standards and his dragon wasn't up to them. It was a sore point in their relationship, and every time Vicortath flew and wasn't caught by his dragon he would be spiteful for a while and she would become as ingratiating as she knew how to be. Nevertheless, she remained with him for years and years, growing more withdrawn and unhappy all the time.
It wasn't until their youngest son was booted from chose to leave candidacy at age twenty three for getting a kitchen worker pregnant that she finally broke with her partner, and it only happened because he publicly disowned their son, denouncing him denounced their son as a worthless failure. After that she refused to have anything to do with him and made one of her rare requests to the Weyrwoman at the time: make sure she would never have to see or speak to that man again. She almost never did, too, until she learned many turns later that he had somehow managed to convince their son's mother to surrender their grandson to him and had been raising him ever since, claiming that the boy's parents were dead (which they absolutely weren't and still aren't). Since the boy wasn't old enough to be a candidate she insisted he be returned to his definitely-not-dead parents. In fact, she returned him herself. She was unsurprised to see him among the candidates some years later, but said nothing about it to anyone. which has suited her and Vicortath quite well.
Aside from her rather unfortunate relationship, Drina has spent her life doing her best to be useful around the Weyr without having to be around a lot of people or the center of attention. When Vicortath announced with regret that she had probably flown her last flight, Drina was palpably relieved and retired as soon as she could get the paperwork filed. At that point she began to accumulate flits. She is now on her way to becoming a crazy flit lady, though not as crazy as she allows people to think. Sometimes she plays a game where she acts far stranger about flits than she actually is when people are around. This is largely to discourage people from visiting.
Other: Despite the paragraphs above devoted to personal drama, Drina has basically led a quiet life, keeping as much to herself as her position allows.
DRAGON
Name: Vicortath
Age: 80
Color: gold
Size: 40.5'
Physical Description: Small for a gold, and always inclined toward pudginess, Vicortath's old age has allowed her to finally indulge and become plump.
Personality: Vocortath has a very definite idea of how things ought to be done, and feels a very strong sense of responsibility for the Weyr. Vicortath will speak up in any meeting, stating her opinion most decidedly (and sometimes Drina's, if Drina is unwilling to speak on her own behalf). Like Drina, she has a powerful urge to protect, and she has a similar soft spot for flits, whers, and humans in need. She is also very fond of children, as long as they are properly polite to her and treat animals nicely. Generally speaking, she is outspoken where her rider is reserved, pushy where her rider is a pushover, and flashy where her rider is unobtrusive, and she adores these ways in which they are different because they make their similarities seem, to her, all the more apparent, and because (secretly) she considers Drina one of the humans in need of protection and extra care. Vicortath very much likes to feel needed, even though she is imperious and fussy, stubborn and inclined to sulk when things don't go her way. She enjoys good food, good music, and good-looking men, and isn't afraid to let people know when things aren't up to her standards.
Dragon Art or Proof of Obtainment:
