Post by giftwrapped on Jun 26, 2011 23:35:28 GMT -5
Serdek
Name: Serdek
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Prisoner: Yes
Crime: Murder - changed to manslaughter upon arrival at Warden's.
Craft/Rank: Minercraft, specifically stonecraft, specifically masonry – holds journeyman rank
Appearance: Serdek is as masculine as you can possibly be without being male - in fact, she’s probably more masculine than a number of men. Though she's not tall at five feet eight inches, she's solid. With broad shoulders and a muscular build solidified through decades as a stonecrafter, there is that something about Serdek that, no matter what she’s wearing, maintains an obvious, definite air of femaleness. Her facial features are unmemorable, feminine without being girly. Every move she makes is confident and straightforward, but strangely graceful, analogous to a lioness, or perhaps even a gold wher. Serdek has a purpose and every move she makes furthers it. You can’t mistake her for a man, any more than you can mistake her for the girly sort.
It seems as if Serdek might have gone along an entirely different path had her upbringing been different, perhaps had she been exposed to less hardship and allowed a fuller childhood. Hands that might have been elegant if she had been brought up in leisure are instead heavily calloused, the line of her jaw is set and sullen, and the rest of Serdek gives a similar impression: in a different situation, she might have grown up beautiful. But instead she grew up capable and mature - and much too early. Her skin is pale without being sickly, her complexion clear, but her face is weather-beaten and wind-burned, already beginning to wrinkle. Lines around her eyes and mouth give her premature age, and if she were to grow her hair out beyond her nearly bald close-crop, it would be heavily streaked with grey. She frowns significantly more than she smiles, and hides any curves she may have in a jumpsuit several sizes too large for her.
If it were possible to persuade her to expose herself - something that isn’t likely to happen to anyone anytime soon, thank you very much - her appearance would be shocking. While it makes sense for a stonecrafter who’s braved the occasional cave-in to be scarred, the extent of Serdek’s scarring is obviously not craft-related. Nor can it possibly be from prison fights - she's spent her time at Warden's proving she's not a violent woman. As hard as she tries to keep her past life a mystery, one can guess it wasn’t a good one. Her back is crisscrossed with scars, testimony to past beatings that were…less than kind. Her arms and legs are also heavily scarred, half by burns and scrapes, half by wounds of a nature that appears quite deliberate.
Personality: Serdek isn’t exactly the friendliest of people, and she tends to keep herself to herself - occasionally to her detriment. She’s bright and has good ideas, but often tends to hold back unless it’s in a topic or situation she’s an expert in. If she knows she’s the most knowledgeable, though, she’s certainly not going to stop for anyone: she’ll take the helm if she is the most qualified. While she sometimes makes a bad leader among equals - she often holds back among her peers, and it can be quite difficult to coax information (no matter how essential) out of her - she is quite good with those of inferior rank or experience, particularly children.
A loner, she tends to be fairly selfish and egocentric, preferring to put herself over others and deal with other people after she’s made sure she’s all right. And occasionally it can take her a while to decide she’s all right. It's pretty obvious that Serdek's past is a little problematic - they don't hand out those red jumpsuits for nothing, after all - but she's not the sort who talks about it. In fact, if she had her way, she would never even think about it - but there’s a little thing called the human psyche that just doesn’t allow her to forget things that easily. So it is somewhat understandable that even now, turns beyond her troubled past, she has occasional moments. Certain things will trigger bad reactions in Serdek, leading her to shut down to calm herself, or conversely, to explode.
She’s generally quite good about controlling these reactions, getting herself out of the situation and masking her stress. But if the trigger rubs her the wrong way, it’s highly likely that she will lash out, which usually results in a fight, which tends to ruin things like conversations. While she does not anger quickly, when she does, she goes for the kill: harsh and unforgiving, Serdek isn’t going to mince words and doesn’t care if she’s rude or not. She is never physically violent, but she can get verbally and emotionally abusive if an argument heats up. Luckily, over the turns, Serdek has gotten much of this problem under control. She puts on a collected façade, sometimes almost to the point of emotionlessness.
Outwardly, Serdek seems strangely content with her life as a prisoner. When asked what she aspires to, she might think about it, but for the most part, she just answers quietly, "Do my time, get out. Dunno after that." What her real aspirations are, she keeps them to herself. She would not be amiss to the idea of dragons or whers - but Faranth, that's a bit much to aspire to. She's a prisoner, after all. But it’s always possible, though, that somewhere in the back of her mind (so far back that even Serdek probably doesn’t think about it) she wants to find love. But she’s not a flirt, she responds badly to attention, and she has a tendency to be rude to those who show too much interest in her. Not exactly an ideal mate.
Inwardly, she is cripplingly insecure. She constantly worries that nothing she can do will be good enough to make up for the problems she caused - and blames herself for everything. Aware of her talents, she nonetheless tends to second-guess herself and ends up staying silent instead of saying anything to protect the reputation she still isn’t sure how she developed. And she craves social contact - something difficult to achieve when you hate being touched and don’t like talking to people. She tends to fill the void with animals, with a particular fondness for irascible, nasty ones.
When by some rare miracle she makes friends, she is completely devoted to them and would do anything to protect the people she loves and trusts. Her loyalty is unwavering; secrets will always be safe with her, and she will always be there to help her friends. When she lets her guard down, she is a gentle creature, friendly and softspoken, eager to please and willing to do just about anything asked of her.
History: Serdek doesn’t like to talk about her history. At most, she’ll tell some vague story about how she had a rough life until she got her minercraft apprenticeship, and then jump straight into an explanation of her life in the Craft. Anyone trying to press the issue is more likely to get politely but firmly shoved out the door than they are any sort of straight answer out of this woman. That’s because the real story isn’t pretty—or easy to tell. Suffice to say that most of her scars come from her first fourteen years - and then at fifteen, she stumbled into the Minecrafthall at Crom begging for amnesty.
She petitioned to be allowed to work as a drudge. Permission granted, she was quick to start listening in on classes, learning what she could about the craft (as wildly different from beastcrafting as anything she could think of). Two turns after her arrival at the Crafthall, she petitioned the Masterminer again, this time to be allowed to study as a formal apprentice. Again, the permission was granted, and Serdek became a Minercraft Apprentice. She took to it like a fish to water, learning mathematics and geometry as quickly as construction and geology and progressing rapidly. By age twenty-one, she was ready to walk the tables.
They granted her Journeyman rank. And for once, everything was looking up. With her newly-discovered free time and ability to branch out and specialize, Serdek began exploring Mining subcrafts. She fell in love with stonemasonry, enjoying the subtlety of craft that was lacking in the digging of mineshafts and extraction of precious metals didn’t bother allowing. Crosscrafting with smiths, Serdek spent the next six turns studying stonesmithing. And she also found love nearly five turns into her studies at Smithcraft Hall. The woman was beautiful, intelligent, not a miner but a smith, a jewelry maker with the most delicate hands. Serdek was immediately enamoured, and the pair began a cautious flirtation that blossomed into something more.
Serdek thought it was love. For nearly thirteen months, she was hopelessly devoted to the woman. She would do anything for her, spent a great deal of her small salary on gifts and trinkets, did everything she could to get her hands on the best metals…and then one day she came back to the quarters they shared and found a fellow miner in bed with her smith. A fellow male miner. And an unapologetic smith shrugging her shoulders and telling Serdek with a sad smile that she wasn’t very interested in women, after all.
So Seredek transferred from the Crafthall to Telgar Weyr. There wasn’t any severe need for stonesmiths there, but some were always welcome to ensure proper Weyr maintenance, and it was easier to forget her problems there among the dragons than it would have been to languish at home.
But, unfortunately, new problems found Serdek in the form of Watch Wingsecond D'krel. Initially, he was a charming creature, full of spirit and adventure partnered with Hastath, a brown dragon tender enough to make up for anything he might have lacked. Rebounding and awkward about relationships, Serdek was immediately won over. She began a whirlwind romance with D'krel, one that began slowly but picked up speed more rapidly than the woman had expected. For the most part, she held off his advances. But then one evening Hastath lost a Flight, and D'krel found Serdek in her chambers - and the inexcusable happened.
Serdek went to the Watch, reported his behaviour, only to be turned away. It was Flightlust, he was her mate, what did she expect to happen? And the brownrider himself defended his innocence, claiming the episode had been nothing if not fully consensual. Serdek broke off the relationship immediately, suspicion of men leaking back into her life. And it was for a good reason - a turn later nearly to the day, Hastath lost a Flight and D'krel came for her again. This time, she was busy - and armed.
Her intent had been to turn and discourage him with a blunt hammer-blow to the sternum. Something went wrong, though, and when she heard the shriek of a dragon blinking between and the Weyr set up a keening, she realized what she had done. It had been self-defense! She hadn't meant to kill anyone!
But there was no arguing with the Watch. She had already come to them complaining about the ridiculous circumstances of "rape" from the man (and why, they argued, would she have stayed with him if he had committed the crime - her insistence that they weren't together anymore fell on deaf ears). And this time, she had killed him. A Watch Wingsecond. Inexcusable. She was found guilty of murder, spent a year fighting back and ending up in limbo - until Warden's Weyr was founded. Serdek immediately volunteered. She wanted nothing more than to get away from the bureaucracy and harm the Watch had caused her.
But once at the prison, the Stonesmith felt the need to explain herself. She found a sympathetic ear in V'tya, who saw the issue for what it was and altered her sentence from murder to manslaughter. Her sentence was ameliorated, and she was given the chance to prove that she wasn't "violent." She did it within the first year, and has been quartered with fellow nonviolent prisoners for the past three. Warden's death hit her hard - and the arrival of M'onk even moreso. Serdek doesn't know if M'onk was ever directly involved with the case, but she does know that he was the Watch, and so she blames him for everything.
Other stuff: Her triggers include whipcracks or the noise of someone snapping a belt, the mixed smell of pine and klah, and people grabbing her or touching her back uninvited. She can usually brush off or ignore other triggers, but these three will always get a reaction out of her—the strength of the reaction depends on what kind of a day she’s been having and who initiates the trigger.
Also I have Noz's clearance for everything discussed in the history.
Greboth
Name: Greboth
Color: Yellow
Hex: FFFFBB
Art Type: African Tribal Mask
Egg: Masked Menace - Semith x Kith
Appearance: Greboth goes beyond lean into downright long. She has a narrow face with an almost pointed snout, a thin body and a whiplike tail. Her legs are short, giving her a moderate resemblance to a tunnelsnake with wings. There's a certain amount of menace to her appearance, a sense that despite her species she might somehow manage to be venomous.
For all her dangerous looks, there's something cuddly about her color. Her hide is a pale, buttery yellow, and it looks extremely soft and inviting. Her eyeridges and headknobs are marked with a much darker yellow, a warm amber that also flares along her shoulders and up her wings.
Personality: There are dangers out there in the darkness. There are whispers rising out of dream and coming to hunt the just. Greboth knows. She's heard them. And yes, it's true, she's an extremely paranoid dragon. But that doesn't make her wrong, does it? At her hatching she found half her clutchmates missing, while the spectators minds hummed with fear. Even at the touching, she tasted grief. It's no surprise that she's very, very afraid. Not that she'd ever admit it. No, Greboth would call herself cautious, alert, and above all else, protective.
And she is protective. To start, the world she protects may be a small one, consisting of herself and her rider. She's not a big picture dragon, she's more interested in her own than in the greater good of the weyr. But she's got a soft spot for the fragile and the weak which, over time, will expand those who take shelter beneath her wings. This isn't to say she's maternal. Greboth is much more likely to bark orders like an irritable general then comfort and coddle. She's drawn to the weak, but she's driven to make them strong. So, grab a pointy thing, learn to use it, and watch your back!
If she drives her 'people' hard, she drives herself harder. Greboth's need to be prepare for the worst means that, given the freedom, she'll spend more time training than is actually healthy. If her rider doesn't learn to stand up to her and get her to rest, she will work herself sick. Despite this, she's not a great dragon for lessons. A doer, she's bored by anything that doesn't directly relate to combat readiness, which, really, is almost the entirety of weyrlinghood, since no ones training dragons to fight (yet).
While she can be curt and demanding, Greboth never crosses the line into actual meanness. She despises cruelty in others seeing it as a tool of the 'other side'. She'll do her best to get along with her siblings, and while she's not a peacemaker, she may be the one who tells the fighters to stop being silly and focus on more important things. And, while she may be a wall between her rider and the world, her rider will be the support beams holding that wall up. Her fears are very real and through most her weyrlinghood (and possibly well past it), she'll wake nightly with nightmares.
Why Me? Greboth simultaneously needs to protect and be protected. Serdek, like Greboth, holds a lot of fear. And like Greboth, the woman is prepared to fight the demons that haunt her. Greboth and Serdek stand to offer each other a safety that the world at large denies them. While neither is social, Greboth does strive to gather a small collection of the fragile about her, an ambition that might offer Serdek a few new acquaintances, if not friends. One thing's for sure. While there's breath in Greboth's body, no one will hurt Serdek again.
One other thing of note which may have influenced Greboth's choice. She doesn't Fly. Indeed, she'll never Fly, even if Serdek reaches the point where she wants such an experience. Greboth's female, true enough, but some instinct or mechanism is missing or simply suppressed beyond retrieval.
