Qu’an
Name: Qu’an (Quidelan)
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Prisoner: No
Crime: Not showing up sooner to stop this travesty.
Craft/Rank: Bronzerider/Warden?
Appearance: Qu’an has been physically imposing since around the time he hit puberty, and he doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon. Indeed, nearly fifty decades of life have made him more threatening, not less. Six foot four if he’s an inch, Qu’an has the kind of build that can really only be called
chiseled, although
oh Faranth look at the size of those biceps would also be appropriate. Prior to his transfer to Warden’s, he was an active wingleader of the Watch in good standing, and he has the myriad small faint scars to prove it – relics of old struggles and captures past. On some men, the whole “tough guy exterior, gentle on the inside” thing might soften this first impression somewhat with a friendly smile or a shy demeanor… but if anything, Qu’an goes in the opposite direction. He is tough guy exterior,
sharding terrifying interior. He heard about what happened to the previous Warden. The best way to keep anyone from trying an encore performance is to make sure he’s too scary to stab.
With a skin tone the color of klah with cream, Qu’an shows some of his desert Igen blood. His eyes are an exceptionally dark brown, black in some lights, with hair pretty much the same color. That hair is a point of pride, falling just past his shoulders in a myriad of long, thin dreadlocks. With a square jaw and otherwise classically masculine features, he actually looks a little younger than his nearly-fifty Turns due to his unlined complexion and still-youthful build. Unlike most Pernese, Qu’an does have some facial hair, though he keeps it short and neatly trimmed. His voice is a slow, deep baritone, the kind that he rarely needs to raise to cut across a conversation
Personality: Qu’an is a thinker and a planner by nature, who is nonetheless a fighter by necessity. He is articulate, well-spoken when he wishes to be, brusque when he needs to be. While his personal charm leaves… something to be desired… he does have some talent at administration. The bronzerider is just good at making things run smoothly, and he’ll run a tight ship if given charge of the weyr. (He particularly likes the new, streamlined chain of command at Warden’s. There’s him. There’s the people he delegates to. And then there’s the rest of you. Simple, elegant, practical.) Still, if you haven’t realized it yet, he doesn’t spend his time buried in hides and paperwork. He gets the paperwork done, sorted, passed off to an assistant to file, and then he’s off to go do the important hands-on stuff. He wants to be visible at the Weyr, and that means being
everywhere. All the better to make it look like he has constant surveillance happening. Low-key, Qu’an is not.
Control, control, control. Everything is about control with the former Watchrider. Control of himself, control of his dragon, control of others, control of his environment… It’s visible in everything he does. Even the way he carries himself – understated but self-possessed, movements deliberate, with the subtlest threat beneath… rather like a sleeping watch-wher, you know the teeth are there even if you can’t see them. Likewise, Qu’an does not lose his temper easily. There might be occasional outbursts, brief and quickly reined in, but for the most part he gives
plenty of warning before someone steps into the danger zone… at which point, they may want to consider a career switch to outlaw. As for the running of the weyr, prisoner safety is high on his priority list, but prisoner freedoms are not. He’ll defer to M’onk and to some of the more senior Warden’s staff on minor things… But shenanigans aren’t going to be tolerated well.
Sounds like a lovely guy, right? This doesn’t mean he dislikes everyone in the weyr (although the percentages would probably be fairly alarming if you looked at them). Qu’an doesn’t
hate – with a few notable exceptions. He reserves
hate for the real monsters. Minor criminals just get disdain, or occasional shreds of pity. As for guards – guards are useful. He likes them as a whole, although individually they’ll have to earn his trust given Warden’s disastrous track record thus far. (Qu’an suspects there are some among the ranks who still have ties to the outlaws. He
will find them.) He tries to recognize and reward merit where he sees it, and when it comes to riders and handlers alike he is more-or-less colorblind. (His dragon is not- but more on that later.)
In terms of his personal life… what personal life? No, seriously. Qu’an would be
genuinely confused if someone asked him that question. He was a Watchman. Now he’s Warden. He runs Warden’s. That’s… who he is. Sometimes Flights happen. Then he moves on with his day. He could be mistaken for asexual, or at least aromantic. Maybe he is. NOBODY KNOWS. Questions about him as a person tend to be deflected with a curt ‘irrelevant’ or similar. The one thing that seems to get through his shell is the prospect of a good debate. This is not the same as insubordination – if he tells you, as Warden, to do something, he expects it done. On the other hand, like most people with strong opinions, he is very easily drawn into conversations about them. Qu’an does not consider himself infallible, and he is open to thoughtful criticism of his worldview, management style, or… anything, really. It’s sharding difficult to
sway him, but he’ll talk, and he’ll listen. Nor does he hold a grudge against anyone who disagrees with him, as long as they’re doing their job and not actively undermining the weyr.
The important thing to remember about him is that he is genuinely trying to save the world singlehandedly. If he’s obstinate, arrogant, condescending, infuriatingly micromanaging, and generally a pain in the ass – well, that probably means he likes you. And he’s actually trying to help you. Faranth help him, no wonder he doesn’t make friends.
Although the prisoners of Warden’s might consider him the enemy, in Qu’an’s mind their conclusions are flawed. The prison weyr is a necessity to bring order to Pern. It’s a hostile world that the Pernese live in, even without Thread falling from the sky. Human nature hasn’t changed. Society is still full of cruel people with hostile intentions, and now without the constant threat of annihilation to force everyone to work together, it was inevitable that the dregs of the species would produce something as vile as Dust.
Someone needs to do what is necessary. Yes, he is a zealot, bordering on fanatic. But he’s
right. Someday everyone will realize this. And unless someone can show him evidence proving otherwise, he’s not going to change.
History: Human society, both on Earth and on Pern, is marked by periods of upheaval. Different people react to these events in different ways. Some move forward, embrace the revolution, or at least seek to profit by it. Some actively fight it. And some withdraw, seeking to remain untouched within their own small corners of the world.
Quidelan’s family fell into the latter group. Residents of a small cothold near Igen Hold, right on the survivable edge of the desert, the beastcrafters had eked out a quiet subsistence for generations there more or less untouched by the goings-on of the rest of Pern. Sure, they traveled at times to Igen to trade for what they needed, but they didn’t linger save to hear snippets of news. Dust was a foul rumor, a filthy substance consumed by the dregs of society at larger holds. Dragonriders were a nuisance and an extravagant power symbol to people for whom a few beasts could mean the difference between a successful herd and a struggling one. As long as Thread did not return, life would continue as it always had – occasionally someone would leave to seek a new trade elsewhere, or someone would join the family by marriage, but for the rest of the time they kept to themselves. Such conditions tend to lead to xenophobia, after a while. Anyone not of their small tight-knit community was not just
outsider, but
potential threat to their way of life.
Quidelan was the eldest child of his generation, and by some lucky quirk he happened to be well-suited to the role. He was quiet, responsible, intelligent enough to handle the difficult task of running the herds but not such a big dreamer that he wanted to leave for the crafthalls. From a young age he was raised with the expectation that he would eventually take over the family herds. It was a quiet childhood, although not without its troubles… There were rough seasons. Drought, illness, the usual small bouts of bad luck… Things looked grim for a few Turns. Two of his younger siblings, one brother and one sister, left for Igen Hold when they were old enough. The sister was apprenticed to a Healer, and sent the occasional letter back. The brother wasn’t heard from again. To this day, Qu’an doesn’t know what happened to him. He tried to find out for a while, but… No luck.
All things come in cycles, however. By the time he was 19, the herd had not only recovered but burgeoned under their careful care, and life was more-or-less back on track. Then came the dragonrider.
It was at a gather, one of the annual trader caravans arriving at Igen Hold, and for the first time Quidelan was trusted to go on his own to gather the supplies needed and sell some of their own goods. While there he met a rider, Taalo of brown Deltath, who had been dispatched from Igen Weyr to investigate some unusual goings-on at the hold. She made a point of speaking to anyone at the gather, and for reasons of her own Quidelan caught her interest. At first, the solitary holder boy was standoffish, curt – even openly hostile to the young woman. But the brownrider responded with patience, friendliness, and boundless persistence. It challenged his expectations. He was forced to admit that she was not the ivory-tower-spoiled image of dragonmen he’d grown up with. By chance, together the two of them successfully tracked down and exposed a minor Dust dealer. It was no tremendous feat, but it was enough to cement the new bond between them. Even when Quidelan left for home and Taalo departed for the weyr… With firelizards, long-distance contact was easy. He told no one, but quietly looked forward to the letters carried on tiny wings as blue as the desert sky.
A year passed. Then, unexpected, much larger wings appeared in the air over the tiny cothold. Taalo and Deltath had come in person, and this time not to investigate… Not in the same way, at any rate. She had been promoted to Searchrider, with Igen’s senior queen preparing to rise, and for her first Search she wanted the young man her dragon had seen the potential in a Turn ago. Taalo was asking him to move from a certain future to an uncertain one – no promise of a dragon, and no promise that he’d be welcomed back if he changed his mind. Regardless, he could not say no.
Moving to the weyr, even with a cautiously open mind, was
drastic culture shock. Weyrbrats and candidacy and riders and politics and Flights and
oh Faranth everything forever. At least the chores were more or less the same. Caprines and ovines don’t really change whether they’re at a weyr or a hold. He stuck close to Taalo when he could, but struggled with making other friends. (Even at this point in his life, Quidelan was not the most charming or amicable of people.) Months passed – the queen Flew, grew egg-heavy, laid the clutch that hardened on the Sands.
At last the fateful day, and the clutch lay large and healthy before a crowd of Candidates. A brown and a bronze hatched nearly at the same time. A brown like Deltath, and Quidelan found himself watching the little hatchling’s movements with particular interest. The brown headed towards him, eyes whirling blue… only to be seized by the amber-eyed bronze and
shook like a canine after a tunnelsnake. Then, hissing low and fierce, Kzerzath coiled around his new rider – anger exploded in Qu’an’s mind, anger and a fierce jealousy of the other dragon and a desperate hunger. The beginning of his weyrlinghood.
Not that impressing a bronze magically made things easier – although it did open some opportunities. He was approached by an older bronzerider, D’nyar of bronze Peth. The friendly man offered to mentor the confused holdborn weyrling and his dragon. D’nyar was well-liked, well-connected, holding no particular rank but friends with many who did. Beyond that, he had experience and plenty of good advice for someone who knew next to nothing about dragon care. Between Taalo and D’nyar, Qu’an was never completely without someone to turn to. It was a good life, a busy one with all the trials of weyrlinghood, but a good one nonetheless.
At least, until D’nyar tried to sucker him into running Dust.
Oh, it wasn’t an explicit request. Carrying a ‘parcel’ to a ‘friend’. A friendly smile and a nudge and a request for a favor. But Qu’an wasn’t stupid. All the older rider’s connections, his offers to mentor, they took on a far more sinister light once Qu’an realized the truth. D’nyar was building himself a little network of runners and dealers and investors and shady healers, all with the intent of setting himself up a little underground empire. When Qu’an confronted D’nyar, he was offered the chance at a share of the profit. He refused, threatened to take evidence to the Weyrleaders.
And D’nyar never stopped smiling as he explained why that would be such a terrible idea. How no one was going to believe the word of a weyrling nobody liked over D’nyar, not when D’nyar had a couple wingleaders in his pocket to speak in his defense. And of course there was Taalo to consider. Qu’an was rather close with the Searchrider, wasn’t he? D’nyar enumerated - in explicit and gut-wrenching detail - all of the horrible things that a man with his connections could, with a word in the right place, cause to happen to someone. And no one would ever trace it back. There would be no evidence. Maybe he would even plant Dust on the body. Maybe he would plant Dust on Qu’an. Maybe Kzerzath would go
between one day and no one would ever know why. What a shame. These things happen to good kids sometimes.
Qu’an fell silent. He remained silent for three Turns. Gradually – not swiftly, D’nyar insisted, they must not draw suspicion – his regular visits with D’nyar tapered off. Sometimes the older rider asked him for favors. Usually he did them without protest. When he did balk, the smile came back and he ended up doing them anyway.
But Taalo wasn’t stupid, and she hadn’t lost any of her sharpness from the days when she and Qu’an laid a clever trap. She might not have ever seen the evidence, but she saw the change in her old friend. She saw how Qu’an now took pains to avoid her, the silence and the bitterness in his eyes, the way he was changing from a cautious young man into a harsh and unbending one. She tried again and again to figure out the reason… and it took three Turns, but the trail led her back to D’nyar.
She interrupted one of their little clandestine meetings in the dead of night. Taalo had evidence. She’d discovered the same thing Qu’an had, and she had solid proof to bring before the Weyrleaders. She was going to
rescue her friend, shardit, and that was when everything went straight to
between. D’nyar pulled his belt knife in the dark. There was a scuffle. Qu’an tried to place himself in the way, but somewhere in the dark a dragon screamed. Then the sound died, and a keening rose.
Kzerzath took to the air, then dropped on Peth like a falling star. What neither of them knew was that D’nyar and Peth kept firestone just in case of this particular eventuality. A burst of flame blazed out in the night, only to be cut off by screaming as the two bronzes struggled in the air. It was swift, brutal, and decisive: Kzerzath was badly burned, but it was Peth who lay bleeding ichor in the weyrbowl, and it was Qu’an who grimly dragged D’nyar to justice.
It wasn’t enough. When the Watch formed, a little over a year later, Qu’an was among the first to sign up. It still wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever be enough.
Qu’an’s zealotry has not gone unnoticed by the senior Watch members. They awarded him his own wing, but Turns after they otherwise would have. He remains a bronzerider in good standing in an organization where that matters, but… Something was
damaged about him and Kzerzath. Qu’an hasn’t ever killed a man, nor has Kzerzath killed a dragon, but they’ve both come
close to it. Sometimes frighteningly close. Always in justifiable self-defense circumstances, of course. Still – well, the Warden’s post isn’t exactly a job anyone wants right now. It’s ugly, difficult, thankless, and the previous holder of the position got murdered by a psychopath. Maybe a firmer hand will be good for the prison. Certainly, it can’t make the situation worse than it already is.
Other stuff: Qu’an and Kzerzath are carefully written to balance one another; they disagree privately on a number of key issues. I am fully aware of the problems inherent in playing a harsh Warden, so consider this my little ‘out’ when it comes to the player guidelines – if Qu’an is in favor of crippling the irregulars at birth, for instance, Kzerzath is strongly against it. If Kzerzath looks down on any squadleader less shiny than him, Qu’an doesn’t give a shard as long as you’re competent. Just as long as no one expects them to be happy fluffy bunnies, I can find a flexible workaround for just about anything. :3 On the other hand, I’m also totes okay with playing out ICA=ICC. LOL YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT HORRORS I’M CAPABLE OF.
Pets
None
Kzerzath
Name: Kzerzath
Color: Bronze
Age: 30
Appearance: Kzerzath’s color has shifted subtly with age, greening faintly like the patina of a weathered bronze statue. In places on his body, the green almost threatens to overwhelm the formerly brilliant yellow-bronze of his hide… But never does he lose the unmistakable metallic sheen of his color. His limbs are darker, banded in shades of faintly redder bronze still untouched by that curious patina. Three darker spots mark his face, one around each eye and one in the center, just over his muzzle. A faint burn scar mars all the way down his right flank, long since healed – he was flamed at point-blank range when he was fresh out of weyrlinghood, a good 28 Turns ago.
He is not large for his color; his length is above average, yes, but most of it is impossibly long torso and tail, seeming to go on forever. That length is perched on unusually short and slightly bowlegged limbs. He can move deceptively quick on the ground, but it is in short sudden bursts of crocodile speed, not the enduring lope of a canine. In the air, he is all stamina and no speed, with absurdly long wings like an albatross. In short, Kzerzath is not pretty, but he is a powerful creature to be reckoned with.
Personality: Kzerzath is a dragon of few words… well, no, that isn’t strictly true. He talks plenty to his rider. Whenever it looks as if the bronze is at rest, most likely he is actually focused internally. Deliberating, discussing, debating – they have two minds, two points of view to challenge one another’s biases and assumptions, a valuable asset that should not be squandered. Still, to the world, Qu’an and Kzerzath publically present a united front. There is never any outward trace of dissent between the two. That would be an unacceptable admission of weakness.
To other dragons and humans, he is curt – when he deigns to speak at all. Smaller colors are largely uninteresting. Other bronzes are
interlopers, threats to his authority… except Mihkath, whom he will offer grudging respect, but only because Qu’an insists. Kzerzath is aggressive towards other dragons, especially the larger males, but held
strictly in check by his rider. He won’t lash out physically unless provoked, but he will make his general disapproval explicitly clear. Do not touch him. Do not get overly friendly with him. Do not presume to be Kzerzath’s equal, because you
aren’t. Humans other than his rider will be addressed if they need to be given instructions and Qu’an is not readily available… but for no other reason.
Added by Noz Hopefully this stern stuff won't get stabbed.
