M'ska and green Descanth

Name: M'ska
Age: 27
Orientation: Asexual panromantic
Gender: Male

Occupation: Glasscrafter
Squad: N/A
Lodgings: The Flit

Appearance: M'ska is pretty sharding tall. Nearly six feet - well, more like five eleven and a half, but he can fudge the last half-inch with floofy hair and excessive enthusiasm, right? He's not THE tallest, especially around some of the built-like-a-brick-wall guys, but he's... still pretty darn tall, really. (Especially when you consider he's not even cis, he just kind of hit the genetic jackpot.) But he's not burly in the slightest. He's a beanpole, miles and miles of legs and not much in the way of breadth. He's not completely without muscle: his limbs are wiry and strong, with some definition and toning to them, the kind you get from plenty of brisk physical activity. He's just naturally not inclined to be bulky. There are a few faint, old burn scars on his forearms from an accident with molten glass a long time ago. He's also got a bit of the ladyhips going on, but it's really not enough to make you turn your head unless you know what to look for. M'ska's been doing this for eight years and he's pretty confident in the security of his illusion by now. (It helps that he's naturally got... well, nothing up top, even before you add in binding.)

He's black, with short frizzy hair of the kind that tends to floof uncontrollably. He tried shaving it all off once, discovered that he looked completely ridiculous, and then let it grow out as it pleased. These days it's just enough length that it tends to form a bit of a silly halo around his head. Sometimes he'll throw a hat or a brightly colored bandana over it, but more often he'll just wear a set of glassblower's goggles that he made himself. The rest of his clothing is fairly simple and practical, and more often than not looks slightly too big for his lean frame; the exception is when he's working with molten glass, where a loose shirt or a trailing sleeve is a potential fire hazard. His features are more-or-less androgynous, attractive but not stunning. But he has an absolutely adorable smile, the kind that lights up the whole face and crinkles the corners of his dark eyes.

Personality: Get it done.

These are the words that M'ska seems to live by. It doesn't matter what you choose to do with your life. But whatever it is, do it right. Do it well. Apply yourself with passion and for Faranth's sake use your brain, don't just sit there and wait for others to tell you what to do. M'ska isn't a particularly intimidating individual - if anything, he tends to strike people as awkwardly shy and a little too softhearted for his own good - but there is a certain intensity about him that can be occasionally disconcerting. It means he dances cheerfully all over the line between "adorable" and "slightly unnerving."

As might be expected from this, he tends to devote himself to things wholeheartedly. And not just one thing. M'ska's got room in his life for a lot of passions. Glasscraft is the primary one, but he's also something of an amateur naturalist, happily filling up leatherbound journals full of meticulous notes and amateur sketches in charcoal or ink. He's utterly fascinated by dragons and their relatives: he used to be kind of obsessed with dragonriders from afar, and then someone introduced him to the real thing and he nearly had an aneurysm of pure delight. It was really no surprise to anyone when he Impressed Descanth, and now he's saving up to buy himself a firelizard egg.

M'ska is very social, and enjoys being in the company of others. However, he's not someone who is at all comfortable grabbing the spotlight. He would rather simply be present, listening attentively, chiming in as he sees fit... But try to put him in a leader role and he'll immediately freeze up and fall to pieces. No, he's the guy who comes up with the ideas, toys with them until they're practical and realistic, and then hands them off to someone louder and more charismatic who can actually pitch those ideas. He's pretty casual about affection, at least of the platonic kind; M'ska is honestly not very interested in physical relationships, but he does love friendly or affectionate contact. Hugs are the best thing. If you're upset and you need a hug, go to M'ska, because he is good at them and gives them quite freely. The exception to this is people who get up all in his personal space without permission, whether in a physically aggressive or overtly sexual kind of way... He tends to react strongly negatively to this, and he's got zero compunctions about grabbing the nearest heavy blunt object and swinging hard in self-defense.

While he's soft-spoken, he does have a sort of quiet infectious joie de vivre about him... as well as a strong streak of social justice activism. He's got weirdly progressive ideas for a Pernese man, ones that have been further radicalized by the libertine attitudes of the weyr. He does know when to keep his opinions to himself, and he tries not to force lectures on people... but yes, careless words from others can occasionally draw an impassioned speech out of him. A surprisingly level and grounded-in-logic impassioned speech, but a speech nonetheless.

He has a fascination with the exotic and the unknown, but tempered by a healthy dose of pragmatism and overall savviness. Horror movies don't really exist on Pern, but nonetheless M'ska seems to have an instinctive understanding of the tropes that ought to be avoided. You would never catch him, for instance, going down into the dark basement by himself. Or suggesting that the little team of survivors should split up to cover more ground. Or poking the dead alien with a stick to make sure it's really dead. And under all the sweetness and the smiles, there is a streak of absolutely uncompromising steely resolve.

M'ska considers himself a 'practical pacifist', in that he avoids conflict and violence when possible, but also accepts the necessity of self-defense. On the other hand, if he is pushed to the point where self-defense is necessary, all bets are off. If you're going to fight, don't be half-assed about it, that's how he sees it. In essence, he gives off the impression that, if the apocalypse were to come to Pern tomorrow, he would be one of the survivors who found himself a blade and a flamethrower and a safe place to fortify, and he would live, shardit. And so would all the people he cares about.

History: 

• Born at Ista Hold to a small, relatively sane and stable family. Miskael was born just after the fall of Igen, when all of Pern was still stunned by the vanishing of the Weyr.
• Fairly normal childhood. While his parents are gentle and supportive of their "daughter's" distinctively tomboyish, bordering-on-androgynous habits, they're also somewhat puzzled about what to do about it.
• Apprenticed to Glasscraft at the age of ten, to a somewhat irascible old Mastercrafter who didn't give a flying green flit whether the new apprentice preferred skirts or trousers or a fetching wherhide loincloth, as long as he shut up and paid attention and didn't do anything stupid.
• Actively begins studying the mannerisms of the other boys; by age twelve, he is experimenting with voice, clothing, and presentation. Invents the name 'Miskael' but doesn't share it with anyone just yet.
• Unfortunately everyone at Ista already knows him as 'that odd girl', much to his frustration. Quietly resolves to wait until he walks the tables, then find a Journeyman post at one of the other Holds as an excuse to start over in a new life.
• Quietly fascinated by dragonkin, although they are rare on the surface - Miskael only sees firelizards around the Hold, but hears stories of the mysterious dragons that vanished beneath the surface of the sands.
• When he is eighteen, Miskael walks the tables. Immediately afterward he packs a bag and leaves home, traveling to Igen and risking the dangerous trek into the Neath. No one knows why, but when he arrives at Igen he abandons his old name and his old life, completely taking up his new persona.
• Transition is... a little rocky at first, but he settles in quickly. He meets his first dragon and falls instantly in love with the very idea of dragons.
• Impresses Descanth at age twenty and falls completely in love with the green. It helps that the whole culture of Igen is so different (and so much more liberal) than the rest of Pern; M'ska fits right in happily with little incident.
• Spends his weyrlinghood and the obligatory Turn afterward with the Enforcers, without incident. M'ska and Descanth do not distinguish themselves as leaders of any particular renown, but cheerfully remains a model citizen.
• Once their turn is up, M'ska and Descanth are technically free to leave, but they opt to remain for another Turn. Feeding a dragon is expensive, after all. However, on an exploratory mission into the unexplored regions of the Unterzee, Descanth is attacked by an unknown Neath-beast of shocking size and ferocity. The two of them barely manage to between back to land safely before Descanth crashes down.
• Her wing has to be amputated, and she and M'ska spend a long time in recovery. M'ska begins having recurring dreams of death by water. The two of them are grounded, although they still sometimes assist the Enforcers in exchange for a modest fee. The nature of this assistance ranges from tracking down criminals at ground level to simple information gathering.
• The rest of the time, Descanth runs a courier business and M'ska makes glassware. The two of them do reasonably well for themselves.

Family: None to speak of.





Name: Descanth
Orientation: LLLLLLLLLLLLLLESBIAN
Age: 7

Length: 20ft
Color: Green
Hex Code: #ACD04D

Appearance: Descanth is a petite twenty feet from nose to tail, lithe and trim and surprisingly well-muscled despite her handicap. True, her flight muscles have begun to atrophy, but she does regular stretching exercises to keep them from stiffening up, and her running muscles are surprisingly strong for a dragon's. She is a sleek creature, acid green marked with splashes of lighter celadon in an unpredictable piebald pattern. The very tip of her nose, tail, wing-fingers, and toes are dipped in dark forest green, a striking and pretty contrast.

Her entire left wing has been amputated, leaving nothing more than a non-usable stump with a small triangle of wingsail. Her right wing is still quite healthy, but it leaves her lopsided and a little bit unbalanced. Nonetheless, a grounded dragon is still a dragon, and Descanth can run down criminals as fast as any of the wher guards... even if she can't bite anyone at the end of it.

Personality: Descanth flies in the face of the stereotype of the green as flighty, flirty, airheaded, and unreliable. Straightforward and utterly driven, she is every inch a Weyrleader's dragon... who happens to be attached to someone who never wants to be a leader. That doesn't seem to matter to her, though. There are limitations to draconic intelligence - there's only so much you can learn when your memory only lasts two weeks - but the green will be the first to tell you, she's quicker on the uptake than her rider sometimes. M'ska often insists, with great fondness, that Descanth is never wrong. This isn't quite true, but it tells you all you really need to know about their relationship.

M'ska and Descanth are partners. In many ways, they are two halves of a whole, even moreso than most dragons and riders. Oh sure, all dragonpairs are soulmates. But there's soulmates, and then there's inseparable. M'ska relies on his dragon, and Descanth rarely disappoints. She is another pair of eyes and ears, another set of limbs, as much a part of him as the ones he was born with. And in personality, she is a steady rock, clear-minded even in the midst of emergency.

Still, Descanth is professional because she has to be rather than because she wants to be. Her demeanor is more big-sisterly than motherly, and her guardian instinct is a powerful one. The younger and less violent denizens of the Neath will find her a far more agreeable creature than many of the Enforcers. She likes having her eyeridges scratched, and if any of the potential "Candidates" (inasmuch as the Neath has them) want to get used to dragons in a nonthreatening way, Descanth is as good a place as any to start. The problem is that between her demeanor and her rider's stature, neither of them are particularly intimidating. Dragons don't harm humans, obviously, but some of them can put up a good show of being frightening, and Descanth... really can't. Confident, yes. Vicious, no.