Name: L'shir (Leonshir)
Age: 70
Sex: Male
Sexual Orientation: Pansexual polyamorous
Weyr: High Reaches Weyr
Rider Rank: Weyrlingmaster Second
Previous Rank/Craft: Rider
Physical Description: Dark skinned with thick, corded dark brown hair that's beginning to show some grey. Thick bushy beard that is typically tamed into at least one braid, if nor more. 5'8", kind honey brown eyes, a few sunspots on his hands and cheeks. He's got a corded body from years on the job but is more lean than pure muscle. Can sometimes be spotted with his old smock when painting moods strike him.
Personality: L'shir is an unassuming man with the surprising ability to command attention when he puts the effort in, like a kindly uncle shifting into the military man of his youth with a simple shift in posture and tone. Like his dragon, he appears rough around the edges, but his voice is usually soft, and his courtesy always in effect. He's lived many turns before Thread returned and expects to live many years more even with it here, make no mistake. There is a quiet perseverance in him despite the hardships he has faced and will continue to face; much as a statue endures weather and time, so too does he.
L'shir is not a proud man and will often bend to the orders of his superiors without question. It's how he's lived as long as he's had, and though he may have opinions that differ, he rarely speaks them. It doesn't mean he lacks sympathy for others who chafe against the system. Perhaps they just need to be talked to. But each person only gets one chance, and once it's blown his forgiveness is hard to obtain again. He wants to believe in people, but he only has so much time and energy to entertain that belief.
In his youth he was a painter, and his art could take time to finish. He carries the same mindset when he works with weyrlings: patience, a steady hand, and a set of steps to accomplish what he envisions. (Take a sketch of a person, see how they hold themselves, see what blotches and mistakes need be corrected, apply a new coat in this area, direct them to this or that where they might flourish.) And just like painting, he has to works with people of all types of colors, and L'shir has learned how to generally get along with them all.
In doing so, one might never suspect L'shir was a lonely, old man. He's suffered losses just as many Pernese had, and he feels he's over the hill in terms of trying to get any bit of his happiness back. He throws himself into the role of weyrlingmaster second to avoid thinking about his own personal issues, believing that he is already a finished piece - best to work on the blank canvases these new would-be riders are. Maybe it's funny to see him falter in simple, casual conversation when he's more than fluent during classes and meetings. Maybe it's sad. Sometimes if he's not careful, L'shir will let the old wounds infect his heart when he watches others find their happiness, but at least he would never breathe a word of it to anyone beyond Macleith. He tries to embrace the fact that he's part of the old guard now, and that it's his duty to make Pern something worth inheriting when he's gone.
Positive Trait List: understanding, loyal, patient
Negative Trait List: lonely, melancholic, restrained
History: Though left to creche care, Leonshir was aware his parents were a traveling merchant and a brownrider, the result of a chance meeting during a goldflight. He was raised in High Reaches and became a model if serious young pre-teen, often sullying his clothes with paint when he wasn't busy picking up another weybrat's chores. His subjects were usually the dragons that protected them, and sometimes of his parents so that he could remember what they looked like while they were away. While one couldn't say Leonshir aspired solely to be a dragonrider like his mother--he wasn't so sure he was destined for that sort of greatness--he was absolutely respectful of the work riders did to ensure their safety, and he tried to emulate their nobleness.
Leonshir was one of many weyrbrats who was allowed to stand with the other candidates when he turned 14 turns, but he was one of the few who managed to get a dragon on his first attempt. Still wearing his egg like riding gear, bronze Macleith had lounged in his sand wallow and called to him, showed him a beautiful vista, a colorful if incorrect impression of High Reaches from the air. I've been thinking about it for so long, Mine, the dragonet said with ponderous weight. Is it as beautiful as I thought? Or... And the image darkened, began to show signs of Thread ready to fall, and the edges of the image were slowly being eaten away. The fear was wordless but present.
It's everything you could dream of and more, Leonshir had thought quickly, all but tripping over himself to get to his dragon. He had fallen to his knees to cradle the dragonet. I won't let Thread take it. We won't.
From there, L'shir had to forgo the brush and pick up the firestone bag, the rider's leathers, the knife to cut his dragon's meat until he was older--and he couldn't imagine having believed he wasn't meant for it all. Among the other students they were unremarkable if only because they listened to the weyrlingmaster to the letter, but they did bond with one of the more troubled weyrlings in their class, young Q'nav of blue Plath, whom had been a rescue from Nabol and had trouble adjusting in the weyr. Acting as a pseudo mentor outside of class, L'shir and Macleith dogged their fellow weyrlings into learning before the weyrlingmaster really got steamed, and somehow a half-amused/half-annoyed relationship became a solid friendship as they grew on each other. Placed in the same wing upon graduation, L'shir and Q'nav became almost as blood brothers, second only to their dragons' bonds.
Turns went by, and hormones began to catch up with all of them. It finally came to a head when Ofelya, a twenty-turn candidate they had been friends with for some time, challenged them to a drinking game to let off some steam after she failed to impress yet another hatching. All three of them stubborn as a herdbeast, it wasn't long before the intoxication took them to the nearest person's room, all laughter and embarrassment and teasing that it had taken so long. There Ofelya revealed that she had always thought those two were together, and that she wasn't sure she had a place with either given their close relationship. L'shir was sure he had died from self-consciousness and glee. It was Q'nav that had to assure them both that they could make this work, whether or not she impressed a dragon. That if she really felt bad, they'd just go meet her Between when she went, and laughed in his drunken morbidity.
The men's promise was put to the test when Ofelya's twenty-eighth turn came and went with no dragon, but they stood by her even so. With no dragon in the way, she could love them fully, obviously. And besides, she had such a handle on her glasscrafting, she could easily make mastercrafter if she pursued a career. It was a hard time for the proud woman, but she was loved. Both men and dragons supported her through her career as they focused on theirs, and for many turns the long distance relationship survived time, debt, and even fostered several children. Q'nav tried to Search in her area as an excuse to visit, while L'shir wrote often and attached scribbles to entertain her.
(Looking back on it, L'shir has wondered if she ever really believed herself worthy of their hearts with Macleith and Plath in the picture.)
It began slowly. Ofelya would write them less. Move without telling them. Excuse herself from meeting them when they found the time. It was only after interrogating one of their children that L'shir finally learned Ofelya had been sick for some time. But why was she avoiding them? What was she sick with? Was she seeing a healer? The men would never learn the reasons behind her sudden hermiting, as Ofelya passed before they could see each other again, and she left no note, only a will detaining the business of who retained what belongings of hers. In the fallout, they lost contact with one or two of their children, who chose to avoid High Reaches entirely and give their fathers the cold shoulder for not being around for their mother in the end.
Q'nav was despondent. It was like they were weyrlings again, with L'shir having to push his weyrmate into form, make sure he went to practices on time, take away his klah, and so forth. What was the point, Q'nav would argue in the late night, why bother pretending Thread is coming? Were weyrlings more important than their own children? Was L'shir really more sharding concerned about an invisible menace instead of their wife? L'shir couldn't begin to explain that he grieved through his work, that he was dutybound and that the pain of Ofelya's death couldn't stop him from that. That they had known going into this that her life would be shorter than theirs one way or another. Macleith fought with Plath to have His see reason, but the sensitive blue wouldn't have it. In tune with his rider's pain, he lashed out: would bronze Macleith pull rank, order him to get over it?
The only silver lining to be found was that their failing relationship didn't have to suffer through much more: for Thread indeed returned, and High Reaches was ready. Q'nav, however, was not.
To this day, L'shir isn't quite sure what happened. He had been making sure the then current senior weyrlings didn't panic when they Between'd alongside the Queen's wing. All he knows is that he saw Q'nav and Plath ignored formation and threw themselves into a clump of Thread bound for another rider, heard a shriek, and then they were simply gone. Had the wind buffeted them? Had they simply committed suicide as only their duty would let them? Turns later, L'shir still doesn't know, and it haunts him.
It has hardened his resolve, however. He can't give in to the same despair that took his weyrmate, not with so many and counting still needing his help.
Other: Is easiest on the youngest of each class, unless they prove unworthy of the sympathy. Suffers from episodes of insomnia, which have led to him creating some...interesting abstract paintings. Has abstained from drinking since his weyrmate's death and has been going strong for several years.
DRAGON
Name: Macleith - Named for Archibald MacLeish who is famous for his poem Ars Poetica: "A poem should not Mean / But Be."
Age: 56
Color: Bronze
Size: 41'
Physical Description: Macleith looks like a toothy offshoot of an Earth crocodile, from the flat, broad snout to his thick, powerful tail, and a gnarled specimen besides. Threadscore around his face has carved a slice of his mouth and neck off, making him show a few teeth in a seemingly perpetual snarl, and there's a few tatters in his wingsails. He's a powerhouse in the air but rather languid while grounded, especially if he finds a good spot to sun.
Personality: A picture is worth a thousand words. A mental picture, a moving and imaginative work that is experienced viscerally and in real time? Ten thousand.
Macleith is a dragon of few words, preferring his communication through the wonderful world of metaphor, simile, and extrapolation through images he creates. Had he been a human, he might have been an artist alongside His L'shir, evoking thought and emotion with a stroke of a brush. He is serene in spite of his rough appearance and a deep thinker, and he prefers to cultivate that habit of critical study with those he works with - not just in parsing through immaterial complexities but in how to do their job, how to fit in a weyr's society, and so forth. Macleith is strong in mind and body, a warrior poet on four legs, and he believes all High Reach riders should strive for that balance as well.
Though composed, this bronze is not overly friendly. There is a somber sense of duty in everything he does, though he does his best to be more gentle as L'shir is. But they are soldiers, the only line of defense for all of Pern; if one doesn't know that, one will be reminded. The strong pain of losing their mates is ingrained in his bones, and if he must be villainous in his vigilance to be sure others don't experience the same, so be it.
Macleith straddles the line between fighter and teacher, warrior and philosopher, and maybe even sometimes dip his toes as a father. But he is a remote dragon, one who does not try to get particularly close to his wards beyond pressing the uneven back into line. There is always a chance one will die, and the job won't allow him to grieve for very long. He is also possessive of L'shir, and anyone attempting to wriggle themselves into their personal lives will be met with a wall of scarred bronze hide and a storm in their heads.
(They have mourned for long enough. They can't waste so much time to do so again.)
Dragon Art or Proof of Obtainment:
