"Widdershins turned I, singing it low,
Watching the wild birds come and go"
A Song of Enchantment by Walter de la Mer
BASICS
NAME: Jilni
GENDER:Female
PRONOUNS: she/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Aromantic Asexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Fall, 2746.
AGE: 29
LOCATION: Fort Weyr
OCCUPATION:
WING: Aurora Wing
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown blonde
HAIR: Strawberry blonde
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5’2, slender
PLAY-BY: Lily Newmark
EXPY SOURCE: Nell
FULL APPEARANCE: Jilni is a short, somewhat stunted young woman. She stands at just under five feet tall. She often appears shorter, due to her habit of carrying herself with her shoulders hunched, and her arms held tightly to her sides, elbows bent and wrists loose, so that her hands almost resemble paws. She has long strawberry blonde hair that cascades down her back, and wide brown eyes. Her vision is very poor, and she’s extremely sensitive to light, so she squints a great deal, and her eyes often water. They also move uncontrollably, due to her vision impairment, and so flick back and forth, as though tracking a line of invisible text across a page.
Her face is small and delicate. Her chin is pointed, and her jaw is narrow. She has almost no cheekbones, and a small, button nose. Her lips are thin, and she often wears a soft, slightly blank seeming smile—a defense mechanism for her otherwise far too expressive face. Her forehead is broad, and she has a widow’s peak in her hair, giving her a heart shaped face. Her delicate build extends to the rest of her. Her shoulders are narrow, and her habit of walking on her toes gives her a birdlike appearance. Her arms and legs are lean, her hands and feet are small. Her feet are short and narrow, and her hands are small. Her fingers are long and quite boney, while her toes are very short, and somewhat fat.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Whimsical and sweet, Jilni has lost none of her childlike sense of wonder, nor her enormous imagination, even as she has matured. She is warm and maternal, with a love of animals and all dragonkin. She was apprenticed to be a harper before being searched, and her love of music and stories has remained. She has a good ear for music and can often be heard singing to herself. Lullabies are a favorite, but she will sing anything.
Jilni is also quite odd. Shy and distant around those she doesn’t know well, she struggles to connect to her fellow humans, preferring the company of those she’s known for a long time—and animals. She tends to speak in riddles or quotations from famous poems, especially when she’s anxious. Though this habit has improved over time, she will still do it when she’s distressed enough. She can also be suspicious of others, and prone to assuming that they will dislike her, or her dragon, without giving them the chance to prove otherwise.
HISTORY
FAMILY: Jill, mother, +30, deceased Andi, father, +30, deceased, Nilli, twin, deceased
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
BIRTHPLACE: A small isolated cothold Weyr
HISTORY:
tw: parental death, sibling death, isolation
Jilni had an unusual childhood. Her mother lived in a remote cothold, and her father passed when she was a baby. Her mother, already an anxious woman, took the death of her husband hard. Retreating from the world, she raised her two children in complete isolation. As a result of a stroke that she suffered when the girls were little, her speech patterns were affected, and she often mispronounced words, or substituted one word for another. Her two daughters, knowing no different, picked this up. This, coupled with them being twins, meant that, when she was discovered, Jilni almost seemed to be speaking another language.
Jilni and her sister Nilli had an idyllic childhood, running through the fields and trees, and helping their mother around the house. She taught them to cook and clean, spin and sew, trap and butcher the animals they caught, garden and gather edible plants. They learned to read as well, and had each other for company. They developed their own twin language that was unintelligible to everyone but them, and spent most of their days in their own little fantasy world. They made up stories and often pretended to be mystical beings living in a faraway kingdom where they ruled justly and fought monsters.
Jilni’s twin caught a sickness one winter when the girls were about eight, and died not long after. Jilni did not handle this well, and while she knew her sister was gone, she coped by turning her into something of an imaginary friend, continuing to speak and interact with her. This habit faded after her move to the Weyr, but she still kept her sister apprised of major events in her life, and still spoke to her when they were alone.
Her mother passed when she was twelve, from complications from the stroke. Jilni, unsure what to do, simply carried on as best as she could. For the next several months, Jilni lived completely on her own. She survived, thanks to her mother’s teachings. She hunted and fished, trapped and foraged, and relied on the small garden that grew behind the house, for fresh vegetables, especially when times were lean. She retreated even deeper into her fantasy world than she had before, and took to pretending that her twin was with her still, so she wouldn’t be completely alone.
A few months after her mother’s death, a young weyrling got lost while exploring the wilds near Fort Hold. He discovered Jilni’s dwelling, and Jilni herself. At first, she hid from him, and screamed when he tried to approach her. Intrigued, he returned to the Weyr and reported on his findings. Initially dismissed, eventually two mind healers got curious enough to go with him, and they saw the girl for themselves. For the next several months, they solely befriended the semi feral girl. Ot was slow going, but after a while, Jilni began to think of them as her family. It took quite a bit of coaxing, but eventually, she agreed to return to the Weyr with him. The mindhealer couple looked after her during the lengthy adjustment period, and good thing, too. Overcome with shock, Jilni he’d retreated into silence and become somewhat catatonic upon coming to the Weyr. As she csme out of her shock, she revealed a prolific memory for songs and stories, and planned to become a Harper. Life, however, had other plans, and everyone was surprised when she was Searched and entered candidacy at fourteen.
Several hatchings came and went, and she was left standing. Some began to whisper that she would never Impress, that her mind was simply too broken. Hurt by their words, Jilni began to retreat into herself, keeping quiet around those she didn’t know, fearing their judgment.Then, when she was sixteen, her Geth hatched, and they have been together ever since. Their strangeness and discomfort with emotions did not bother Jilni at all. She was perfectly happy to explain, and found their detachment contorting when she got overwhelmed. They survived weyrlinghood together, bonding over their curiosity about humans, and when they graduated, they joined Aurora Wing, where they’ve fought thread together ever since.
The pair had numerous adventures and close calls over the years, and have probably gained a reputation for being the odd duo. Jilni, for instance, adopted Geth’s way of referring to the self, and will often say, “This one,” or, “This rider,” to refer to herself. Geth still found humans peculiarities, but they loved their bonded in their own way —as was apparent from the confused amusement they gave off every time they wore one of the flower crowns Jilni made them. When they weren’t fighting thread, they were exploring the wilds. Jilni retained her love of nature, and Geth retained their curiosity about everything. They often foraged together or went exploring. A not uncommon sight was Jilni, up in a tree, and Geth dozing on the ground beneath her. Jilni picked up Geth’s curiosity about the stars, and she began to study them for both of them. She learned the names of the constellations, began to create more accurate charts for predicting thread. Maybe, she hoped, they could dusckver a way to eradicate thread forever.
