" She's stubborn, haughty, eccentric, irascible, laconic, annoying—and her name is Matoya. "
BASICS
NAME: Matoya
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Asexual aromantic
BIRTHDATE: Early Winter 2705
AGE: 65 as of Early Fall 2771
LOCATION: Fort Weyr
OCCUPATION: Wherhandler
WING: Dusk Squad
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: White
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 4'10", soft
PLAY-BY: Matoya (FFXIV)
FULL APPEARANCE:
Matoya is a woman who's definitely showing her age: her long, slightly wavy hair has gone wholly white, and the flesh on her face gone slack and her skin wrinkled. Her brown eyes are half hidden behind sagging lids. Though never a particularly tall woman, she is now quite short, stooped with the passing of the Turns--though this doesn't seem to dissuade her from physical activity in the slightest. Despite her worsening posture, she's downright spry, if not especially strong.
Despite the scarcity of dyes in the hue, she loves the color purple, and wears it whenever she has a special enough occasion to. On most other days, she prefers relatively drab dresses--never trousers--cut loose and comfortable, though most of her shawls seem to be pink or red. When it rains, she prefers large hats, never particularly liking the feeling of rain on her.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Matoya is a spiteful, grumpy, bitter old woman and she makes absolutely certain that everyone knows it. She's almost never polite, and is usually varying degrees of sarcastic; she doesn't care that this isn't a particularly endearing trait. She has impossibly high standards, ones that nobody can meet, herself included; she's driven and has a strong work ethic, but never feels that she's succeeding enough. Though she longs for power and recognition, she doesn't seek out positions of power--the ones available to her aren't the lofty ones that would be sufficient for her.
She does care for a select few people around her, mostly those she considers to be "wayward" younger wherhandlers, but she has a rather gruff, unhelpful way of showing it. Still, if it came to it, she'd do anything to protect them or any of her squad, not that she'd ever in a million Turns admit to it.
Able at last to recognize the mistakes of her youth, she hates that she didn't take the opportunity to become a Harper when it was still a path available to her, and to this day she holds a special resentment toward Harpers. She's bright and inventive, but her love of reading has led to nothing more than an encyclopedic knowledge of useless trivia.
HISTORY
FAMILY: Deceased
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Lol no
BIRTHPLACE: Harper Hall
HISTORY:
Matoya was the sole child of a Harper father and wherhandler mother who spent their lives at Harper Hall. She was a bit of a spoiled little thing, doted on and given every attention they could spare. She grew up thinking the world of herself, and refused any chance of apprenticing as either a Harper or a Scribe, as being an apprentice beneath others was an idea she would never consider. Though she'd one day regret her refusal, she was a haughty youngster and teen, and was certain she'd made the right decision. She could study on her own; she had the entire archives of Harper Hall already at her disposal!
Of course, no self-taught child is going to manage half as well as those with teachers. She was undoubtedly bright, but she was soon surpassed by her peers. They knew things off-hand that she would have had to spend days searching for answers about. This irritated her, and she swore off associating with crafters forever--though this lasted all of a week, as most people around her were crafters. Instead, she simply pushed away all of her former friends and immersed herself in scrolls she could scarcely understand during every moment free from chores.
It was her mother who eventually suggested learning more about whers. Her own wher, Matosk, was a gentle soul. Matoya wasn't thrilled, but it was true that she had to do something with her life, and the thought of either marriage or drudgery repulsed her. So she learned, but she was rebuffed repeatedly by the guards of Fort Hold when she tried to purchase eggs from them, and somehow the occasional eggs brought by Traders never felt right.
She was twenty-three when her mother died of a sudden illness. Healthy one day, struggling to breathe the next, and gone a few days later. Matosk was beside himself, and... well, he was family, in a way. She couldn't well leave him to go wild, or worse, bond with someone else. And so he remained Matosk, only her Matosk now.
Her father didn't remain at the Hall for long; he couldn't bear the empty bedroom, he said. He requested a position elsewhere, and was granted it. Matoya didn't follow. Harper Hall was home. However, the loneliness soon got to her too, and the nearby Weyr was willing to take a wherhandler on. She went, little knowing that a war was soon to break out, and that Fort would be at the heart of it.
Times were stressful, but Matoya did find one comfort at the Weyr: its archives. Almost as extensive as Harper Hall's, and with fewer to question her right to be there. She would often stay up until almost noon, learning about whatever happened to be at hand. She may not have been an expert at anything, but at least she ended up with a vast repository of trivial knowledge, and that was enough for her.
There were letters sent to her father for Turns, until one day the letters stopped coming. Seasons went by without word, until she sent a letter to Keroon--where he'd been sent to--asking after him. He'd died, she was told, peacefully and in his sleep. She just hoped he'd found some happiness there.
Turns passed, and with it the war. Matoya was more than a little relieved when it ended. The thought of losing Matosk to a pointless raid was one she didn't want to consider, but was all but forced to. Now that the risk was past, she could instead worry about Thread, which would eventually begin to fall once more.
And fall it did, with the Weyr's--and Matoya's--focus shifting to how best to combat it. There were interruptions, like High Reaches' last failed raids, and some kerfluffle with Benden, and multiple incidents of riders baselessly blaming wherhandlers for things they hadn't done, but the end result was always the same: there was Thread to fight, and after it had fallen, the wherhandlers would go to clean up what had been missed. That was all that was important.
Well, that and scrolls.
