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BASICS
NAME: Nixie
GENDER: female
PRONOUNS: she/her/hers
ORIENTATION: eh, whateverrrrr
BIRTHDATE: Early Winter, Turn 2759
AGE: 17 as of Late Winter, Turn 2776
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: candidate; sailor/pirate (formerly)
WING: N/A
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Sunbleached red, often kept braided
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5’7 tall, of a trim, angular build
PLAY-BY: either my own art or a picrew/other source (coming soon)
FULL APPEARANCE:
One of the first things some would notice about Nixie, is her red, sun-bleached curly hair.
Accented by several colourful beads and miniature braids, it is generally kept mostly braided back; though there are oftentimes a few stray windswept wisps and curly strands that frames her angular, sun-tanned face. Her eyes are a startling blue, akin to that of the summertime sea, with a clever, mischievous twinkle visible in them.
The second noticeable thing, was her taste in eccentric, yet functional, clothing. Bold and eye-catching, Nixie’s flamboyant style tended toward the ‘couldn’t blend in, even if she tried’ kind. With pockets all over the place. And the third thing? It was often a deceptively simplistic piercing that sat in pride of place, its metallic shape glinting brilliantly upon one of Nixie’s reddish-blonde eyebrows beneath the sun. Upon closer inspection, there seem to be intricate details painstakingly etched in into the metal. This item was one of her favourites; as it was a ‘gift’ from a friend. [Minor trait: eyebrow piercing]
Her hands are calloused from Turns spent sailing the seas, with her fair share of rope-burns and other such injuries born of a shipboard life; and her walking gait has a curiously rolling aspect to it, due to the nature of instinctively adjusting one’s balance to the constant motion of a ship.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Temperamental, like the sea; this multifaceted young woman is very much capable of going from utter raging fury to deadly calm—or vice versa—in the space of a few moments.
Nixie is oftentimes a fair bit foul-mouthed, and argumentative, with a creatively extensive vocabulary akin to that of many sailors. She definitely curses like one whenever she’s frustrated, annoyed, in pain, and/or in whatever situation warrants a suitably impressive string of such language in her eyes. Said situation can vary from something as minor as painfully stubbing a toe, to something as life-threatening as abruptly coming face to face with a giant wave or a spotty, for instance.
An adventurous sort, she deeply values the sea and her friendships; though Nixie tends to be a bit choosy about who she calls friend, tending to prefer those she sees as trustworthy enough to watch her back in times of trouble—though her parameters for such morals are somewhat loose, given the piratical aspects of her shipboard life and her affinity for occasionally pocketing small shiny things. Loves exploring.
Nixie is otherwise a great person to have by your side in a crisis: after all, good sailors must at least have fast reflexes and a reasonably level head to reliably survive dangerous situations—such as being caught out at sea in a particularly nasty storm—thus she possesses enough of both qualities to be reasonably efficient in doing her part and quickly jump into action. She can be quite loud-voiced, capable of bellowing loud enough to be heard over storm winds. Nixie will readily admit of a deep emerging desire to know more of the sky, in much the same way she knows the sea.
In particular, she wants to physically ‘sail’ Pern’s skies; and what better way is there than to fly, aboard her own dragon?
HISTORY
FAMILY:
- Parents
- Siblings (~3 or more, if any)
- Other family members (if any)
- Crewmates on the ship?
(All open to ties)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None, at the moment.
BIRTHPLACE: small seaside hold somewhere in Tillek lands
HISTORY:
Nixie was born in the winter of Turn 2759, a loud lusty baby, to her parents in a small seaside holding on the shores of Tillek. Growing up, the sea and its sailors were a constant, significant part of her daily life. By the time she was five, she’d learnt to recite by name every last one of the fish species in the hauls brought in by the local fishermen, alongside some of the local Harper’s basic Teaching Ballads and other such lessons. Some fish types she loved, like the delicious whitefish, while others she loathed either because of how they tasted, or—later in her life—because of how difficult it was to prepare; such as the deep-sea packtail fish with its horrid oily, slimy coating.
Thus it came as a surprise to absolutely no one when Nixie decided, at the age of ten Turns, to practically attach herself to one of their local sailors in search of adventure.
So young Nixie lived and worked side by side with the sailors long enough to gradually pick up their habits and sea-farer ways; over time acquiring quite a foul mouth, and an deep-seated respect for the sea and her moods. Her adolescent brain even absorbed like a sponge a set of somewhat looser morals—as well as an sticky-fingered affinity for small shiny things—from those few sailors who covertly dabbled in piracy on the side during some of their voyages. Not that Nixie at that point in time was fully cognisant of such piratical outings and what that meant, beyond recognising their absences and eventual returns with more than what they’d left with. No one in her tiny hold really complained, though; or if they did, Nixie never knew of it. So she merely accepted it as part of her worldview and lifestyle.
At fourteen, she officially left home upon a ‘trading’ ship, full of the desire to see all the world. All sort of adventures ensured, sometimes exciting ones; like those where Nixie was occasionally used as a distraction during a small, petty theft, or whenever she got to explore somewhere new, which happened quite often. Sometimes scarier adventures occurred, for instance those where the crew had to collectively work together to survive dangerous situations, such as nasty weather conditions—like her first particularly bad squall, wherein she discovered her sheer lung capacity and the exceedingly valuable ability to stay level-headed enough to NOT freeze in such a crisis—or the times they occasionally had to hurriedly find the nearest shelter to escape Threadfall—or irate people—as needed. Over time, several types of beads and various small trinkets gradually accumulated in her lightening hair, and in her increasingly eccentric clothing.
On her sixteenth Turnday, Nixie briefly returned home for a visit, now a grown worldly teen who was almost-virtually unrecognisable from the vividly-redheaded little girl she’d once been, with her sun-bleached hairstyle, well-tanned skin, and a brand new eyebrow piercing she’d recently gotten with a friend. She did not stay long, however, remaining only for a few sevendays: for once she had heard about Semaca for the first time, adventurous Nixie decided she wanted to travel there; after all, this was a whole new region of Pern she hadn’t yet seen or heard about. Thus she struck out once more, this time on a ship bound for the long, arduous journey across the wide band of ocean—and the Great Southern Current, famed for its dangerously wild storms capable of blowing sailors off course—that lay between Tillek and the new, fabled Semaca.
Nixie often had had cause to wonder, in the quiet lulls between storms, just what it must be like for the dragonriders she’d occasionally spotted flying so high up there in the sky. What did the clouds feel like? Were the stars by which the ships navigated in the night that much more closer to them? Did those riders ever chase each other through the winds on their dragons when they weren’t busy fighting Thread, the way some of the crew’s firelizards did? And bigger questions, like: How did they get to one place from another so quickly, and all in one piece too? Much faster than journeying by ship, that was for sure. These vague thoughts eventually consolidated into a deep desire to know more of the sky, beyond knowing exactly which stars were important to navigate by; Nixie wanted to Experience it in much the same way the sailors all knew the seas.
An unspoken thought lingered in the young woman’s mind. Maybe that unusual Semacan Weyr Nixie had so recently heard about.. would it accept someone like her as a future dragonrider? She did not yet fully understand how that process worked, but nevertheless, during the remainder of the trip, Nixie had grown to realise that this was a wish she desired more than anything.
Roughly four sevendays after she turned seventeen, the ship finally arrived; ready to allow its many occupants to disembark onto the Semacan shores, Nixie included, just in time for an occasion that the ‘locals’ called ‘Dragon Day’..
UPDATES
- Update goes here!