“There's so much grey to every story - nothing is so black and white.”
- Lisa Ling
BASICS
NAME: Xesne
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Fall 2748
AGE: 29 as of Fall 2777
LOCATION: Fort Weyr
OCCUPATION: Weyrling, Apprentice Scribercrafter
WING: N/A
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Brown, Wavy
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 6’1” and Slender
PLAY-BY: Amelia Zadro
FULL APPEARANCE:
- A tall, slim woman, Xesne stands a respectable six feet and one inch in height. Large doll-like eyes of a delicate, slightly grayish blue rest in a dainty triangular face. Her nose is straight and well-proportioned, her lower lip full and pouty while her upper lip is narrow and nearly invisible. Her skin is fair and creamy with just enough peachiness to it for the appearance of robust health. Brown hair falls in waves to her shoulder blades, cut bluntly; it is usually down when she is not working but is kept in a practical bun or braid when she is on duty. When she is not in leathers, Xesne likes to wear simple yet clearly feminine clothes that emphasize the curves in her slender form, mostly in light and airy colors.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
- Confident and self-assured, Xesne is a strong woman with an assertive personality. She is incredibly ambitious and seeks to climb the ladder of Weyr leadership; she sees Impressing Bronze as a gateway to do just that and has yet to realize that Rubiculath is unsuited for such a position. She admires strength, both in herself and in others, and reacts to it when she finds it with respect and attraction. Peacocking and posing, however, annoy her to no end.
Xesne is extremely controlled. She possesses an unwavering iron will and rarely loses her temper. New concepts are easy for her to grasp and she is especially quick at her academic work. Highly resilient, she bounces back from almost anything, and even when a problem seems insurmountable she applies her will to it until she finds a way over, around, or through it. She’s a very stubborn woman, sticking to what convictions she has (there aren’t many) and only changing her mind when something extreme happens to put pressure on her worldview. When it comes to standing up for herself, well, Xesne certainly does that, whether or not the other person’s comparative position makes that a good idea.
Her stubbornness is as much a weakness as a strength. Even when it might be better to back down or at least come back to something later, she’ll push on. It doesn’t matter if her fight is physical or verbal, she’s unwilling to stop before she wins. This has been a detriment in her self-defense training because sometimes it really is better to just live to fight another day. And when it comes to verbal altercations - well, Xesne is definitely going to say what she has to say, even if she probably shouldn’t.
And when it comes to morality, Xesne’s is … well, questionable. When she finds a line someone has drawn and said “do not pass”, she’s not so sure that’s definite. She isn’t overly concerned about right and wrong; it’s the ends that matter, not the means. Oh, she tries to be a good person overall, she just has a less-than-firm notion of what makes a person good. She can’t really understand why someone would care more about how something was accomplished than what was accomplished, and there is very little that she wouldn’t ruthlessly at least consider when it comes to achieving her goals.
One day, Xesne plans to be Weyrleader. Rubiculath is a handsome bronze; he’ll surely be able to win the favor of the senior Queen. She wants power and comfort for herself, and she’ll use anyone and any method she needs to achieve that. Oh, she wants the Weyr to thrive - because the Weyr’s prosperity is her prosperity. She might draw the line at murder. Possibly. Probably. Mostly that’s because murder tends to be fairly conspicuous, and she likes to be subtle, likes to hide any traces that she’s done anything “wrong” in trying to achieve her goals. Manipulation, lying, cheating, stealing, causing “accidental” injury? It’s all on the table.
One day, she’s going to be on top of the Weyr … and if she could find a way to manage it, she’d love to be on top of the world.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
- Father, Xestanor, 55 [+27]
Mother, Alliane, 57 [+29]
Sister, Allianor, 31 [+3]
Sister, Astanor, 24 [-4]
BIRTHPLACE: Ruatha River Hold
HISTORY:
- The middle of three girls, Xesne had a fairly unremarkable childhood. Her parents were a sailor and a fisherwoman, and while things weren’t exactly easy they were hardly deeply impoverished either. Things were tight, but that was all. For the most part, the family was happy … but Xesne always wanted more.
It started to show when she was eleven, and Xesne apprenticed herself to a Scribercrafter. She intended to better herself through the application of her knowledge. It seemed a straight forward enough plan. Study hard, and live a better life.
Then, at sixteen, Xesne was Searched and she was given an opportunity to reach even greater heights. If she could Impress gold, or even bronze or brown … well, she could become a Weyrwoman or Weyrleader. That was more than she’d ever thought possible, and she ached for it. Certainly, she would still apply herself to her studies, just in case, but she was very much invested in becoming a dragonrider.
She arrived just in time to Stand for the clutch in the summer of 2765, but when the weyrlings were poisoned over the summer she was rather glad that she hadn’t Impressed. She kept her head down and applied herself, certain that eventually, she would find her match.
She is left standing again in the fall of 2766, and the following turn when a biologically female blue rises and lays a single egg. Clutch after clutch, turn after turn, she Stands. Around her, the politics of the Weyr tremble. A rift grows between the traditional and progressive fragments of Fort Weyr, and in the summer of 2771, Z’osh tries to take over the Weyr on the side of the traditionalists. It doesn’t bother Xesne; if women are somehow successfully forbidden from Impressing the larger males (not that Xesne sees how that might be possible), well, she’ll just have to Impress gold. Not that the coup lasted long. Tuckal managed to get things back in order and Z’osh was exiled to Semaca.
Quickly, Xesne approached the deadline when she would be aged out of candidacy, and she contemplated going for a wher as well. But no; being a wherhandler would not offer her the power she craved. Thankfully, it was in the spring after she turned twenty-three that the age of candidacy was shifted across all of Pern, allowing candidates to stand for dragons until they turned thirty. Her place was secure, at least for a few more turns.
More clutches came and passed. Finally, late in the winter of 2776, at Serapheth’s eighth clutch Xesne, at twenty-eight turns of age, Impressed to Bronze Rubiculath.
Delighted, Xesne settled into life as a weyrling. One day she was certain she would be Weyrleader; it never occurred to her that Rubiculath might be unsuited to leadership. He was a bronze, after all. An incredible example of a bronze. She was certain they would go far together.
UPDATES
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