MITHRAS
"Freedom and justice are everyone's birthright!"
BASICS
NAME: Mithras, Nickname Mi (as in Me)
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Young and curious
BIRTHDATE: Late Fall 2754
AGE: 20 as of 2774
LOCATION: Fort Weyr
OCCUPATION: Candidate
WING: N/A
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blonde
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'8, lean
PLAY-BY: Jeanie Crowell (Golden Haired Summoner)
FULL APPEARANCE: Mithras is a lean, athletic girl of average height, with thick curls of a bright, sunny blonde. She has big blue eyes, smiles easily and laughs readily. Mithras rarely wears skirts and favors clothes that are simple, but well-made. Her voice is high-pitched and she carries herself with purpose and confidence.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Mithras wants to change the world. Life isn't fair and she's going to make it fair. She believes in democracy and equality, that the most junior of drudges deserves a voice equal to any goldrider, that the draconic hierarchy is fundamentally immoral, that the power relationship between the weyrs and the holds is out of balance. She tries not to hate or blame anyone: They're all just products of the system they're born into. If they build a better system, life will be better for everyone and they will all be better, happier people. Mithras knows she can't change the world alone. In order to really make things better, gold and bronzeriders have to realize a more equal world is better for them too. The Weyrwoman shouldn't have to shoulder everyone's burdens alone just because of the color she happened to Impress and isn't it worth giving up her glory to not have to rule alone? Mithras wants to work with bronze and goldriders rather than against them and is sure they'll want to work with her too if she can just find the right words to make them understand.
Mithras is earnest, good-hearted, sweet...and more than a little annoying. She sticks her nose where it doesn't belong and tries to solve fights that have nothing to do with her. She quite often makes things worse because she doesn't actually know anything about the problem or the personalities involved. She wants to help, always and doesn't believe there's any work she's too good for...but often does it wrong and is actually just in the way. She's pretty sanctimonious, more interested in preaching than honest debate, too sure of the superiority of her own ideas to really consider other perspectives. She doesn't understand why sometimes, people need to focus on their own problems and not worry about the inherent injustice of the weyr. She finds it deeply frustrating that nobody really cares about a candidate's view of the weyr and few people want to talk about how they could fix the big problems. She has her ideals, but little clue how to turn them into anything real.
Mithras does not like whers or wherhandlers and considers this a failing in herself she must struggle to overcome. It is not their fault Evander conscripted them into service and it is her fault she can't find it in herself to forgive them. She has high expectations of her own decency and finds her own anger or resentment or even hatred upsetting. She finds it deeply disconcerting when she can't find it in her to think the best of someone.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother: Miana
Father: Thras (Missing, presumed deceased)
Assorted siblings
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A
BIRTHPLACE: Fort Hold
HISTORY:
Mithras was born into a life of luxury, the eldest daughter of a father highly positioned in the Lord Holder's service and a mother utterly to devoted to him and their children. She had a sheltered, happy childhood, where she was taught by the best Harpers, wore fine clothes and worried for nothing. Evander came to power when Mithras was seven turns old. Mithras was too young to know much about politics. She didn't understand why her parents began to speak of the Lord in worried whispers, why Fort Hold didn't get many visitors anymore and why people had started disappearing. She didn't think very much about it, until the day her father didn't come home. He had disobeyed too many of Evander's orders and argued too loudly and had been dragged away by Evander's wherhandler guards. Mithras' mother, Miane, didn't know if he'd been exiled or killed, only that she never heard from him again.
Miane took her children middle of the night and moved to the outskirts of Fort Hold. She told them to always be on alert for wherhandlers and guards, because they didn't know what enemies their father had made or if Evander still held a grudge. They didn't wear fine clothes anymore and no longer had as much time to devote to their Harper studies. They had to farm for their own food and do their own chores. Miane missed her husband and Mithras missed her father. But in time, they settled into their new neighborhood and became part of the community.
When Evander fell, they celebrated and Miane told her children she hoped the hold would be better now, but that maybe Fort's problem were more than a change of leadership could solve. She spoke to her children often about politics and what she had learned from her turns of watching her husband and his colleagues work and what she had come to believe in the turns since.
And then the fires came and it became clear that while Fort Hold was better than it had been, it still wasn't good enough. Miane welcomed in as many of the refugees as they could handle. Mithras listened to their stories and was proud of her mother for doing something, but wondered why the people in charge weren't doing more. She remembered what it had been like in Fort's halls of power. The Lord of Fort had so much. Why couldn't she share it with these people who had lost everything? Why wasn't she trying harder to fix it?
When Miane started disappearing for longer and longer stretches of time, never telling her children where she was going, Mithras did her best to step up and keep the household running. As Mithras had never run a household before, she wasn't particularly good at it, but the refugees Miane had welcomed stepped in and let Mithras think she was helping more than she was because they didn't want to be cruel to an overwhelmed, underprepared child trying her best.
What Mithras didn't yet know was that Miane was helping plan the ultimately successful rebellion that overthrew Fort's lords and established a true democracy. Mithras was very proud her mother was part of it, although she did feel sorry for Vellaren and Corleon and even the wherhandlers who didn't have a place in the new system. Miane was chosen to sit as a minor member of Fort's first council. The family left their farm to the refugees and moved back towards the center of Fort Hold. Miane chose not to run again after one term to help avoid the formation of a new ruling class. Mithras had always loved her mother, but after the rebellion, she came to idolize her.
When Mithras was offered Search by Fort Weyr, she saw it as her opportunity to make her own impact on Pern, to live up to the legacy of her father who'd defied Evander's tyranny and her mother who'd fought against an oppressive system that was more than one man. Only she's going to do it even better than they did. Mithras was going to help reform Fort without a war and without anyone losing their home.