"Why don't I ever listen to people when they talk about themselves? No, it's annoying, and I'm right not to."
BASICS
NAME: Eleanor
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Fall 2741
AGE: 31 as of Spring 2773
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Wherling
WING: N/A
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blonde, worn shoulder length
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'1, slender
PLAY-BY: Kristen Bell
FULL APPEARANCE: Eleanor is a small woman, with blonde hair usually kept cut somewhere around her shoulders. She has blue eyes and is fairly pale, especially now that she keeps a wherhandler's hours. She is prone to slouching and is generally not the most graceful of people. Her clothing tends towards the casual, something she rarely seems to feel self-conscious about.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Eleanor looks out for herself first and foremost and expects everyone to do the same. She's a fairly cynical person, who assumes everyone else is the same and is prone to thinking she's being judged and found wanting or plotted against, with little justification. She doesn't really believe in morality or higher causes. Eleanor lives for the moment and tries to seize what she wants when she wants it, regardless of the long term consequences to herself or others. She's fairly hedonistic and enjoys good food (especially shellfish), cheap wine and admiring attractive people of all genders.
Eleanor is surprisingly perceptive. She's pretty quick to catch on to lies and tricks and is generally pretty savvy. People acting out of genuine morality or for the greater good is her greatest blind spot. She isn't fond of people she thinks are better than her, which is...a lot of people at the weyr. Eleanor is an excellent liar who can usually figure out what people want to hear and doesn't feel a lot of guilt about deception. Eleanor doesn't have many friends and claims not to want any, her one real tie in her life being Elsk.
Elsk is also the only one who can usually get through to Eleanor and get her to try to do the right thing. Elsk never says much and rarely intervenes directly, but has a way of listening to Eleanor long enough for her to talk herself, sometimes, into listening to her much-neglected conscience and doing the right thing. Eleanor feels obligated enough to them that when they get it into their head to do something, she'll come along and try to help, albeit with much grumbling.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother: Donna
Father: Doug
Stepfather: Dave
Stepsister: Patricia
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None right now but has had a few past flames
BIRTHPLACE: Igen Hold
HISTORY: Eleanor was born to Donna and Doug, in the outskirts of Igen Hold. Her parents had married young, before either was really ready, and fought throughout much of Eleanor's childhood. They were mostly indifferent to Eleanor herself, more out of carelessness than cruelty, and while she was never abused or neglected, Eleanor knew from a young age that her parents weren't the most reliable of people. She learned earlier than most how to look after herself. Eleanor grew into a prickly, independent child, with little interest in fitting in with her peers.
When Eleanor was ten, her father decided he'd had enough of life with Donna and left, without bothering to tell either Donna or Eleanor where he was going. Eleanor and Donna's relationship grew more contentious after he left. As soon as Eleanor was old enough to leave home, she left Igen too, wanting to get away from her mom and the neighbors she was pretty sure still pitied her fatherless state.
Eleanor settled down in a cothold outside of Ista, where she lived a fairly ordinary life. She associated as little as possible with her new neighbors; grew and fished for her own meals and did her best to cheat what traders came through into paying premium prices for subpar crops. Eleanor never married, but had a few brief affairs, mostly with runners or traders who she knew wouldn't be around for long.
Eleanor learned from passing runners of her mother's remarriage to a widower with a young daughter, Patricia. Patricia attempted to establish a correspondence. Eleanor wrote back, for reasons she herself doesn't entirely understand, and the two became sporadic penpals. Eleanor learned from those letters that Donna was a better mother to Patricia than she ever was to her and still isn't entirely sure how she feels about that.
In 2772, Eleanor nearly drowned when her small fishing boat capsized. The experience deeply rattled her and the shock made her wonder what she was doing with her life. Eleanor learned soon after that Semaca Weyr was opening its door to holders willing to help. On impulse, she signed up to go, accepting a ride from a ship obviously operated by pirates. Weyrs did important meaningful things, right? Eleanor had never cared particularly much about doing much of anything with her life before, but she found she didn't like the idea her death leaving no impact on the world.
Eleanor didn't know much about weyrs, beyond the fact dragons and riders lived at them and fought thread. She signed up for wher candidacy shortly after her arrival at Semaca, largely because "wher candidate" and "wherhandler" sounded more important than "weyrfolk" which Eleanor was pretty sure was just a euphemism for "drudge." Somewhat to her surprise, Eleanor was offered the first egg at her first wher clutch. As soon as Eleanor's blood touched Elsk's hide, she knew them, before they said a single word and somewhere deep down, she knew Elsk was the one being she could be sure would be with her always.
And so Eleanor became a wherling. It hasn't been the smoothest of roads. Eleanor didn't expect being a wherhandler to be so much work and doesn't understand why wherlings need to do so much homework. But it's too late to back down now so she continues to try to muddle through as best she can.
