
War is war and hell is hell, and of the two, war is a lot worse.
There are no innocent bystanders in hell. But war is chock full of them. Little kids, wounded, old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everyone in war is an innocent bystander.
BASICS
NAME: V'dun
GENDER: cis male
PRONOUNS: he/him/his
ORIENTATION: Biromantic polyamorous bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Summer 2738
AGE: thirty-nine as of Fall 2777
LOCATION: Fort Weyr
OCCUPATION: rider, former wingsecond, designated big brother
WING: Twilight
APPEARANCE
EYES: black
HAIR: black
HEIGHT AND BUILD: five feet nine inches; powerful frame with just a little extra
PLAY-BY: Carlos Valdes
FULL APPEARANCE:
V'dun is a pretty medium height for a man, standing at five feet and nine inches. Despite having been a rider for closer to twenty Turns than not, he still carries a little bit of extra weight. Most of it really is muscle, as he claims, but he still sneaks extra bubbly pies when he can. What? Their Lower Caverns staff have a really nice way with berries! That muscle is formidable, and honestly earned.
He doesn't dress to intimidate, like some riders. He likes loose drape and soft colors. Some of his clothes come from a phase he had during weyrlinghood and just after graduation, where he thought that dressing like some of his clutchmates would make him look more badass. So some of it is dyed leather, and are made in much more 'tough' looking styles. But the majority of what he wears is comfortable, practical, and as inoffensive as the rest of him. Even his riding leathers somehow manage to bypass 'tough' in favor of 'comfortable'. As time passes, even the 'toughest' clothing has been traded for comfortable.
The very picture of 'inoffensive', V'dun's developing wrinkles come from positive emotions. His full mouth readily curves into a grin, and He carries a smile in his eyes, and his heart on his sleeve, and a cane in his left hand. Horrific scars mark his right leg, causing a pronounced limp. Despite the injury, V'dun has not become cranky.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
'Oh, my sweet summer child' is a phrase that could have been coined specifically for V'dun. He's delightful, as if all of the good feelings of summer were condensed down into one person. He's sweet, nearly incapable of acting from malice, and free with hugs. But he's very protective, as well, and while vengeance is not part of his personality, proper revenge is. He likes mild pranks, and draws the line at anything genuinely harmful. The idea is to generate laughter, not strife.
Even without comparison to his very grumpy dragon, V'dun is an absolute ray of sunshine. He has a smile for everyone, and a witty quip or acerbic remark to lighten the tension. Confrontation is a scary, uncomfortable thing, and he prefers to mediate them rather than have them. He genuinely cares, and has rather refused to get jaded. That's okay - Rawlitanth came jaded.
V'dun is a total people person. He is most comfortable around large groups of people, and when not otherwise occupied can be found in the dining hall, kitchens, infirmary, or weyr bowl. He believes that the best way to overcome something - emotions, obstacles, differences of opinion - is to talk about whatever the issue is, and come to a conclusion. He likes the idea of a Weyr Council, and dislikes the weight of power metallic dragons are given at birth.
HISTORY
FAMILY: Fort Weyr! A child of the crèche, V'dun still calls most Lower Caverns workers 'auntie' or 'uncle'. Weyrlings and candidates are 'youngsters', regarded fondly as children, and fellow riders are siblings.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER:
BIRTHPLACE: Fort Weyr
HISTORY:
Vrindun was a child of the weyr. No riders claimed him as their own, though he never lacked for love, and he has a plethora of aunties. The first time he realized that other children - not many, not in the crèche, but some - had 'moms' and 'dads', he was five. By the time he was seven, he had come to the conclusion that aunties were even better than moms and dads. After all, aunties were always there! He had come to associate the traditional parental titles with rider ranks.
He was delightful even as a child. A touch mischievous, but without any malice. If there was a prank to be had, Vrindun was in the midst of it all. If someone was being mean, the aunties knew to count on Vrindun to tell someone. Far from being considered a tattle tale, Vrindun was popular.
As a child of the weyr, he started to attend candidacy lectures young. He wasn't allowed on the Sands until he was the proper age, though. Vrindun Stood for clutches from the first moment he turned fifteen. But seven Turns passed, as did Fort's senior queen, before his dragon was finally shelled.
In between standing for clutches, Vrindun learned a craft. He had to prepare for the possibility of aging out, after all. With uncertain parentage, no one could even point at successful relatives to settle his mind. He settled on healing, figuring that even as a rider, it would be useful to have basic healing skills. Quick to learn, he was as good a student as candidate.
Then Ekketoth laid what would be her last clutch, the Empty Moon clutch. She and Flauros passed between before she could see her children hatch.
The clutch hatched like so many clutches had, with hatchlings choosing every candidate but Vrindun. This clutch even held a gold, a sorely needed gold. Halfway through the hatching, with everyone still focused on the fact that the little gold had chosen a candidate barred from the Sands, a blue hatched.
Seemingly unimpressed with his choices, the blue crashed into the line of candidates. Without provocation, he even bit one on the arm! He continued racing through, and crashing into, candidates until he finally found Vrindun.
Vrindun! Feed your Rawlitanth. I'm hungry!
The trouble didn't end there. Fort Weyr suffered the loss of another gold, Istan Imorith, and had another transferred in. Keahith proved to be just as much trouble as any gold, especially attached to Lanian. The biggest surprise in their clutch had been Esther's Impression to bronze Keramerth, but the newly christened V'dun avoided the metallics of the clutch as much as possible.
It was a policy that stood him in good stead, because in the first Fall the Planetcracker weyrlings participated in, V'dun and Rawlitanth suffered a nasty collision with another weyrling. It sent them into a freak tangle of Thread, which hit V'dun's right leg. He maintains that if he had collided with a bigger dragon, the Thread would have hit his head, or somewhere else equally undesirable.
In what was supposed to be peacetime, the attacks on Fort Weyr were concerning. For a weyr trying to regain stability, having so much turnover in senior queen was unsettling. Imorith died when Kallia was poisoned, Keahith was lost to Threadfall, Macath transferred in from Benden. And Serapheth...
If Fort Weyr was not V'dun's home, he might have transferred out when the murderous gold became Senior Weyrwoman. She was not nearly old enough to have settled enough to handle the responsibility of the weyr. V'dun and Rawlitanth stayed to try to mitigate the damage she might inflict on the other dragons.
This resolve was severely tested when she chose Keramerth as her mate. He rose in defense of his home when Benden attacked the Touching, and again to retrieve two of his siblings. All riders in the weyr were his siblings, including Tuckal and Esther.
Nornth's hatching was another test of his resolve to stay. Not because she mauled two people, but because security on the Sands had been lax enough that a hatchling was attacked. If anyone had tried to lay hands on Rawlitanth, well, the blue had sunk his teeth into Kamene's arm for nothing more than being in the way. If someone had tried to take him, there would have been bodies, not just wounded. Rawlitanth chalked it up to human stupidity. V'dun has decided that he should be on the Sands when clutches hatch, to prevent more accidents.
V'dun's issues with the latest Istan 'transfer' - better to call it a coup - is that Benden authorized it. Benden tried to execute Pia, who had the most adorable little white, how dare they act all high and mighty now? He spends a lot of time protecting the current crop of weyrlings.