"On my honor as a bronzerider."
BASICS
NAME: F'nir, born Fafivilinir
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/him/his
ORIENTATION: Prefers femme people, but is somewhat flexible on their gender. Likes power games.
BIRTHDATE: Midwinter, 2745
AGE: 31 as of 2777
LOCATION: High Reaches Weyr
OCCUPATION: Bronzerider
WING: Firestorm Wing
APPEARANCE
EYES: Icy blue
HAIR: Black, worn long
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'4, skinny as a twig
PLAY-BY: Sleipnir FF16
FULL APPEARANCE: F'nir is short and slender, with delicate features and long, flowing, raven black hair. He is attractive, in an almost ethereal sort of way, with pale skin and light blue eyes. F'nir takes care of himself- never arriving in public unwashed or with his hair anything more than artfully tussled. His clothes are fine, but tasteful and decidedly masculine, the style of a man who knows he is powerful and dresses to accentuate it, not prove it.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: F'nir is a man who stills the world in a simple, old-fashioned, strictly hierarchal, almost mathematical way, with gold and bronzeriders at the top and holders at the bottom. He is not cruel, to those beneath him, simply dismissive. He is superior because he rides bronze- more just of purpose, more strong of will, more enlightened in perspective- there is nothing to prove. He will never ask for the help from one he seems as lesser, in anything other than service. Any under tales of the "lesser" triumphing over the "greater," he will dismiss as ill-founded rumor (or, at best, proof the "inferior" party must have cheated somehow). He often finds High Reaches a confusing place, where his inherent right to lead goes unrecognized. Deep down, he is a man who has not truly outgrown the stories of childhood. He is either extremely gullible or extremely obstinate in the face of new information- depending on how well it fits his existing view of the world. He has a gift for self-serving obliviousness and is perfectly happy to just ignore facts that would damage his own ego or self-image.
F'nir is a proud man and his place as a bronzerider is a central part of his identity. Being a bronzerider and defending Pern from thread is the finest purpose in the world- Why would he want any other? He has little sense of why he would want to be anything else. His inherent belief in the importance of bronzeriders can make him arrogant and unaware of his own limitations- he is a bronzerider, a superior breed of man, how could he be unable to match a mere greenrider in anything? He genuinely believes this and will be baffled when the task proves harder than it seems. It can also make him complacent. As he is inherently worthy because he is a bronzerider and does not believe he has anything to prove, he has limited ambition to accomplish much else beyond his standard duties.
In conversation, F'nir comes off as polite, but a bit cold and haughty. He struggles to relate to people, especially outside of Benden. He has little interest in High Reaches politics or the minutiae of holder life and is not very good at feigning it. He struggles to read people, because he rarely cares enough to pay attention to their cues and ignores anything that clashes with his preconceived view of the world. He has a strong sense of honor and loyalty, in an old-fashioned, martial sense of the word. He will duel to defend his honor and will never admit to feeling overmatched. He does not truly understand relationships among equals, as in his eyes someone must always hold the upper hand.
F'nir has a soft spot for very few humans. He has his dragon and the bond between dragon and rider is meant to be a fundamental one besides which human affections pale. While he is loyal to his family, it is more a bond of fealty than of love. He is gentle with his daughter Sygnir but is not sure how he would even know the difference between truly loving her and his sense of paternal obligation. He takes pride in his lineage and will ensure their tales live on in her. He was never especially close with his own mother, or with his other children, and always found it strange when riders attempted to mimic the bonds holders (who do not have dragons) forge with their kin.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Father: F'vil, bluerider, deceased
Mother: Liniraielle, greenrider
Several siblings and half-siblings
Daughter: Sygnir, age 4
A couple of other children, in whose rearing he is minimally involved
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: No one special at the moment, although as a proper man of the weyr, he has had his share of fleeting love affairs
BIRTHPLACE: Benden Weyr
HISTORY: Fafivilinir was born to Benden Weyr, in the middle of the great war between the weyrs. Like most weyr children, he was raised primarily by the creche, with sporadic visits from his mother. His father, she told him, had died heroically in the war, in a glorious battle, that grew in valor and spectacle each time the tale was told. He learned and repeated the story faithfully, proud to have sprung from such a lineage. He might not have been a bronzerider's son but he was the son of something either grander- a war hero.
And if he ever heard whispers that his sire had died unceremoniously, as a holder's hands in a barfight? He would not dignify such heresy against a Bendenite hero's name with a response.
The war ended a few turns before Fafivilinir was old enough to stand, but a new, greater threat beckoned- thread. As soon as he turned fifteen, he signed up for the future that had always been his. He would follow in the path of his forefathers and take to the skies on dragonback.
And at the tender age of 17, he not only Impressed, he Impressed gloriously- to a bronze, flawless in form and unimpeachable in character (at least in F'nir's eyes, if not the weyr's at large). Suddenly, the-newly-named-F'nir found himself rising in esteem in his family's eyes. While he had once been only another of his mother's and grandparents' descendants, he was lavished with praise, for having Impressed so well. He soaked it all in as his right and started to fancy himself, in his own mind, the head of his family, by virtue of being the only one who rode bronze.
F'nir graduated and entered the wings, but never found himself in the inner circles of Benden's halls of power. He was content to sit on his laurels of being a bronzerider and seemed to lack the drive to chase further prestige, assuming such honors would come naturally to him over time, by right of his being a bronzerider.
They didn't. Even in Benden, there were too many bronzeriders for them to passively find rank without ever seeking it.
And there were the occasional whispers, from the goldriders and the more esteemed bronzeriders, claiming that his father had been a drunkard and his dragon was of questionable bloodlines. F'nir ignored them all, of course. His dragon came from the unimpeachable lineage of the weyrwoman's own queen and he was the son of a hero.
When stories of gold Wyzeth's plight reached Benden Weyr, F'nir dismissed them as mere propaganda. He was a bronzerider, after all, and Elsbeth had never chased a secret queen. The bronzeriders of Benden were men (and the occasional somewhat-odd-woman) of honor, who mostly treated him with respect and dignity.
The sanctions leveled against Benden Weyr- and the possible-subterfuge beyond the rest of their misfortunes- seemed to him the precursor to another war, one he would proudly fight, as his forefathers had done before him. And then it just...ended, in a coup. F'nir made the expected grumbles and complaints about the outrage, but did not really impact him in any way other than Benden Weyr receiving supplies again, which was nice. He'd missed new clothes and extra sugar for his klah. F'nir's daily life continued more or less exactly as it had before and most days he barely thought about the regime change.
When F'nir was 27, he had a brief fling with a garnetrider, who bore him a daughter. The woman transferred to High Reaches, with her infant, as garnets and their riders were more accepted there. By this point in his life, F'nir had had several lovers, none of whom he held any particular attachment for, and sired other children, with whom his interaction was limited to an occasional visit in the creche, so he did not feel especially strongly one way or the other about their departure. He did not think of them again for another four turns, until he received word that the garnetrider had died in threadfall.
Because his daughter, Sygnir, had no other family at High Reaches, he attempted to have her returned to Benden. When High Reaches refused, F'nir, with some reluctance, transferred himself. He owed a duty to his daughter, to ensure she knew the story of her legacy and did not grow up to believe High Reaches' deeply strange and twisted ideas about how Pern should be.
