"But now it's my turn to take the lead, and all of you can watch me from the background!" - Sakura Haruno, Naruto
BASICS
NAME: Sakura
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Uncertain (Thinks herself to be fully straight)
BIRTHDATE: Fall 2750
AGE: 24 as of Fall 2774
LOCATION: Semaca
OCCUPATION: Bluerider, Apprentice Healer
WING: Healer’s
APPEARANCE
EYES: Green
HAIR: Red
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5’4”, Wiry Muscle
PLAY-BY: Sakura Haruno (Naruto)
EXPY SOURCE: Sakura Haruno (Naruto)
FULL APPEARANCE: Sakura is not exactly a supermodel, but she’s pretty enough. Her red hair is shoulder length and neat, relatively soft and well cared for. Her eyes are a nice green, not particularly bright nor particularly dull. She often wears (mostly) practical dresses that can accommodate work as both a healer and a dragonrider, often in her favorite shade of red. She has a slender, wiry sort of build with some decent muscle mass to her. She tries not to bulk up too much, but what muscle she does have is nicely toned and as well maintained as the rest of her.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Sakura is someone who is a bit lacking in the self confidence department. She’s not necessarily shy, or withdrawn, but she doesn’t always think very highly of herself. Everyone else around her is just so much better and more talented… and she’s just Sakura. She’s just a girl who got caught up in a life she thought she could handle but wasn’t truly prepared for. That’s not to say she doesn’t like being a rider, and she loves Kleeth of course, but sometimes she regrets having not paid attention during her candidacy. Being a rider is often tougher on her than she originally gave it credit, and while she does her job just fine she isn’t always happy or satisfied with her own performances.
In private, while still lacking in confidence around people she perceived as more skilled, she is a bit more open. Her relatively feminine and pretty look hides a powerful temper and an even more powerful smack, which she will often land on the arms of any of her male friends who act particularly stupid. Noogies are also a common weapon in her arsenal against what she deems as “macho male stupidity.”
She tends to respect her female peers more, and her favourites are often the ones who make sure to take care of their appearance. She aspires to be a gorgeous, confident woman like some of her idols one day, and pretty girls have her respect- especially the riders who always manage to look put together. (She’s a tad jealous of those ones- how do they never have a bad hair day?)
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mebuki (Mother)
Kizashi (Father)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A (she wishes)
BIRTHPLACE: Minor Hold
HISTORY: Sakura was born the beloved only daughter of a pair of relatively ordinary holders. Her mother was a bit more rough and tumble than her father, but both had pretty normal jobs as farmers, something Sakura had also been taught how to do from a young age. While they didn’t spoil her, as their only child they were protective of her. Young Sakura always wanted to know of riders, especially any heroic female riders. Her parents, to protect her from the harsher truth, always told her the more glorified and happier tales of riders. Never the darker parts that were the unfortunate reality.
As a tween, she developed an interest in healing, and while their minor hold didn’t have many journeymen healers around, she found one to apprentice under, learning what she could. Little did she know, when she was 15 she would gain the chance to live out those fairy tales of hers- or so she thought. Searched by a passing rider, Sakura jumped on the chance. She could always continue to apprentice as a healer, and being a healer and a rider would only make her even cooler! Absolutely ignoring the warnings of her parents that it would be dangerous, she left and was brought to Igen.
Teenage Sakura dreamed of impressing to a beautiful gold and marrying a handsome bronzerider, outright ignoring all the warnings that being a rider wasn’t as easy or glorious as she thought. She still participated in lessons and did fine, but outright refused to see the danger she’d be exposing herself to through her rose tinted glasses.
Semaca Weyr had only been recently established around this time, and when Sakura learned of the new Weyr, she transferred. Believing it would be a grand adventure, she arrived just in time for a sizeable clutch with multiple parents. Sakura, being as she was, was not quite as excited when she realized there was no gold egg among the 14 on the sands. However, when the day of the hatching finally arrived, the bubble of her goldriding dreams popped. Not only did no gold hatch, but she impressed. To a blue. The exact opposite of what she’d been dreaming of. She didn’t blame the baby of course, that would be just silly. He was a baby, and he didn’t know that girls like her were meant for golds and greens and even these new garnets that had popped up. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, be that type of person.
While she didn’t blame Kleeth himself, she did feel her fair share of resentment towards him she had to work through as a weyrling. With her dream shattered, her rose tinted glasses slowly came off through her weyrlinghood, and she came to realize how dangerous being a rider really was. From the moment Kleeth hatched, she knew he was unlikely to ever fly a fighting wing like his siblings would, and gladly continued her apprenticeship as a healer. Even being a healer had dangers though, especially during threadfall.
While she had to work hard to make up for her willful ignorance, Sakura did indeed graduate normally with the rest of her class and join the Healer’s Wing proper. During this time, she struggled with accepting what her life had become, and worked on fixing the mentality of a silly girl who’d been in way over her head. This was the work of many years after she and Kleeth graduated, with how much focus she’d put onto this dream of hers, but she slowly began to shake the romanticized traditionalist mindset.
After a few years, she obtained a gold flit from a clutching mother who’d recently laid a healthy clutch of eggs. Naming her Peony, Sakura had most certainly ended up shaking her head at the irony of getting the gold she’d wanted, only for it to be a flit rather than the dragon she’d dreamed of.
Now at 24, Sakura has come to love her dragon. While she is still dissatisfied with herself fairly often, she’s come to accept her life and shares a perfectly strong and normal bond with Kleeth.
