"Just because a dragon likes you doesn't make you someone- Plenty of dumbass dragons to go around."
BASICS
NAME: Maev
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Not too scrawny or too boring- which rules out most people, in her honest opinion.
BIRTHDATE: Early fall 2746
AGE: 31 as of 2777
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Dragonrider, but willing to freelance for the right incentives
WING: Requiem Squad
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blonde, not too long, not too short, kept braided and out of the way
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 6'8, burly
PLAY-BY: Lyris Titanborn (Elder Scrolls Online)
FULL APPEARANCE: Maev is a big woman, through and through, built tall and strong and stout, through a mix of genetics and her own efforts to hone her strength and speed. She looks like she should be strong and tough and she more than delivers- but is also quicker than her feet than she may come off at first glance. Her face is neither especially pretty nor especially ugly and her facial features are less memorable than her build. She has a scar that just barely missed her left eye, from a bar fight that escalated to blades "before she knew when to mind her tongue."
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Maev is a mercenary at heart, through and through. She's deeply pragmatic and stubbornly resistant to feeling any deep sense of loyalty to a place because she temporarily wears their knots. She's not afraid of dirty work, but doesn't seek out excessive danger. She will commit crimes if the payout is worth it and she thinks she likes her odds of not getting in too much trouble. Her number one priority is to stay alive, number two is to make it out ahead- and she'd advise anyone smart that theirs should be the same. Maev doesn't have much taste for excessive idealism, but will deal professionally with annoying people when needed. She knows how to simmer in silence and roll her eyes when she doesn't think anyone is looking. She's willing to work with whoever- holders, weyrfolk, traders, holdless, pirates, petty criminals- anyone who makes it worth her while, preferably without grating on her nerves too badly. She doesn't really discriminate, and doesn't really make many personal connections either. She's not looking for friends or enemies and is happy to continue thinking more of what people can do for her, whether she really likes them or not. She's not easy to impress, but puts more weight in her judgments in tangible accomplishments than anything she considers arbitrary- birthplace, bloodline, rank...But she's not that difficult to work with on a day to day basis, as she's a professional first and shit stirring rarely gets people anywhere they want to be.
Maev is very much not a believer in "the weyr way." The holds tithe to them because they're afraid, of dragons and of thread, not because they're noble protectors or whatever nonsense the harpers sing about. Their work is about violence and flame, not honor. She introduces herself simply as Maev. Tezcath isn't "Tezcath of Maev," so she doesn't see why her whole identity should revolve around her dragon either (she sometimes finds it weird that whers name themselves after their humans and wonders if that bothers them). Despite this seeming distance, Tezcath is her one real connection- partner-in-heroism-and-crime, pain in her backside and a damn good ally, when the mood strikes him. Two strong personalities, neither predisposed to conventional displays of affection, the two have their share of power struggles and may not appear to get along especially well at a glance- but they understand each other and are stalwart allies, in their own way, and Maev considers checking each other's egos at times part of the bargain.
Maev is a little grumpy, tough as nails, bit rough around the edges. She's been assumed to be a wherhandler rather than a dragonrider more than once by an arrival too new to read weyr knots, but not so new not to recognize the stereotypes. That said- she's also not afraid of having a good time. She works hard and wants to live well- good food, good drink, expensive blue dyes that brings out her eyes...She'll only live once and you never know how much time's left in your cards.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother: Maratya
Father: Kevron
Some siblings, not in touch enough to know where any of them have wound up
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: No one's impressed her enough to call them "significant" yet
BIRTHPLACE: Minor hold beholden to Telgar Weyr
HISTORY:
Maev had an ordinary enough start to her childhood- just a girl, born to a simple farming family, in a small, agrarian hold built onto the slopes of the northern mountains, where people worked hard and lived as well as they could. The hold was destroyed during the war when she was about 9, just a few sevendays before the war ended. Maev and her family became refugees at a much richer, more prosperous, more educated hold in the lowlands on the banks of the Telgar River. They were more tolerated than accepted by the local residents. Maev never thought of it as home and always felt an outsider, seen as lesser by the locals with their fancy clothes and convoluted manners and books and letters.
She caught the first ship out the day she was old enough to convince her parents, who loved her as well they could, to let her go seek her fortune elsewhere. She's been as much on her own as a Pernese person can be ever since. She spent her late teenage and early twenties' turns bouncing between fishing and trading ships, with a few stays at the sort of major port holds that had enough people coming and going that a stranger didn't draw too many whispers, avoiding anywhere too insular or with too strong a sense of community. Permanence wasn't for her and she didn't want it.
At the ripe old age of 25 turns of age, Maev was Searched by a Fortian dragonrider. Maev had occasionally fancied the idea of having her own loyal pet monster to do her bidding and protect her and had considered saving up enough marks for a wher egg someday, when she tired of ship life and was ready to stick to dry land, but dragons were even bigger and fiercer, as she'd seen firsthand, when her hold fell. With only a few months to try, she decided to give it a shot. Dragons owed her- after all- after everything they'd taken from her and her people. And if the cards didn't fall her way favor? Weyrs were full of important people- maybe she could collect a few valuable favors.
Maev arrived at Fort under Z'osh' brief and tumultuous reign as tyrant and conqueror of Fort. Just a candidate, with no power and little investment in the good of the weyr, Maev played it smart, kept her head down and stayed out of the power struggle. At the first clutch she stood for, a small garnet clutch, the final egg of the clutch had a blue born snarling, testing the candidates' mettle with his growls and lunges. Maev stood strong- and fully prepared to fight back, if he laid a fang on her, which was apparently good enough for Tezcath. Who wasn't loyal, wasn't obedient, but was hers- and she kind of liked him all the better for not being anyone's lapdog, even if she'd never admit it.
Maev, who had been at the weyr for all of a month before she Impressed, was unimpressed by all the community and "all for one" of weyr life- and didn't enjoy how much more tied down a dragonrider was, without the option to wander off when Fort Weyr started to grate on her (and it could be very grating). She didn't especially relish risking her own hide fighting thread half as much as harpers and wingleaders claimed she should either. Which were all things she probably should have considered before signing up for weyr life- that riders were powerful, not free.
Maev eventually decided to move to Semaca. Which was supposedly different, if rumors were to be believed. Even if it was nonsense- at least the south came with better weather, which was worth something in itself.
