A R I S T A
BASICS
NAME: Arista
GENDER: female
PRONOUNS: he/her/hers
ORIENTATION: let's go lesbians!
BIRTHDATE: Midsummer 2743
AGE: thirty-one as of Summer 2774
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: rider, middle child, local lesbian
SQUAD: Requiem
APPEARANCE
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Blonde
HEIGHT AND BUILD: five feet and four inches, built small
PLAY-BY: Arista from The Little Mermaid
FULL APPEARANCE:
Arista does not dress for men. She dresses for two reasons and two reasons only - the first is to feel pretty. For her that means swishy skirts, flowy shirts, and plenty of embroidery. The second reason, and the more compelling of the two, is to draw the female gaze. She dresses to accentuate the things that she finds most attractive in her own gender in hopes of finding someone who also appreciates her form. So if she dresses a little... scantily, at times? That's not for men. That's not even for women who disapprove, in that case, it's solidly for herself. Arista is confident in her body, which is slim. She's never had a whole lot of muscle, not even after weyrling training.
She likes to wear the color red, even though it washes out her pale eyes a little. Red is her favorite color, and many of her belongings started as the same specific shade of red. 'Started', because not all the dyes have worn well, and although she's paid for certain things to be redyed, it doesn't always come out the same. That's okay though, as long as it still fits as it should. She likes to be well turned out.
Perhaps unusually for an adult bronze rider, Arista wears her hair long. She tried cutting it short as a weyrling, and that did not go well. She likes the swish and drape of her longer hair, and it makes a great excuse to spend time with potential or current partners in the guise of doing each other's hair.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Arista is, well, unreliable. She is the unreliable narrator of her own life because she thinks that she is the main character. What she does is true and noble, as befits the daughter of a war hero who is a Benden bronze rider. Those who disagree are clearly out to undermine her because they are either inferior or jealous. She doesn't necessarily believe in the concept of private property, especially between family, wingmates, or clutchmates. What's yours is hers, and what's hers is also hers, up until it's yours. She's attached to colors and sensations over physical objects, so as long as she can still attend to her needs and desires, everything is fair game.
There is one positive way in which Arista is reliable. See, she fit herself neatly into the color hierarchy at one point in her life and has never let anything dislodge her. She therefore has taken her position as a bronze rider seriously, for both good and bad. When she gives her word, she feels the weight of thousands of bronze riders before her, so she keeps her word. Somewhat conversely, she gives her word only rarely, because she must keep it. Bronze riders can be trusted, therefore she can be trusted. Bronze riders protect the weyr, therefore she protects the weyr. Bronze riders are natural leaders, therefore she must be a natural leader.
Nevermind that she truly does not want to be a leader, nor should she. Arista's priorities are short-sighted and selfish, and more than a little petty H.er time away from her controlling father and her time as a dragon rider has not matured her nearly as much as she thinks it has. She might recognize how to handle situations that she's encountered before, but thinking on the fly is not her specialty. Forget anything to do with strategy, that's Gyreddeirth's realm of expertise. Her long-term goals are nearly nonexistent beyond not getting hurt in Threadfall and reuniting with her family. She's romanticized the idea of finding her siblings, casting herself as the hero who brought their family back together. The reality might shock her.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Father -Triton
Mother - Athena (deceased)
Oldest sister - Pearl
Younger brother - R'elle of Blue Noloth - Late Summer 2745, Semaca, Mazurka
Younger sister Ariel of Green Kshatriyath - Late Summer 2748, Semaca, Chopin
Three more sisters, potentially both older and younger
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: yes please!
BIRTHPLACE:
HISTORY:
If you ask the historians, the archivists, or the elders who remember, Arista's father Triton was a well-respected sea captain affiliated with Ista. They might recall this detail, or this one, but what most of them will agree to is this - Triton suffered an immense personal loss and cut his losses with Ista.
Arista, on the other hand, would say that her father never got over the loss of her mother, and took it out on his kids. That's why she was torn from her friends and dragged to the remote islands that had nobody to play with except her siblings. That's in the aftermath. Here's how she would describe her childhood - her father was strict, Thread was scary, and too many of her siblings became enamored of dragons. Arista herself thought that was much too high off the ground to be comfortable, but several of her siblings expressed a desire to ride their own dragon someday. That's why Triton gave each of his children an egg from his queen fire lizard, and how Arista ended up with Bronze Apollo.
Two things happened in relatively close succession that changed the dynamics of the entire island. Arista wasn't paying enough attention at the time to say which happened first, but in combination they changed the family forever. One, Riella changed his name to Rielle, which eventually led to their father finding out. There was a screaming match because Triton was never good with change unless he was the one to initiate it. Rielle left the island of his own volition, and wrote home occasionally. Two, Ariel's obsession with dragons and tendency to hoard led Triton to overreact in correcting her behavior. Ariel would not take that kind of parenting anymore, and also left the island.
Missing two of her younger siblings, Arista tried to stop fighting with her sisters. She did, she maintains that she did, but fights will happen between siblings even with the best of intentions. And, despite protestations to the opposite, Arista was a combative person who didn't believe in personal property. She often squabbled with her remaining siblings, including the next youngest down. It was after such a fight that Arista took a small boat out in order to clear her head. She took the personal belonging in question, which was a hairbrush, and sailed to an island near enough to make a day trip feasible. She'd done this before, and never had an issue with being able to get back home.
Until this day.
Arista took a wrong turn, upset and seething with self-righteous fury, and sailed far enough off course that she was caught in a storm she had no business being near. A stronger sailor might have had a chance of finding her way again, but Arista was not that strong. She and her boat were found by a seafaring vessel that claimed to be a merchant ship. (Later, when pirates became more prominent at Semaca, Arista would find reason to doubt this initial claim. Unless she ran into a sailor she remembered, it would remain a moot point.) Being ready for an adventure, and not ready to go home and confess to her father that she had acted rashly given his actions towards her younger siblings, she let the sailors deposit her to seahold near Benden. She was there about a month before a Benden dragon Searched her.
By this time, she'd had her eyes opened to several things, among them the incredible nature of women. Arista wasn't particularly in love with the idea of being a rider, but she liked the idea of impressing women with a big strong dragon. She fell into a clique of traditionalist candidates who had aspirations for gold. Garnets seemed like a better option for Arista because they did not come with the authority a queen did, but they were still an appropriately feminine dragon for a female rider. Occasionally clutching sounded loads better than being Junior Weyrwoman with all the responsibility that came with the title. Arista had her sights on a garnet, and there was plenty of opportunity to Impress. Benden's queens were laying frequent clutches.
When it was revealed that Benden's hierarchy had kept a queen captive for Turns, Arista was one of many candidates who sort of shrugged. She had heard of Alayna as a candidate, albeit in the context that her Impression to Wyzeth had sent Weyrwoman Sido's oldest sister to aaway in disgrace. She didn't think too much of it otherwise. If you could not act correctly according to the color hierarchy in place at the weyr, you deserved what was coming to you. Triton certainly didn't think twice about bringing his offspring under his thumb, and the same should hold true for dragons. There was a reason queens were in charge.
She didn't have too much time to think on it once it was brought to light because between Alayna's 'rescue' and Benden's humbling, Arista Impressed! She walked onto the Sands as part of a group of gold hopefuls, and walked off with a baby bronze dragon. Gyreddeirth was nothing she wad anticipated. For starters, he was bronze, and she was female. The traditionalists she had grouped herself with gave her a very cold shoulder indeed for cross-Impressing, much less Impressing a mutant. Gyreddeirth hatched with an abnormal claw on each foot, and was arrogant to boot.
Weyrling training was fun. Bronze dragons in a traditionalist weyr had honor and prestige, and they were immediately tapped for leadership potential. If you ask Arista, she was offered a leadership position as soon as she graduated, which she graciously turned down in favor of someone else who deserved a chance.
The truth is this: Weyrling training was stressful. Arista had to grapple with her implicit biases that told her that cross-Impression was wrong, figure out why it was different to have a bronze dragon - bad, wrong, unnatural - but fine to have a bronze fire lizard - natural, fine, no moral implications, and decide where she wanted to be in the hierarchy. Color hierarchy existed for a reason, she remained firmly convinced. She and Gyreddeirth had no plans to rock the boat, though Arista also thought she was a long way from being in consideration for a leadership position she didn't actually want. Bronzes were leaders, and Gyreddeirth could win a position for her long before she was ready to take it.
There was a near-miss between that convinced her to make peace with her family. She transferred from Benden to Ista in order to find Triton's island - she had no coordinates useful enough to use from the air, so a methodical search in her free time was the only option. It took her nearly a full Turn of searching the waters of Pern to find her father, but her efforts were not rewarded. Far from welcoming home a missing daughter, Triton disowned her for daring to Impress a dragon. Leave the family, apparently fine, but Impress a dragon? Too far. She left the island licking her wounds and determined to track down the siblings that were also estranged from the family.
Recently, she discovered that both Rielle - now R'elle of Blue Noloth - and Ariel - now of Green Kshaytriath - were riders at the 'new' weyr that had opened down south a while back. They were accepting transfers, so she asked her wingleader for approval. Semaca had a different wing structure from any other weyr, and Arista joined the hunting and tracking squad of Requiem.