"It's done!"
BASICS
NAME: Senshi
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/Him/His
ORIENTATION: Heterosexual
BIRTHDATE: Winter 2719
AGE: 57 as of Winter 2776
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Head Cook, Dragonless
WING: N/A
APPEARANCE
EYES: Dark Brown
HAIR: Black
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'3" and stocky
PLAY-BY: Senshi (Delicious in Dungeon)
EXPY SOURCE: N/A
FULL APPEARANCE: Senshi is small. Small. Rounded in stomach and squat in legs and forearms, he is surprisingly strong for somebody seemingly out of shape. The vast majority of his face is overgrown with a massive, unruly beard that easily reaches his naval. Senshi's wavy hair is in desperate need of trimming. He sports an impressive moustache that reaches for the sun despite not having oils to keep it in place.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: Senshi is sensible, curious, and overall a well-liked man with ... eccentric tastes. He is not beyond breaking taboo to try something new as long as it fits within his own personal moral code (and to shards with everybody else's). This short man is rather amiable and gets on well with most everybody he meets. If somebody disapproves of his antics, Senshi will merely shrug and continue on his merry way. Consequences of his actions aren't really something he mulls over until, well, they happen. He also couldn't give a hoot about where you come from, especially if you share in his passion (or provide him with unique ingredients).
Senshi believes that you should only take from nature what you're going to actually use, and to put everything else back where it came from. That being said, he does not overindulge and will not allow others to, either. No matter how they may grovel or beg. He is not beyond chasing somebody out of the kitchen with a cast iron pot. He takes the nutritional needs of his Weyr very seriously and serves up the best of the best - although some of his dishes are questionable.
He is happy to show others his methods, but he is no fool. If somebody wants to try something he himself isn't sure of, he'll let them have the first bite to make sure they don't die.
He is one with his element in the cooking but attentive to little else. Senshi will tend to cooking utensils with the tenderness of a mother to a new babe, but everything else - his clothes, his belt knife, everything in his weyr - is in need of serious mending and dusting. He sometimes winds up in danger due to wandering while deep in thought about his next dish, since the surroundings are also one of those things he doesn't take into consideration until he's literally walking off of a cliff.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Jaan - [82, mother]
Koffie - [84, father - deceased]
Gillith - [bonded bronze dragon, deceased]
SIGNIFICANT OTHER:
BIRTHPLACE: Southern Boll
HISTORY: Senshi hailed from Southern Boll, part of a Minercraft family. He took on the craft with his family as he aged, utilizing his smaller-than-normal stature to get into tight places other miners could not reach. Senshi's interest in strange foods began in tandem with the first crop blight. When pressed on the brink of starvation due to the lack of rations coming their way through trades and caravans, his attention turned towards the wild wood. Through curiosity he and his father foraged things that seemed unusual - but was smart enough to stay away from the obviously poisonous - and tasted them himself. The foliage that didn't make him ill (and he did become quite sick on several occasions) he learned to cook with the help of his mother.
Senshi was Searched by a Fort Weyr rider when he was 17. By this point the Interval Weyr was in full swing and he was trained among the other of the Weyr in manners of espionage, combat, and survival. He did not Impress until he was 21, but the wait was well worth it. Bronze Gillith became one with him, now S'shi, and together, they forged an incredible bond while staring down the wide maw of war.
The arrival of Thread left many a rider whiplashed, jumping from one threat to the other without so much as a breath between. The war ended due to the new threat, but many were ill-prepared for the new nature of this returning enemy. S'shi and Gillith were among the first to fight - and the first to fall. S'shi was returned unconscious to Fort Weyr, but he would arrive alone.
Senshi abandoned his honorific title. Despite the attention received from mindhealers, he found nothing but grief in Fort Weyr. So he left, returning to Southern Boll to pick up his old craft. It was far too late for him to walk the tables, but he could still do work to shake his heartbreak. Unfortunately, it would still find its way to him. In 2764 he lost his father to the plague that devastated Pern, while somehow managing to dodge the sickness himself.
In 2768, he accompanied a young man named Laios - an apprentice miner on the cusp of becoming a journeyman - and a handful of others on a venture to a small cothold, where they would analyze the ore and consider prospecting there. Surprisingly, survival skills were lacking in their expedition party, and soon the rations were being eradicated well before their journey would come to an end. Senshi supplemented their remaining supplies with food he foraged from nearby woodlands and caves, conjuring delicious dinners off things others might balk at.
Within a sevenday, they made landfall at their destination. Senshi was gifted a pair of fire-lizard eggs by the cothold lord, which would hatch into brown/gold chimera and green fire-lizards. Senshi later returned to Southern Boll, abandoning the Minercraft and taking up the new hobby of cooking for the Hold. To his surprise, Laios had been spooked from the craft by the rockfall and joined him in Southern Boll, his sister Falin in tow, to learn culinary arts from him. During a Gather the following turn, Laios and Falin were both Searched. Senshi was inspired to look after his protege and teach the Weyrfolk his methods all while caring for their nutritional needs. He returned to Fort Weyr in 2770, but would relocate to Semaca Weyr in 2773. He was swept up by the numerous oddities that existed by way of food and was determined to make a namesake for himself by blessing the weyrfolk with delicious, if strange, entrees and snacks. It was at Semaca where Senshi would take up the role of one of the head cooks.
