"I didn't always believe in monsters."
TW: Abuse, addiction, imprisonment, mention of death, drugs, trauma
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Retire both please
NAME: Alayna
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Hard to say
BIRTHDATE: Late Summer, 2741
AGE: 26 as of Fall, 2767
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Dragonrider, escaped prisoner
WING: Healer's
APPEARANCE
EYES: Light blue
HAIR: Red with a bit of a wave, worn long
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'1, slender and delicate, underweight after her captivity
PLAY-BY: Sophie Turner
FULL APPEARANCE: Alayna is a beautiful girl, even now. Exhaustion is written across her too-pale face, from the bags under her eyes to the tightness around her mouth, and there is something oddly fragile and disjointed about her movements, as if she's constantly checking over her shoulder for enemies. But her hair is still soft and red, her eyes a lovely blue and her features even and smooth. If there's a new layer of steel beneath those eyes and she doesn't smile so easily anymore...well few people can remember Alayna any other way.
Alayna's style is varied, not because her taste is particularly eclectic, but because her closet consists mostly of hand-me-downs and gifts. It's hard to remember what she once liked to wear after spending so long dressing in whatever she was offered. And what cuts she does recall are several turns out of date. It's easier to just wear what she's given. That said, Alayna no longer wears skirts or high heeled shoes or anything else that would hamper her escape. She always carries at least one knife. She may not be a great fighter, but she will never again go passively to the slaughter.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: There is evil in this world. It is a truth that once, Alayna would have denied, but now she can never forget. She doesn't trust strangers anymore, especially not strangers who ride gold or bronze. While Alayna was always too liberal for Benden, she's become an out-and-out iconoclast. She has seen how absolute power can corrupt and distrusts traditional hierarchies to the bone. Alayna despises draconic compulsion, having seen how thoroughly it can destroy a dragon's will, and considers it an abomination.
Pieces of who Alayna once was remain. She is still kind and generous, to anyone who doesn't seem dangerous (and Alayna has become very skilled at spotting a person's hidden cruelty). She still adores her dragon. She still dreams of making Pern a better place. But where she once thought all that took was ideals and convictions, she no longer fully trusts in diplomacy. Since her escape, Alayna has begun learning how to fight, a skill she once eschewed. And she will do everything in her power to help her new refuge gain the strength it needs to protect itself, because she knows how fleeting good will can be.
Since her escape, Alayna is hungry to experience all the world has to offer. She despises being cooped up and locked doors leave her edgy. She can often be found sleeping outside in a hammock, when the weather allows, her dragon by her side. She gets easily overwhelmed by large crowds, however, and finds isolated trails a more peaceful refuge than the too-loud dining hall. She tends to stick close to Wyzeth, both to look after her still weak dragon and to assure herself that they're both safe and free.
Alayna became addicted to fellis during her time in Benden. While she has refused the drug since her escape as she never wants to be that vulnerable again, she will continue to suffer cravings even after the initial withdrawal symptoms subside. She avoids the infirmary as much as she can to avoid seeing or smelling that too-familiar tonic.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, her turns of captivity have left Alayna a little...odd. She prefers to listen than to talk and hesitates to voice her preferences and desires, having learned how easily such things can be used to manipulate and control. While she is quite intelligent, Alayna isn't fully caught up on everything that happened when she was imprisoned. She learns more and more each day, but it will take some time before pieces of now-common knowledge are no longer met with a blank look. When she first left Benden, she had never even seen a garnet and to this day, she has never fought thread. While Alayna has seen some of the worst humanity has to offer, her gaps in knowledge can still leave her looking oddly naive, as strange as it seems to think that there can be any innocence left in her now.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother: Alaytine of Green Geromoth
Father: U'ne of Blue Bissouth
Sister: Unay of Green Ekkunath
Brother: Al'une of White Shayith, Deceased
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: N/A
BIRTHPLACE: Benden Weyr
HISTORY: Alayna was born an ordinary girl destined for an ordinary life. Or at least, as ordinary as any weyrbrat born in wartime can be. Her parents were a greenrider and a bluerider, happily weyrmated, who had two more children after her. They were often away fighting during Alayna's childhood, but she was cared for in the creche and when they returned, they lavished all their children with enough affection they never doubted they were loved.
Alayna was always a clever child. Clever, idealistic and a bit too outspoken. She learned to hold her tongue in front of the Benden elites, but her teachers never quite managed to train her out of the belief that her mother and father were just as strong, just as smart, just as worthy as any gold or bronzerider. Her teachers never quite realized how deep Alayna's egalitarian impulses went, however. She was kind and gentle, the sort to give a mild rebuke instead of throwing a punch. It made her easy to overlook.
The war ended when Alayna was fourteen and just beginning to train as a beastcrafter. Her parents were still kept busy, the weyr was still guarded and no one seemed quite convinced the truce would last. But it was enough to convince Alayna to sign up for candidacy when she came of age. She wasn't sure she could have killed another rider whose only crime was trying to protect their own home, but it would be an honor to fight thread. And maybe if she did it well enough, proved herself strong and skilled enough, things would start to change. The war was over. Perhaps peacetime would give blue and greenriders a chance to take their own place in the sun.
When Alayna instead Impressed gold Wyzeth, at age 19, she thought everything was going to be wonderful. Wyzeth was intelligent and good and charming and together, they would have a voice at the table, where they could argue directly for dignity for all. The two spoke their minds, loudly and often, and now that Alayna was no longer just another weyrbrat, but a goldrider in her own right, her words no longer seemed so innocuous. The pair was warned that if they continued to cause trouble, they wouldn't like the consequences. They didn't listen.
One evening, when they were nearing the end of weyrlinghood, someone slipped fellis into Alayna's food and injected a small dose into Wyzeth's leg. Alayna awoke to find herself in a bare room, alone except for the bronzepair guarding her door. Terrified and confused, she demanded to be released immediately, insisting that she was a goldrider of Benden and this was all a mistake. That was when she learned it wasn't. Alayna and Wyzeth, the leadership had decided, were more trouble than they were worth. They would never again walk freely in the weyrbowl and the only reason they weren't dead was because Wyzeth's eggs still had value. A sevenday later, Wyzeth was forced to rise for the first time, under the compulsion of an older and more powerful queen. Her Flight took place away from the weyr, where no one but the gold and bronze riders could see.
Alayna never learned what they told the rest of the weyr to explain her absence or if anybody had even bothered to ask at all. She tried to escape and fight back at first, refusing food in the hopes that she could force them into releasing her and Wyzeth. But between the fellis they continuously administered to Alayna and Wyzeth, and the threat that should she refuse to do as she was told, the Benden elites would arrange for her far-more-replaceable parents or siblings to have an 'accident', Alayna eventually gave up. Her situation was hopeless. She would stay in this prison until the life left her dragon. And would then probably be killed, lest she be recognized and contradict whatever story they'd contrived. Under the haze of the fellis, it was hard to care as much as she knew she probably should.
Turns passed, with Alayna and Wyzeth leaving their cell only when it was time for Wyzeth to rise. The gold was forced to take to the skies again and again, four times a turn, more often than any gold was meant to fly. Each time she laid her eggs, they were stolen and added to another queen's clutch. Alayna thought someone might notice, that suddenly Benden's queens were laying larger clutches than they ever had. But either no one noticed or no one cared, seeing it as just another testament to the glory of the weyr. Wyzeth withered and weakened, hollowed out by fellis and constant egg-bearing, and still, nobody came to find them.
Until someone did. Her brother had been eating with her when she was first drugged and saw the bronzeriders dragging her away. Alayune never let slip that he knew. Instead, he begged a friend to transport him to Telgar weyr, where he stayed and Impressed a dragon of his own, a little white. As soon as they were old enough to go between, he sent a firelizard in search of his sister. Alayna had been changed enough by her imprisonment, it took the little brown several months to find her. But find her he did, popping out of between in the dark of night, a letter tied to his leg.
At first, Alayna was convinced it was a cruel trick. But her dragon was dying and she was desperate enough to take the risk of writing back. She told Al'une where she was and while he sadly concluded he had little chance of freeing her on his own (and his weyrleader refused to believe his story of an imprisoned goldrider), he asked if there was anything else at all he could do.
There was. Wyzeth had recently laid yet another clutch and this time, one of her eggs appeared to be gold. Alayna couldn't allow the Benden leaders to twist and warp her dragon's golden daughter into another monster. Or worse-reduce her to an imprisoned broodmare as her mother had been. So she wrote her brother in secret, begging him to steal the egg and bring it somewhere, anywhere, else. The other queen hadn't yet clutched, she informed her brother, so if he came and took it now, Benden would be unable to reclaim it without giving away their dark secret.
Al'une did as she asked. Wyzeth was confused and upset, as Alayna had hidden her brother's messages from her dragon to prevent the other queens from compelling the truth from her. When they questioned the pair, Alayna managed to keep her partner secret.
Al'une kept coming, sneaking eggs out of Benden during the brief windows Wyzeth and Alayna were alone on the sands. Alayna didn't know what became of the eggs and she didn't ask. Wherever they were- it had to be better than Benden. She tried to be happy, with her small rebellion, that she'd managed to steal even that much from them, but she was still a prisoner. And her dragon was still dying.
And then, Wyzeth didn't even have the strength to rise. She was forced into the sky by another queen's commands and no matter how hard Alayna tried to order her down, it wasn't enough. She knew this would be the last time her dragon flew, that she would fall from the air and perish. Alayna ran, driven by pure desperation. The bronzeriders were too distracted by the Flight to stop her and they'd long since ceased bothering to watch her so carefully, believing her fully broken.
As her dragon struggled to stay aloft, Alayna saw a man and a woman she didn't know. She begged the strangers to save her dragon, not knowing who or what she was, only that they were the first people except her tormenters Alayna had seen in turns. The woman turned out to be Molly, a bronzerider of Fort, and the man Angelo, a dragonless man from the same weyr. The pair and Molly's bronze whisked Alayna and Wyzeth away, to Fort's hatching sands and perhaps, a new start.
UPDATES
- Early Winter 2766- Alayna moves to Semaca to get away from the politics and the bronzes and just...everything.
- Late Fall 2768- Al'une dies of a brain aneurysm.
