" Hello, ladies. Look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me. "
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Retire V'ako, adopt Losalth
NAME: V'ako
GENDER: Male
PRONOUNS: He/Him/His
ORIENTATION: Pansexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Spring 2735
AGE: 35 as of Late Fall 2770
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Rider
WING: Minuet
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Bald
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 6'4", muscular
PLAY-BY: Terry Crews
FULL APPEARANCE:
V'ako is a difficult man to miss. He's tall, loud, and extremely muscular. He has dark, warm skin, and no hair on his head, though he can grow a respectable goatee; it, like the hair he used to have, is black. He has a short, broad nose and a huge ready smile. His eyes are dark brown, and narrow, and his eyebrows are surprisingly sparse, nearly to the point of nonexistence.
He's generally found dressed one of two ways: incredibly sharply, or walking around shirtless. He's fairly certain his muscles are impressive, and he's not the least bit shy about showing them off.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
V'ako is not a subtle person. He is loud, with absolutely no concept of volume control or when isn't an appropriate time to be excited. He's overly enthusiastic about just about everything, and is equally effusive with praise and criticism. He deals with stressful situations by going even more over the top than usual, which leads to a lot of people thinking him callous—and in some ways, maybe he is. But he feels deeply, he just wears most of his emotions on his sleeve, and tries to cover up the less positive ones with bad jokes at high volume.
And flirting. V'ako will flirt with just about anyone until they make it clear they want him to stop. He prefers the chase of it all to dealing with actual relationships. Those are messy. Better to just make advances on everyone equally, so that nobody can claim he shows favor to some and not others.
He's full of energy at all hours of the day and night, and can never sit still. Despite this, he's actually quite lazy; he'd rather spend his energy doing cartwheels for no reason than do anything resembling actual work. He takes direction extremely poorly, and has no work ethic whatsoever.
When pressed to it, V'ako is extremely protective. Nobody is too unimportant to be worth it; it's why he even became a rider in the first place. He hates the work, he hates having to show up for drill and be serious for a while, but that doesn't stop him taking his duty to protect seriously. It is, in fact, probably the only duty he does respect.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother, Ninevel of Blue Tsirith
Father, B'ko of Green Faiyeth
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None
BIRTHPLACE: Fort Weyr
HISTORY:
TW: Bullying
Velako was a Weyrbrat through and through,all his life. He grew up with the other creche children, a terror of the Lower Caverns. His seemingly unlimited energy and strong disobedient streak got him into a lot of trouble as a child. He was often referred to as absolutely out of control, and took a long time to teach not to bite other kids. Many people thought he'd grow up to get himself branded Holdless someday, as he seemed to have no regard whatsoever for anyone else.
He became a bully. He didn't want to change. He thought he didn't need to change. He didn't want to do what other people wanted him to! And anyone who said otherwise could fight him. He often won, because he simply didn't care who he hurt, himself included. Other people would pull back, but he didn't. He kept going, until most of the other children were terrified of him. That was fine. It meant when he made them do his chores when the adults weren't looking, it was easier. And then puberty struck, and Velako shot up tall and strong, bigger than most of the other children.
His size did him in. He fought the same way he always had, but this time against a girl he had several inches on and a couple dozen pounds. By the time they were on the ground, it was no contest, but she didn't give up either. Not until he twisted her arm harder than he knew he was capable of, and broke it. Most of the other Weyrbrats didn't talk to him for a long time after that. It was the last time he ever fought. The guilt finally caught up with him.
It took Turns to make amends. With some people, he never really managed it at all. Even into early adulthood, many of those he had grown up with avoided him. He felt invisible, so he just got louder. He flirted outrageously, and refused to go unnoticed. At some point it became sincerity, rather than an act. And then he was asked by a green whose rider he flirted with why he wasn't a Candidate. He responded honestly, that he'd done things he regretted, that he didn't deserve it. She just laughed. He was twenty-three.
He was old, for a Weyrbrat standing for the first time. He actually had to do his chores, or risk losing his chance. He did them, grudgingly, even though he'd almost come to enjoy working in the laundry the past several Turns. It was more physically intense than most people thought. But now he had to do the chores of a Candidate: scrubbing and sweeping, helping to oil dragons. He strangely found himself missing his old job, but becoming a Candidate meant he could do something he thought he never could: protect people. The guard had rejected him; they knew his troubled past and wanted no part of him. This gave him an opportunity he thought lost.
And then, with no fanfare, he aged out. His dream lost, he went back to scrubbing dirty clothes. If he was disappointed, he covered it well with apparent cheer. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking he had no regrets whatsoever. They would be wrong. If he hadn't been such an awful child, maybe he would have considered Candidacy earlier. Maybe he would have a dragon now. Maybe this was all his fault.
Turns passed. Velako refused to fade into the background, but he was still just Weyrfolk. He didn't really matter in any way. And then Semaca opened, and there was a clutch on the Sands, and Candidates could be as old as thirty. He had considered High Reaches several times in the past few Turns, but why should that be anything different? But Semaca, that was new. A place to start over. He transferred, and stood. And the first egg hatched.
V'ako. This may not be the life you dreamed it could be, but I am here, your Losalth, and we will rewrite our memories together.
But it was the life he had dreamed. Well, mostly. His dreams had involved fewer chores. Still, Semaca became home, and he would do anything to protect it.
