"Low lie the Fields Of Athenry
Where once we watched the small, free birds fly
Our love was on the wing
We had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely round the Fields of Athenry"
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Retire
NAME: Athenry
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/Her/Hers
ORIENTATION: Bisexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Summer 2738
AGE: 36 Turns as of Late Fall 2774
LOCATION: Semaca Weyr
OCCUPATION: Farmer
WING: N/A
APPEARANCE
EYES: Dark brown
HAIR: Dark brown
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'1", average
PLAY-BY: N/A
FULL APPEARANCE:
Athenry's face is round, with wide eyes and a small nose. Her lips are rather thin, and her ears are prominent. Her skin is fair, but both tans and freckles extremely quickly in the sun; this is mostly concentrated on her face, shoulders, and upper arms, but she'll freckle just about anywhere that gets exposed to the sun. Despite her youth, she has some lines already appearing at the corners of her eyes.
She has filled out quite a bit from her younger days, but the effects of prolonged childhood hunger still show in her short stature and offset legs. Her right is noticeably shorter than her left, with a slight lump noticeable if one were to run a finger down her shin, and she walks with a bit of a limp, though it doesn't really hinder her any. Injuries heal slowly and not well when not enough food is provided. For the most part though, she's average. Her eyes and hair are the same dark, rich brown. Her hair is wavy and thick, and largely untameable. It falls just past her shoulders, though is generally tied back with a braided bit of yarn to keep it out of the way.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Athenry is generally quiet, somber. She'll endure most hardships without complaining, and rarely frowns, but neither does she often smile. To her, everything is a grave matter worthy of consideration. She's neither shy nor social, but spends much of her time feeling as though she is simply existing. Joy, sorrow, anger, fear; all of these feelings left with Wantor when he took Athan with him.
She much prefers being outdoors to in, and knows that nature would never betray her the way people might. Oh, she knows that wild animals can be savage, but that's only their nature. People, she knows, can be sweet one minute, and malicious the next. She trusts nobody fully, afraid that if she actually believes them incapable of doing her harm, they'll turn around and do exactly that. Still, her parents raised her to be an obedient girl, and she remains so as a woman; unless she has reason to believe that orders will bring her to harm, she'll follow them even if she doesn't trust the intent behind them.
She is fearful of breaking any rules, worried that she'll meet the same fate as her estranged husband. She's careful in all things, not wanting to give offense even accidentally. She'll readily accede to whatever the opinion of the majority is, regardless of what her actual inclinations are.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother, Bearath, Farmer
Father, Enryto, Farmer
Older brother, Bearen (Spring 2732)
Older sister, Tobe (Spring 2737)
Younger sister, Toara (Summer 2741)
Husband, Wantor, Holdless (Estranged)
Son, Athan, Child (Estranged) (Spring 2758)
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: She has no idea if Wantor counts any more
BIRTHPLACE: Farming cothold in High Reaches territory
HISTORY:
Athenry was born, as her parents always told her, in the middle of an exceptionally hot and dry spell one summer. She's always gotten the sense that her mother wasn't pleased with having to go through labor at midday in such heat. She was the fourth child of what would eventually be seven born at their little cothold in High Reaches territory.
Her family was never well-off. How could they be? The entire region had mediocre soil, and as they weren't one of the older families, they hardly had one of the choicer plots of land. And with the war on, they were repeatedly coerced into giving up large portions of their crop; it was that or see it burned by dragon's flame. Little help was forthcoming from the main hold either, who had their own concerns and couldn't spare much for the far-flung cotholds. Most of the time, the family was getting enough to survive, but not much more.
Still, Athenry grew up a happy child, well-loved by her family. She and her sister Tobe were fairly close in age, and the two of them were tomboys through and through. They were close with their brothers, and tried to emulate their behavior in every way. She even wore her hair short for several Turns, trying to be more like them.
Of course, being younger and smaller than her brothers had its advantages and disadvantages. When they would venture into the nearby forest, they could reach better branches, but she was light enough to climb onto branches that they couldn't trust with their weight. It was this that led to disaster when she was attempting to climb higher than they could: she put her full weight onto a dead branch and it broke, sending her plummeting out of the tree. Her right leg was badly broken. Because there were no Healers anywhere nearby, her parents had to set it as best they could. It never really healed completely properly. It was a lean winter, and food was scarce. Between that and the imperfect set, she's lucky it healed as well as it did.
That spring her sister Enbear was born, but died only a few weeks later. It was her family's first loss, but would hardly be the last. Many of the nearby cotholds that year lost their wheat crops to a blight; miraculously, their family was spared. That fall a boy from one of them came to visit, looking to trade tubers for flour. Athenry's family had little to spare, but they traded what they could, and Athenry quickly took a shine to the boy, Wantor. In the few hours he was there they became fast friends, and they were always happy to see each other afterward, even if it was only infrequently.
The next winter, the entire family came down with an illness. It killed two of her brothers, Enrybe and Rayto, and gave her parents possibly more time to begin plotting for her future. Later Athenry would be glad for it, but at the time she resented that she knew they were making decisions for her and wouldn't tell her what they were planning. The war finally ended, and Athenry came of age and her parents informed her that they had arranged with Wantor's family to be married.
She couldn't have asked for a better arrangement. They were married in winter, and early in spring they traveled to where they could start a cothold of their own, far from where they had grown up. The soil was poor, but it was at least in part theirs, and it was land that High Reaches Hold wanted cultivated. A Turn and a half later, their son Athan was born, and the new family was cautiously optimistic about their future. The young boy grew to absolutely idolize his father, and would toddle after Wantor everywhere he went just about as soon as he was able to walk. He was a common sight at the edges of the fields, playing and staying always within sight of his father.
When Athan was three, disease hit their crops late in the summer. They had to burn their fields to prevent it spreading to other farms, and the family didn't have much set aside. They attempted to re-plant, but with little hope of a harvest. Sure enough, what little they were able to grow was nowhere near enough to feed them through the winter, and worse, Athan got sick late in the fall.
Wantor, previously too proud to ask anyone else for help, got desperate. He went to ask for aid from the nearest farms, and came back with medicine and food a few days later. Several days after that, Athenry was sickened as well, and again he went to get help. Athenry asked who has been so generous, hoping to repay the favor when a better harvest comes, but Wantor remained silent.
When winter came, their stores were already all but depleted. It was clear that they wouldn't be able to survive the winter, and so Wantor left for High Reaches Hold to beg for aid from the Lord Holder. Gone were the days of war, and the Lord Holder was bound to aid those under his protection after all. However, when Wantor returned, it's not with food, but a tattooed H on his head. He'd never gone to neighbors or had any intention of making the long trek to the main Hold, but had instead turned to a quicker solution to keep his family alive and fed: banditry. He'd stolen from passing Trader caravans, fearing that if he took too long to return they'd be dead before he could get back, and on his third such attempt he was caught.
He had no intention of staying; he and Athenry both knew that if she was found to be harboring a Holdless, she'd be cast out same as him, unable to work any land that fell under another Hold's domain. He said he'd only come to say goodbye, to spend one last night with his family and tell her he wouldn't be coming back again. But that was a lie; he left that night, and took Athan with him while Athenry slept. She awoke to an empty house, and would never see either her husband or her son again.
With no way to survive the winter on her own, Athenry headed to High Reaches Hold, getting help partway there from a Trader caravan that takes her the remaining distance. She managed to explain her situation, giving the truth, and was able to stay there as a drudge. For a few Turns she lived that way, quietly accepting that as her fate. She was the wife of a Holdless man, and couldn't ask for a better situation for herself.
However, one summer she was Searched by a visiting dragon from High Reaches and accepted. It wasn't that she wanted to be a rider, or to be associated in any way with the Weyr that had caused her family such hardship when she was growing up, but it was better than being a drudge. She missed the outdoors, the fields and the sun. When it was mentioned that the new Weyr was looking for people to live there, she quickly accepted, but not as a Candidate. She could help with the fledgling Weyr's farmland; she had experience starting from scratch, after all.
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