"A wolf must hunt. A scorpion must sting. And a rider must ride. So I must go. For who would I be if I stayed?"
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Adopt
NAME: Di'a, born Diana
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Pansexual
BIRTHDATE: Late summer, 2741
AGE: 26 as of Fall, 2767
LOCATION: High Reaches Weyr
OCCUPATION: Dragonrider
WING: Firestorm
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Black and very shiny
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 6'1, slender and muscular
PLAY-BY: Gal Gadot
FULL APPEARANCE: Di'a is a strikingly beautiful woman, with bronze skin and flowing hair and eyes that sparkle with kindness and intellect. She moves with a warrior's grace and favors short skirts and sleeveless tops. She is ill-at-ease in formal dresses and moves awkwardly in them, although she will wear pants if the occasion calls for more modest attire. She usually carries a sword on her hip, a treasure that once belonged to the hold of her mother's birth. She has a shield from the same treasury, although she has learned that it sometimes is best left behind.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY: There's an innocence to Di'a still. She doesn't remember all the bad that once ruled Pern and believes deeply in the goodness of humanity. She wants desperately to be a hero and protect everyone and takes death hard. She has a strong streak of idealism and is prone to seeing the world in black and white. There can be no good people led astray by circumstance. Only wise and noble men and the villains that seek to corrupt them. She'll pursue those villains with a vengeance and has no mercy for those she deems evil.
To the surprise of many who know the details of her upbringing, she is quite knowledgeable on a range of subjects. While her mother and aunts shielded her from some of the harsher aspects of history, she was taught the great Harper ballads and can read and write with ease. She's also been taught some basic first aid and woodcraft, as well as how to fight. Di'a is a skilled warrior, trained from childhood in a range of techniques, from archery to swordsmanship to hand-to-hand combat. She is brave and often reckless, willing to risk her own life to right injustice.
HISTORY
FAMILY:
Mother: Hippolyta
Father: Lord Dianos of Themyscira
Aunt: Antiope, amongst others
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Nope
BIRTHPLACE: The wilds
HISTORY: Once upon a time, there existed an remote mountain hold named Themyscira. Situated near the shores of Southern Boll, it was a paradise, its soil providing food and rich crops, its people growing tall and prosperous. But no hold could remain apart from the rest of Pern's trouble forever. War broke out on the mainland and in time, it reached even Themyscira's shores. The hold was destroyed by dragonfire and its people driven out.
A small band of women fled to the mainland. They were guards, a specialized unit of warriors who had once protected their island's shores and the bloodline of their lord, who was rumored to be a direct descendent of one of Pern's first dragonriders. And they had failed their duty. They retreated into the wilderness, determined to protect the one child they had managed to save. An infant girl by the name of Diana.
Diana may have been born without a hold, but she was never afraid. Her warrior mother and "aunts" protected her and for as long as she could remember, she wanted to be just like them. But for many turns, they refused to put a weapon in her hand. Her job was to grow up wise and good under their protection.
Diana didn't give up. She persisted, eager to fight alongside them and protect Pern and her small band of warrior mothers. Only her aunt, Antiope, dared to defy her mother. She trained Diana in secret, in the dark of night. When Hippolyta learned what Antiope had done, she wept. For she knew that a warrior could never remain pure of heart forever. And so she swore that the women would train Diana, until she was better than all of them.
Diana trained hard and grew strong and skilled...but as Hippolyta had predicted so long ago, her morals would not allow her to stand by. When she saw an unarmed man being set upon by a band of wilder holdless on the road, she came to his aid. Shocked by the sight of a beautiful, warrior woman so far from any civilized hold, the man invited her to share his campfire.
He was a Harper, sent to spy on Benden Weyr in the wake of troubling rumors. He told Diana of High Reaches' recent attack on Fort weyr, that the fighting she'd thought long ended lay only dormant, with tensions still simmering beneath the surface. He urged her to come with him, so that she could fight in the wars to come and protect those who could not protect themselves.
Diana agreed. When she told her mother she was leaving for the holds of men, Hippolyta and Antiope cried and begged her not to go. But when she persisted, they gave her a sword and shield, telling her it was all that remained of Themyscira. It was meant for her. Because all those turns ago, when the walls held strong and they lived in peace, a warrior named Hippolyta had fallen for a man above her. She'd loved the lord of Themyscira in secret and when dragonfire came, taken a final treasure with her. His heir and the last of her bloodline. Her mother had always hoped to someday retake Themyscira in her name, but Diana knew that was not her fate. She was of ancient rider blood and a rider must ride.
She rode besides the Harper to his hall and when she arrived, demanded to be taken to the weyr. She was ignored at first and set to guarding Harper Hall. But when the Searchdragons came, Diana stood before them and they agreed. Her destiny lay at Fort Weyr.
So to Fort Weyr she went. It was not all she'd hoped for. The new weyrwoman's queen was violent. The weyr's browns would attack an innocent egg. And one injustice was met with another, as the dragon, his rider and anyone who spoke up on their behalf were driven from Fort.
The one person who never disappointed her? Her newborn dragon, brown Kasshuth. From the moment his egg greeted her with joy too loud to be contained to the day he knocked her into the hatching sands and shouted to all the weyr she was his, she adored him. He was all a dragon was meant to be. Good and brave, with love for all and eager to find joy where he could.
The weyr did not deserve him. Serapheth's next hatchlings wounded many and killed one. And were nearly poisoned by a coward. Then Ista swept in with conflict on their mind. Di'a had come to protect Pern. Not to meddle in weyr politics or fight besides those who would kill an infant. When her and Kasshuth graduated, they went to High Reaches, a weyr that had once been corrupt but had sought the light and found it. She would make a new life there that she could be proud of.
