"Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do."
BASICS
RETIRE INFO: Adopt
NAME: Myalla (Pronounced Mee-Ahl-ah)
GENDER: Female
PRONOUNS: She/her/hers
ORIENTATION: Demisexual
BIRTHDATE: Early Spring, 2742
AGE: 29 as of Fall, 2771
LOCATION: High Reaches Weyr
OCCUPATION: Wingleader, brownrider
WING: Firestorm
APPEARANCE
EYES: Brown
HAIR: Dark brown, frizzy curls
HEIGHT AND BUILD: 5'5, compact but strong
PLAY-BY: Nathalie Emmanuel
FULL APPEARANCE: At 24 turns old, Myalla still looks like an innocent, with wide, clear eyes and youthful features. But she carries herself with a firmness and steadiness that belies her apparent youth. She looks people directly in the eye and speaks respectfully, but clearly, to weyrleaders and drudges alike. Her clothes are always businesslike and appropriate, in neutral colors and generic styles that conform more to the styles of the day than her own tastes.
PERSONALITY
PERSONALITY:
Myalla is a girl who keeps her promises. Upright, self-righteous and rule-abiding, she believes firmly in the rule of law, both the laws her leaders dictate for her and the ones she sets for herself. She will never again tolerate living under the rule of a tyrant, but she believes that just laws are the best safeguard against a return to war and tyranny. She holds herself to high standards and does not like to deviate from a plan. She has little tolerance for wildcards and has been accused of being a natural conformist more than once. As she does not see that as particularly insulting, she doesn't contest it.
Myalla is steady and responsible. She doesn't lose her head or get distracted. She sets her goals and pursues them, in a slow, methodical and understated way many may mistake for a lack of ambition. Myalla isn't one for fiery passions. She's happy being the stable, solid one who can be trusted to do the grunt work without getting bored and drifting off. She takes her responsibilities seriously, to her wing, her weyr and to Pern.
The lost girl who made it out is still buried somewhere inside Myalla. It pushes her to be better than the best version of herself, to make herself somebody who is worth saving. She has a more creative and independent streak, but she keeps it firmly suppressed. Because there are others who are smarter and everyone wants to be the leader. She's happy doing the work no one else is interested in.
Myalla tends to be a bit of a loner. Personal attachments confuse things and make it harder to know what the right thing to do is.
HISTORY
FAMILY: All dead as far as she knows.
SIGNIFICANT OTHER: Nope
BIRTHPLACE: High Reaches Weyr
HISTORY:
Myalla never knew her parents. They were killed in the war, while she was too young to remember. Or at least that's what the creche workers told her. She never pressed. Lots of children had lost their parents to the fighting and she was happier not knowing the details.
Myalla was an undistinguished child. She saw little purpose in pushing herself when she already knew where her life would lead. Come of age. Stand. Impress. Fight and eventually die protecting someone more important. When the wars ended and the Pass loomed close, the only thing that changed was that it would be threadfall that killed her instead of an enemy's sword. While some of her peers dreamed of Impressing gold or bronze and being deemed important enough to protect, Myalla was under no illusions. Golds were rare and she was nothing special enough to draw one's eye. And girls didn't Impress bronze. She would be a fighter, as her parents had surely been.
But that was not what happened to Myalla. A few turns before she came of age to stand, a rider ambushed her from behind, pulled her onto his dragon and brought her to Fort before she had time to even scream. He never told her his name or why he'd rescued her. He just left her there and told her to do with it what she would. She never saw him again and he never wrote.
The Fortians found her sitting alone in the weyrbowl, staring at the sky in shock and confusion. They took her in and put her in their own Creche. The people charged with caring for Myalla found her a strange and solemn child, who spoke little of where she'd come from, except to say that she had no parents and had not been holdless. Myalla might have been resigned to her fate before, but now that she was free...Now that she was free she found she rather liked the idea of living.
At Fort, Myalla began applying herself for the first time in her life. She'd gotten out, while the rest of her friends were still at High Reaches, with no hope for the future. She couldn't waste the chance she'd been given, whyever she'd received it. So she studied and trained and when she came of age, she agreed to be a candidate. Things were different at Fort. Impressing a dragon of the wrong color was not a guarantee of death or slavery.
And then- High Reaches attacked. The war it seemed had found her. Myalla never saw the fighting, having no dragon or wher of her own. But she cheered when Fort won and sent ambassadors to reform her former home. Myalla wasn't sure she wanted to return yet, when she did not know if the effort would work or if High Reaches was irredeemable. Before she had made up her mind one way or the other, she had Impressed, to brown Enarth, a sweet, dedicated dragon who filled the empty places in her soul.
By the time they graduated, Reaches was stable and seemed to be truly changed. Myalla requested a transfer. Because she had debts to pay, to everyone there who had helped raise her and keep her alive when her parents couldn't. And to all the people who didn't make it, who might have escaped in her place.
UPDATES
- 2766- Myalla advances to wingsecond. Her other goals and projects start to fall to the wayside.
- Early Fall, 2767- Myalla takes over as wingleader following her predecessor's retirement. She leads her wing through a very difficult fall with relatively few injuries and no permanent losses. Said wing is then thoroughly mangled as riders are shuffled in a desperate attempt to keep High Reaches fighting fit.
