Post by Desert on Aug 26, 2011 11:24:00 GMT -5
Weyr: Skrull Island Weyr
Name: Kendrik (on Impression, K'drik)
Gender: male
Sexuality: asexual, generally heteroromantic
Age: 17
Rank: apprentice Harper; candidate
Appearence
Hair:
Kendrik's hair is a fairly average tone: dark brown. It is a deep shade of earthy sepia, leaning toward neither warm nor cool, but staying firmly in the neutral. In low light or when damp, it appears to be solid black. The texture of his hair is neither notably coarse nor fine. It is mostly straight and cut short for convenience, so that on a frizzy day it sticks up; usually, he can keep it controlled, and it falls neatly in a part to the side of his head, barely reaching the upper curve of his ears.
Eyes:
His eyes are a peculiar shade of green that fluctuates subtly in different types of light. It can range from a dull, mossy brown-green to a lighter, nearly gray jade green, to a vibrant malachite. No matter the variant, the iris is solidly green, with flecks of "mica" that form lighter, silvery tinges to his eyes that give them a hard, piercing quality.
Height:
6'0"
Build:
Overwhelmingly average. Not stocky or lanky. He has a normal body mass for his height, which is slightly on the tall side for his age. He keeps in shape, so there is not an extraneous amount of subcutaneous fat on his frame, without becoming thin. His muscles are lean and wiry; his body is overall quite proportionate and trim, making him fall in the range of desirably fit without being intimidatingly muscular. He is deceptively strong, for the sleek muscles he had have been toned into whipcord.
In facial structure, his features are composed of sharp lines and angles: he has a vulpine look about him. Slightly hooked nose, heavy brow, strong jaw, pointed chin. He has a definitively masculine look about him, without becoming brutish. With his thin eyebrows and sharp eyes, and thin lips that are often pursed in thought, he usually carries a severe look about himself that ages him far past his biological age.
Other:
Kendrik carries himself with confidence, but not the arrogance that marks his peers. His stride is smooth, controlled, and quiet. He has the ability to blend into the background when he wants to, rendering him invisible in plain sight. Or, on the flip side, he can dominate a room just by existing, and bring all attention onto himself.
He has no specific preference in terms of clothing, providing the garments fit him well enough not to be baggy, but still allow for range of motion. Colors or styles don't register much, unless he is going for a specific look. His everyday clothes are working clothes that can stand to get dirtied. As a rule, he keeps himself well-groomed and clean. He isn't so prim that he refuses to get dirty to accomplish a task, but he does prefer to be clean and dressed properly.
Personality
If Kendrik existed in modern-day times and was given the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, he would score as "the Mastermind," INTJ.
"All Rationals are good at planning operations, but Masterminds are head and shoulders above all the rest in contingency planning. Complex operations involve many steps or stages, one following another in a necessary progression, and Masterminds are naturally able to grasp how each one leads to the next, and to prepare alternatives for difficulties that are likely to arise any step of the way. Trying to anticipate every contingency, Masterminds never set off on their current project without a Plan A firmly in mind, but they are always prepared to switch to Plan B or C or D if need be.
"Although they are highly capable leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once they take charge, however, they are thoroughgoing pragmatists. Masterminds are certain that efficiency is indispensable in a well-run organization, and if they encounter inefficiency -- any waste of human and material resources -- they are quick to realign operations and reassign personnel. Masterminds do not feel bound by established rules and procedures, and traditional authority does not impress them, nor do slogans or catchwords. Only ideas that make sense to them are adopted; those that don't, aren't, no matter who thought of them.
"Masterminds usually rise to positions of responsibility, for they work long and hard and are dedicated in their pursuit of goals, sparing neither their own time and effort nor that of their colleagues and employees. Problem-solving is highly stimulating to Masterminds, who love responding to tangled systems that require careful sorting out. Ordinarily, they verbalize the positive and avoid comments of a negative nature; they are more interested in moving an organization forward than dwelling on mistakes of the past."
those are excerpts from a page that describes INTJ personalities; the full article can be found here
Kendrik is a very private person. Though he is a very charismatic young man, able to make himself accepted in almost any situation, he doesn't let many people close. He has a circle of acquaintances and contacts, but none of them know much about him, and he prefers it that way. This is not related to business, most of the time; he just dislikes people getting too comfortable with him. He is an independent soul, and too many people close to him are encumbering and an unnecessary hassle. He keeps people around him if they are useful.
Though he is an introvert, Kendrik can easily play the social games. Letting his feelings take a backseat is already the norm for him, so he finds it easy to ignore his nature and throw himself into various social situations and act the charming, friendly extrovert most people know him for. In his Harper training, he honed his acting skills, so he can play just about any part to a tee. He learned as a child how to tell people what they want to hear, and lying (or at least telling half-truths) is second-nature by now.
A strong will and quick wits are his trademarks. Kendrik is quite intelligent, registering around the 130s on a modern IQ test, where the average is 100. And although he prefers having plans, and when he puts his mind to something he can have several contingency plans, he also has trained himself as a Harper to improve his improvisational skills. He is patient enough to wait and watch and see how things turn out; this is his preferred method, for he doesn't believe in the reliability of snap decisions.
Kendrik shows two distinct faces in his daily life: the "real" Kendrik, the persona he wears when he is alone, is a quiet, introspective, thinker; some would call it emotionless, but he simply prefers letting thought override emotion. It helps him to think clearly. The other side - his public face - is still quiet and thoughtful, but less icy. He is approachable in this state, and is more than willing to talk to people who approach him. In this persona, he cultivates the image of a helpful and easygoing young man, who wants the best for the Weyr.
likes
nighttime
fall/winter
solitude
dusk/dawn
organization
dislikes
daylight, especially in the summer
hot weather
humans
ignorance
nosiness
being touched
fears
Kendrik has mild claustrophobia. Spaces that keep him from standing to his full height and/or spreading his arms to their full length make him nervous. Any more restricted and he might go into a full anxiety attack.
also, don't invade his personal space bubble. just don't.
History
Kendrik was brought up in the thick of Skrull Island's societal complexities and rigid traditions. Always a bright, adaptable boy, he completed his schooling at the Hall earlier than his peers; academically he was on par with the group several Turns his senior, but some of the Crafter work they did on their curcuit was not suitable for him, since he was physically less mature, so he was forced to stay within the Harper Hall for some time, until he was ready for the crafter training. During that time, he studied hard and fed his mind with knowledge above and beyond the information his peers learned, and once the Turn-long curcuit was done, he had already decided what he was going to do.
A Searchdragon declared him suitable for candidacy at the Weyr, but he opted out in order to stay at the Harper Hall. He had already shown an aptitude for the Harpering duties that extended beyond playing music to entertain and teaching basic classes for the children. He excelled at the more intellectual duties and functions of a Harper which dealt with mediating disputes and keeping the knowledge of the past alive. He was always hungry for knowledge, and in the areas other than musical, he quickly outstripped most of the rest of his apprentice class.
Musically he was merely mediocre. He has a good ear, but when his voice cracked at fifteen Turns his formerly sweet, boyish alto dropped to a baritone and turned sour, though his breath control remains good and his voice smooth. He is passable at the making and playing of instruments, though of everything he is the best at strings, being fairly good at improvising on a gitar. His musical instructors were the only ones that ever had any complaints about him, and many said that he was a strange Harper to be so musically uninclined.
One day shortly before his sixteenth birthing day, Kendrik was in East Steppe Hold with a journeyman mentor. His masters were considering letting him walk the tables early, so they sent him out before the other apprentices to see how well he took to the life of a journeyman at such a young age.
It was the middle of the drove, when the beasts and their herders swarmed the Hold. Kendrik and his mentor were playing a few tunes after dinner to entertain the holders and herders; it was late, and for that set the journeyman was singing acapella while Kendrik retrieved refreshments for them. he had been aware of the eyes of a few of the herders on him with more avid gazes than was particularly normal or appropriate, but he ignored it until one of them accosted him on the way back to the low stage.
The man blocked his path and made as if to grab him; however, Kendrik, who could be called paranoid, had learned several self-defense forms. He left the much older man nursing a hyperextended elbow, a nearly-sprained wrist, and his own half-drunken mood swings. Kendrik heard no more from that man or his companions until the evening's entertainment was done and almost everyone had dispersed.
His mentor was already in the rooms they had been provided for their stay, but Kendrik lingered just outside the cothold, recharging himself from the day's stresses. He heard footsteps and slunk around the side of the building, but he soon collided with the very man he had fended off earlier in the evening. The man, though more sober than before, was still nursing a grudge. He and his men had been away from civilization for months, and he only wanted one thing. The women of the Hold were either attached and unattainable, or avoided this particular man and his posse.
Kendrik put up a fight, but he was overpowered by the three larger, older men. Perhaps they had originally planned to leave him largely intact, once they had done what they planned to do, but with the marks their target left on them, they exacted the same upon him.
The next day, the journeyman mentoring him found Kendrik at the river, looking as if he had been through a war. The young man was washing himself thoroughly in the clear water, and glared with eyes nearly wild with suspicion and suppressed emotion at the older Harper until the journeyman retreated out of sight. Eventually, Kendrik decided that he'd never sufficiently clean himself off, and returned to the cothold. He was stoically silent about it; the journeyman soon gave up trying to get any information.
They left immediately back for the Hall. Kendrik, still barely speaking at all, immediately requested an audience with his Masters. After explaining to the what happened - shocking them by relating the event with a level, emotionless tone - he requested to be transferred back to the Weyr. They granted it, and within a sevenday he was back in the Weyr, under the guarded stone wings of his birthplace.
And he took full advantage of that. One of the first things he did was to track down the Weyrleader B'ach and, when the wraithrider was in his office, came by and told him the full story, leaving out little. Since, at that point, the bone-deep bruises and lacerations covering his body had only partially healed, the evidence was there for all to see. He allowed the Healers to perform a check, and they backed him up.
Punishment, when it came, was swift and brutal. Kendrik rode out with the full haunt dispatched from the Weyr, and thought he went nowhere near the persons of the men who had assaulted him, he watched with eyes narrowed in feral satisfaction as the three men (whose descriptions he had provided with quite sufficient detail to identify) were separated from their tenderest organs.
After that, Kendrik threw himself into the candidacy training. He had informed next to no one other than the Weyrleader of the event that had led to his sudden interest in becoming a candidate, so none of his peers or mentors knew why this boy (whom one or two recognized from his youth at the Weyr) was suddenly there.
One might think that, in the face of being assaulted so brutally, kendrik would show some outward sign of distress. He did the opposite; while not at all verbose about his reasons for returning to the Weyr, he was perfectly calm and amiable to everyone he encountered, provided they respected his personal space. His bunkmate in the barracks might have noticed the young man suffered nightmares and, more often than not, slept little if at all for several months, but the eternal facade of serenity remained intact.
He coped with the mental distress of his person being so violated by pushing the anger, pain and shame - all weak, useless emotions - back and locking it up to fester in the back of his mind. A past master at dissembling, he could easily go on with the farce that life was decent. By throwing himself into the candidacy training, he could bury his distress in intellectual pursuits; the result of this was that, even though after over a Turn and a half, he has developed distinct Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he has sped through the training and needs only pass the trials to stand.
The trial of Courage he passed more by cleverness than bravery. When he and his peers were told that they would have to throw themselves down the Shaft, Kendrik looked to the supplies provided and knew immediately that they wouldn't be sufficient. Flimsy withes and canvas? Pah! Then, the single 'hint' they were given clicked in his mind, with something that had already been simmering in the back.
Courage is equal parts bravery, stupidity, and faith, eh?
The boy with whom he was partnered expressed concerns over the parachute design Kendrik had proposed. Kendrik raised an eyebrow at the younger lad. "There isn't much horizontal space in the Shaft, and I don't think anyone here is going to have much control over a wing-shaped glider. We aren't dragons, we aren't built to fly or glide. All we can do is fall, so the best thing to do is to fall under control." So the two of them appropriated a sizable stretch of canvas and went to work.
"Besides, there are dragons below to catch anyone that looks like they're falling to their deaths." The other boy looked at him in confusion, and Kendrik snorted. "Oh come on. What embodies that adage any more than throwing yourself into the Shaft? It's a stupid idea, but you're doing it to prove your bravery and faith in Skrull's protection of life." Did B'ach honestly think him so dense? "Besides, if it was really simple enough as making a parachute or glider to bring yourself safely to the bottom, where's the challenge?"
When the time came that the group lined up, Kendrik volunteered to go first. He and his partner trotted to the edge; the other boy faltered and balked, so Kendrik released his half of the parachute and threw himself off the edge alone and unencumbered. Having spent the production of the parachute planning, he automatically spread himself out into a living air-foil, slowing his descent as much as possible with only himself. The wind snatched air from his lungs, and no mater how hard he tried he couldn't take his eyes off the stone rushing upward around him.
Hopefully the dragons waiting below wouldn't take his confidence as hubris and leave him falling for too long. He knew they wouldn't let him die, and he was soon plucked out of the air by a ghost's strong claw, but evidently they had decided to teach him a lesson in bravado; they did, in fact, let him fall for so long that he was nearing the panic-threshhold before he was caught.
Kendrik's Trial of Will was, to say the least, interesting. Unlike most candidates, who were unaware of the Trial's administration, Kendrik found his mind overtaken by one of the unhatched dragonets. Even the Waithqueen Zenith was struck so. This bent Kendrik's mind to a new task besides studying for the Trial of Knowledge: he had to see if there was any information about this in the archives. B'ach allowed him access to the restricted files, and put him in contact with other candidates who has experienced similarly unusual Trials.
Now, as the Festival begins, he has only the Trial of Knowledge to pass.
Parents: mother Sendri of green Briseth, father K'shul of shade Wyrseath
Siblings: none
Pets: N/A
Color Preference & Why: Bacch knows my plans for him.
What Colors/Color don't you want and why: i don't think he'd do well with a sturmgeist, ghost, or the remaining canons. and i just don't see him as a shaderider either, though he could technically.
Other:
Kendrik, on another site, is Dharth's rider. Kendrik is an example of a partner-in-crime for Dharth's shenanigans, while K'dran is/was an example of a placeholder/pushover rider that Dharth could bully.
Character of the Month, September 2011
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