Post by Taylor on Jul 11, 2012 22:25:40 GMT -4
Name: Zekida
Pronunciation:
Note: Zekida is deaf and can Hear All Whers.
Age: 25
Season Born In: Early Spring
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Questioning
Appearance: Zekida has platinum blonde hair. It reaches to the bottom of her shoulder blades and is her favorite of her features. She prefers to brush it out so it is smooth and perfect, then leave it hanging loose around her face, parted slightly to the side. More often, however, she has it tied back or at least tucked behind her ears, simply because she needs her vision to do her work and see people's lips. (Of course, with Zekisk, seeing lips is somewhat less important, because the wher will fill her in. There is a difference, though, between seeing their words and hearing a wher's rather stilted conveyance of their words. She has brown eyes which turn a warm chocolate color in the light. She is five foot three with a fairly average body composition.
Personality: Zekida has a habit of ignoring people when she doesn't like what they're saying. Put on a slightly confused look and perhaps point to her ears and they'll sometimes give up and go away. This plan tends to be less successful if a wher is around and they know she's a HAW, or especially if Zekisk is around. The green tends to be good about helping Zekida out of things, giving the person a blank look, staring for a few seconds, and then cheerily declaring Zekisk can't keep up! So many words. Too many words! Lots of them. Too hard, Zekisk taking nap. Words exhausting. and then promptly flopping to the ground and closing her eyes. She is fairly creative in her excuses and while they may not always be believed, they make it clear that she's not in the mood to translate and the person will just have to deal with it.
Apart from using her deafness to get out of annoying conversations, Zekida's a fairly nice woman. She adores whers in particular, having a soft spot for the species which taught her to speak and helps her to hear, even the ones who are violent jerks for no reason. They're still whers! This fondness extends to children, people with disabilities, and just generally anyone who isn't taken seriously or respected because of who or what they are. Whers are at least as magnificent as dragons (better, in her opinion) and yet no one seems impressed by them, something that bothers her greatly. While she doesn't hate dragons or dragonriders, she has zero patience for arrogant dragonriders or dragons who think they are better than everyone else.
Zekida hasn't figured out her sexuality, yet. She's gone through several different crushes to people of various genders, only to have that attraction entirely fade and switch over to another gender or body type. When someone flirts with her, she tends to ruin any sort of mood which might develop by overanalyzing the interaction to determine her feelings on the subject.
For that matter, she has a habit of overanalyzing everything. It's not entirely unusual for Zekida to approach someone days after a conversation and ask them to explain a comment they made, or to describe their tone. Zekisk is far from adept at conveying someone's tone, tending to inflect the words with her own emotions about them, so that the agression in an insult or verbal attack turns to furious indignation or a flirtatious comment gets tinged with disgust if the green does not approve. This makes Zekida particularly concerned about tone, mulling over how the person may have sounded and whether or not she had reacted properly. What if they were being sarcastic and she hadn't noticed? Or they weren't and she laughed because she thought it was a joke?
Family:
Tennen - father - wherhandler
Tennensk - tutor, friend, practically brother - blue wher
Kidate - mother - dead in childbirth
Location: Born in Rindell Village, now in the rebellion camp
Rank: Wherhandler
Wing/Pack: Moonstalkers
History: Zekida was born on Rindell long before the Rebellion ever found the island. She was born deaf, but her world was far from silent. In a village near a system of tunnels, whers were common; not only were they used as guards, but they played an important role in the tunnels, retrieving lost children and accompanying people on mining explorations. Zekida's infanthood was spent with the babbles of whers in her mind, and it was from whers that she learned to speak. The toddler couldn't hear her own babbles, of course, but whers could. When he discovered that the child needed help learning to speak like other humans, Zekida's father's blue decided to assist her. As she babbled, trying to calibrate her vocal cords, the wher repeated the noises in her mind, helping her to match the movements of her tongue and lips to different sounds.
With a wher as a tutor, Zekida was able to form words, speaking her first word at 13 months. Of course...with a wher as a tutor, Zekida's grammar was rather wherlike. No one noticed when she was still a baby - what baby speaks in proper sentences, after all? No one noticed that Zekida couldn't hear until she was three - a village full of whers kept her aware enough of sounds that it was surprisingly easy to miss, and people didn't know what to make of her strange accent. When her sentences didn't advance past "Zekida think Tennensk's should feed Zekida", people grew concerned.
Tennen took a more focused role in Zekida's education. Evenings were spent with him speaking words which his wher repeated to Zekida. The child learned to read lips and by age six she had caught up to her peers, piecing together grammar and gathering a bit of a vocabulary. Life went on fairly uneventfully after that until Zekida was a teen.
By the time Zekida was thirteen, she had been incorporated into the village guard. She had no wher of her own, but her gift allowed her to assist in coordination, bringing a message directly from one wher to another rather than making the whers send it to their riders who then told each other. By sixteen, people were talking about giving her a wher of her own.
Zekida, despite her love of whers and gratefulness to them, resisted. It wasn't because she didn't want one; rather, she worried that it would change everything in a way she didn't want. It takes a village to raise a child, they say; in Zekida's case, it was a village of whers. Acquiring a wher of her own would, she was sure, lessen the importance of those other whers to her; that or her wher would be only as important to her as every other wher on Pern: She wasn't sure which was worse.
When Zekida was twenty three, a green in the village ran and laid eggs. Most of those in the village who wanted whers had whers, and Zekida was asked again. This time, it wasn't just the humans who asked; the green begged her to take the last unclaimed egg. She didn't want to see her baby - her baby from her first clutch! - sent off to some other hold or weyr. Zekida finally agreed and a month later, she had bonded.
She adores Zekisk now, of course, with all her heart, though the other whers remained incredibly important to her. With a wher of her own, she was able to integrate into the guard force even more. When the Rebellion arrived, Zekida was far from enthused. This was strange and different and would bring violence to her home and her whers. Bad enough that Thread had just started falling, without these ruffians...
Still, the rest of the village seemed enthused. Since remaining away from the Rebellion alone was not an option, Zekida joined the rebel camp.
Dragon/Wher
Name: Zekisk
Pronunciation: Zeh - KEY - sk
Age: 2 (T201 Early Summer)
Type: Wher
Rank: Green
Size: 4.3 feet
Color Codes:022706
Appearance: Primarily a dark, even green, Zekisk is a rather pretty little thing. Well...perhaps "little" isn't the right word. Whers are all bulky, of course, but Zekisk seems to have been dealt a particularly stocky hand. She's somewhat low-slung, even for a wher, and her stubby wings are just a little extra stubby. Color-wise, however, she's lovely. Two light stripes cut across her nose, and her neckridges and fingers of her wings are that same slightly lighter shade of green. Zekisk is a rather pleasant looking wher, generally fairly relaxed and happy, eyes swirling green or blue most of the time. Little bits of red may join them if she is getting fired up and passionate about something, but seeing her eyes entirely red is very rare.
Personality: Zekisk cares deeply about things...for a little while, at least. See, this green shows a rather surprising amount of concern and deep thoughtfulness, nearly shattering the “greens are air-heads” stereotype that some have. She’ll argue a point until she has you convinced, or at least until you give up and say you’ll do it her way or claim to agree with her. But it seems Zekisk could not shed the stereotype entirely, and like many greens, she is very flighty. While she cares about things very deeply, she doesn’t necessarily care about the same things for very long. One day she may be preaching to you about the necessities of a vegetarian diet (and yes – it is most definitely preaching. She will guilt trip and nag you until you submit.) and then, a week or two later (perhaps after she has realized that she can’t eat a vegetarian diet, or after something else catches her attention as the source of all evil on Pern) she will have completely forgotten this crucial point to now be extolling the virtues of therapeutic mud baths and how they are most definitely the best thing ever.
This attitude extends to relationships, as well. Boys (and girls – yep, she’s bi) will be adored – clearly her one true love who she will never betray or grow tired of – for a few days, weeks, or months at a time before being cast aside in favour of someone else. It doesn’t matter if they’ve ever spoken to her or not – she could simply see a pretty form up on the drum heights and decide that they are her destiny. She’ll find some way to meet them, even if it has to be the most awkward, forced interaction in the world. She’ll leave a trail of broken hearts (or indifferent, confused individuals wondering what whirlwind just swept through their lives and claimed to adore them) but she won't feel guilty about this – she can’t let some silly ex keep her from her true love. She need to look towards the future, not live in the past!
Sadly for many people who know her, Zekisk's relationship behaviour does not just apply to romance. She’ll declare herself someone’s best friend only to forget about them in a month. It goes the other way too – if she claims to despise you and says you’re her archnemesis, just give it a few days. She’ll cool down and forgive you and perhaps even forget that she was ever mad at you to begin with. The one exception to this rule is Zekida, though even she may experience a bit of her flightiness. While she generally adores her and sticks to that opinion, there will be brief periods every now and then where she is full of regret, wishing she’d been bonded to someone else! She just found the person she really should have bonded to and they’re sooo much better!
With such constantly changing moods, it should come as no surprise that Zekisk's opinion can return to what it was several times again. Even if her vegetarianism rants or glowing mud bath advertisements go away now, they may come back later, and a pretty gold who she gives up on and stops flirting with may be the object of her affection once again in a few short months.
Mind-Voice (If applicable):
Zekisk thinks Zekisk's needs more green. Herdbeasts eat green, runnerbeasts eat green. Zekisk green. Green best color. Zekisk's go eat grass now. Go, go!
Zekisk always sounds very sure of herself, even when saying she doesn't know something. She can sound a tad...abrasive, at times, as she tends to shout into your mind when she's getting caught up in one of her speeches.
