Xirofel, Dragon Candidate

[Sakoru]

Basics:
Status: Accepted!
Name: Xirofel
Name Pronunciation: Zero-fell
Gender: Male
Age: 20 Turns.
Rank: Dragon Candidate.
Location: Dragon Canyon Weyr

Appearance:
The first thing to be noticed about Xirofel is that he is not a large man. Standing at a moderate height of 5'9" and weighing barely 135 lbs, he's hardly a tower of muscle. However, he's quick and light on his feet, which he generally argues is better anyway (if he's trying to defend himself because he can't grow, it's difficult to tell). His skin, already darker than that of most people, is always baked a darker brown by the sun. Even in winter, his skin is a deeper colour than that of most other people. His hair is black, kept a medium length and allowed to flop as it will over his forehead and ears. Xirofel is not inclined to make an effort to mess with it beyond giving it a quick comb in the morning, and so it's generally windswept and chaotic. Dark expressive green eyes, flecked with gold and brown, are arguably his best feature.

The trader generally tries to make himself look good when he can, and thanks to his trader background his taste can be a bit... eccentric. Although he still loves bright colours, sparkle and flair, he's toned down his wardrobe a bit from when he was younger and generally wears black, green, and gold as his signature colours. He typically wears some kind of a sash wrapped around his waist when he's not decked out in riding leathers, and likes loose, flowing clothes that enable him to move quickly. Xirofel is notorious for wearing no shirt at all in warm weather.


Personality:
Born a troublemaker, Xirofel has a weird knack for getting himself into uncomfortable situations. It's not even always because he intends it (although he loves pranks) but more because he has a talent for picking the worst possible way to resolve things. His past is littered with people he's accidentally hurt, and while he doesn't mean to do it, the fact remains that he does. This is probably because, in the past, Xirofel has generally chosen what's best for himself as opposed to what's best for other people. A great deal of pain has come out of these choices, both for him and for everyone else. Xiro generally glosses over this little fact and pretends it doesn't exist. However, it's one thing that will have to change if he's to assume any responsibility at all.

Full of energy and spirit, the trader rarely has any 'down time.' He's always on the go, looking for things to do or, if all else fails, running around the Weyr. He loves running. It’s one of the things that keeps him grounded and prevents him from going crazy. Given that he chose to come to the Weyr, though, he’s getting used to the fact that he has to stay in one place all or most of the time, and he tries to keep that at least in check. Prone to shows of exuberance and energy, Xirofel has occasionally been compared to a runner colt: showy, flashy, and full of himself. Alas, it's all true: he's outrageously self-confident and lacks nothing in bravado. Of course, a great deal of this is to make up for insecurities he refuses to show to the outside world, but naturally he doesn't like to let on to that.

Beneath all the flashy airs and big gestures, Xirofel regrets a lot of the things he's done. He doesn't like having hurt so many people, and he often beats himself up for it, but getting him to actually mention it would be like pulling teeth. On the inside, he's a gentle and caring person, but because of the multitude of stupid things he's done and continues to do, he rarely comes off that way. He genuinely cares about people, although it takes a long time for him to do so, and he doesn't like getting attached. He often keeps his real emotions under wraps and he doesn't like to let on that anything's bothering him. On the outside, he pretends to be tough as nails, but on the inside Xiro is pretty much like everybody else: soft, squishy, and easy to hurt if you know what to say.

Protective and passionate, the trader is not the type to back down when he has to defend something he really cares about. Although he's prone to taking off when it's about himself, if someone he loves is in trouble and he feels the need to protect them, Xirofel is all violence and sharp edges. He does not take well to his loved ones being hurt, and he'll willingly sacrifice anything, including himself, to protect them. Of course, he might be absolutely terrified while he does it, but if it really matters Xiro will step up. Don't expect him to do anything about minor situations, however -- he doesn't want to give people the wrong impression and really prefers to come off as more of a jerk than he is. For the trader it's a lot easier to pretend he doesn't care rather than have people harangue him to help them when they're not really in trouble. Of course, this leads most people to believe he doesn't care at all, but it's a trade-off he's generally willing to make.

Along with being passionate, Xirofel is terribly impulsive. He thinks on his feet and makes decisions on the fly, and they're not always the right ones. Carefully considering options is not his strong suit, and he tends to pick what seems like the best option at the time and go with it against all odds. Because his emotions are as wild as everything else he does, sometimes the choices he makes are questionable, to say the least. Also, because he's used to considering only himself, he often chooses the selfish course of action rather than the one that benefits everyone. It's a deep-rooted habit and one that his dragon has been trying to wean him off of, but so far it's come with limited success.

History:
Birth season: Autumn.

Relatives:
Rifelli -- mother, deceased
Xaret -- father, deceased
Fel -- younger sister, 17, whereabouts unknown
Ralet -- younger brother, 12, whereabouts unknown

Background:
Rifelli had always been a restless soul, enamoured with the idea of freedom and living her life the way she wanted to. Unable to have that, confined as she was to Fort Hold, she pined after it, day after day. She was always able to keep it hidden from her family and friends, though, and nobody realized her secret plan before she put it into action. Every time there was a Gather, she would attend, and always she sought out a particular trader -- Xaret by name. Always she bought things from him, always she caught up on the news he brought, and always she returned faithfully back home when the day was over.

One day, Rifelli did not return home. She left a note in her room telling people not to worry, and that was it. She met Xaret for the final time at a Gather, but this time they didn't part ways. No, the young woman, at eighteen, decided that she'd had enough of living the life of a Holder, and she joined his caravan. It didn't take long before the two were sharing a wagon, and then a bed, as they traveled all over the Northern Continent together, seeking adventure and delivering their wares to the Holds they visited.

Considering their close proximity to one another, it came as no surprise when the young couple conceived, and Rifelli's stomach began to swell with a new baby. Still she traveled with the caravan, not wanting to be left behind, and Xaret let her. He was a caring man, if often harsh, and he assumed all the duties he'd had before his partner became pregnant. Together, they waited out the long months until their baby was due to be born in the fall. And when he was, the entire caravan celebrated the birth of a healthy baby boy.

Born to such a life, how could it surprise anyone that Xirofel was raised in wanderlust? Always the caravan was moving, never stopping for more than a day or two in any one place, and from his earliest days, the little boy was starving for more of everything -- more sights, more adventures, more life. A curious and outgoing lad, he was always getting into trouble for his expeditions, but he always laughed it off, and when his younger sister, Fel, was born, he paused in his adventures to take care of her.

At ten, though, he had long ago begun to develop his flamboyance and love of life and colour, and this rubbed off on his little sister. They became inseparable: Xiro protected his sister and led their outrageous escapades, while she followed her big brother, fawning over his every move. It was a good setup, and, using each other, they were able to polish their people skills and charm. It was, in fact, this charming double-sided demeanour that allowed the pair of them to buy Khron. Both adored the puppy, but their parents dictated that he had to be trained, and trained well -- and he was, because neither of them, especially Xiro, wanted to lose their new best friend. The Shepherd became their constant companion, and as he grew older he became their bodyguard, too.

Having the canine around proved to be useful on more than one occasion, either when one of the children (usually Xirofel) got into scrapes with Holdbrats and couldn’t get out of it alone, or when danger threatened the caravan. More than once, Khron helped drive off aggressive wild whers and sometimes even bandits bent on pilfering the traders’ goods. Although all of the traders in the caravan were proficient at fighting and defending themselves, the dog proved to be a valuable addition, in large part because he was trained to attack on command. He had to be, for without his training Rifelli and Xaret would have gotten rid of him.

Xiro, Fel, and Khron together had formed their own little band, and when little Ralet was born, it threw a wrench into the works. The three (well, mostly the two humans) had spent so much time together that Ralet felt like an intrusion, and it was difficult for Xiro and Fel to accept their new brother as part of their group. They were hesitant about him for a long while, and only after a couple of Turns had passed did they finally accept that he was sticking around and so had to be included. Even so, the two elder siblings were closer to each other than they ever were to Ralet.

Unfortunately, Xirofel didn't stick around long enough for the bond to be properly cemented. At sixteen, struck by a particularly strong urge to wander, he decided to pack up and leave the caravan. The parting was not a pretty one.

***

"No. You're not leaving." Xaret drew himself up to his full height, squaring his massive shoulders. The dark eyes, so like those of his son, were hard and unforgiving as he stared down at Xirofel. Every line of his body was taut with anger. By contrast, his son's shoulders were thrown back, hands resting on his hips, the very picture of confidence and bravado. It might have been an act, but Xaret had no way to be sure. Xirofel had always been wild, had always been so sure of himself even in the worst situations. And it was because of this wildness that they were now at odds -- and not for the first time. But this time, there was something different. This time, the boy wanted to leave... alone.

Eyes laughing, Xirofel smiled and shook his head. "I am. You know I am." It was true. The trail bosses had yet to confer; unless they tied him to a wagon, it was entirely likely that the boy would just slip away in the chaos. Were it possible, Xaret would tie him to the wagon, and keep him there until the bosses had decided whether to let him go or not.

He tried. He did -- he lunged for his son, but the boy was quicker and he whipped out of the way, dancing back past the outer ring of wagons. "I'm leaving," he repeated, and then swung his gaze to his mother, Rifelli. She was small and slender -- he'd gotten her build, too. So had his little sister, Fel. Ralet was bigger, like their father, but he was only seven. At the moment, he was also staring at his elder brother, holding onto their mother's hand. Fel approached him, and Xirofel hesitated, watching her. At last, he too stepped forward, caught his sister's face in his hands and kissed her gently on the forehead. "I have to go, Fel," he murmured, smiling softly down at her. "I'll be okay." She tried to protest. He pretended she didn't, and dropped a kiss on his mother's forehead too, then his brother's. "Take care of 'em, Ralet," the eldest brother whispered, and the little boy stared at him solemnly, saying nothing.

Other members of the caravan were beginning to gather, surrounding Xirofel. His father was among them, approaching his son with a thunderous look on his face. Last chance. Xirofel whirled and shot through the ring of traders, ducking away from hands that sought to catch him. They had all seen this moment coming, right from the day he was born. He had his mother's restless spirit, but in him it was amplified, something so powerful it was uncontrollable even for him. Now, it was screaming at him to get out of the caravan and strike out on his own. There would be no more assistance when he was in trouble, or when danger threatened. There would be no more evenings spent huddled around a fire, joking and laughing with his family, and no more days spent with his little sister, charming people out of their money.

Every day he would be alone, he and the dog he was taking with him -- Khron. Fel loved that hound. So did Xirofel, and he was selfishly taking him away. "Khron!" he shouted, and the canine appeared from between two wagons, bounding to his master's side. Behind him, Xirofel heard his sister scream his name, heard the muffled commands of his parents not to come after him. Her brother didn't turn, didn't give any sign that he'd heard her.

"Xirofel!" Xaret's voice boomed out across the road, rising above the clamour of the angry caravan. "If you leave, you'll not return!" It was a warning. It was a death sentence. Above all, it was a shackle.

Last chance.

Xirofel hesitated, standing in the middle of the road with his family roaring behind him. He could hear their cries to come back -- he was valuable; they didn't want to see him go. Above them all, he could hear Fel. Sweet, beloved Fel: his favourite sibling, his little sister. He'd always protected her, loved her more than anything in the world. She was screaming for him to come back, and all the other voices faded in comparison to hers.

And then, with his dog at his heels and the caravan falling silent behind him and Fel's voice echoing endlessly in his head, Xirofel made his choice.

He lifted a hand, and waved his life goodbye.

***

Having left full of optimism, if not total naïveté, Xiro was somewhat startled by how difficult it was to make a living on his own. At first he contemplated returning to the caravan just for ease of living, but realized immediately afterward that they would never take back a traitor like himself. He came dangerously close to starving a few times, before he learned that he actually couldn’t afford to give people a break on prices. After that he was fine, even if it took a little longer still to learn the art of dodging trouble when possible. The young trader learned a lot in those first months after he left his family: for example, that survival was more important than being fair to others. Some of the lessons, such as that one, were ones he didn’t like learning. Others he did enjoy: figuring out how to make something of a profit while still managing to afford to feed himself, his runner and his canine was a magnificent challenge, as was figuring out exactly how much stuff he could cart about with him in his wagon without either temporarily disabling Rienne or setting himself up for starvation. Everything was a hard lesson, but it wasn’t all bad, and Xirofel found that he genuinely enjoyed living on his own, despite the lack of company. It was wonderful to be free and be able to make his own choices, and so he wandered around Pern quite contentedly aside from the odd run-in with whers, other wild animals, and ill-meaning humans.

For the most part, Xiro made his own route across the Northern Continent. He chose where to go and when, based mainly on what places were likely to have goods he needed or that were in high demand elsewhere, and in his nineteenth Turn, it turned out that coal was very much desired outside of the mountains. So it was that the lone trader headed up to Crom, the most famous of all mining Holds, and stayed there for a few days with a man named Oasirem. Whilst there, he heard many tales of the man's niece, a girl named Raksha, and her adventures in the Hold. From the sounds of it, she got into quite a lot of trouble. At the time, Xiro put little stock in the tales and, while he remembered them all, he considered them merely a source of entertainment. He, after all, was never going to meet this mysterious girl, and he put all thought of her out of his mind.

From Crom he continued to Telgar Weyr, following a tithing train that was bringing its goods to the Weyr. There he conducted not only a great deal of fairly profitable business, but met the girl Oasirem had told him about: Raksha. At first sight he had no idea who she was, but once they got started on conversation he realized it, and befriended her. They shared many adventures together during the sevenday he was scheduled to remain at the Weyr (and also shared his wagon, since Raksha took to sleeping in it with him for reasons unknown).

The next day, when he was supposed to leave, an out-of-season snowstorm struck, marooning both Xirofel and all of the other traders at the Weyr for an extra sevenday. He didn't mind that much, in the sense that he got to stay a little longer with Raksha, but he was also afraid of what the delay would mean for his one-man business. Still, he decided to be optimistic about it since there was nothing else he could do, and together he and Raksha roamed about Telgar, spending both days and nights together where they could. Though he never mentioned it to anyone else, Xiro was happy staying there for those two sevendays, and he regretted it terribly when he had to leave Raksha. He knew that she wanted to go with him, but they both knew she couldn't go, and he couldn't stay. With one night left before they had to separate, Xiro was prepared to stay up all night if necessary -- and he did, but not in the way anticipated. Friendly sharing of the wagon progressed to something considerably more that night, and it made it considerably harder for the trader to leave Raksha in the morning. He didn't tell her so. That would make it worse, he knew, and so he let her assume whatever she would about his silence.

Almost immediately after Xirofel left Telgar, he began hearing rumours of people dying. Not living in one place himself, he did not see as much of the devastation as others until the plague really got going. After that, he began to really notice the lack of people in the Holds, the sudden drop in business as the young folk of the land barred their doors to lone traders. Though he personally was not affected by the plague, everyone else on Pern was. Not as wise or experienced as their elders, the young people of each Hold only traded for what they desperately needed, and they were not willing to give up food. It became increasingly hard and then impossible to find places to put him up for the night, and Xiro soon found that he needed to hunt a lot more than he had hoped if he wanted to survive. Wherry became standard fare, as did anything else he could find or catch, and the trader learned the hard way how to avoid starvation. Beyond that, he became a witness to the hard times the plague had brought on everyone. Seeing so much death was hard, even without being a part of it, and watching children cry for their lost parents was harder still. It brought about thoughts of his own family -- his parents, and his little siblings. Were they still alive? His parents were surely dead, and Fel and Ralet probably couldn't care for themselves. Well, maybe -- Fel was nearly fifteen, and she would take care of their little brother.

The lone trader began a search for his two lost siblings. Knowing the annual route of the caravan, Xiro began to inquire about his brother and sister, asking at every Hold if anyone had seen them. No one had, and eventually Xirofel gave up hope that his family had even survived. Soon after that, Thread fell, and his former caravan's death became a certainty. Able to care only for himself, the trader struggled to keep ahead of the deadly silver rain, barely managing to survive as he tried through trial and error to predict Fall patterns. It didn't work, and oftentimes he had to beg shelter from a nearby Hold, or squeeze himself, Khron, and Rienne the runner under available rock ledges. They had a number of close calls, but eventually it was too close -- there was no shelter near enough, and Rienne got badly Threadscored in the Fall trying to get to a cave. Over the next twenty-four hours, Xiro tried to nurse her back to health, to no avail. Less than a day after she'd been Threaded, the runner was lost, and Xiro had to carry on alone. He decided to abandon his wagon since there was nothing left to pull it, and headed towards the nearest Weyr -- Telgar. As soon as he arrived he began a search for Raksha, only to find that she was nowhere about -- she'd gone to the new Weyr, Dragon Canyon. A few days later, trying to settle into the monotony of Weyrlife and knowing that he'd probably never see Raksha again, he was incidentally Searched, and a brilliant idea occurred to him. Why not go south to Dragon Canyon?

Requesting a transfer, Xirofel almost went crazy with excitement and nerves. When it was granted, he was ecstatic, and climbing on the back of the dragon who was going to take him to his new home, the new dragon candidate took the three heartbeats between as an opportunity to cheer. No one suspected anything, and he arrived moments later in the new Weyr, calm on the outside but aflutter with excitement at being somewhere new... and maybe seeing an old friend again.


Canine:



Name: Khron
Colour: Black and red.
Description: Trained as a combat dog, Khron is fearless but non-aggressive except when commanded to attack. He is highly obedient and lives to please his master but will not listen to anyone else without Xiro's okay.

Dragon/Wher Application:
Preferred Names: None
Preferred Size: GINORMOUS.
Preferred Color: GOLD. ALL THE QUEENS FOR XIRO.
Secondary Color: Any!!
Do not want!: OVERGROWN FIRELIZARD. Or wher. Or bat.
Aware of responsibilities for chosen color?: YES. WEYRWOMAN FOREVER. WEYRXIRO ALWAYS.
Able to take on responsibilities for said color?: YES. I AM ONE HUNDRED PERCENT AWESOME.
Any other things you'd like to add: Very unsrs preferences here. <3