Erian

“‘This is insanity!’
‘No, this is scholarship!’”
-Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance

TW: misgendering, implied abuse

**RETIRE INFO:** Character - Retire, Dragon - Adopt

**NAME:** Erian

**GENDER:** 99.44% pure nonbinary (DFAB)

**PRONOUNS:** ze/hir/hirs

**ORIENTATION:** Likes girls romantically, demisexual

**BIRTHDATE:** Mid-fall 2742

**AGE:** 24 as of spring 2767

**LOCATION:** Fort Weyr

**OCCUPATION:** Wingrider/Journeyman Starcrafter

**WING:** Midnight

**EYES:** Brown

**HAIR:** Black, slightly wavy, usually down to mid-back

**HEIGHT AND BUILD:** 5’ 4”, average

**PLAY-BY:** Jenna Ushkowitz

**FULL APPEARANCE:** Erian is decidedly paler than the Pern norm, though ze tans in the summer rather than burns. Hir greatest pride is hir hair, a deep, lustrous black, and ze keeps it immaculately groomed. Ze is well-dressed, preferring flattering tunics and dresses, but hir clothes are often rumpled due to staying up all night and forgetting to change back the next day, or by simply forgetting to change from one day to the next. Ze likes to wear bracelets, though they're sometimes mismatched, and ze regretfully knows that they really do get in the way. Hir face has delicate features, but the effect is ruined by hir permanently skeptical expression. Erian doesn't have much muscle on hir, though ze is fit enough to go through daily life.

**PERSONALITY:** If it were completely up to Erian, ze would spend hir days traveling Pern, visiting the archives of every Hold and Weyr to see what they could offer hir, and observing the stars from every part of the Northern Continent’s land and sea. The unknown captivates hir, and the stars, so distant, so unknowable, are the perfect focus of hir overwhelming need to transcend the mundanity, as ze sees it, of everyday life, to become part of something greater than hirself.

Of course, things are not completely up to Erian, and hir childhood has driven this lesson home particularly hard, leading hir to develop a practical, independent side seemingly at odds with hir boundless curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Ze needs a steady source of marks, and ze is grudgingly willing to sacrifice some stargazing to get them. Erian has few scruples about doing dirty or unpleasant work in order to get by, though ze actively seeks out work more suited to hir temperament first.

Overall, Erian is friendly and well-mannered, a lingering result of hir training as a proper lady, though ze does have a propensity to...wax eloquent any time stars are mentioned. Ze loves the stars. A lot. Seriously, don’t get hir started on the stars, or the moons for that matter. Shards, don’t start hir on anything in the sky. You will regret it. Ze wastes no opportunities to show off what ze knows, and would probably have more actual friends if ze just shut up for a few minutes and listened.

Hir being recognized for hir intelligence has led to just a bit of a superiority complex, but this has toned down a little bit over the Turns, and ze is not as much of a prick as ze used to be whenever someone says something that ze thinks is misinformed or wrong. Oh, ze’s still sanctimonious and sarcastic about it, but ze has learned - the hard way - to mostly keep it to hirself. If someone presents a convincing argument, Erian is perfectly willing to accept their viewpoint, but hir definition of “convincing” would probably give the most meticulous scribers a headache.

Erian has an unfortunate tendency to complain about the most minor things to anyone who will listen, or at least not yell at hir to shut up, but ze shuts down completely when under more severe stress. It was how ze dealt with being called a girl, and ze has adapted it to be a personal form of rebellion - Erian won’t ever admit that you are right or that ze is wrong.

**FAMILY:** Kirise - mother (+25), Nalsam - father (+24), Selam - older brother (+5), Kurue - younger sister (-2)

**SIGNIFICANT OTHER:** None

**BIRTHPLACE:** Tosche Hold, a smallish Hold beholden to Fort

**HISTORY:** Kirise and Nalsam were, by heredity and marriage respectively, the rulers of Tosche Hold. Of course, heredity and marriage aren't the best way to determine who should be in charge, leaving the inept Kirise and bumbling Nalsam in charge of the lives of dozens of people. Thankfully, Tosche's long-suffering steward Aram was able to take care of the truly important work, leaving Kirise and Nalsam to muddle through making appearances and looking important.

The pair's incompetence extended to child-rearing, and they left their two younger children to their own devices. When Erian's older brother was born, Aram stepped in to raise him to be a proper heir, but being a staunch traditionalist, he thought little of Erian and Kurue besides foisting them off to his dowager sister, whom he trusted to raise them into proper little figurehead ladies.

Minara made Erian's life miserable. Though ze was more or less willing to go along with her expectations of behavior and appearance, ze was not at all willing to call hirself a girl or be called "she" like Minara wanted, and she was a harsh mistress. Eventually, Erian acquiesced to save hir skin, though ze hated it more than anything. Kurue and ze snuck off to play with Selam, saving him from turning into a younger version of the crusty old steward. Erian was seemingly saved by Minara's death when ze was nine, but then a new set of problems arose.

Tosche Hold was deep in debt, the ailing old steward having made several bad decisions and angered quite a few people before retiring and letting Selam take over. Whether out of increasing old age or a malicious desire to sabotage Kirise and Nalsam, Erian still doesn't know, but ze found herself and her siblings destitute and having to step up and assume responsibility for the Hold. Selam performed admirably, but there was only so much a fourteen-Turn-old could do, especially having to pretend that his parents were behind everything. He somehow got his parents to petition Fort for help, and in return for increased tithe amount, Fort bailed Tosche out.

Erian wanted out, and ze was going to get out. Kurue was a capable enough backup heir, and Erian had no desire to be involved in politics. Ze had shown a strong propensity for academics, one of hir few characteristics that pleased Minara, and apprenticed as a Starcrafter as soon as ze Turned twelve, moving to the Hall and leaving hir old life behind. Ze was one of the more talented apprentices in the Hall, and ze backed this up with hard work, quickly rising to the top of the pack. Erian didn’t have much of a competitive streak, learning for the love of the subject, but made sure to keep in the Masters’ good graces in order to secure hir advancement, earning hir a reputation as a teachers’ pet. It did rub off on hir. Ze acquired a pet of hir own as a present from hir siblings when ze was seventeen, a firelizard that ze predictably named after a celestial body.

At the ripe old age of nineteen and a half, Erian walked the tables, and was posted to Fort Weyr. To hir utter surprise, ze was Searched by a curious blue, and decided that being a dragon candidate would hopefully lead hir to a position from which ze could have the means to just do what ze wanted. Ze figures that if ze ages out, then being a journeyman starcrafter is a perfectly respectable position.

**UPDATES**

* Summer 2763 - Erian Impresses to bronze Hammerloth, much to their mutual delight.
* Fall 2764 - The pair graduate. Hammerloth's first Chase is gold Serapheth. To Erian's relief and Hammerloth's slight disappointment, he loses.
* Winter 2764 - Kurue Impresses! Erian's sister joins hir at Fort.
* Spring 2765 - Erian gets a moderate score on hir leg due to Hammerloth's ill-advised display to try to impress Serapheth and will make a full recovery.
* Spring 2766 - Hammerloth's headknobs get scored, but he will make a full recovery.
* Spring 2767 - Hammerloth is badly scored across his chest and wings, and Ellea and Nightengath help him land. Erian, panicking, didn't spend long enough between to kill all the Thread, and some of it got onto Ellea, killing her. Erian is devastated by guilt.