Username:: Wolf Tears
Character Number:: Seventh (fourth non-contest)
Name of Character:: Quia (EMA)
Age:: 25` Turns
Gender:: Female
Sexuality:: Homosexual
Location:: Probably in some dragonriders’s weyr, either drilling them for information about M’zal or (if they’re female) dragging them toward the bed.
Craft:: Harper
Rank:: Jr. Journeywoman
Appearance:: Just by looking at Quia, you can tell she’s a piece of work. It's not that she's pretty or anything, but you can’t quite call her ordinary, either- not with that look that’s always in her eyes, and definitely not with that hair.
Quia’s hair is her pride and joy. Long, wild, and flaming orange-red, it seems to fringe- and, if it’s enough of a mess, even engulf- her face in fire. Usually at least a little bit of a mess, mostly because Quia doesn’t like having to deal with it unless she has a reason to do so, it only becomes more of one during the winter or on rainy days, at which point it spikes, poofs, and does everything else it can possible do to be a pain. Not that that seems to make much of a difference- people tend to be too distracted by the color of her hair to notice anything else about it.
Actually, people tend to be too distracted by the color of Quia’s hair to notice anything else about
her. Which she’s usually fine with- she’s been teased enough about her tiny... tinyness, thank you, and she doesn’t want to have to give anyone else that particular rant. It’s not
her fault she’s stuck at 5’1” with the figure of a fourteen-Turn-old, and it’s not like it matters anyway- she probably has more personality in her little finger than your average boring holder, and if push comes to shove she can probably take out most people- ever since
an incident when she was thirteen, she’s made sure she knows how to fight and how to fight well.
Anyway.
Quia has often been mistaken for being in her teens- because, well, she really does just look like she is. She doesn’t actually mind- it’s better than being mistaken for being older than she really is, and besides, if they think she’s closer to their age, teenagers won’t protest when she tries to flirt with them. With her dark skin, reddish-brown (and usually either glinting or sparkling) eyes, sharp angles, and, of course, that hair, Quia looks like nothing some much as a vixen- and with the sharp tounge to match.
Of course, foxes don’t exist on Pern, and even on Earth they generally don’t carry pipes (her preferred instrument) around with them, but you get the picture.
Personality:: If you’re male, flee. If you’re female... flee faster.
Quia is just as fiery and tempestuous as the color of her hair suggests. The best word to describe her is probably headstrong. She has her own ideas about the world, and rarely strays from an idea or a goal. She’s not exactly stubborn so much as willful- though that’s a distinction that people tend not to appreciate when she repeatedly attempts to force that willfulness on them, which she’s often glad to do.
Rarely one for subtlety, although she can be discreet when she wants to be, Quia has no problems with shyness and a tendency to come right out and saying whatever she wants to- usually one of her many strongly-worded and even-more-strongly-felt opinions. And if the people around her have a problem with the fact that she’s not some good little meek hold girl or something else equally ridiculous, then they can get a very irritated, defiant, and in-your-face rant about how she’s just as good as you, and how just because she’s from a tiny little cothold in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean she’s that sharding old-fashioned, and... you get the idea.
By the way? The glass is not half full. The glass is not half empty. One half of the glass is filled with water, and the other half is filled with air. Got that? Good, because Quia is a die-hard realist. Not that she’s devoid of hope, or that she doesn’t occasionally wish that something ridiculous would happen, but when it comes to day-to-day life and the decisions she makes and the big picture and all that stuff, she’s not going to just sit there praying for Faranth to save her- but she’s not going to just lay there waiting to die, either. She’s going to get out there and do something, shardit, because if anything’s going to happen it’s going to be the people it’s happening to that make it happen.
A very sociable person, Quia likes to be among people, one of the things that makes her a good harper. She can slip in and out of conversations easily, and enjoys doing so; she never knew a stranger, and she never met anyone she didn’t like to talk to (except maybe Rexis, but he’s not a
person). People don’t always like talking to Quia as much as she likes talking to them, however, because she’s been known to be- okay, she
is an unusually in-your-face and exuberant sort of person. Seriously, there is no end to her energy, and if you spend too much time around her it starts to get kind of creepy. Besides that, she’s extremely sharp with her tounge and- did you expect she would be?- not shy about lashing out at someone with her words. She’s soft underneath, but most people would never guess it from the way she can spin out insults.
Of course, she can also spin out compliments, and in a much more charming way. A shameless flirt- as long as she’s somewhere where she knows her lesbianism won’t get her into trouble- Quia has no problem going up to someone she doesn’t know and making out with them without saying a word. She’s even been known to go after boys, just for the fun of it, though the idea of going any further with anyone of the male variety creeps her out a little. Guys are fine as friends, but in a relationship...? No. Actually, Quia doesn’t really get too serious with anyone, female or not- she’s a pretty flighty person, needing constant change and vaguely unsettled (if you’ll forgive the pun) by the idea of settling down.
However, she’s perfectly happy to get her friends settled down. Quia is fiercely loyal to her friends- always has been, especially since that incident when she was thirteen, after which she decided she was never, ever going to leave a friend in trouble
again- which entails not only giving up her last drop of blood for them, but also
interfering with fixing their lives when they make a mess of them. Relationships, in particular, are never safe; Quia is a creative person (probably the only such person to come out of Terras Hold in about three hundred years), and can doubtless find many interesting and enjoyable (to her, anyway) ways to "fix" whatever you’ve screwed up. Or not figured out yet. Or whatever.
What can she say? She likes to help people.
History:: Quia was never supposed to be a harper. She was
supposed to stay in Terras, like her mother and father had done, and be happy with her life there as the simple, sweet wife of some kind fisherman. Or something. Really she was never quite sure, because her parents were a bit vague on that, especially after she told them (in her usual, cheery voice) that she had figured out that she was lesbian, which seemed to confuse them. But she never minded, because she trusted her parents and she was sure that they would make sure everything was alright.
But even as the good little obedient (if exuberant) girl that she once was, Quia got bored eventually. Her curiosity about the outside world began when she was ten, when a caravan of traders passed through the tiny hold, and only got stronger until, when she was thirteen Turns old, she told her parents that she wanted to go see what life was like elsewhere. After much consideration, they finally agree to send her to Azure Hold, a larger hold not a ways off to the east.
The arrangements were made, and within the month she was on her way to the Harper Hall.
Along the way, Quia nearly drove the trader who had agreed to take her completely insane. Certainly, between her endless excited bouncing and her constant questions, by the time they pulled into Azure he was regretting his desicion. But Quia didn't even really notice, so thrilled was she that she was getting to see the world and meet new people, and her wave to the man as he drove away was as cheerful and excited as everything else she had done since her parents had given her their permission to spend a half-Turn at another hold.
Little did she know, it was going to be a disaster.
She had a lot of trouble at first. Quia had insisted on taking classes- as long as she was going to be a the Hall, why not experience everything she could?- but she couldn't seem to manage to get the hang of it. For a month she struggled, until one of the older apprentices, a boy she hadn't even noticed was in one of her classes because he was so quiet, offered to help her.
Gratefully she accepted Mishzal's help, and the two spent an a few hours together the next afternoon, by the end of which she could actually play a simple tune or two on reed pipes- no great accomplishment for most people, but one that had her all but glowing with pride.
Until Rexis showed up, anyway.
She doesn't like to talk about the incident, but most people- if she tells them anything about it at all- can get the general gist of the idea. A group of older students, led by a fifteen-Turn-old named Rexis, showed up and began pestering Mishzal; when Quia stood up for him, they turned their attentions to her. Harassment and a fight of sorts followed, at which point Mishzal told her to run- and, feeling sick with herself, she did.
She felt even worse the next day, when she approached Mishzal to apologize for leaving him behind and he wouldn't answer her. (Well, actually, he just fled, but it amounts to the same thing.) She kept trying to talk to him, to find out what had happened, but he wouldn't speak to her at all- or, as she realized when she began to keep a worried eye on him, anyone else. Disgusted with herself for leaving him behind and even more disgusted with Rexis, she confronted the older bully and demanded that he apologize for whatever he had done.
He laughed in her face and pushed her to the floor. It was a little more drawn-out and complicated than that, but that's the part that she remembers.
And so begins the rise of the Quia we know now.
Eventually her half-Turn at the Hall ended, leaving her with a guilty conscience, a love of music, and a vow to herself that no matter what it took, she would find a way to help Mishzal. Whatever had happened after she left, it had been her fault, and she was going to set it right.
She stayed at Terras for a few months, but the girl she had been had vanished. Much to her parents' bewilderment and sorrow, she had become restless and excitable, volatile and bold. She was no longer willing to sit still for lessons about how to sew and what to use when cleaning a kitchen, she was constantly hanging around the resident harper's house trying to get him to let her read his music, and she got into fights with her parents about every other day or so- screaming matches loud enough to keep the neighbors awake, not that anyone every commented. Mostly, these centered around the fact that she wasn't interested in having a husband picked out for her just so she could have babies. Come on, really! She was only thirteen, and she didn't care if she wouldn't marry for three more years, she would have to have sex with a
guy, and what do you
mean, that might
cure her, could her parents not just respect who she was? She didn't
care if the neighbors talked, it wasn't
her fault that she lived in an intolerant backwater Hold with no- and so on, and so on.
It didn't even take another half a Turn for all three of them to give up on her staying in Terras. Quia packed up her bags and left.
She didn't go back to Azure straight away, but to one of the smaller surrounding holds, where she spent years studying music. She didn't mean to stay long, but she wanted to be a formidable force when she went back to Azure (poor dear, didn't she realize that she was already a force of nature?), and her goal was to be at least a journeywoman before she returned to swallow Rexis whole or whatever she had to do to fix what she had done. Well, that and she didn't have the money to get her any farther, but all the same.
Even as hardworking and determined as she was, Quia never quite got over her struggle with music, and it wasn't until she was twenty that she walked the tables. Undaunted, she went to the hall masters the next day and demanded- okay, begged- to be sent to Azure Hold. Eventually they agreed, not sure why she wanted to go but understanding that there was something she had to do there.
When she got there, Mishzal was gone.
She did some inquiring, and during the Turn she was posted, managed to find out that the day after Mishzal had walked the tables himself- three Turns before she had- the eighteen-Turn-old had been Searched. At a loss for what to do- she didn't have any way to get to Libertas Weyr, not being completely sure where it was and not having any friends at Azure who could help her get there- she remained in the hold for the rest of the Turn, at which point she went back to the Hall she had spent her apprenticeship at. There was another assignment waiting there for her, and she traveled on dragonback to some inland location far from where she really wanted to be.
It was two Turns before she left the isolated hold and returned to her Hall- and she didn't stay. There was something she had to do, and only days after her return she was packing again- this time for an indefinite stay at Libertas Weyr.
She's found him now, along with much else, and the two are friends again, even if his refusal to talk frustrates her to no end. She is rather enjoying herself, in fact- she's considering asking if she can stay permanantly at Libertas, where she's freer to be herself than she's ever been.
Pet(s):: None.
[.}Quia; Jr. Journeywoman Harper; Female{.]
