Description
Golden brown tresses are swept back neatly from a heart-shaped, cleanly lined face, pulled sternly into a tight ponytail which is cinched low at the neck. Selchis' skin is fair and pale, leaving her analytical, gray-green eyes to stand in sharp relief from the rest of her features. Attractive, though not quite classically beautiful, she's nevertheless rather pretty with her high cheekbones, strong jaw and somewhat full lips. Tall, lean and long limbed, she seems the sort that might have been all legs and two left feet as a gawky teen. If any awkwardness yet remains in her early twenties, it's occasionally visible in her tense, uncertain stances and oft furrowed brow.
Selchis' candidate robe testifies to her lack of tailoring skills. Not only does it appear to be a massive sheet that she's somehow managed to connect together at the sides, leaving holes for her arms, but the craftsmanship is far from exemplary. Loose threads trail from the hems and on both sides; in some places, the stitching is revealed to be loose and rather clumsily knotted together in a frantic, last minute attempt to make it all stay put. At least she remembered to put on sandals and tie back her hair, not that either will really help if she loses her robe.
History
Selchis comes from a family of warm, empathetic healers and songwriting harpers — not that either is immediately apparent upon meeting her. To say that she's related to mindhealer Selket or journeyman harper Brachis seems quite the stretch; not only does she harbor a dislike for mindhealing and remains incapable of successfully carrying a tune (unless she's had one too many), she hardly even resembles the fair-haired healer and dark, swarthy harper. Still, she'll speak favorably enough of them as parents and of her time growing up around Xanadu—just don't expect to hear tales of her youthful escapades. (Brachis, it's been said, will tell them at his leisure.)
Initially, Selchis apprenticed to the healercraft without much direction in mind. She couldn't find a field to settle into; her strengths were in diagnostics and strangely, mindhealing, but her bedside manner, it was quickly discovered, did not suit her much to healing people or animals. Intelligent and possessing a keen, analytical mind, she was steered toward first the computer crafthall, then the techcraft. Here, it seemed, she had found a suitable niche. She didn't have to be empathetic toward machinery and could relish the puzzling required to figure out why they didn't work—or how to create what would.
Not long after receiving her journeyman's knot, Selchis' world upended. First, she was asked by a Telgari brownrider to stand for one of their queen's clutches. While there, she met a tall, gray-eyed wingleader (who was brash, swore often and rode an equally grumpy blue) who informed her that she was her real mother — she'd know those eyes anywhere, the older woman had muttered, since they were so like /his/…whoever 'he' was. Hatching day came and went, sending the young woman flying from Telgar as soon as passage could be booked to somewhere—anywhere else. Western Weyr seemed a safe enough choice. It was similar in climate to Xanadu. It was far enough away from a woman she wasn't sure she ever wanted to see again. And they had asked the hall for another crafter. Perhaps losing herself among the islands wasn't such a bad idea.
And for four months, it turned out to be a fine idea despite the repetitive inquiries from Selket about how she was doing and wouldn't she like to talk about what she discovered? Frustrated with her adoptive mother's persistence, Selchis spent a mostly sleepless night on one of Western's beaches as summer waned to autumn. Half-tired, half-frustrated, the normally impassive technician ended up brainstorming how best to avoid the mindhealer's inevitable visit with Taira. While the bluerider schemed up many ideas, each more fantastical than the last, Bhezuth offered a practical, more immediate solution: Why not stick her into the candidate barracks with the others for Nieleth and Halinith's clutch? After much laughter, the journeyman agreed, if only to further compound Selket's concern and impending analysis.
For three months, Selchis did chores, battled with the occasional cold and resisted developing a friendship with a friendly, if indolent trader. Norela would much rather encourage a younger boy to do her chores for her while she tanned or did something equally relaxing, but the two chatted often despite having little common ground. Selket visited once during the technician's candidacy, delivering a fine pair of boots for the young woman's twenty-third birthday. In the meantime, there were eggs to meet, dragons to side-step and arrangements to be made for carrying on her life afterward. By the end of her time as a candidate, Selchis was preparing to sit the written examinations that would allow her to pursue a mastery project and advance in her craft.
Veritath, however, had other ideas. Selecting Selchis near the end of the hatching, the stalwart brown redirected her future in one swoop. « I have always been here. » And the technician, suddenly a weyrling, was astonished to find that he had been.
Family
| Name | Relation | Location | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| cell-content | cell-content | cell-content | cell-content |
Firelizards
Positronic Voltage Brown Data
Pale, near white cream is this brown's dominant color. It's as though he was dipped in it and then hung upright to dry, so that the dye was allowed to bleed down and pool. The upper part of his body, his back, and down the 'spine' of his tail, are all that near-white cream brown. His torso displays a slowly-deepening color, but only as deep as an olivey yellow-brown, and only on his chest, before fading again into that cream-white brown.His muzzle is elegant, angular, and sharp, almost artificial-looking in the evenness of its proportions. If he sat still, which he does often, he would look like a statue. Around his eyes are circles of sunny yellow. His wingsails are that same creamy brown as most of the rest of his body, and his tiny talons are beige.
The Grass Is Always Greener Green Wire
Lush grass green is the most primary color of this particular firelizard, though closer inspection reveals irregularities in what should be a singular color with only faint mottlings. Her head is cunning, her muzzle narrow, while the rest of her is composed of contradictory angles and smooth lines. There is an innate grace to her movements that, regardless, makes her every movement seem somewhat stilted, as if it were simply an act. This is only further highlighted by those strange blotches that blight her hide: withered, yellow greens that seem to ooze from within to taint what lies on the outside. Only her face and wings are left uncorrupted, perfect and pure grass green laid out from leading edge to trailing. Her tail is a terrible spiral of vibrancy and death, ending, at long last, with a promise of brightness at the ends.
Dragon
Prickly and Ponderous Brown Veritath
Prickly. He looks prickly. His hide is comprised of a sort of splotchy arrangement of brownish gray down the back and a more pale underbelly marked with a blue toned patina, leaving the very center of his blotched brown tummy exposed. The watery shimmer fades at his sides and makes only a scant appearance along the underside of his tail, fading to a more green-brown stain before finally giving way to a putty hue along the top. Along with his somewhat ill-matched coloring, there is a definite arrangement of slight peaks along his tail, forming a ridge of short spikes. That pattern is repeated at the very top of his head from the bridge of his muzzle, up and over not unlike a spiked mohawk that fades at the base of his neck. His talons are dark and extend from sturdy paws; even at this age, his muscular frame is evident in his strong legs. Thick wings are needed to support such a husky body and his are almost ebon in color, making a striking match to the wide, dark band at his neck.