[NPC Weyrling] Keerim of White Zeuliath [Approved]

[Zaikt]

Name: Keerim
Age: 18
Nameday: 3558.03.14
Sex: Transwoman
Sexual Orientation: Lesbian
Weyr: Western Weyr
Rider Rank: Weyrling
Previous Rank/Craft: Farmer
Physical Description:
Keerim is an eye-catching young woman with an athletic build that clearly shows the muscles of her previous profession. She stands at 5'10", with medium-length straw blonde hair she most often keeps tied up in a simple bun to keep out of the way. If it ever slips free, it’s an unkempt mess that seems to have a mind of its own, and she does what she can to rein it in to keep it from being a bother during work. She's got strong, sharp-edged features and a somewhat long face, with high arching eyebrows over keen golden eyes--there's a few small scars flecked across her face, and the rest of her as well, from various mishaps in her youth, but she hasn't sustained any more significant damage yet. She always has some shade of a smile on her face, and she has something of a natural glow to her that only brightens when she's in the company of others.

Personality:
She's an outgoing, highly personable person who often decides that she's friends with someone before she even knows them. Keerim won't be so easily deterred by negativity or bristly personalities, and will go out of her way to make sure that everyone's getting the same amount of positive reinforcement and attention, as they very well deserve. They work better together as a group if they all get along with each other, or at the very least have the capacity to work together in the first place, and that takes time, effort, and somebody who isn't going to take an insult as an answer; Keerim fits that bill almost perfectly. She's practically a human ray of sunshine, and she's fiercely intent on keeping everything running as smoothly as possible. She'll intervene in fights or disagreements without being asked, which--needless to say, hasn't quite produced the results she'd like all the time. Still, her optimism insists that it's only a minor setback! She can work around it, or otherwise forge forward. Nothing's going to stop her if she keeps her nose to the grindstone!
Keerim keeps her dreams high, sometimes way out of reach, and isn't easily dissuaded from them. The fact that she's as persistent as a guard wher isn't always a good thing, considering the fact that she can sometimes latch on to a glitzy idea without knowing when to let it go--any failures along the way are still just brief problems, little things to be handled before she carries on her way to the scintillating future. Or at least--what she hopes is a bright future. Her cheerfulness seems to know no bounds, but she's not immune to faltering every now and again. She'll just beat herself up for it a bit before she gets back up.

Even though she tries to imply otherwise, Keerim does, in fact, have her limits. Although she does her best to project the image of a constantly-upbeat hardworking girl who doesn't consider anything at all to be a serious roadblock, she's just as capable of being knocked off-guard as anyone else, not to mention affected by more negative emotions--when things get to her, they get to her hard. She's naive, and wants to believe the best in everyone and everything; when reality proves otherwise, she takes it very personally, and while she'll quickly pick the pieces back up and resume acting as though nothing had ever happened, she's prone to nurse emotional damage for a while. She doubts herself far more than she lets on, and is constantly second-guessing her choices; she lived according to her family's rules for her entire life, and having to think for herself is a scary prospect that she isn't always convinced she can handle. What terrifies her the most is the notion that this whole dragonrider thing was just a massive mistake, and something truly terrible is going to happen to put her back in her place.

Positive Trait List Cheery, loyal, determined, patient.
Negative Trait List Uncertain, naive, overly idealistic, nosy.
History:
Keerim comes from a long line of farmers from High Reaches Hold, secure in their work and comfortable in their manner of living after so long of carrying on the family tradition. They were a respectable sort, honest and hardworking, and...bland. It wasn't that they were patently uninteresting, or exceptionally plain and simple, but they were content with what they did and where they were, which afforded little variation in their lives. Keerim, however, wasn't quite so convinced this life was for her--how could she know when she'd never done anything besides farm, after all? She'd already questioned plenty in her short life, deciding rather early on that who her family had initially thought she was wasn't truly her, and she saw little reason why she shouldn't take a bit of time to really think about what she wanted to do. She loved working on the farm, genuinely, but what if there was something better out there for her? Her family's strict rules didn't let her question it too much, at least--not out loud, but she still wondered from time to time, dreaming about what things would be like somewhere else.
The opportunity came when she was 17. A Searchrider making his rounds had gotten a gentle nudge from his Green, and he'd breezed by the family farm on her suggestion, just in time to catch Keerim and her father returning from a produce delivery to the Hold proper. Keerim was absolutely over the moon at the idea of being Searched, but her family...was far less enthusiastic. Even with the return of Thread making dragonriders needed again, they weren't particularly fond of them; after so many turns of seeing the weyr's population as a drain on their resources and crops, they had little love for them, and the thought of their daughter traipsing off to join their number was one they couldn’t stand. Besides, Keerim was needed for the harvest--they would have to have every one of them around for that, and would she really leave her family on a whim to go off and try something like dragonriding?

Doubt gripped her. This was the chance she'd dreamed of so earnestly, dangling right here in front of her--and were it not for her family's displeasure at the idea, she wouldn't have hesitated in the slightest. Was it a crime to want to be something else? To--live differently for once, even just for a little while? That's all she wanted, truly--just a taste of the world, and then she'd be back home before the harvest. She'd return as soon as she'd been to one Hatching, as she kept on telling herself. She didn't think she'd Impress in a million years, but being able to experience that was worth it all the same. Besides, there was no harm in seeing what life was like somewhere else, especially somewhere like the Weyr; Pern needed farmers, of course, but it needed its dragonriders, too, and Keerim couldn't help but be curious about how they lived. She'd come back to the farm! Her family might consider it a betrayal, but she had to know what was out there.
For the first time, Keerim willingly left her family, promising them over and over that it wasn't permanent. It wasn’t supposed to be--it was only a short trip, something to finally quell the desire burning in her heart.

She never did come back, though. One candidate exchange with Western saw fit to end that.

Keerim had never thought her life could change so suddenly--or at all, really. She'd been content with the thought of being a farmer like the rest of her family, but now she had an entirely different future stretching out before her, one that would take her straight to the skies. More than that, she wouldn’t do it alone--Zeuliath would be by her side every step of the way, and the enormity of their bond was far more than Keerim could have ever imagined.

Other: Keerim is excellent with plants, and loves working with her hands. In her spare time, she's been known to whittle all kinds of little trinkets, which she most often winds up giving out as gifts.

DRAGON
Name: Zeuliath
Age: Hatchling
Color: White
Size: 26' (13' old scale)
Physical Description: Sleek and lithe, Zeuliath cuts an elegant figure in spite of his very compact frame. He has a long, almost serpentine neck, and his slender build gives him something of an ethereal presence--that is, until he starts talking and ruins it. His biggest weak point is that one of his headknobs is just a touch crooked, sticking out a bit more at a near-imperceptible angle compared to the other; Zeuliath knows, however, and bemoans this fact on the regular.
Personality: Zeuliath’s personality would suit even the most bombastic Bronze. He's larger than life in just about every way imaginable despite his small frame, and he's a constant energetic presence who seems much wiser than a dragon so young ought to be. He strives to be the most at all times, a high-energy dynamo who won’t let anything stand in his way--he can be overly forceful without meaning to, however, and has trouble both with accepting things he cannot change and remembering the boundaries of others. Zeuliath is by no means malicious, though--he simply gets carried away with his grandiose ideas, and often forget to consider the effects of his actions in the moment due to fixating on how things could be.
He's very idealistic, albeit in a more sweeping sense than Keerim herself is--while his rider tends to dream about much smaller things, Zeuliath is always waxing romantic over the way the world could be if we only did this instead. He wants to leave their mark on Pern in the best way possible, and he spends a lot of his free time contemplating both his own image and the way they could achieve that goal.
Zeuliath can be egotistical, haughty, and even self-absorbed, but at the end of the day, his hearts are in the right place, and he's driven just as much by their desire to better those around him as he is by his dreams of glory. He can’t stand leaving others in the dust when he could lift them up, and is a fierce champion for the downtrodden, using every bit of his eloquence, charm, and outright forceful nature if necessary to ensure that everyone stays on a safe, level playing field. Inequality is something he well and truly cannot stomach, and the quickest way to earn his ire is to reduce others based on traits they cannot control. Colorists and traditionalists can go to a few very specific places, in his most honest opinion, and he won’t hesitate to fight these beliefs where he finds them. In Zeuliath’s view of the world, there is absolutely no place for such reductive ideas, and he will not abide their propagation.

Why Me: Dear dreaming Keerim, finally taking control of her own destiny and chasing after her heart’s desire for once--although she may have intended it to be nothing more than one brief blaze of glory (or rather just a temporary adventure, in her own words), Zeuliath could not abide such a thing. In her, he saw a kindred spirit, although one that had been dampened for far too long by her family’s restrictions and the rigid framework within which she’d built her life. He wanted to set her free, but more than that, he wanted to take her under his (respectably-sized, thank you) wings to guide her to the pinnacle she deserves. He knew she could be someone great, and letting her return to her family in defeat only to be subsumed by farming for the rest of her life would be an unthinkable tragedy in his mind.
Zeuliath loves Keerim's optimism and enthusiasm, and her softer nature lends itself well to tempering his more...forceful aspects, particularly when dealing with others. He knows he can rely on her cheer and unwavering patience to help balance him when he gets too caught up in the heat of his own actions. Her determination is a bolstering force to him when he's at his weakest, and in return, he strives to support her through her own doubts. With Zeuliath at her side, Keerim can be totally sure that she doesn't have to stand on her own, and together, they can tackle anything Pern or the Red Star could possibly throw at them.

Additional Notes: Zeuliath has a bit of a complex about how small he is, and takes mention of his size very, very personally.

Dragon Art or Proof of Obtainment: [ zeuliath! ]
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