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PERSONA: Palinde
GENDER: Female
AGE: 16
ORIGIN: Danach
OCCUPATION/RANK: An orphan, taken in by a Keep. Became a maid and helper-girl.
HAIR: Black.
EYES: Violet-black
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Tall, skinny, and lanky, Palinde is a dejected girl with her short, straight black hair falling just above her shoulders. There are usually bruises under her eyes from lack of sleep--she's an insomniac--and holding in tears. She is very pale.
VOICE QUALITY: Raspy and hoarse. She hardly ever speaks, when she doesn't need to.
LITERACY: Not very.
CLOTHING: Always black, almost always dresses, black tights or leggings, and black shoes. Orphans are treated very well in the Keep, and so her clothing usually doesn't quite fit.
JEWELRY: Too poor to afford it and too depressed to enjoy it if she had some.
FAMILY: Her parents are both dead--eaten by tabriz, so it's said--and she was an only child. Her only known relative that's alive is a very old man, her great-great-uncle, and he wasn't even considered.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION/ RELATIONS: Palinde has never had feelings for anyone, so it's hard to tell. And no one has ever seemed to have feelings for her.
PETS: A black paard--Ebonee--which she sold to get money. She bought, besides food, a green chen which she named Bonee, in honor of her sold paard.
SKILLS: Daydreaming. She really has no skills. Since she never had a family, the family couldn't mold her into a person with talents and emotions like other children are.
PASTIMES/HOBBIES: Daydreaming. Her other time is spent sleeping, eating, and working.
PERSONALITY: Depressed and dreamy, metaphorical.
CLUTCH (@ DARK MOON) IMPRINTED: # 15, green Lorinth and blue Merrenth
She had dreamed that a giant Tabriz had been after her, and just when she had stumbled, it grabbed her and shook her shoulder until she was dizzy. She shook her head and moaned.
"Palinde! Lindie, you really must get up. It's nearly dawn, and the chores must be done! Hurry up now, lass, or I won't be so easy on you. It's my own back that might have to take a lash if you aren't up to your duty. I took you in, I did, so you're my responsibility."
Palinde opened her eyes all the way, to see her Guardian, Pilma, hovering anxiously over her like a broody starry dragonchen over her clutch.
"Alright, I'm up, I'm up." Palinde yawned massively, and executed a hop/stumble out of bed. Pilma sighed with relief, and bustled out of the room. Palinde grinned hazily after her, until through her sleepy stupor she remembered what she was supposed to do.
Hopping about, she pulled on her stockings, and long black leggings. Then she threw on a long black tunic, and ran a brush through her coarse, tangly black hair.
Black was her color. It had been her color since the night she realized she was all alone on Danach, her parents gone without a trace, and the rain coursing down, less powerfully than the tears down her pale cheeks.
Palinde grabbed her broom, and hurried down to the main halls to begin her work. The steady swishing of her broom filled her ears, and she started humming to the rhythm in a hoarse voice. Tapping her feet, she danced slowly down the halls, lids lowered halfway over dark blue eyes, like two burning sapphire jewels covered with a loose layer of dirt. Diamonds in the rough.
Maybe I am just a diamond in the rough thought Palinde to herself. When she was tired, her thoughts often swirled about in her head, going this way and that with no apparent direction or purpose.
I suppose everything is just a metaphor. I see everything that way..life is a metaphor, perhaps, for death
The loud, nervous voice of Pilma cut through her thoughts.
"You silly girl! I'd beat you myself if I could bring myself to do it. Why, child, all you're doing is sweeping the dust back into place! Stop daydreaming and get to work!"
Palinde sighed. It was inevitable. Someone always came to interrupt her lovely sanctuary of daydreams.
"Yes, Pilma."
"Good girl."
Palinde returned to her work, but once again she was interrupted with lovely dreams of the dragons she saw so often, flying across a dusky sky. She pretended she was on the back of one of those dragons, looking down at girls like herself dreaming of being up there with her.
Lovely dreams..could be a song Palinde mused. She often made songs up in her spare time, which was, sad to say, barely any time at all. It had been three days since she had had any time at all to think to herself. The lash of a whip was all she could imagine for some time after her first beating.
Laziness is not a crime! Or at least, not for people who don't indulge in it. I'm not lazy, I'm just dreamy thought Palinde angrily. She stamped her foot, dropped the broom with a clatter, whirled, and stalked out of the halls.
Pilma saw her, and called out to her, mingled worry and anger on her face. Jith turned around slowly, and faced Pilma with a cold look in her eyes, a growing stony rage.
"Pilma, are you done?"
Pilma stuttered for a moment, then Palinde cut in.
"Good. I want to say something. I am not just a plain little girl you can stick here, and make her be grateful to you, for 'taking her in out of the rain'. You may have done that for me, but after that, you've done nothing else. I feed myself, I clothe myself, I work extra jobs to earn a little pay, something I am not given for all the chores I do here every day. I'm bored, and tired of the stupid life I live, when I could have so many possibilities. I'm sorry, Pilma, if I've let you down, but I'm leaving. Find someone who cares about your 'poor back'."
For a moment, when Pilma's eyes filled with a tears, Palinde regretted her rash outburst. But in a moment, she pushed that behind her. She patted Pilma kindly on the shoulder, then turned, and walked regally out the door. Only then did tears come, and her feet skimmed the ground.
Palinde ran into the corrals, where the paards were. She mounted hers, a black one with a wild demeanor and a sweet heart. She patted her paard--Ebonee--and urged her to run, far away, past the place where she had lived for eight years of her fifteen year life.
Palinde and Ebonee traveled for many days, until they came upon a marketplace. Palinde, with many a tear, sold Ebonee to a kind looking young man, and went looking for some food. She bought a delicious fruit, and some bread and cheese and a juice. With some money left, she wandered down the streets until she came upon a booth, selling dragonchen eggs. When she inquired upon the price of the hard eggs--they looked near hatching--she was told that they were free, because the demand had gone down. Palinde raised her eyebrows, and bought one, shrugging. She walked away, with the egg in her hand, until she saw a small, cheap Lizard skin pouch. She bought it, using up all but a little of her money, and slipped the chen egg into it.
Palinde walked on, until she felt the egg at her side shaking. She took it out, and held a piece of dried out bread she had saved and a little bit of cheese. The egg split, and from it came a tiny green chen! The dragonchen--which she named Bonee, after her sold runner--gobbled the food hungrily, then dozed off in the pouch. Palinde smiled, and continued.
In awhile, they came upon a Cathair, by the name of Dark Moon. A woman at the front stopped them.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Oh, I..well, I don't really know," replied Palinde. "Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Headwoman Idalia. I bet you're here to try to Imprint a dragon!"
Palinde heart raced, but she managed to answer coolly.
"Oh, sure, yeah, that's what I'm doing."
"Well, would you like to come with me? That's where I'm going."
"You know what, I'm not going to stop in yet. I think I'll take a rest first. I've traveled a long way. You go ahead."
Idalia looked unsure, but Palinde nodded, and the Headwoman shrugged and walked on.
Palinde walked over to the shade of a tree, and lay down. Bonee curled up beside her, and they both fell asleep.
"Hello, there."
Palinde woke up, and was startled to find a young lady in front of her. The lady smiled. Behind her towered a blue dragon.
"I'm Cheche. This is Raimith. He seems to have Found you."
Cheche held out her hand, and Palinde took it, standing up. She ran her fingers through tangly hair, and brushed off her clothing, knowing how dingy she must look. Then realization set in.
"Found?" she squeaked, then tried again, clearing her throat.
"I've been Found? You mean, to Imprint? Where?"
Cheche grinned.
"At Dark Moon. Raimith is never wrong. You just might have a chance! C'mon, we're only a few steps away from Dark Moon. We were just about to fly in, when Raimith spotted you."
Palinde followed Cheche and Raimith inside, nervously glancing around. Bonee screeched, and darted inside the pouch, trembling with fear of the dragons.
"Hush," Palinde scolded, but she too shuddered at the size of the winged giants.
"Ah, here we are," announced Cheche. "This is Lorinth. She's the green on the Sands currently."
Palinde followed Cheche's gaze, and smiled weakly at the hardening eggs.
"Lovely," she whispered, awed by Lorinth's presence.
"C'mon," said Cheche, and took Palinde out. "You should prepare a cathair, so that when you Imprint, your dragon has a place to stay."
"If," Palinde breathed.
"Come again?"
"If I Imprint."
Palinde Imprinted green Yvaith! Reading her hatching below:
Hey! No! Get away from those! Those are my eggs, I spent a lot of time on them, and I'm not going to let you screw it up by impressing them! Caylrie groaned out loud, as the humming of the dragons gathered in the cavern became audible over the entire weyr, and quickly made her way to the sands.
"Lorinth, you back away this minute!" She called out, pushing through the tentative line of candidates.
"Leave them be. You knew this day would come--you knew they'd have to hatch! Now let them, lest you endanger your very own children. You wouldn't want them to parallel, would you?" Sulky growls, and Lorinth retreated, allowing the candidates to get within range of the eggs.
Just in time, too, for two greens had burst shell just as their mother backed away- the first, average of shade, glanced up to Lorinth, and trilled a musical tune of happiness, before scooting away torwards a pair of girls. The other green, of a slightly lighter color, followed quickly, but the darker got there first.
Palinde backed away a few steps at the sight of the green bounding torwards her, but smiled happily, tears in her eyes, at the first comment from her new bonded.
"No, Yvaith, I think you're the diamond. I'm still pretty rough."
Yvaith watched Palinde dance to the beat as a group of young people played harsh music on strange-looking instruments. Yvaith wondered if they would be good to eat. They certainly sounded as if they were dying.
Palinde wiggled and hopped and grinded to the awful screechings in a large crowd full of people her age. Yvaith snuffled the air and yawned. A concert was boring, boring, boring.
Yvaith watched Palinde decorate her cathair with amusement.
What are you doing?
"Taking down the black."
Why?
"Because I'm not unhappy anymore. You have made me happy, because now we can fly together!"
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