Calixen

Fairly tall for his age at about 5’9” at only 15 turns, he shows some signs of growing more. His black hair is straight and cut military style with it long on top and short on the sides and back. He has velvety brown eyes that are sharply slanted and very watchful. His step-father’s training has worked wonders on his musculature. His preferred “weapon” is the staff and knife.

Calixen tends to be a soft talker. He tries to think about what he says very carefully before saying it, so long pauses before he answers are common. He enjoys the company of peers but tends to be the quiet one of any group. This young man is a vast store of knowledge that is rarely realized. One of those people that only has to be told to do something once and he will likely never forget. As a result is his slow to forgive grievances and quick to recall details.

Gender/sexual preference: Male, heterosexual.

Calixen was born to a very old dragonrider bloodline at Igen Weyr. His mother and all of her siblings are dragonriders of different colors, or at least was.

Calixen’s mother, Regina, is an ex-greenrider. She was Searched with her two siblings, Navinda and Garrol, by her younger brother, Bluerider R’and, and impressed the tiny green Calixath on her first stand. Her brother G’rol impressed a bronze, her sister a spritely blue. Ten turns after her impression, Regina became pregnant with her first child. The pregnancy lasted through Calixath’s next flight. Sadly, this rising did not end as wonderfully as the last had. A dispute between the father of Regina’s unborn child and the bluerider whose dragon was near to winning the flight broke out in the Flight Weyr. During the scuffle, Regina was knocked heavily against the stone wall, and lost conscientiousness. Calixath panicked and tried to between to her rider, but never appeared. When Regina awoke a candlemark later, her heart nearly stopped from the emptiness that overwhelmed her. She stayed the Healer’s hand when offered the death drought, however. Instead she chose to live for the last thing she had left, her child.

Just a few months later, the young greenrider gave birth to a healthy son with the characteristic black hair of his bloodline, Calixen. But the healers quickly became worried as the child continued to cry in distress hours after he was born. They sent Regina to the Healer Hall to seek more advanced help for her young son. The help wasn’t needed though, for shortly after they got out of sight of the Weyr, the boy quieted down. He slept the rest of the way to the Hall and checked out to be remarkably healthy for his age. The infant’s cries were only renewed when his two uncles and aunt visited with their dragons to check on their sister. Suspicious, the healers advised Regina to raise the boy for most of his young life away from the Weyr. The mother was glad to leave the Weyr and its webs of heartbreak. She moved with her child to Yaven, a Minor hold farther down the long stretch of coastline Igen overlooks.

Regina married Wendir, the senior journeyman smith at the small hold. He was an older man, but proud of his young, somber wife and his ‘son’. He treated Regina with appropriate love and attention, but devoted most of his time outside of his duties to Calixen. The boy showed the potential of being a skilled fighter early on when other boys attempted to tease him. Wendir took advantage of this by training the boy for the contests that went on during the hold’s summer Gathers. By the time he was twelve Calixen was competing in levels two turns above him. He also began apprenticeship beneath his father for smithing.

Dragons were occasional visitors to the Hold. They normally landed out in the fields where there was room for them to rest and sun themselves. They were always the source of great curiosity for the young man who watched from afar. It didn’t take long for him to connect the multi-layered voiced that roamed his mind with their arrival. When they came in crowds to watch him fight or let their riders dance the voices would be overwhelming. After losing two fights in a row because of a pounding headache, Calixen worked on blocking the voices out. Sometimes whispers would still seep through if there were many, but by the time he was fifteen, he could block out nearly all the voices at the Gathers.

He kept this detail to himself, only confiding in his often quiet mother after he became fully comfortable with the ability. Regina had kept her son’s heritage a secret from him until he brought this revelation to her. At last she told him of his family. The line of dragonriders dating so far back the hides were falling apart with their names on them. Though she did no bar him from visiting the Weyr, her eyes had pleaded with him to stay. Calixen never made the pilgrimage up to Igen that so many other youths from the Hold did, but the dragonriding spirit had taken hold of his heart and tightened its grip as time went by.

During the Summer’s End Gather a turn later, Calixen won a round of fights only to lose to a young brown that had come to compete. He shook the other man’s hand in congratulations as the bag of marks was brought.

{{He should have won, you know}} The brown teased his rider. The big blue eyes had been watching them both from the ramparts high above. Calixen had laughed and nodded to his rival.

“He’s right. I should have.” He winked at the rider, turned, and met his mother on the sidelines where she was ready to clean up his face and apply poultices to his sore muscles. The brownrider watched the young man .

The next day several blues, including R’and, arrived at the Hold. They requested to see Calixen. Wendir and Regina escorted the boy out worriedly. The Smith reprimanded his son for getting himself in trouble with his comment the night before.

{{We’ve come to Search you, Calixen}} One of the blue’s interrupted Calixen’s thoughts. Wendir held Regina as she cried when the boy told them what the dragon had pronounced. The young man could hear dragons. There was no way Regina could no longer keep her son from following his destiny to serve the Weyrs, even if he didn’t impress a dragon of his own. Calixen agreed to leave with them, packed his things, said good-bye to his mother, and returned to Igen with his Uncle.

The Weyr was a world of voices the young man was having a hard time adjusting to. At first blocking out the chatter even in the middle of the night was difficult. There were just so many at once. Slowly, Calixen began to work through cacophony of voices until he could single some of them out. Three months later when one of the Junior Queens finally flew to mate, the candidate was able to again cut the voices down to a nagging whisper, but no better. Ever present, but now more tolerable.

Just after the mating flight, Calixen received a visit from his father. The man looked older and more tired than he ever had before. Regina had finally died. Her depression had reined her in after her son left and finally took her in her sleep. Wendir told the boy he was transferring to the Southern Continent. He couldn’t stay at his old post any longer and was offered a position in a traveling group his brother worked in. He left that day, leaving Calixen to stand at the hatching by himself. The Weyr became a dark place for Calixen that day.

Though the candidate tried to take solace in the dragons, his constant friends, his mother’s death and his father’s departure left him terribly alone. He became snappish with the other boys. The only time he could bring his mind out of the darkness that enveloped him was when he could get one of the other candidates, a Weyrling, or a rider to fight him. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost, but at least it usually ended in good spirits for both fighters. The relief was short lived. Calixen began to persuade riders to take him out of the Weyr when he wasn’t allowed to go by himself. Eventually, he left the Weyr whether he was allowed or not. Just a little over a month after Regina’s death, Calixen was bordering on inconsolable. Suddenly so much of the Weyr that had once been hers haunted him at every turn. Panicked spells began to take him. As the Hatching Date came closer the more nervous and anti-social he became.

With only a month to go before the hatching, Calixen began stuff his things madly into a sack. He swore that he was leaving. He couldn’t stand Igen anymore. He wanted to see his father, to get off the Northern continent, to try to start again. He was broadcasting to the Weyr so loudly he was upsetting some of the dragons including the queen on the sands. When the Candidate Master tried to restrain the boy, Calixen struck him hard in the face. Finally a pile of candidates managed to hold the boy long enough for him to cool off on his own. The Weyrleaders, Weyrling Master, and Candidate Master met to speak about the trouble Calixen was causing. They decided among themselves that he would stay through the next hatching. Surely he would impress, deciding their action for them. Three sevendays later the eggs rolled violently on the sands, the dragons sang their song of rejoice, Calixen got a headache, and was left standing frustrated on the sands. The leaders convened again to decide the young man’s fate. He had the potential of a leader, a good friend of the dragons, but was terribly lonely with no human companion.

A letter from Calixen’s father arrived the next day, leading to another bout of depression for the boy. Wendir was in Monacco Bay at the time, working as a Smith for a band of travelers. At first a transfer to the warm, low populace Weyr was considered. However, Weyrwoman Parly and Weyrleader G’llfer were not typically welcoming or understanding of individuals with special needs. Where had all the odd-ball riders been disappearing to over the past two turns? Mountain Song Weyr! A place of uniqueness in location, population, and leadership. Immediately an advocate for the boy was sent South to speak with the Weyrleaders about Calixen’s transfer.