Name: Zeek
Gender: Male, bi
Age: 15
Origin: Alskyran born to Pernese parentage
Family: Mother Zanzibar, father Kacey Harless (both have pages, but not functional right now); older sister Akazia, younger sister Beck
Other Relations: has numerous cousins, aunts and uncles, including Kit who is also a rider (Kacey's brother)
Height: tall for his age, and will be above average into adulthood (around 6'3")
Build: slender and wiry, doesn't have the upper body or shoulder development that his father does
Hair: copper of various shades, shaggy, and when the air is humid it will frizz up tremendously (2c type, more wavy than shown); kept cut stylishly in different lengths, and usually up in a bit of a tail or bun, enjoys having his sisters style it, is around mid-back length at most before he decides to chop it all off and start over short
Eyes: brilliant emerald green, with large pupils, almond shaped like his father's, heavily lidded, under curious high brows
Appearance: medium to coppery tan skin, somewhat sallow and yellowish compared to his mother's. Everything about his body and limbs is long and gangly, including his fingers and even his toes which are quite impressively able to pick up objects... Small lips, a narrow rounded nose. He has a bit of a weak voice, and it tends to break if he has to raise it, and will never be remarkably deep. Oddly he smells like 'shiny', if anyone has ever been around gems or crystals, he smells like them or at least triggers minds to think that in some way. He tends toward simpler Black-caste outfits, available to him thanks to his mother's rank among the Dawnlight citizenry.

(Parents Zanzibar and Kacey)

As the middle child, Zeek was almost always the one to be a mediator, and while he did enjoy this role, sometimes he just wanted to curl up with a book and read about rocks. ... Well, more than 'sometimes'. Though he's no nerdy book worm, Zeek wants to be sure of himself before doing any work on the crystals and stones he's been entrusted to handle. This one goes into a delicate watch, that other a counterbalance for a device that detects ground quakes or volcanic motion. All these engineering feats might be possible without people like himself, but they certainly were made easier with! Kacey showed him how to sense for variations in the stones around him, through dirt and plaster or even through further layers of rock itself.

The mountain they resided on was riddled with passageways, laced with ores, crystals, and pure stone that all intrigued Zeek quite a bit. But he was there for the crystals more than anything else, he liked looking at them even as a very young child. Kacey presented his son with a bag of small semi-precious stones and tumbled rocks, and to no one's surprise Zeek organized them correctly into stacks or rows with their crystaline contents visible. Of the three siblings, his ability was the most obviously profitable, as well, since who didn't want a shaper to work on their jewelry or watch-maker goods?

And while he did very well in those classes, those shops, earning a decent amount of money even before he was a teenager, Zeek's heart wasn't in the profit side. It was in the shiny, light-catching way; it was in the beauty of the stones, and their functionality. Trading away small shaped crystals for boring stamped coins... well, it got the family's needs paid. It kept Zeek busy for hours, as he would fiddle with how to release a tiny chunk of diamond from its solid rock casing.

Getting him out of his focused work was like chipping that diamond out, too, as his sister Akazia learned. She literally had to walk into his room, and stuffed an egg in front of his face before he realized she'd been knocking at his door for five full minutes.

"What's this?" he muttered, putting the watch-maker's glass he used back up over his forehead, so he could actually see farther away than two inches from his face. Still out of focus, only half the egg was visible easily - and then none, because it had fallen into pieces while he watched. He did notice that his sister cleared out some room very carefully on the desk he sat beside, just in case the wings or tail or whatever else flinging shells around might accidentally ruin a project.

The hatchling flitter was positively beautiful, Zeek took a deep breath and admired him. Even with egg and goo on his pretty blue hide, the streaks of gold dancing over that blue were evident. Lazuli, like fine stone.

"Oh he's pretty," Akazia whispered, and scritched her own newly hatched cream Cortado.

"Loupe!" Zeek said, happily, "Loupe is his name, and I think... he's really hungry, I didn't... I didn't realize that you could feel them like this..." He trailed off, and like the smart provider she was, Akazia presented him with a little package of what looked like a mixture of fresh meat, grubs, and suet from the garden. It wasn't the first time he'd hemmed and hawed at being given something messy to hold, it wouldn't be the last. Instead of taking it, he made sure to move his tools, putting them back where they belonged with one hand while the other was occupied with the still-eggy Loupe. Finally satisfied that he wouldn't be getting gunk everywhere, he did take that little cheesecloth packet, and let Loupe select his own first meal of a big chunky grub.

***

He knew that packing all of his gear would be ridiculous, he'd be at a weyr, not a crafter's hall. Surely they would have tools if needed, and he had hands fit to use them. But what occupied his mind was more mundane. The family had kept Old World goods boxed up and safe, stored in the cool and dry mountain cavern where the Protectorate allowed it. The whole place was like a maze, filled with large wooden crates and metal storage bins, all labeled with family crests and names stenciled on in paint. Why did they need this stuff? Well, for their family it was a reasonably regular occurrance going back there. But not for so much time that they'd need money or more conventional clothing fit for a temperate or windy mountain. His family had such gear and goods, they tapped it when needed and put it back when they were done.

When would they be done, this time? Would they come back as half a Wing? Their Search was strangely momentous, the celebration afterwards odd for the family. It wasn't all that strange to have as many of them together as they did, it was nearing an anniversary or other important date when most of the elders of the clan would assemble and catch up or interact with their various levels of familiarity. Zeek was okay in groups, but not very adept with looking like he wanted to be there when he didn't care for the company. His family was precious to him, but the sheer volume of cousins and relatives sometimes made him jumpy. Loupe helped, now, though. He served as a bit of a foil, distracting the teenager and allowing him an 'in' for conversation if there was nothing more to be said.

But what could be said about heading back to the Old World for their potential dragons? Well... everything. Everything. The history and geography he'd learned in classes here was of no use to him there, he only had a rudimentary knowledge of the other planet. Would they be able to pass themselves off as just some regular candidates that had not learned 'properly'? Would it even come up?

Likely, but it wouldn't matter until they stood or impressed, right? Plus they weren't going to be remaining too long even if they did Impress, as their mother was a queen rider she had the final say as to where they would go, or at least that was what Zanzibar asserted to them. They'd find out for sure once they got where they were going. "Where are we going, anyway?" He asked, but Kacey shrugged as he led his son to join up with the women and the two large dragons outside.

"Not sure yet. We know of some places, but not whether they're filled up or waiting for more." The bronze-brown rider hailed his dragon, who gave a rumbling greeting in return. "We'll know when we get there."

That seemed to be the order of the day, then.

Blue Banroth Male   51' 9" L   10' 2"  H Zeek   (Shard)