Persona Profile: Meridia

Name: Meridia
Age: 30
Birthday: m9 d28
Rank: Junior Journeyman Tanner
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Craft: Tanner
Craft Rank: Junior Journeyman
Speciality: Clothingmaker

Physical Description of Persona:
Meridia isn't quite a classical beauty, but she does catch the eye. Partially because she's vain and makes every attempt to accentuate her given looks. She's allowed her brown hair to grow long, curling down to her mid back, though she usually keeps it up in some stylish fashion. Long lashes surround her deep brown eyes. She's only average height (5'3"), but her figure is well rounded. Her skin is quite tan, but otherwise nearly spotless.

Its a not so well kept secret that Meridia loves the feel of leather on her skin. She is often seen in unique clothing of her own design. Then there are the pieces that only those who know her more intimately see.

Emotional Description of Persona:
Meridia may have unfairly earned a reputation for being loose, which is quite an achievement in the Weyr. The reputation derived not from the variety of men she'd sleep with, but her inclination to push for more adventuresome acts. Her leather love is one of the worst kept secrets in the Weyr. But its more that some people think her an exhibitionist. Men have found her a little too willing to fulfill their fantasies of having an additional women in bed.

Meridia is bisexual. Being born to a Weyr were men sleep with men and ride female dragons, it may not be a problem, but it is still something she does not discuss openly. Living in the candidate barracks for so long, with children from all over she has learn that not everyone can be so open minded. Meridia may be a bit paranoid, but she feels the whenever a hidebound person finds out, the friendship is never the same.

Meridia still bears a fairly deep scar from the fact that she never Impressed. While the reality had begun to dawn on her in her late teens, actually being told she was now too old to Stand left her with a feeling of failure and rejection she has yet to truly mend.
The positive note coming from this harsh reality is that Meridia has had to get her life together. Needing a distraction from the immediate depression that followed her 22nd birthingday, she threw herself heavily into her Craft.
The confidence Meridia projects is now a little more genuine. While she is still sensitive to criticism regarding her lack of a lifemate, she's come more into her own since leaving the Candidate rank. The sensitive tanner has developed more of an iron skin and a water-off-the-back mentality, at least in her public face.
Meridia has taken it upon herself to be a setter of fashion within the Weyr. She commonly takes older clothes that have often been neglected in the Weyr stores for some time and re-purposes them in conjunction with tanned hide, to make striking apparel. She's come to feel a little less of an outlier working closely with the Weyr's weavers and smiths to assemble her pieces. The tanner has found that she can make a fairly good living in her new specialty. While the Weyr provides for basic needs, everyone likes something unique and shiny once in a while.
Even some of her... private collection has become a little bit more public, and Meridia has discovered that she's not the only one who appreciates adding a little color to her bedroom.

History of Persona:
Meridia is the result of one of her mother, Mariana's, mating flights. She is the only child she carried fully to term, not taking a quick trip between. Although Meridia was fostered, she and her mother were still quite close. Since Mariana didn't really raise her, when Meridia became older and more aware they almost developed more of a friendship, older to younger mentor.

Meridia's father is of no consequence, she doesn't know who he is, and doesn't really care, that much. She suspect he transferred before she was born, and is admittedly a little curious about why with this man her mother finally decided to have a child.

Mariana hoped her daughter would follow in her footsteps. She had the spirit to be a dragonrider she thought, but knew that would come in time. When Meridia came to apprenticable age Mariana suggested the Tanner craft, the one she had started before impressing her Peiath.

And Meridia took to it, quite well. She loved the feel of leathers, in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps it came from borrowing her mothers spare riding coat as a child.

Her project to walk the tables was a beautiful riding jacket she gifted her mother with. She makes a wide variety of creations which she parades around in, raising an eye brow or two, and earning quite a bit of company.

As a young girl, she realized she was attracted to girls too, in addition to boys. Life in the candidate barracks was almost unbearable as she grew older and became sexually aware. So many lovely girls, parading in front of her, and she couldn't do a thing with them, usually.

When she began having a reputation as "experienced" sometimes other girls would come to her for advice, on kissing and such things, but they most would quickly become weirded out from hands on practice. The ones who didn't never stayed long enough for Meridia. When she walked the tables she was allowed to leaves the barracks, finding some sanctuary in sharing quarters with only other weyr crafters.

Meridia does enjoy being with men though. Its just the lesser availability of other women that has made her prefer spending a night with a female.

She did try to hide her orientation from her mother at first. But as Meridia grew to adulthood, Mariana was not blind to what drew her daughters attention. Although Mariana tries to be supportive, its something Meridia does not wish to discuss with her mother: a woman Meridia would certainly be attracted to if they were not related.

Meridia's twenty-second birthingday was a terrible day for her, and she still sometimes has trouble in the time surrounding Hatchings. Dragonriding was a powerful dream for the young woman. The pain of it has faded somewhat over time, but she tends to take on larger projects she refers to as "distraction pieces" around the time a clutch is lain.
Moving away from her focus on riding straps has helped distance herself from the pain of not Impressing. While still skilled in riding gear, she now makes fashionable clothing and private collection items for all of the Weyr.

Meridia acquired Tack's egg as partial payment for a custom set of ornate riding straps. While she is certain there is something wrong with her little firelizard, Meridia considers him a worthwhile investment.

Family and Friends
Mariana, 56, Greenrider (Mother)

Pets

Tack, Brown Firelizard: aged 7, hatched m1 d15
Tack is a deep cinnamon brown with flares of russet along his wingsails. He is rather small for a brown and he's fat. There are little bits of firelizard hide that spread across the desk whenever he lays down. The firelizard is so proficient at begging (and that's about the only thing he's proficient at) that Meridia has rather lost hope for encouraging a better diet.

Vacillating between moments of startling intelligence and utter stupidity, Meridia has begun to think there is something wrong with her firelizard. Able to open jars and undo simple locks, she is confused when her firelizard seems unable to understand gravity. Tack will walk off the edges of shelves and is startled when he falls. He also eats anything: food, wood, and much to Meridia's dismay, sometimes leather. She attributes these to contact with food or animal oils. But, all hope was lost when she came home one day and found Tack licking the stone wall of her room. She just... can't explain him.
Still somewhat of a baby, there is a sweetness about Tack that makes up for his baffling behavior. He still sleeps against Meridia's neck, coiled up in her hair. She's always been terrified that she'll roll over on him, but so far, she never has.

Tack's reliability with messages is hit and miss. Meridia tends to only rely on him when there is no other option.

Approved: September 9th 2006
Last updated: July 29th 2013

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Persona Profile: Meridia

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