Flight name: None yet. (M'sha, tentatively, for the future.)
Nicknames: Mish, mostly to children from Southern Weyr's creche.
Age: 17
Birthdate: 1st Day of 10th Month, Turn 181
Sex: Female
Impressed: None yet
Rank: Candidate
Location: Barrier Weyr
Original Location: Southern Weyr
Play-by: Malese Jow
Appearance:
Myssha is a reedy girl, a little shorter than average, with warm, tan skin and a heart-shaped face. Her hair and eyes are both dark brown; her eyes are slim, and she has a somewhat prominent chin. She wears her hair long, by-and-large straight, and down, although if there's any one physical feature she's vain about, it's her hair. She takes fastidious care of it, and makes brushing it a nightly ritual. She's not nearly so careful about her hands, or her clothing, or her face; just the hair. She seems to often be rumpled, although, at least at Southern, it was easy to explain away, given the amount of time she spent with toddlers and infants. She also eschews extremely heavy or warm things; she prefers to be a bit chillier, rather than too cozy. Her clothing is frequently practical (again, long exposure to toddlers).
She has a pretty sizable scar on her left ankle and foot, from being clambered over by a bronze hatchling dragon who was on his way to his rider, and didn't particularly care that his claws had to go through Myssha's lower extremity to get there. It causes her some pain, but luckily the young dragon missed anything vital, and Myssha is otherwise unaffected. There are a few other scars, mostly on her hands from cooking accidents or other mundane occasions, and a small, fading scar on her forehead from a tantruming toddler hurling a wooden block toy directly at her face two years ago. (It was terrible to look at for a while, but it's been getting steadily better, and she thinks it'll be gone before she's twenty.)
Personality
Outwardly, Myssha is a social girl, one who seems able to get along with most types of people in the world without undue stress; she's outgoing, spirited, well-spoken and mature enough at least to keep conversations going with adults twice her age, and frequently quite funny. Years of helping to care for younger (and often ill-tempered) children in Southern Weyr's creche have taught her the value of disarming with humor and charm. She's seldom self-deprecating, though. She is, after all, the daughter of the senior Weyrwoman of Southern Weyr; she and her mother are not as close as they might have been, had they not been weyrfolk, but Jazzil has been involved in her daughter's life (increasingly so, as Myssha has aged and become more interesting and less work) and has instilled a certain sense of pride in the girl.
Maybe more pride than is quite yet deserved, but you'd never catch Myssha saying that. Even if now, she acknowledges that she hasn't done much (or anything) of value, well, she has no doubt that she will. That she is expected to.
That expectation, for Myssha, is at once a blessing and a curse. Or, better put, her belief that there is such an expectation is the two-sided force in her life. Because whether or not her mother, or the weyrfolk at Southern, or now at Barrier Weyr, expect anything different from her than from any other Candidate or young woman, her rather sizable ego on the matter has convinced her that they do. As a result, she is driven, and when she sets her sights on something and puts her mind to it she works tirelessly and ceaselessly, so long as she is still full of conviction. But she is also frightened of being seen as a failure, and paralyzed by fear of failing—and by doubt as to what, precisely, she should do. Since coming of age to Stand for clutches, and over the last eight years of failures to Impress at Southern Weyr, she's developed something of a complex on the whole matter. Was she even meant to be a dragon rider? Why should she keep trying, especially in the face of continued, public humiliation? Being prideful, and independent-minded enough to seldom want to share her problems with anyone else, she instead expresses this as an occasional burst of ambition to leave the weyr and do something else. These bursts have not yet lasted, although she has threatened to leave time and again, and has tried to get journeymen and masters of a few different crafts to accept her as an apprentice and 'spirit her away from her mother's influence'.
Like anyone who'd say that in even remote seriousness, Mish is a bit too dramatic for her own good. Around her, things seem to get a certain infusion of melodrama, whether it's her self-aggrandizement, minor feuds with other Candidates, or the tiniest of daily triumphs. It's sometimes hard to tell the extent of the melodrama coloring Myssha's experience, for she internalizes and hides it pretty well, and seems to be more emotionally even-keel than she actually is, but now and again it'll come out in odd (and sometimes embarrassing) ways.
Myssha does have an exceptionally sociable nature, though; even with her dramatic tendencies, she far prefers company to solitude, and likes to this she's a 'people person'. She also has a keen understanding of how to get what she wants out of people, built mostly on a sense of social exchange. She's quite happy to go along with what someone else wants, all the while planning how it can benefit her in the end. Which isn't to say that she's cruel, although she can be a little manipulative; there's a difference between wanting to hurt or diminish others (which Myssha seldom does) and wanting to help or promote herself (which Myssha almost always does). She can orchestrate this system of bartering quite well, even when the other party isn't fully aware of it, and a strong focus on detail helps her keep track of the overall social climate in the weyr, but she's got a fairly serious block on her road to master political manipulator: she's a pretty awful liar. She's not fully aware of it, but she's lukewarm convincing at best, and has a host of pretty stereotypical tells.
When it comes to those younger than her (and, even, sometimes turnmates and those a bit older, depending on how they act), Myssha very often falls into the role of Big Sister. She prefers to be a figure of some adulthood and authority without being 'the grown up' and thus having to be serious and responsible at all times. And she really, genuinely does love being that big sister, playing with and caring for weyrbrats (and the occasional over-young Candidate, maybe).
Kin:
Mother: Jazzil of Gold Epsith, Senior Weyrwoman of Southern Weyr
Father: H'ort of Bronze Sulth, Southern Weyr
Siblings: Jazzil has two other children; of these siblings or half siblings, Myssha is the eldest. But Myssha regards many of her age-mates in the creche as siblings as well.
History:
Turn 181: Conceived during Epsith's first Flight as Senior Gold of Southern Weyr, Myssha is born to Jazzil, the new senior Weyrwoman, and her Weyrleader, H'ort. She's Jazzil's first daughter, and Jazzil is initially taken with the infant—but caring for a newborn and dealing with a Weyrwoman's duties fairly quickly convince her to leave her daughter mostly to the creche. Myssha grows up idealizing her mother, who is distant but vaguely involved. (It is not until she is nearly grown that she discovers who her father is; he wanted no involvement, and no involvement is what he got.)
When Jazzil's younger two children are born, Myssha regards them more as family than she ever really will her mother, and her demands to help raise them start her towards the assistance she'll continue providing to the creche workers for years to come.
Turn 190: It is when she becomes eligible to stand that she becomes interesting to her mother; Jazzil almost strategically begins scheduling weekly visits with her daughter, to assess Myssha's potential as a candidate, hidden under a veneer of bonding—a word and a pretense that nine-turns-old Myssha comes to resent very quickly. When she is left standing, Jazzil encourages her.
Turn 195: The encouragement fades, over the years, though, as Myssha is left standing time and time again. The so-called bonding persists, however; by this point, fed up and rebelling, Myssha decides she wants to be a Harper instead. She attempts to get Southern's weyrsinger to train her; Jazzil disapproves, loudly, and tension lasts between mother and daughter for several months. Jazzil eventually wins out, but not without hard feelings.
Turn 197: Myssha has been continuing to work in the creche, when she's not standing (or being completely publicly humiliated, barefoot, on hot sand, in her own words) when she gets another idea into her head. In late 197 she asks to become an apprentice Healer. The same song-and-dance of two years ago repeats, with more bile and unpleasantness. Trying to be Weyrwoman as well as a somewhat heavy-handed, distant parent, Jazzil offers her daughter a compromise. She'll send Myssha along with the transfers heading down to the new Barrier Weyr, where, if Myssha does not Impress, she'll be free to pursue apprenticeship if it's what she really wants, out from under her mother's thumb. Of course, given the way Jazzil makes if it's what you really want sound so all-knowing and condescending, there was nothing Myssha could do but stomp her feet, feel like a child, and accept out of a spiteful desire to get away.
Pets
Myssha attended the Outlaw Clutch Hatching at Barrier Weyr, and impressed a protective blue firelizard who likes to be in charge and take risks. As of yet, he doesn't have a name.