mina.jpg

Writer: Victoria

Basics

Name: Mina Rhee
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Sexual Orientation: Uncertain
Play-by: Kim So Hyun

Pernese Settler Info

Craft/Job: Farmer
Rank: None
Location at Threadfall: Landing
Do they approve of the genetic tinkering?: She's interested in seeing where it can go.

Appearance

Mina is flourishing into a lovely young woman, one that carries with her the potential to be full of beauty and grace if she’d only allow it. But she hates growing with a passion, and would much rather remain at the wobbly teen stage that she’s presently at; nothing but knees and elbows and lean muscle beneath a pinch of baby fat. She’s an active young woman, with the scars and marks to prove it, so that little bit of softness that continues to cling shouldn’t last much longer. Especially now that she has Briguth to take care of. While it doesn’t please the dragon that her rider likes to work hard and get dirty on purpose - both of those things being beneath her - it isn’t going to stop Mina anytime soon. Just as it won’t make her wear skirts and dresses just because Briguth considers them to be much more appropriate attire for someone of her station.

All of that aside, there isn’t much that can be said about Mina physically. She’s not ordinary by any means, but neither is she someone that sticks out in a crowd. She has soft, pretty features that are decidedly feminine in nature, all of which is framed by soft brown hair that has been lightened in several spots thanks to a life spent underneath the glow of Rukbat. She typically keeps it pulled back in a ponytail, braid (or braids), or messy bun, just don’t ask her to cut it. She hasn’t yet reached a point where she feels ready to part with it. As for her eyes, they are brown and considered to be on the dark side, so much so that the irises are nearly indistinguishable from her pupils.

And while the rest of her body is growing and forming soft, feminine curves, her height doesn’t seem to be changing at all. She has stood at 5’2” since the first spurt of puberty hit at the age of 13, and he hasn’t risen a single inch since. She’s inclined to think she’ll remain short for the rest of her life, unless she starts growing like a weed out of nowhere (which she highly doubts), but she doesn’t really mind being at her current length. She finds it makes many things easier for her, such as sneaking into places she shouldn’t be, slipping in and out of sticky situations when they arise, and getting around more quickly with very little effort.

Personality

Stubborn, stupid, and brave are all anyone really needs to know about Mina. However, she isn’t dumb in the sense that she lacks intelligence, but in the fact that she sometimes lacks common sense. She doesn’t do it on purpose, really she doesn’t, there are just times when she can’t be bothered to ask for someone to help her with something, and she sometimes finds it difficult to remember that she should take another individual out with her when she wants to poke around in the places within, and around, the crater. It doesn’t help that she can often become hyper-focused on things, to the point that the world and time sort of melts away and escapes her attention. If something, or someone, dangerous were to sneak up on her, she wouldn’t know it until it was too late, and even when it is, she isn’t likely to take flight unless she knows the situation is hopeless. She can be nothing but piss and vinegar when it comes to being challenged or attacked, and she won’t hesitate to pour it out in buckets when it’s called for. Whether outside of the crater, or inside with other people, she’ll go toe to toe with even the largest of foes just because she can and because she seems to lack one very important survival mechanism: fear.

Because of this behavior, and her tendency to be a bit reckless at times, few seem to realize that she’s someone that’s filled with a vast world of ambition. She’s willing to push aside, and step on, anyone that gets in her way, and she’ll climb over others if it means getting the job done. That might make her seem like a cruel individual but she’s not. Well… not entirely at least. For example, she’s someone that adores animals, having grown up surrounded by a variety of them on her family’s farm. When it comes to people, on the other hand, things take on another hue of color altogether. She’s far too quick to judge her fellow human beings, even as she tries to balance it out with giving most people the benefit of the doubt. The first time around. They only get one chance to prove to her that they can be trusted. After that, she’s quick to brush someone aside, and doesn’t believe in handing out second chances. Despite her young age, she knows how to carry a mighty big chip on her shoulder, even if she needs both hands just to lug it around

Despite being a bit reckless, and maybe even foolish, and okay just a bit of a little bitch at times, she’s really quite mentally sound. She’s not the sort that’s up to the task of hurting people on purpose, despite her feelings toward them and her need to exalt herself, and someone could honestly tell her their deepest, darkest secrets and she wouldn’t dare share them with anyone. She’s good at keeping things to herself, which means running into someone when they’re doing something that could be considered “wrong” is generally means safety for the individual - unless it might lead to trouble or discomfort for herself or her dragon. She’ll make exceptions at times, like in cases where abuse factor in, but other than that she remembers every piece of news and information and gossip she receives and keeps it locked away. In exchange for holding in secrets, she gives almost everyone she knows and even some that she doesn’t, creative nicknames. For example, there’s someone in the crater she calls “Mister Pisspants” simply because he’s so rotten and rude, even worse than she is on her most miserable of days.

Having the gossip to listen to, and mull over, allows her to make up stories about some of the individuals she hears about. Sometimes even those that she doesn’t. Alongside making up creative nicknames, she likes to make up scenarios in her head when she’s working, and it genuinely helps her pass time a little more quickly. Not that she doesn’t want to work, because she does, and she’s proud of the fact that she works, works hard, is consistent with her work, and generally efficient when it comes to doing her work. She’d much rather be judged on the quality of it than on her looks alone, however, there’s a little hitch that keeps bothering her whenever she’s about to embark on a fresh task. Briguth is a strong minded dragon, of that there’s no doubt, and she’s constantly trying to make her rider ease up on the whole “work thing” because the young woman that is her rider shouldn’t have to lift a finger, she should be waited upon hand and foot.

Briguth’s mind is so heavy at times that Mina has become prone to headaches and fits of insomnia. She tries to hide these things from the dragon, more so because they’re a direct result of the bond the two of them share with one another. Slowly, as they ease into things more and more, Mina will learn how to cushion herself from the worst of it, not that the headaches will ever go away, but at least she’ll be able to sleep. She’s already learned some tricks, ones that help make the connection just a bit softer, and hey, does anyone else know that with some effort you can block them out entirely? Because she didn’t up until the time she did so completely by accident. Even though she frequently butts heads with the creature, Mina still loves Briguth to death and would do anything for her. Right now, she’s trying her best to be patient while she deals with making the gold’s edges a lot less blunt, even if it’s only a tiny bit that she’s able to manage.

History

There is much of the family history that Mina doesn’t know. She is aware that many members of her family, both past and present, fought against the Nathi. Of the war itself, she knows only what she was told by older adults and her parents, most of the stories either first hand accounts or passed along to the point that details that weren’t there originally had been added to give the family history a little bit of spice. She was all of 5 when the ships arrived on Pern, and any memory of Earth went away as soon as she stepped foot on the pristine world just waiting to be explored. Her father, a former military commander, was eager to join those wanting to return to a simple, agrarian life, one that didn’t involve violence, battles, or anything resembling one of the many stages of war. He was going to be a farmer, they were going to become a farming family, and sure enough when the Rhee family made a stake on some land a short ways away from the colony of Landing, he took to tending the land and animals as if they were old hats.

For her part, Mina was quite happy to be able to work alongside her older siblings. She wouldn’t have been content to merely sitting around and doing nothing. Not that what her mother did was nothing - Mrs. Rhee cooked and cleaned and tended to a large family as well as chores. But Mina idolized her father, and so in the hopes of being recognized by him, she worked hard, even at the age of five, in the hopes that it would win his approval. It turned out that he was quite happy to have his youngest child act as his shadow, and even when his wife insisted she would just get under foot, he allowed Mina to join him as he tended animals, took care of plowing, and did every conceivable thing he could to keep the farm from going under. As she grew, the types of things she was able to do changed with her. The tasks became more complex, and she was even able to stop making a life of what needed to be done by the end of the day.

She was so eager to learn about farm life that her father decided she would do well with land of her own, and he promised her that when she turned 18, he would ensure she received her own share of property, and the stock that went with it. It was what she’d wanted, and it was what she would have, and despite some foolish calls on her part - she fell from a tree and almost broke her leg, she decided to bring a pet “snake” home with her one day, and she’ll never be allowed to forget the moment when she mistook a furry version of said snake for one of the ferrets her brother Jin kept and bred. But it was the only home she would ever remember, or care to recall, and she wasn’t about to let that slip from her fingers.

It almost did once in her life, and did in fact do so once in her life as well. The former happened soon after she turned 12. That’s when Thread, as they would soon be called, fell at Landing for the first time. She was there with her parents visiting a few relatives that had taken up shop at the colony. It was the one and only time in her life that Mina will admit to being genuinely afraid. It wasn’t because of what was necessarily happening, per se, but because it was a period of time where next to nothing was known. They didn’t know what the spores were at the time, she didn’t know what would happen to her and her parents, and what of the family that had remained behind on the farm? When they returned, they discovered the farm had been devastated by the incident. Animals were dead, large splotches of dead grass spread across once majestic fields, and she had lost her eldest brother as he attempted to get everyone to safety.

It was a period of time when nothing seemed right and everything seemed wrong. The family tried to rebuild, but because he could barely support everyone and what remained behind, some members of the family were sent ahead to Landing, including Mina who protested profusely over being treated like a child, even though at the time she still technically was. The one good thing to come out of it, in her opinion, was that she was at “ground zero” when news of the dragon program began to spread. She didn’t have one of the firelizards they were being crafted from, but she had family that had the little beasts, and she liked them enough that she was eager to see what would result in the tinkering the geneticists did with the eggs. While a part of her wanted very much to be a part of the program, she didn’t expect she would be selected, more so when the crossing started to take place. But she kept a level head through it all and remained calm when she was parted from her family, and more so when it came to dealing with the people from the Amherst.

What softened things up was the dragon eggs growing harder with each passing day that they remained in the hot Istan sands. But she wasn’t the only one that wasn’t sure what to expect from them, no one did really. Would the creatures bond like their smaller cousins, or would they connection be as weak as it was with them? Would they be wild and fierce, unable to be controlled like some of the native firelizards found across the island and the southern continent? Or would these creatures be able to bond just as they were promised - would they be able to save Pern, whether right away or given time and training? She only received answers from some of those questions the day the eggs started to hatch. Hides of greens, blues, browns, bronzes, and golds all broke shell as promised, and went on to Impress as promised. She didn’t think she would receive one right away, and would end up having to wait for the first natural dragon clutch. Instead, she was approached by a little gold that insisted Mina, and only Mina, would do for a rider, before turning to the rest of those in attendance and announcing herself as Briguth.

Dragon

Name: Briguth
Colour: Gold
Hatching date: 10.8.28

Briguth is a short and stocky gold, powerful but certainly without the graceful lean shape that many of the other females have. She is however brightly coloured, with hints of rose to her hide, a beautiful and particularly feminine example of gold that outshines many of her sisters. It’s a disarming and welcoming appearance and she seems perfectly pleasant at first.

However Briguth is not a particularly friendly dragon. She may act like it and rarely shows anything but a sweet demeanor, but it’s mostly an act. This queen is an arrogant and judgemental creature that has very strict standards on what is appropriate and what is not. The colour hierarchy of her kind doesn’t seem as important to some of the dragons, but to Briguth this is law and one that you simply do not mess with. Everyone has their place, after all and truly it’s for their own good to remember their station in life. That’s how their small cousins have functioned for generations, have they not? That is the natural order of things and there is no reason that they should attempt to change that simply because they’ve grown larger and smarter. Now they are intelligent enough to know these things, instead of them being a basic natural instinct. To her it only makes sense, that is how they will prosper. She is a highly intolerant dragon that will shy away from anything that seems like it doesn’t fit into what she views as the perfect world.

The role of the queens may be a point of contention because Briguth will be strongly against them doing anything outside of their feminine roles. No, queens most certainly should not be fighting and risking themselves, they are there to breed! They should be protected and cared for, not putting themselves into danger! It will be a vicious struggle to get her to carry a rider with a flamethrower, because why should she put her precious chosen in danger when there are grunts for that work? And don’t even get her started on the unqueenly beasts like Selfreth and… ugh, the stunted dragons are a waste of space hardly even worth her attention. It may be hard to find good points about this queen, but she is a clever dragon that could actually lead very well if her rider is able to help her soften some of her aggressive opinions.