Character type: Dragonrider
Rank: Wingrider
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Sexual Preference: Heterosexual
Appearance
F'hoxin is a rather average sort of guy, the sort whom most would admit is nice-enough looking if they bothered to look twice, but as he tends to just fade into the background, a lot of people don't look twice. He's about 5'9”, built unremarkably, with a vaguely “pleasant” sort of face – simple features, nothing that either jars or stands out in any real way, with dark blue eyes and a quiet sort of smile that he offers frequently. It has long been his habit to comb his short brown hair straight back from his face (with an actual comb in the mornings, and with his fingers, absently, throughout the day), so it just sort of tends to fall into place these days. It's no longer quite as thick as it once was, and coarse silver hairs pepper it now, especially around the temples, but he's privately a little vain about the fact that it actually makes him look a bit more distinguished. He dresses simply but neatly, and favors softer tones in his clothing, like tan and light blue, cream and white (which is a bit unfortunate, because though he looks quite nice in light blue, he would look absolutely dashing in a bold ensemble of black).
Since the first 'Fall of the Pass, F'hoxin's right leg ends in a stump about halfway down his thigh. Scars stretch from the remainder of his leg partway up his right side, and threadscores mass over the back of his right hand and criss-cross up his lower arm. The scoring over his right hand tends to make gripping with that hand difficult, as closing his hand and flexing his fingers pulls hard at the now-tight scarred skin, but if he's careful with it he does okay.
Personality
It's true that F'hoxin has learned to hide a lot of pain over the turns. His natural sensitivity and thoughtful nature have done him as much harm as good over the course of his life, and sometimes it feels to him like every time he gets attached to someone, he inevitably ends up hurt. First Marvena, and later F'harin, and a smattering of friends and half-hearted romances along the way… it just never seems to end well. Maybe he just invests too much of himself. Maybe he feels too much. He's aware he's probably his own worst enemy in that regard, but it's just the way he is. Positivity is what keeps him going – or something he's built up to resemble positivity, anyway. No matter how much it hurts, you can't just lay down and die, and so he's become adept at keeping a smile on even when his heart isn't in it, and spending more time with the friends and family he does have to keep his mind off of the ones he no longer has.
That's not to say he spends his time wallowing in misery, though. He's very aware that he has a lot to be thankful for, and he honestly enjoys his life – he can even appreciate the beauty of raw, honest grief and heartbreak, though it's still probably an experience he'd opt out of if given the chance. Though he's not the type to throw parties or hug a casual acquaintance in public, he's still a friendly person, happy to help – that guy everyone knows, who's somehow a natural part of almost every group but isn't first or best-remembered among any of them. He's not loud, but his smile is always at the ready, and he's a lot wittier than people give him credit for – his sense of humor is just more low-key than some, because it's not in his nature to be cruel or sarcastic with it even when he's in a more mischievous mood. He's always been known as a polite man, but as he's gotten older, he's gotten himself something of a reputation as a dapper sort of gentleman – the sort who's well-spoken but not arrogant about it, who opens doors and pulls out chairs, and who can set the hearts of ladies of all ages aflutter with just one quiet smile and tip of his hat. It's not really any secret to anyone who has known him for a while that no one will ever hold his heart quite like Marvena did, but in a way that only makes him more attractive – he's not actively seeking a commitment, or even just a roll in the furs (though he certainly doesn't mind one). He's perfectly happy with an evening of simple companionship. He spends a lot of time in the so-called “friend zone” with a lot of women in the Weyr, and he doesn't actually mind.
Since losing his right leg in the first Threadfall of the Pass, he's been struggling with a lot of confusing feelings. He lost a lot of friends up there, and he can't even go up again to take out his frustrations and revenge on Thread, or to help his remaining loved ones fight and stay safe. He's still holding out hope that he'll eventually convince the Weyrleader that he can still sit on the back of a dragon, and that Nihalth doesn't need four legs to fly and flame, either, but in the meantime he spends a lot of time in the Lower Caverns doing whatever he can to help there.
History
Birthdate: 398.04.12
F'hoxin can't blame his romantic tendencies on a hold upbringing or a close-knit family. He grew up a weyrbrat, no different than most others, with parents he knew more as acquaintances than family and half-siblings who weren't really any closer to him than any of his other friends in the creche. Then again, for every group of people who cling to what they know, there are always a few here and there who start to yearn for something different, instead. As a child the idea tickled as his brain in a distant sort of way, and the tickling only grew more insistent as he got older. Impressing young put it on hold for a bit as his dragon's love consumed him, but didn't quell it completely…
…And then, as is wont to happen, he had to go and fall in love, and there wasn't any escaping from his ache for a family after that.
Marvena was older than he was, and F'hoxin found himself constantly in awe of the fact that she loved him out of all the other young riders she could have fallen for. He liked to think of himself as a nice guy, but he wasn't delusional – he knew he wasn't the type of man to catch a woman's attention in a crowded room, but then Marvena always said that's part of what she liked about him. He wanted to weyrmate, and she was willing, but she wasn't willing to give up her candidacy quite yet – she knew she was destined to ride, and he wanted her to have whatever she wanted, so they both agreed to wait until she had either Impressed or aged out. It was just a few turns, right? Love was worth waiting for.
In the meantime, though, nature did take its course. Foxharin was born to them in the spring of Turn 415, and F'hoxin was instantly smitten. He couldn't spend all his time with his family, but it was still the Interval, he still had time – and then when Marvena did Impress, it was to gold Queth, and he thought his heart would burst with pride.
Except, as it turns out, that was the beginning of the end.
You never really get over the pain of being left behind, or so F'hoxin will say in his most thoughtful moments, in close company and usually under the influence. It's hard to watch someone you loved, someone you were intimate with and had such plans with, just slowly turn their back and walk away from you – especially when they don't really go far enough away that you can just try to forget about them and move on. He doesn't blame Marvena – he didn't then, and he doesn't now – or Queth. Sometimes these things just happen, and she was clearly very happy where she was (which is just another kick in the gut – she was happier without him), but he knows she didn't do it on purpose to hurt him. It just… happened. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with, though. In fact, in makes it harder in a way, because there's no one to be angry at, no one to lash out at – it's just there, a gnawing pain, a yearning for someone you still see every single day, who no longer needs you the way you need them.
He had more practicality in him than people gave him credit for, though. He knew he couldn't stop moving forward just because he wasn't doing it in the company of the woman he loved most. He still had his dragon, he still had Foxharin, and there was still so much to experience in life. He concentrated on his sensitive young son, and on his dragon, and even eventually tried to let another woman or two into his life… though none ever managed to replace Marvena, who was still so close and yet so very far away. He worried for a long time that his own troubles had completely obliterated Foxharin's chances at stability and happiness, but when the boy (by then a man) finally Impressed bronze Kawsenth, all that worrying seemed to be for nothing.
And then came F'harin's accident, and it was like losing Marvena all over again. Suddenly he was a stranger to his own son – his son was a stranger to him — and all the time they'd spent together and the things they shared were only precious to one of them. Again. And again, there was really nobody to blame. He could be angry at the Benden rider who was involved in the accident, and for a while he was, but he couldn't hold an unreasonable grudge forever, even against an Outsider. It was an accident. Nobody meant for it to happen. Just another one of those nasty turns that life takes, but he was out a son, and he wasn't sure what to do. Maybe, for those first few months, he was a little insensitive to F'harin in his efforts to get him back, to fix him. He was alive, so surely he could be fixed, right? His brain was still there, the memories had to be there, they just needed to be put back into place. When F'harin finally left Ista Weyr, F'hoxin was hurt, but not hurt enough to keep the guilt at bay. He knew he hadn't made it easy on his son, and he's regretted that ever since.
The return of Thread came to Ista Weyr, and to F'hoxin, in the worst possible way. He and Nihalth struggled valiantly in the heavy winds, but ended up taking a large clump to their front right side. He remembers the pain, and desperately trying to focus to give Nihalth an image for between as they tumbled out of the sky with no sense of up or down, but everything else is just a blur of various senses until finally waking up in the infirmary minus a leg, minus a dragon's leg, and with the news that half the riders he had known all his life were gone – including Marvena.
Since then he's just done what he's always done – taken it one day at a time, trying to recover. Nihalth's injuries were worse than his own so he's taken to focusing on his dragon and, when not busy with that, helping out in the Lower Caverns. At least, he tells himself, he's not the only one. There are a lot of crippled riders bumbling their way around Ista these days.
Relationships
Family
Son: F'harin, rider of bronze Kawsenth
Grandson: Karvarin, candidate
Likely others TBD
Lovers
Marvena, rider of gold Queth
F'HOXIN'S DRAGON: BLUE NIHALTH
Dragon Name: Nihalth
Color: Blue
Age: 42
Weyr of Origin: Ista Weyr
Weyrling Class: 8.410.13.3
Wing:
Appearance
Nihalth is just a soft dragon to look at somehow. His coloring is very soft, for one – all easy-on-the-eyes pastels, primarily a pale sky blue that dapples a gentle overlay where it meets the lighter barely-there powder-blue coloring of his belly, feet, and the end of his tail. His wingsails and the end of his muzzle are the same powder-blue color. A more standard shade of medium-blue starts just at his brow and falls across both headknobs and down his neck, where it dapples across his shoulders and spreads up his wing-arms and each wingfinger, getting more sparse as it goes. In fact, it looks more like freckles, laid in so closely that they almost make solid color on his head and back of his neck, but spreading out around the edges until there's nothing left. He's a rather small blue, fit but otherwise unremarkable; he's not round or babyish at all, but the lines that tend to stand out more sharply on most dragons are a bit softer and more rounded on Nihalth, lending him a gentle appearance that matches his soft coloring well.
Nihalth took a bad scoring in the first 'Fall, and while the scars have mostly healed, they will probably never fade. His front right leg is now missing, ending in a scarred stump just below the shoulder. The Threadscores that are remnants of the injuries that nearly killed both him and F'hoxin wind up from his stump and to the side of his neck and shoulder. He doesn't seem too impaired for the loss of his leg; he's learned to hobble around on three legs just fine, even if it does look a little awkward, and while it's a little tricker to get himself in the air, he flies just fine. He's still learning to compensate a bit due to the alteration in balance.
Personality
Nihalth is an excessively simple dragon, but somehow that's as much his strength as it is his weakness. He doesn't really understand complicated concepts, but then, he doesn't think about them much either – nor does he really need to. He takes instruction well and tends to remember it better than one might expect, which actually makes him quite reliable in the air – he'll do his job without any trouble, and immediately obey when a leader snaps new instructions at him, instinctively obeying the voice and tone of command and never once questioning or second-guessing. He doesn't have a lot of needs, just his rider, some food, a nice place to nap, and the occasional bath, and he rarely asks for anything more. He's very sweet and even-tempered, mostly because he can't conceive of a reason not to be, and if he worries about anything it all, it tends to be very small things that others sometimes don't understand, but which can be set to right very easily by just telling him everything is okay, because he trusts almost everyone enough to believe them when they say it.
He still doesn't fully understand why he can't fly 'Fall with his friends anymore. His leg feels much better now, really it does – why, it's not even there to hurt anymore at all. Sometimes he forgets it's gone, but then he looks down to lick his claws and there aren't any, and it makes him sad. But then he remembers that he has claws on all his other feet, and that makes him happy again. If three feet of claws are enough for licking, they should probably also be enough for flying. He flies just fine, after all! And F'hoxin doesn't have to walk fast to be able to sit on his neck.