Pronunciation: Kah-SAN-drah. Last syllable is somewhere between a schwa and an actual 'ah' sound.
Origins of the name: Kassandra was the twin sister of Paris, hero (or villain, depending on your point of view) of the Iliad. She was a prophetess, gifted with foresight by Apollo, but thought mad. Her fate is never mentioned in the Iliad. Depending on which version of the story you read, she either met her death with Agamemnon at the hands of Klytemnestra, led the women of Troy in a mass suicide, or lived a long life, founding a new city. The book The Firebrand by Marion Zimmer Bradley is an excellent retelling of the story of the Iliad from Kassandra's point of view.
Statuesque, well-proportioned, with a face so full of character that mere beauty becomes superfluous. Thick amber-gold hair tumbles to mid-back when not confined in a tail or braid of some sort. Lean, athletic figure, with enough curve to display gender but not enough to be considered buxom, could be that of a runner or dancer of some sort. Brilliant cornflower-blue eyes, shaded by long sandy lashes, glitter at you from a face of smooth ivory porcelain. Pinky-mocha lips are quick to smile, and a hint of humor lingers around their corners. Her carriage is distinctly aristocratic, her demeanor refined and gentle--every inch the lady of nobility she was born and bred to be. She appears to be 15 Turns, 11 months, 5 days old.
Kassandra is dressed for the day in a variation on the Istan weyrling uniform. Black shorts, fitted snugly to her muscular legs, stop some four inches beyond the hemline of the well-fitted, creamy gold, short-sleeved tunic. Matching laces secure the front of the shirt. Her low black ankle boots are cuffed, revealing the softer hide that lines them. Her now shoulder-length hair is bound into a side-parted, sleek runnertail and tied off with a black wherhide thong.Looped around her neck is a slim gold chain, from which depends a small pendant of translucent green jade, carved artfully into the shape of a jumping shipfish, with a tiny black diamond chip set in each eye.
Pinned to the shoulder of Kassandra's outfit is a knot of orange and black, twined with blue--a blueriding weyrling at Ista Weyr.
Kassandra is the fourth child, and second daughter, of Lord Garthen and Lady Trisch of Tillek Hold. Lord Garthen was an arrogant, overbearing father, dead certain that he knew all there was to know about the world--and equally dead certain he knew all there was to know about what his children wanted. Children were expected to obey him, and that was that. Lady Trisch was a flighty, somewhat featherheaded girl in her youth, and had become a fussy woman in adulthood, constantly worried about how her family was perceived and what they all looked like. Kassandra was born into this situation at a decided disadvantage, having the bad grace to be headstrong and opinionated in her own right. When she was around five Turns old, she met the children of a cotholder beholden to her father, and became firm friends with them--which brought her father's total disapproval, naturally. Kass took every opportunity to sneak away and visit them, despite her parents' distaste for her keeping such uncouth company.
Thus the years went on, with Kass averring to her parents repeatedly that she wanted to be a Harper, or a Healer, or a dragonrider (and that last had them up in arms, since neither of her parents believe that Thread will ever come again), or some other trade "not suited for a young lady of breeding," as her mother put it. She grew up into a lovely young lady, but was repeatedly overlooked by her parents for more desirable matches (from her point of view) in favor of her sister Dastria, who was 'the pretty one' of the family and knew it. Kassandra had settled into a routine of doing those ladylike things she was good at (herbalism, embroidery, dance) and sneaking away to her herder friends for those not-so-ladylike things she was good at (riding hard). Then one day Lord Garthen dropped a bombshell on her: He had promised her to the eldest son of the Lord Holder of Crom, a greasy, dimwitted fellow with a reputation for being somewhat cruel to the women in his vicinity. Garthen expected Kassandra to fall blindly in step with his desires.
Kassandra ran away that very night. She slipped out the kitchen gates long after the sun went down and made her way to her herder friends, who gave her shelter for the evening. In the morning, her fine clothes put aside for rough, tattered homespun, her cultured accent abandoned in favor of a herdsman's rough speech, she took her leave of Tillek, astride a dun-brown runner with a smooth gait. She rode until she ran out of what little food and money she had. Forced to sell her runner to keep herself fed, she made the rest of the trip to a seahold on foot, where she paid her last marks for passage to Ista Island. Why the Island? It was good and far away from her father's Hold.
On Ista, Kassandra passed herself off as a simple herder's daughter, taking up residence in the lower caverns of the weyr. She made many friends rather quickly, and found herself in the midst of an interesting situation between Cymber and Dakar without really intending to be. She found herself strongly attracted to the young smith, but just as it looked like something /might/ happen, Menina's blue Mamonth selected her to Stand for Trinyth's clutch. Not too long after her move to the Candidate's barracks, though, her father showed up unexpectedly, demanding she return home. Eventually she did the one thing he never expected her to--she stood up to him, and sent him storming back out of the Caverns without her.
Eventually the day of the Hatching came. Kassandra saw all her friends Impress, one by one, until she was one of the few remaining Candidates on the sands. She had just about given up hope of Impressing, and was dreading her father's certain attempt to drag her home, when a crimson-slashed egg dissolved into a midnight blue dragonet, who marched himself up to her. << Hello, Kassandra. I am Didarath. Would you come with me please? >>
So now Kassandra is a weyrling at Ista Weyr. It promises to be an interesting time, since just barely before the Hatching itself, she tested out her friend Cymber's theory that a smile could get her any man in the Weyr. It worked...on no less than the Weyrleader, among others. However, due to the fact that weyrlings are prohibited any kind of attachment while in the barracks, she couldn't follow up on anything...at least, not from a physical aspect. As weyrlinghood wore on, she and T'rrent grew closer, and eventually found themselves falling in love with each other.
So weyrlinghood went on with no major traumas save the unfortunate death of one of her classmates--I'pav, rider of blue Saporath, who failed to come out of ::between:: during training. The time came for the weyrlings to be tapped into wings. Kassandra was expecting to be tapped perhaps by Sakeena, or maybe T'rrent himself (whom she had since weyrmated). During a game of truth or dare in the Living Caverns, though, Weyrsecond J'sen surprised the living daylights out of her by presenting her with a Wingleader's knot and naming her to be in command of a wing of newly-tapped weyrlings. Needless to say, she was extremely shocked...but delighted.
Time wound on. Kassandra led her Wing into the first Fall of a new pass, and was gratified when nobody was injured too terribly. However, the strains of leading a Wing and dealing with the fighting complement of the Weyr's dragons put an intolerable stress on her weyrmating with T'rrent. The fact that Kassandra was growing up didn't really help matters either. Eventually, after nearly four Turns as a couple, they separated a few months after Kass' nineteenth Turnday, leaving the young bluerider at loose ends.
Kass struggled on, trying to lead her Wing and still deal equably with T'rrent despite the dissolution of her relationship with him. The strain proved to be too much for her, though, and, much to the surprise of everyone at the Weyr, she asked for, and received, a transfer to Monaco Weyr on the Southern Continent. She packed up her belongings, said her goodbyes to her friends (most notably Belena, Q'rin, and G'nar, who seemed to miss her most), and took her leave of Ista Island for good, accompanied on the outward journey by Llilian and her gold Isyrath.
DIDARATH
Sinuous streamers of summertime midnight spread, cimmerian and random, about this evening blue from head to tail, dividing a vibrant sapphire outline like some accidental attempt at camouflage. Tendrils of cerulean seem to slither along his muscular form with an eerie intelligence, forming wispy circles at their twilit extremities in defiant contrast against the light dusting of sparkling stars that dot the darkened turquoise skyscape of his chest and back. Brilliant, white-fire dapples lend aureate luminescence to the lavender undertones of shadowed surroundings, gathering illumination in higher concentration as they near the otherwise faint delineation of his spine - the frosted moonlight of proud neckridges further elaborated by the haphazard constellations. Erratic ribbons of caliginous, velvety blue trespass the vivid cobalt canvas of his haunches, winding down toward the very tip of his forked tail where they collide with the faint remnants - the trailing edge - of this glowing starfield. Serpentine markings, darkly writhing, embrace the rest of his sisal blue form to creep along the leading edges of his wings finely honed bones, skirting along the pinions with the paler purchase of predawn illumination. So weak is their influence in this region that nary a trace of the undulating bands can be found on his wingsails, leaving the hue of the Istan night sky to dominate their coloration entirely - all the soft warmth of a tropical evening collected in the close confines. So perfect a match has been made, in fact, that this impossibly rich coloration adds further to his night time subterfuge.
For the full description, temper, voice, egg description, and inspiration of Didarath, go here.
| Kassandra's Gather Dress: Sheerest sisal in an almost impossibly rich shade of deep red wraps around arms, the formfitting cut of the sleeves leaving no excess fabric to catch the air or another person on the dance floor. The sleeves meet opaque fabric in that same shade of red, melding together to become an equally formfitting bodice, its scooped neck and back accented by glittering embroideries. The bodice's waistline is a reverse sweetheart cut, the point beginning at around mid-stomach and moving downward to point again at almost hip level in the back. The skirt is full and laden with motion, its claret folds falling to ankle-length. The entire dress is sprinkled lightly with the tiniest of rubies, their color a precise match to the fabric of the dress so that one doesn't immediately notice them until they catch the light and gleam. Around Kassandra's neck is a collar studded with more rubies, and a delicate sisal scarf depends from the back of said collar, able to catch the air and twirl when she does. Her ambergold hair is confined into a low, tight bun, studded with pins tipped with more of the rubies so ubiquitous in her costume. |
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