Siren's Pull: Character App: Menolly
Character Application for Journeywoman Harper Menolly of Pern
Player Information
Name: Elizabeth Creegan
Age: 40
AIM SN: booksbeth
email: ecreegan@pobox.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Only this one
Currrently Played Characters: frosty_mind
Conditional: Activity Check Link: Here
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here
Character Information
General Canon Source: Pern
Canon Format: Books
Character's Name: Menolly
Character's Age: 16
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. NA
What form will your character's NV take?
A sheaf of papers in a folder. It can be activated by sequences of notes, by writing on the paper, or simply by pulling the appropriate piece of paper out and speaking. The papers aren't apparently connected, but somehow they always wind up back in the folder or vanishing, and any paper put in the NV takes the part of something destroyed/absent.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Menolly starts off life as a Seaholder's daughter. Apart from her musicality, she seems to be a tomboy and spends a lot of time away from the safety of the Hold. Her interpersonal skills are weak when she starts out, but she seems otherwise able to do anything you'd expect someone from a low technology fishing culture - male or female - do. We see her fish, gather plants and other food, make tools out of what she finds on the shore items, swim, sail, mend clothes, cook, climb cliffs, run (at a pace which is remarked on as rapid) and so on.
At a young age, the local musician (Harper) took her as an (informal) apprentice and taught her to the best of his considerable ability. As of Dragonsinger she can sight-read music, has the traditional ballads and the teaching songs memorized, has a mostly-untrained but good singing voice, is fair to excellent at several instruments (only fair at the straight horn, but very good to excellent on the harp and excellent at panpipes and guitar; she clearly knows how to use a drum but there's no indication of how good she is at it.) She made journeyman-grade drum and multiple pipes on screen and indicated she knew the theory for how to make other instruments but doesn't have the practice.
If I can play Menolly from a time period after Dragonsinger, she'll have been taught more of how to be a Harper. Almost all of this will be musical: she'll have another year's practice with the instruments, a year's voice coaching lessons, will have actually made a guitar, and so on. She'll probably also have had some lessons in diplomacy.
Extrapolation: given that she knows all of the Teaching Songs by heart, Menolly knows the theory for how to do a little of a very wide variety of things. Apart from lacking practice at anything besides seaholding and harpering (two very broad categories), there are a lot of craft secrets. But she while she's never tanned leather (she picked from several prepared hides to make her drum) she could probably sing you a song on how to do simple tanning.
[Edit add: anything Menolly knows from Teaching Songs would be moot on Siren's Port (e.g. history and laws of Pern, uses of plants not present, some low-tech adaptations which are unneeded in a high-tech environment but which anyone with appropriate technical knowledge could come up with if he bothered) or information commonly available in modern reference materials.]
She has whatever quality the dragonriders do which strengthens the psychic connection between dragon and rider. It's not clear exactly what this is -- some sort of latent telepathy or xeno-telepathy. She has no psychic powers in her own right, but the telepathic dragons and firelizards are able to make an easier or deeper connection with her.
She also Impressed (made a psychic connection with) nine firelizards. The firelizards are telepathic, but don't seem to understand human minds well. They also teleport, and can carry small very small items. However, they're still animals - they don't make reliable messengers. They probably are reliable at coming when their person is in danger, and their talons are sharp, but they're small animals (the largest has been known to hide under Menolly's hair) and a lot better at defense than offense.
I don't think the firelizards would be playable characters. All we see them doing is eating, singing, running away from things, defending Menolly (usually from social problems where their intervention just makes things worse), picking up panic from an actual telepath and/or other firelizards, occasionally carry messages (not that I recall Menolly's doing so, but she was the expert - if anyone could she could if it mattered), and once bring her multiple pipes to her when she was unwilling to get them and needed them. She can usually get them to answer simple questions, and they're bright for animals (Beauty might be as bright as a small child) but their ability to communicate with most people is limited, and they rarely initiate actions.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Menolly has effectively no superhuman abilities unless you count the firelizards, which are really more of a pet. If you want me to play them up as a superhuman ability, I can do that. I would prefer to keep them lower-key and give her a superhuman ability. I was thinking shapeshifting -- Menolly winds up healing from a lot. Say the knife did cut through her tendon, but she shifted back to partly well.
[Edit Add: I would rather not use the firelizards as a superhuman power because in canon they don't work that way: they do little things, but mostly they're chrome. In canon, they're not reliable enough, and perhaps not intelligent enough - it's unclear - to be much of a power. If you want me to use them as a power, I'll come up with some Core-related rationalization for why they're different here.]
The way this would work is that Menolly would have a mental image and transform into it. This provides a good deal of healing as she transforms from image to image, but she she acquires a scar, it becomes part of that mental image and she keeps it. The images have to be distinct - she might have one of a girl her size but with red hair, and another of a tiny girl with red hair, but she couldn't have two forms that would match the same (even very general) description. All sorts of little things that aren't clear enough to stick out and become part of the mental image do stick with her from form to form within the species/subspecies: her fingerprints and retinal prints are approximately the same, her smell is similar, her biological aura is different but recognizable, and so on. She could change species (in fact, it's likely she would start off by becoming a firelizard) but only to a species/subspecies she's familiar with.
She does acquire powers when shapeshifting, but she can't control her shapeshifting well enough to pick up a specific person's powers unless they're species/subspecies-wide, or subject to objective criteria that she can mimic (if male HypotheticalSpecies had power X and female HypotheticalSpecies had power Y, she could mimic X in one form and Y in the other.) If powers exist in a species but are unusual, she won't pick them up. If a species/subspecies often has powers but different ones, she'll get a random set of powers in that species/subspecies form, and that'll become part of the things which are too unconscious to shapeshift (i.e. if she successfully turns into a mutant, she'll get a random selection of powers, but then any mutant form she turns into will get the same selection of powers. (Also, if she shapeshifts into a species with shapeshifting, she does not gain additional shapeshifting powers.)
Menolly would familiarize herself with species/subspecies by touching at least one member of them for some period of time. It doesn't have to be an intentional process.
At the start, she'd be familiar with several species from Pern. The only ones which have powers are firelizards and dragons, who are closely related - dragons are smarter and bigger. That involves teleportation and a certain amount of telepathy. Firelizards: pick up on minds anywhere nearby and get surface emotions. Dragons: can do intentional communication with willing people. Beyond that requires a psychic link (dragon and rider) or a telepath on the other side. Teleportation: disappear into nothingness, reappear at the place (*and time*) of the image chosen when you vanish. Since canonically dragons can teleport cross-time and I don't want to deal or make anyone else deal, I would say that the Core won't let Menolly or her firelizards go to any time other than exactly when she left, which means she/they can't go to a different time, but that going between and returning without aiming at a specific time takes no time, instead of a few seconds.
If you don't mind shapeshifting but think that's a bit much, maybe just change into a firelizard or a dragon? [Edit Add: I mean, one shape of each.]
Weapons: Belt knife
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Summary
Menolly was a seaholder who was informally apprenticed by the Hold's Harper (teacher/ entertainer musician) at a young age and taught everything he could. The Sea Hold was a gender-restricted place, harpering was man's work, and when the harper died, Menolly was put under enough pressure to run away. She acquired nine firelizards and was taken in briefly by the dragonriders.
When the Masterharper finally found out she was Petiron's apprentice, he took her to Harper Hall in spite of the societal pressure (he's the head of the harpers, and the crafts are independent: he can do that.) There the masters graduated her to journeywoman as soon as they'd placed her standard and had her fulfill the formalities (residence in-hall being an exception, waived as per pre-existing custom when the apprentice was serving under a competent journeyman elsewhere.)
She goes on to have a successful career as a Harper, further graduating to the rank of master in one of the later books. Harpers are musicians and entertainers, but also educators, propagandists, and diplomats.
Early history
Menolly is the youngest daughter of Yanus, the Holder of Half-Circle Sea Hold. She was strongly musically inclined and attracted the attention of the Hold's Harper at a young age. (The Harpers are a Craft, more-or-less a guild, and while Petiron had to give considerable deference to the desires of hs host/employer, he was ultimately loyal to and answerable to Harper Hall and the MasterHarper.) As the Hold's Harper, Petiron taught all the youngsters the basics everyone needed to know. He singled Menolly out for special instruction.
Petiron taught Menolly all the standard music, to play several instruments, musical theory, basics of singing, the theory of how to make instruments, composition theory and practice, and in fact everything that an apprentice Harper would be expected to know. In his letters home, he described Menolly as his apprentice, and enclosed some songs she'd written. He did not mention her name, rank, or gender in these; there hadn't been a female Harper in generations. (The current MasterHarper was the sort to make exceptions, and Petiron knew it, but he was sufficiently determined not to use the fact that his son was MasterHarper that he had himself assigned to an obscure sea Hold instead of a more comfortable Hold.)
As Petiron aged, Menolly took over playing his instruments for him and providing more assistance for him. This was all well and good with her family -caring for an old man was a proper task for a young lady, there was nothing wrong with playing instruments under supervision, the old man had worked for the Hold for decades and had earned the help he was receiving with his duties. They didn't approve of Menolly "tuning" (composing) but with a Harper supervising they weren't concerned. And from Menolly's point of view, if she was horribly lonely she'd been so for her entire life so she didn't notice, and she was spending her time doing things she loved, with a person she loved.
Dragonsong
Menolly's troubles began with Petiron's death. She played his funeral dirge. This was irregular - the funeral dirge should have been played by someone of higher rank - but she was by far the best musician left in the Hold and Petiron's closest contact, and it was unusual but not improper.
What was improper, and embarassing to the Hold, was that Menolly stepped into Petiron's shoes for some months. Pern is a generally low-tech society, and travel that's not on dragonback takes time. Before a replacement Harper could arrive, the news of Petiron's death had to reach Harper Hall, they had to choose a journeyman, and the journeyman had to walk or ride a runnerbeast to the shore, then sail to Half-Circle. This was far too long to leave the children without education - and having a woman, let alone a girl, teach the children was improper. More, it was embarassing as it indicated the Hold didn't have a man or older boy who was available and qualified. However, the Hold didn't have a qualified younger man and the Sea Holder didn't want to spare an older man to do something that a girl who had no current duties was more than capable of. So Menolly got the job, and everyone in the Hold was told to tell any outsiders that the children had been taught by a fosterling who had been sent home. And Menolly was given the use of Petiron's instruments, but given strict orders not to sing or play anything other than the traditional songs where anyone could hear her.
The students were well-taught, but Menolly's life went from lonely to oppressed. She was expected to do more traditional female jobs after teaching the children, and she had neither as much skill as expected (having been diverted into musical training) nor the inclination for it. More, she occasionally found herself composing on the fly, and was beaten like a boy when caught by her father doing so in front of the children. She also lost the use of Petiron's instruments over this, and regretted that more than the collection of bruises.
Menolly wasn't excused from Hold-wide callouts in order to teach the children, and on one occasion when a ship brought back a huge load of fish, she badly cut her left hand gutting packtail. The slice nicked her tendon, the slime infected the wound, Menolly became delirious and unaware, and for some days they were afraid she would lose the hand. But the infection cleared up and they bandaged the hand.
Menolly believes to this day that her mother deliberately tried to let her hand heal with a drawn scar so that she wouldn't be able to play anything which requires both hands. Strictly speaking, this is wrong - the readers see the scene from within Mavin's head, who honestly believed Menolly had cut the tendon clear through, and felt terrible hearing her delirious daughter bed to be allowed to play again. However, Mavin's normally a better healer than that, and no one in the Hold gave Menolly any follow-up care once the infection cleared up. If it's not true that her family deliberately tried to cripple Menolly's off-hand, they certainly didn't engage in normal steps to try to save it.
Forbidden from much music, unable to do others with a damaged hand, Menolly started spending much of her time outside the Hold gathering food besides fish. This was more of a boy's occupation than a girl's, but it was something acceptable for anyone able and willing to scramble up and down the cliffs. Menolly had to take it easy at first with the one hand, but as the hand healed she used it somewhat. This stretched the scar more than protecting the hand would have done, and began a chain of events salvaging her ability to use that hand.
While outside singing and gathering food, Menolly met a fire lizard queen. Fire lizards are telepathic, teleporting animals indigenous to Pern (which humans aren't but have largely forgotten this.) At first fire lizards had contact with humans, but they became scared off thousand of years ago. With their abilities, fire lizards have successfully avoided humans to the point where humans thought they were myths. At first, for unclear reasons, the fire lizard queen didn't want to let Menolly leave. Menolly successfully explained that if she didn't leave before the (unusually high) tide came in, the water would drown her. The queen then led Menolly to her clutch of eggs, also endangered by the water (because the water would be too cold for them, not because the eggs needed air.) Menolly carried the eggs back to a cave on a ledge the queen pointed out, with help from the queen, and the queen and several smaller fire lizards started rolling the eggs down into a small (seeming) cave through a tunnel too small for Menolly. The eggs safe from both the water and the girl, she was allowed to depart.
Menolly didn't tell anyone about the encounter, partly because no one would believe her and partly to respect the fire lizards' privacy. She did compose a song about the experience and left it in Petiron's belongings, along with another song or two.
When the new Harper, Elgion, arrived, things went from bad to worse for Menolly. The entire Hold conspired to keep her involvement in music a secret from the new Harper, and her mother wouldn't let her even sing in chorus above a whisper. She spent more and more time away from the Hold and was eventually caught out when she didn't realize Thread was due that day.
(Thread is a sort of voracious spore that falls from the sky in clumps about every week for fifty years, then doesn't occur for another two (sometimes four) hundred years. Where it lands it devours everything living. The high-tech colonialists who landed on Pern genetically engineered dragons from fire lizards. When Thread occurs, dragons chew phospheme-bearing rock ("firestone") and burn it up before it reaches the ground. Some Thread usually gets through, and then the burrows are burnt out. Being caught out during Threadfall is very dangerous and is perceived to be a death sentence unless you can get to shelter.)
Menolly was too far away from the Hold to make it home before Thread reached her. She headed for the ledge with the fire lizard clutch, intending to try to make it into the cave. After multiple attempts, she succeeded, to find the eggs starting to hatch. The first fire lizards hatched starving, instinctively took flight, and were killed by the Thread falling outside. Menolly had already been gathering food and gave it to the hatchling fire lizards, feeding all of them enough to keep them inside the cave and singling several of them out for special attention. When Threadfall ended, the mother queen led her brood and several older fire-lizards out of the cave, leaving Menolly alone. Exhausted, Menolly ate the food she'd packed for herself and collapsed.
When she woke the next morning, nine of the baby fire-lizards had returned and were with her, creeling to be fed. Menolly's Hold life had become unbearable, she was likely in for another beating for having left the Hold doors unbarred (taboo even when it doesn't matter, and having done so today could have let Thread in if the doors hadn't been closed in time), and she'd just survived Threadfall in the cave. She decided not to return, becoming Holdless.
Menolly managed survive and to care for her fire-lizards for some time. Without any assistance beyond baby animals, she had to use her injured hand more and more. While this hurt, it was probably ultimately the largest reason her hand was salvageable once she received medical care. She made herself a set of multiple pipes and found she was able to play them. The fire lizards enjoyed music and started to accompany her in descants.
[Life went on elsewhere. Harper Elgion became friends with Menolly's brother - the only person in the Hold at all close to Menolly - and figured out that Menolly had been Petiron's apprentice. The existence of fire lizards became public knowledge. Masterharper Robinson polished up Menolly's songs and sent them all over the continent both because they were useful and in hopes that Petiron's apprentice would surface to his own music.]
Some months later when the fire lizards were somewhat grown, Menolly got caught out in Threadfall again - without a connection to a Hold, or indeed any humans, she didn't have the Threadfall listed. This time she was nowhere near shelter, and she ran.
Dragons have very sharp eyes, and one of the dragons fighting the Threadfall Menolly had been fleeing spotted her running. He landed, his rider pulled Menolly onto the dragon, and the dragon and rider teleported (went Between - three seconds of nothingness and then you're elsewhere) to the dragon's home, Benden Weyr.
(The Weyrs are where the dragons and riders live. The Holds and Crafts tithe to the Weyrs, who protect the planet from Threadfall. Holds, Crafts, and Weyrs are all rather different sub-societies.)
Menolly tried to dismount and immediately clutched at the dragon to hold herself up - now that she was safe, she realized that not only had she run the soles off her boots, she had given herself deep cuts all over her feet. They gave her a tranquilizer and carted her off to sleep.
When Menolly woke she was assured by headwoman Manora that she can stay as long as she likes and asked who she is. She identified herself, Manora recognized her family's names, she begged the headwoman not to contact her family, and the headwoman agreed.
[The headwoman is in charge of day-to-day life and answers to the senior Weyrwoman. If Manora says Menolly can stay, only the senior Weyrwoman and perhaps the Weyrleader (military leader / in charge against Thread) could override her, and if the Weyrleader did so it would be a slight on the Weyrwoman.
Extrapolation: the Weyr isn't a charity, not everyone is welcome to stay indefinitely. In this case, the dragons liked Menolly, she didn't panic when dealing with them, she made the best of her poor survival odds when trapped in Threadfall, she had the pain tolerance to keep going on lacerated feet, and she was young enough to be adaptable. That would have been all Manora knew, but it was evidently enough. Benden Weyr was still expanding its responsibilities. They didn't get many people outside of formal Searches for potential riders, and if Menolly wanted to stay, she's already proven had the makings of a Weyr worker, possibly a dragonrider's mate.]
Menolly rapidly settles in at the Weyr while urging her fire lizards to hide. She makes friends with a girl named Mirrim, fosterling to Brekke, and the secondwoman (headwoman's second-in-command) openly regretted that Menolly was too old to be fostered; she would have liked to be Menolly's foster-mother.
She's happy there - she isn't being forbidden to make music, and while she still thinks of song creation as something she mustn't get caught at, she realizes no one here knows all of the songs from home; if she hums or sings her own work no one will know it. In rapid succession, it comes out both that she has nine fire lizards and that she knows the location of another clutch. A bronze rider takes her to collect any belongings from the cave and find the eggs.
Meanwhile, Menolly's feet heal rapidly and everyone with healing skills who see her using her left hand asks who bungled the wound's healing. Menolly evades the question and blames packtail slime as hard to treat, but grows even more unhappy with her home Hold.
The Weyr's harper prevails on Menolly to sing some of her melody variations. He doesn't know all the songs of her home Hold either, but remarks that she has a good singing voice and sense of pitch.
There's a major event at the Weyr as dragon eggs hatch, which many important people all over Pern attend, some of them given fire lizard eggs. Elgion is invited, not because he's important but because a rider to whom he's spoken several times thinks he needs to spend time outside of Half-Circle. He finds out Menolly is there and immediately goes to Masterharper Robinson (who is invited, and given two fire lizard eggs, because he's one of the most important people on Pern and an ally of Benden Weyr.)
Robinson speaks with the Weyr's harper and with the headwoman and has two lure Menolly into an admission of who she is with a rendition of one of the songs Elgion found with Petiron's belongings. Having been Holdless while the songs were being distributed, Menolly would have not otherwise known the song - and knew her original version, not the edited one Robinson had sent out across the continent.
Robinson tells Menolly she really must come back with him to Harper Hall. The objections Menolly makes as to why she can't have what she wants are rapidly shot down by the professional persuader. Since the teleporting dragons are providing transportation, and Robinton doesn't want to give Menolly more time to come up with panicked objections, the two are at Harper Hall within minutes.
Dragonsinger
When Menolly gets to Harper Hall she's near collapse, so the headwoman simply sticks her in the nearest open room. After her first night at Harper Hall, Menolly is placed in an outbuilding called a cot with the other girls her age, all but one of whom take a dislike to her, as does the cotholder, Dunca. This leads to making Composition Master Domick angry with Menolly, because everyone in the cot failed to pass on the information that Menolly was supposed to go to morning lessons with him, a misunderstanding which is cleared up when the one decent girl, Audiva, stays behind to speak up.
Menolly's firelizards enchant the kitchen drudge (retard, in this case) Camo, and fascinate all of the apprentices we meet. One of the apprentices, Piemur, manages to befriend Menolly and help Camo assist Menolly in feeding them.
After cotholder Dunca complains about Menolly's lack of a second outfit or underthings, headwoman Silvina gives Menolly a selection of clothes, promises more, and tells Menolly she'll move Menolly back to the room she stayed in that first night. Menolly complains that the room Silvina wants to put her in is too good for her, and Silvina offers mockingly to replace everything with bare bones gear. When Menolly says she'd really prefer that, Silvina points out that she was joking. Menolly points out that the furnishings really are too good for an apprentice, and Silvina starts to laugh and say that Menolly is right - replacing everything with apprentice gear will stop the others from quibbling (even though Menolly's probably the only apprentice in the Hall with a room to herself.) She replaces the gear and moves Menolly into a room near the Hall Masters outfitted for an apprentice.
Menolly has a panic attack caused by her firelizards, waking most or all of the Masters she's now lodged near. At the same time, the watchdragon launches into midair and teleports somewhere, and the watchweyr (crippled noctural dragons) howls enough to wake half the Hold. After the events end, Menolly's panic passes abruptly and she tells Robinton and Silvina about the panic, a sensation of heat and pain, and a woman's voice screaming not to leave her. Silvina gives her a sedative and tells Menolly as she collapses that Lord Groghe of Fort Hold has a similar experience and has asked for the Masterharper for information. When Menolly wakes, Silvina tells her that one of the dragonriders went to scout the source of Thread, and she heard his lover - one of the rare women who can speak to all dragons, and who has already lost a queen dragon - screaming at him to return. The dragon launched himself to help catch the unconscious dragon and rider, who had teleported back miles high.
Silvina sends Menolly to check on the Masterharper's firelizard eggs. Menolly decides that the eggs should be watched constantly until they Hatch, and arrangements are promptly made for Menolly and Sebell (the Masterharper's junior journeyman, who is to receive one of the two eggs) to rehearse there. Nevertheless, Menolly annoys the Voice Master by being late to her lesson while Sebell is fetched. The next day Domick lets Menolly practice under Sebell's supervision in front of the eggs. After some practice, Sebell goes off briefly to do an errand.
As Menolly rehearses without him, one of the chords sounds like the scream she heard in her mind when the firelizards practice. She composes a song from there, to find Sebell has returned while she was wrapt in composition, and has written the song down. As he goes over the music with her, the Masterharper joins them. She's apologetic that she was just tuning, but neither man will have any of it: yes, the song still needs work, but being able to put together a decent rough draft quickly is precisely why the Harpers looked for her. Before the discussion concludes the firelizard eggs hatch. Both Robinton and Sebell successfully Impress, albeit with a slight social complication in that the journeyman Impressed the queen firelizard. Lord Groghe shows up just before the eggs actually open, his firelizard having demanded he come with her there.
After the Impression, Robinton falls asleep from exhaustion, and Silvina immediately clears his room to let him get some natural sleep. Lord Groghe and Sebell and Menolly and Silvina talk briefly. Menolly makes a favorable impression, and he remarks to Silvina that she's a well-spoken girl, and that he's never trusted other people's opinions and never will. Menolly realizes that the girls from the cot are trying to besmirch her reputation in the Hold. She's furious, but Silvina - equally angry - tells her to let it be and let others handle it.
(There are several types of dragons and firelizards. In descending social rank, these are: golds / queens - fertile females, who lay many eggs at once; bronzes - the largest males, who mate the queens; browns - next largest males, who mate the greens; greens - females, dragons are infertile, firelizards are semifertile; blues - infertile males. The social gap from golds to bronzes is the largest. Hence the awkwardness of the Masterharper Impressing a bronze and his journeyman Impressing a gold. The masterharper doesn't mind, but Menolly later found herself squelching rumors.)
There's a Gather on the restday (one restday a week, which typically hosts a Gather in Fort Hold, weather and Thread permitting.) A Gather is basically a combination of small markets and town fair. All sorts of merchants display their wares instead of making more wares, merchants from nearby come into the main Hold, some arrangements are made for entertainment (here that's Harper Hall's responsibility, and Fort Hold probably has the best entertainment in its Gathers anywhere), people sell food, and so on.
The Masterharper gives Menolly money to spend in the Gather. Menolly's friend Piemur (a young boy who's been at the Harper Hall for some years because he was taken in early due to his wonderful soprano voice) points out this means Menolly's the Masterharper's personal apprentice, and the two go off to the Gather together. They wind up in a brawl in the Gather when the leader of the girls, Pona, accuses her of stealing money that had been given to her by Masterharper Robinton. Pona makes the mistake of making a formal accusation that Menolly had tripped her and sicced the fire lizards on her. Robinton promtly sends everyone on Pona's side of the brawl (easily distinguishable by the fire lizard scratches) back to their rooms and speaks to a neutral witness. (He doesn't send Menolly or her allies away - not only does he have an excellent idea whose fault it is, Menolly and friends have too little influence to cause trouble for contradictory witnesses.) After the neutral witness explained what had happened, the masterharper sent Pona home.
Menolly sang and played at the Gather at the Masterharper's orders, much to the crowd's delight, though she was later rebuked by the Voice Master for having sung in public without his permission. (He accepted her apology on the grounds that he hadn't told her she was never to sing in public without his permission.)
In and amidst the events of the plot, Menolly also selects a guitar from a collection of mostly unplayable ones, makes a drum, is tested on musical theory, is trained by the Voice Master (daily lessons, though events interfere with some, much to his displeasure) impresses the Composition Master with her instrumental capacity and joins his quartet, polishes the song she wrote, and makes several copies of various songs.
She helps Audiva do some private practice, and a dragonrider from Benden Weyr appeared with the boots they'd started making at Bendon just before Menolly left.
At lunch, as the remaining girls give Menolly and her one girl friend Audiva the cold shoulder and gloat aloud to each other about the trouble Pona will make for Menolly, everyone is taken by surprise as Menolly is abruptly promoted to journeywoman - the first Harpercraft Journeywoman in some time.
Dragondrums
Menolly is a supporting character in Dragondrums, as her friend Piemur has become the protagonist. She shows up in the first chapter as Piemur's (wonderful soprano which had him apprenticed early) voice breaks and sympathizes with him, then takes him to the Masterharper and participates in the discussion as Robinton explains to Piemur that Piemur will become the Masterharper's errand boy with a cover of one of the drum apprentices.
(Drums, in addition to a musical instrument, are a method of communication on Pern. There's a code called drum measures which the Halls and Holds use to communicate with each other, using huge drums and a relay system. It's the third fastest means of communication after the experimental telegraph, and dragons and firelizards.)
Menolly then became Piemur's mentor as well as his friend. He's been in the Harper Hall longer, but she's older and has been a journeywoman for years, where he's still an apprentice. He accompanied her (and/or Sebell) to Gathers and an Impression at Benden Weyr. Menolly punished one of Piemur's fellow drum apprentices for insulting her (implying she used her rank to get Piemur out of work and discipline - punishment was socially necessary.) When the conflict between Piemur and the other drum apprentices spiraled out of control and Piemur was hurt in a life-threatening prank, Menolly was one of the people to help him in the infirmary, not embarasing Piemur by helping more than necessary.
When Piemur vanishes under circumstances that suggest he's been taken to the mostly-wilderness Southern continent, Menolly takes Sebell there in a small ship. On the way, Sebell's queen Kimi goes into heat. Since there aren't any other firelizards nearby, Menolly refrains from sending her pair of bronzes away, and Diver mates Kimi. Since firelizards are empathically linked to the humans who have Impressed them, Menolly and Sebell are (as expected) lost in the experience and also mate each other. It's clear that this was something they both wanted ... but didn't want to have happened while all but possessed by their firelizards. At least not the first time.
Menolly and Sebell arrive at Southern Hold and compare notes with Toric, the Southern Holder. He's helpful but disrespectful (at least, until Menolly reminds him she lived Holdless for some months as a teenager) and they eventually get Piemur to surface to answer a drum call.
The White Dragon
Menolly was an occasional helpful confident to the protagonist, Jaxon, if one who was occasionally irritating for her tendency to turn everything into song. By then she had Impressed a tenth firelizard, bronze Pol, by accident. (It hatched in her hands as she was passing it to an irritating kid of rank, and she's attractive enough to the firelizards that it simply Impressed.)
When Masterharper Robinton retires after a nearly-fatal heart attack, she suggests the then-empty cove on the southern continent that he retires to. When Jaxom has a brainstorm and tries to leave first thing in the morning to explore what turns out (though not clear to the characters till much later) to be the starship landing site, she intercepts him in the morning - she and her firelizards are living in the same compound, and it's hard to keep a secret from all eleven of them.
All the Weyrs of Pern
The Pernese unearth a computer called AIVAS. It starts restoring some technology to the planet. (Their ancestors wanted to set up an agricultural society, but they didn't intend it to be a low-tech as it wound up being - that was due to not knowing about Thread.) Menolly's one of the people who speak to it and who spread pro-technology propaganda.
The Dolphins of Pern
Menolly had become a Master Harper (a master harper, not the master harper) before this book started. She's one of the people opening communications with the dolphins, who call her Nolly and like her songs a lot.
Point in Canon:
I would like to take her from between Dragonsinger and Dragondrums, much closer to the period of Dragonsinger. If this is not allowed, I will take her from immediately after the end of Dragonsinger; her age changes to 15.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: NA
Character Personality:
Menolly is a polite, somewhat shy girl who is prone to self-doubt in spite of an intellectual awareness of her (considerable) capabilities. She is slow to anger and prefers to avoid conflict, but is willing to stand up for herself and her friends when she's forced to it. She is fond of music - hearing and making it - to the point of addiction, takes responsibility for her firelizards, and will stand up for her friends (though that's moot until she gets some here.) She's adaptable, having lived in three different sub-societies in her home world, plus alone in the wilderness (and a good thing too, given how different Pern is from Siren's Port.) She defaults to respect for authority figures, especially those who protect others, but is keenly aware of the damage an abusive or ignorant authority can do.
Menolly's innate nature makes her curious, creative, and fond of music. Her Hold upbringing left her with respect for tradition (if not as much as her parents would have liked), respect for her elders, respect for authority figures, a reverence for the dragonriders who protect Pern in particular, a hefty dose of thriftiness, a low sense of self-worth, and a lot of perserverence. Being singled out by the Hold Harper, Petiron, reinforced her love of music and taught her the value of practice.
She grew up a misfit - more curious, more musical, and living in a larger mental world than the rest of the Hold simply by having something in her mind beyond daily life and plans for the next season. Even when Petiron was alive, she grew so used to being lonely that she stopped noticing it. Yes, there was only Petiron who understood her properly and her brother Alemi who understood enough to see when she hurt. But there'd only ever been Petiron who understood and Alemi who partly understood.
Menolly's respect for authority figures, though still above a modern teen's, decreases before she leaves home. Her father punished her disproportionately to the offense at hand (singing her own songs in front of the children - she got caught up by the tune in her head.) Her mother forbade her from singing loudly enough to be heard in group sings, while her sister sang off-tune and very loudly. The latter wasn't intended as a punishment, just to keep her away from the new Harper's notice. This made it all the worse: she can't trust her parents not to hurt her accidentally because they don't understand her needs.
When she decides to remain apart from her home Hold, Menolly loses a lot of her respect for tradition -- she's voluntarily accepting one of the harshest punishments that can be handed out, and with her firelizards for company she finds it a distinct improvement over Hold life. She gains a sense of independence. And, though she doesn't realize it herself, she gains a sense of actions and consequences -- it's no longer that things must be done due to orders in general, out of love and respect for one authority figure, or out of fear of another. Instead, she's living alone in the wilderness, responsible not only for her own well-being but for nine animals, and the actions she takes or fails to take bring prompt consequences. This teaches her a sense of personal responsibility which her parents (if they acknowledged her existence) would have been pleased to see.
The next shock to Menolly's sense of herself and the way the world worked came when she was caught out during Threadfall a second time, and this time seen by a dragon and taken to Benden Weyr. At home, she'd been one Seaholder among many -- quick with her hands and a useful worker, when her attention was focused, but the only way in which she stood out was musically and that was an embarrassment. She was the Holder's own daughter, yes, but she was the Holder's youngest, and her older sister was far more socially adept. By contrast, at Benden Weyr she immediately stood out as a Holder who didn't panic (or more precisely, took appropriate action in the midst of her panic) when outside during Threadfall, who had the pain tolerance to keep running on badly lacerated feet until safe, who didn't panic from dragons, and who the dragon rescuing her liked. These are qualities valuable to the Weyr, and the compatibility with dragons is uncommon outside Weyrfolk.
So Menolly is taken aback by being assured that she can stay. She's more surprised when the Weyrfolk find out about her firelizards are discovered and she's told bluntly that she belongs here, a message reinforced when a dragon whose rider takes her as a passenger regards her intently and the rider asks her why she wasn't found on Search. [Search = the dragonriders go looking for potential dragonriders, who will try to bond with the dragons when they hatch. It's an honor to be selected as a candidate, and even if you fail to Impress you're welcome to stay at the Weyr; while it's never made explicit, they want your genes for the next generation.] This is a continuing shock to her system during her stay with the Weyr: her home Hold regards the Weyrfolk, especially the dragonriders, with great respect, and here she is among the support system for the planet's protectors being more respected and better treated than she ever was at home. The experience ... doesn't quell Menolly's fierce self-doubt, but it helps, and it gives her a sense that there are people and places which won't hurt her.
Menolly briefly objects to going to Harper Hall, even though it's what she's wanted for years. Her pretexts were that her hand is damaged (intense self-doubt) and that she'd been told she belonged here (grabbing at the people who treat her decently and a place where she's not a total misfit.) When he overcomes her objections, she's pleased to come.
Once at the Harper Hall, Menolly is suddenly in an environment where her musical talents are not only accepted (as they were in the Weyr) but actively pursued, and she blossoms in an environment where people value music as much as she does. As an apprentice she's still a misfit - she doesn't do chores like the other apprentices, and she receives daily lessons, some of them private, with Craftmasters. But for once in her life being a misfit gives her what she wants: even more music than the other apprentices. The lesson begins to sink in that it's not bad to be different. (Not that on an intellectual level she'd thought that it was, but when she'd been pounded down her whole life for being different, on an emotional level it feels bad.)
There, in a supportive environment, she finally proves willing to engage in direct conflict with other peole when forced into it -- in the form of a starting brawl at the fair, initially highly outnumbered, rather than let one of the local bullies hurt her friend and steal the money the Masterharper gave her.
A year in the Harper Hall will have added to her self-confidence, but suddenly finding herself in yet another new environment, this time one where a substantial number of people dislike her just for being there, will reduce it again. She is somewhat more socially adept after a year at Harper Hall than she was at the end of Dragonsinger.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: NA
Character Plans:
I'd like to get Menolly somewhat involved in school awkwardness -- she's very well-educated in her own cultural idiom, but in ours she has an eighth grade education in spots and a BA (maybe even an MA) in others. I also think that her firelizards should cause complications with SERO -- she's got a breeding pair of telepathy teleporting imprinting-at-birth animals. She'll know this is trouble, if not how much trouble, but she'll also know she's never going to keep nine firelizards, five of which sing, quiet. Some CR with other musical types would be nice.
Appearance/PB:
Tall, somewhat thin girl with dark hair. (The covers for Menolly conflict, one of the later books describes her as having dark hair.)
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[The teenage girl in the video has a black eye, a bruise on her cheek, and a bruise around her wrist. Less obviously, she's been crying but has taken the time to blow her nose, wash her face, etc.]
Hello. [She swallows nervously.] The Greeters told me I could go ask the network questions, and I have several
First, is there any way I could get a guitar? I don't have much money. [She lifts what had been a guitar into view. It's wood and accoustic. The head is caved in, as if someone had banged it into the wall with great force. The fretboard is dented where someone had gripped it with superhuman strength.] Something like this. Or, where could I get the wood and glues and strings and use of tools to make one.
How much is a guitar like this worth here? The discipline master was angry that I couldn't tell her how much a Mark was worth in dollars. And I really can't - it depends on what you"re buying, and some things you buy with dollars here aren't put in money back home. She said I would have to find out what the guitar is worth, then. [She looks at the wreck of a guitar and hesitates.] She knows it sounds sweet. She said I was a good player and should look for a real job and told me not to busk within five blocks of the school and gave me detention.
And finally, how do I get out of the school for people who haven't learned as much as they're supposed to for their age? Even apart from the bullies, they go so slow there, I'd never catch up.
Third Person Sample
"No, sir," the girl said. The winged lizard on her shoulder was glaring balefully at the man she had just interrupted.
"I can get you a very attractive offer," the man assured her.
"Sir, it doesn't matter how much you offer me for one of my fire lizards. I Impressed them. I can't sell any of them. It's like - " she sags - "oh, you don't have dragons here either. Well, it's like a little NV channel between our minds. Our minds are tied."
"Tied forever?"
"Well, sir, we don't know as much about firelizards as we'd like to, but dragonriders often commit suicide if their dragon dies, and dragons always commit suicide if their rider dies. Please excuse me, I need to do several things and still get home before Sirens." She scooped the money out of her guitar case into a belt pouch, placed the guitar in it, slung it across her back, and headed away at a fast walk.
Additional Third Person Sample #1
"No, ma'am, I have no idea who would have sent me a death threat."
"Why would someone send you a death threat, then?"
Menolly blinked. [They hate or want my firelizards? I'm a Newcomer? I make more money busking than some of their parents get paid? I'm actually learning in school? I don't have to cope with parents - and I still won't sleep with the boys? Where do I start that she won't blame me for?] "Well, ma'am, I don't actually know what makes people send death threats. I know that some students are unhappy that I'm new to what are normal schools here, and progressing through the small groups faster than they are."
"This is hardly a normal school," the old woman said dryly. "Be thankful - if it was, you'd either be trying to cope with college freshman math, or high school freshman English."
"Yes, ma'am. I like this better than the school I was in my first week." [College? Freshman? Dictionary, later.]
"But apart from that discursion - is there any reason apart from normal teenage jealousy that someone would dislike you?"
Menolly swallowed, and said carefully, "I believe some of the students are resentful that I don't have parents to answer to, where they do." [Should I go on?] "And some of the boys expect that since I've got a room and no parents or boyfriend, I should be happy to take them - or one of them, anyway - home."
The woman's eyes narrowed, and slid over Menolly as she scowled in disapproval. [I thought trousers were normal for girls here? Or is it that she can't say I'm dressed immodestly? But - sea and stone, even if I were shameless, what they call immodest here I call cold.] "You should have told a teacher earlier. You were instructed to report harassment."
Menolly blinked. "Told a teacher what, ma'am? That the boys were being forward?" The woman's scowl deepened. Menolly hastily continued, "Nobody's done anything physical, and I don't know where pushy ends and harassment begins."
"Newcomers." The old woman sighed. "Well, Menolly, how would you cope with boys being too 'forward' at home?"
"It wouldn't happen at home, ma'am." [Ooops.] "Or perhaps I should say it wouldn't happen to me at home, so I've never had occasion to consider how to handle it. Let me think for a moment, ma'am?" [Did - yes, that appears to have successfully smoothed it over.] "At home, I'd tell one of the journeymen mentoring me, and get their advice on if I need to tell the Masterharper."
"Not your parents?"
"No, ma'am." [I'll ask my parents for help after I've been turned away by everyone else on Pern, Southern included.]
"Why not?"
"My parents and I are not on speaking terms, ma'am." [And thank goodness.]
"And why not?" The woman's scowl changed slightly.
[I hated living with them so much I lived holdless with a crippled hand.] "They think that I disgraced my home by becoming a Harper." A short pause, and Menolly added, "Not that they think Harpers are bad, they think girls aren't supposed to become Harpers. Or do much of anything besides bear children and manage the Hold. The Masterharper was - less attached to tradition, and willing to take me as an apprentice and graduate me to journeywoman after testing."
"Interesting as this discursion into your native world was, it doesn't cast any illumination on the harassment or death threat. Could you tell a teacher's aide what you would tell a senior journeyman?"
"No, ma'am." [Have you thought about the teacher's aides lately?]
A sigh. "And why not, again?"
"Ma'am, I've known Sebell and Talmor for a year, and we bonded quickly over a shared love of music and the harpercraft. I could go to them with anything I could talk to a man about. I've only just arrived here and I have very little in common with the teachers' aides." [To say the least.] "More, I don't know many of the local traditions and unwritten rules, and even where I know what the rules are and I'm certain someone's breaking them, I don't know the little cheats from the big sins. If I even once go to an adult with something that's little, I'll never smooth it over with the other kids."
The woman promptly put her forehead into her palm, massaging the headache and coincidentally hiding a sympathic look. "All right, Menolly," she said after a moment. "Handle it your way. You will anyway. But one thing -" she looked up, and her face was stern. "Keep it under control. If I, or the vice principle, have to handle a fight, or your firelizards getting out of control, prompted by ongoing misbehavior that hasn't been officially reported, all participants will be punished. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am." [Get in trouble by asking teachers to handle everything, or risk getting in trouble if anyone gets violent.] "I understand."
"Good."
Additional Third Person Sample #2
Menolly looked over the apartment. [How do they give one person so much space when Threadfall-equivalent happens every night here?] She shrugged, and started filling her bottles. "The cistern has a spigot in every room?" She closed her eyes and re-estimated the size of the building. "No, it's not that," she said aloud. [A cistern the size of the roof wouldn't hold that much water, and would break the roof as well.]
Beauty chirruped. "Just figuring the plumbing isn't the sort we have at home any more than the lights are glows," Menolly told her. Another noise, and the lizard rubbed a dusty head against Menolly's hand. "Almost done," the girl told her.
The last bottle full, Menolly went to the fresher to empty her bladder. She picked up the bucket and read "For flushing toilet after Sirens. Fill with water from shower before Sirens. After using toilet normally without flushing, pour entire bucket at once into toilet." [I'm glad I'm not expected to just use the bucket itself. What am I supposed to do before Sirens? I'll try the instructions as written.]
That done, Menolly considered the bathtub. Two inches of water and one of the cups was enough to wash the worst of the Igen sand and grit off herself and her friends, and still drained quickly. Refilling the tub to soak in hot water, she was nearly dozing when the nightfall alarm sounded. And kept sounding, and sounding. Her friends dove into the water to muffle the sound, and Menolly pressed her forefingers in her ears and her thumbs into her bones. Stay inside! Menolly ordered, grimacing at the incredible din.
Finally the sound ended, and Menolly stood, dripping out of the tub. [I can see, at least. They didn't tell me not to open the curtains. One improvement over Threadfall, I guess.]
There wasn't much to be seen out the window - the sky darker than it should have been, the night birds completely hidden. Menolly padded back to the tub and got back into the warm water. [Should have heated it up when the klaxon went off. Too late now.]
When the water cooled off, Menolly dried herself hastily, rinsed her shirt and underthings in the bucket, and left them to dry on the towel rack. A washcloth dipped into the bathtub and wrung over the sink repeatly got her trousers, jacket, and boots almost clean. "What do you think, Beauty?" the naked girl asked, surveying the clothes she'd have to wear again tomorrow.
The gold lizard chirped in confusion. Menolly laughed. "Okay, fair enough - I didn't expect you to start caring about clothing. Well, I think I've done everything I can and it's time to take my mind off my troubles."
She squatted down and took a clean guitar out of a filthy case. [I can clean it more easily if I start with a dry cloth.] Sitting down on the bed, she picked up a folder of papers. "Actually," she decided, putting them back down, "let's start with old favorites."
Player Information
Name: Elizabeth Creegan
Age: 40
AIM SN: booksbeth
email: ecreegan@pobox.com
Have you played in an LJ based game before? Only this one
Currrently Played Characters: frosty_mind
Conditional: Activity Check Link: Here
Conditional: Official Reserve Link: Here
Character Information
General Canon Source: Pern
Canon Format: Books
Character's Name: Menolly
Character's Age: 16
Conditional: If your character is 13 years of age or under, please clarify how they will be played. NA
What form will your character's NV take?
A sheaf of papers in a folder. It can be activated by sequences of notes, by writing on the paper, or simply by pulling the appropriate piece of paper out and speaking. The papers aren't apparently connected, but somehow they always wind up back in the folder or vanishing, and any paper put in the NV takes the part of something destroyed/absent.
Abilities
Character's Canon Abilities:
Menolly starts off life as a Seaholder's daughter. Apart from her musicality, she seems to be a tomboy and spends a lot of time away from the safety of the Hold. Her interpersonal skills are weak when she starts out, but she seems otherwise able to do anything you'd expect someone from a low technology fishing culture - male or female - do. We see her fish, gather plants and other food, make tools out of what she finds on the shore items, swim, sail, mend clothes, cook, climb cliffs, run (at a pace which is remarked on as rapid) and so on.
At a young age, the local musician (Harper) took her as an (informal) apprentice and taught her to the best of his considerable ability. As of Dragonsinger she can sight-read music, has the traditional ballads and the teaching songs memorized, has a mostly-untrained but good singing voice, is fair to excellent at several instruments (only fair at the straight horn, but very good to excellent on the harp and excellent at panpipes and guitar; she clearly knows how to use a drum but there's no indication of how good she is at it.) She made journeyman-grade drum and multiple pipes on screen and indicated she knew the theory for how to make other instruments but doesn't have the practice.
If I can play Menolly from a time period after Dragonsinger, she'll have been taught more of how to be a Harper. Almost all of this will be musical: she'll have another year's practice with the instruments, a year's voice coaching lessons, will have actually made a guitar, and so on. She'll probably also have had some lessons in diplomacy.
Extrapolation: given that she knows all of the Teaching Songs by heart, Menolly knows the theory for how to do a little of a very wide variety of things. Apart from lacking practice at anything besides seaholding and harpering (two very broad categories), there are a lot of craft secrets. But she while she's never tanned leather (she picked from several prepared hides to make her drum) she could probably sing you a song on how to do simple tanning.
[Edit add: anything Menolly knows from Teaching Songs would be moot on Siren's Port (e.g. history and laws of Pern, uses of plants not present, some low-tech adaptations which are unneeded in a high-tech environment but which anyone with appropriate technical knowledge could come up with if he bothered) or information commonly available in modern reference materials.]
She has whatever quality the dragonriders do which strengthens the psychic connection between dragon and rider. It's not clear exactly what this is -- some sort of latent telepathy or xeno-telepathy. She has no psychic powers in her own right, but the telepathic dragons and firelizards are able to make an easier or deeper connection with her.
She also Impressed (made a psychic connection with) nine firelizards. The firelizards are telepathic, but don't seem to understand human minds well. They also teleport, and can carry small very small items. However, they're still animals - they don't make reliable messengers. They probably are reliable at coming when their person is in danger, and their talons are sharp, but they're small animals (the largest has been known to hide under Menolly's hair) and a lot better at defense than offense.
I don't think the firelizards would be playable characters. All we see them doing is eating, singing, running away from things, defending Menolly (usually from social problems where their intervention just makes things worse), picking up panic from an actual telepath and/or other firelizards, occasionally carry messages (not that I recall Menolly's doing so, but she was the expert - if anyone could she could if it mattered), and once bring her multiple pipes to her when she was unwilling to get them and needed them. She can usually get them to answer simple questions, and they're bright for animals (Beauty might be as bright as a small child) but their ability to communicate with most people is limited, and they rarely initiate actions.
Conditional: If your character has no superhuman canon abilities, what dormant ability will you give them?
Menolly has effectively no superhuman abilities unless you count the firelizards, which are really more of a pet. If you want me to play them up as a superhuman ability, I can do that. I would prefer to keep them lower-key and give her a superhuman ability. I was thinking shapeshifting -- Menolly winds up healing from a lot. Say the knife did cut through her tendon, but she shifted back to partly well.
[Edit Add: I would rather not use the firelizards as a superhuman power because in canon they don't work that way: they do little things, but mostly they're chrome. In canon, they're not reliable enough, and perhaps not intelligent enough - it's unclear - to be much of a power. If you want me to use them as a power, I'll come up with some Core-related rationalization for why they're different here.]
The way this would work is that Menolly would have a mental image and transform into it. This provides a good deal of healing as she transforms from image to image, but she she acquires a scar, it becomes part of that mental image and she keeps it. The images have to be distinct - she might have one of a girl her size but with red hair, and another of a tiny girl with red hair, but she couldn't have two forms that would match the same (even very general) description. All sorts of little things that aren't clear enough to stick out and become part of the mental image do stick with her from form to form within the species/subspecies: her fingerprints and retinal prints are approximately the same, her smell is similar, her biological aura is different but recognizable, and so on. She could change species (in fact, it's likely she would start off by becoming a firelizard) but only to a species/subspecies she's familiar with.
She does acquire powers when shapeshifting, but she can't control her shapeshifting well enough to pick up a specific person's powers unless they're species/subspecies-wide, or subject to objective criteria that she can mimic (if male HypotheticalSpecies had power X and female HypotheticalSpecies had power Y, she could mimic X in one form and Y in the other.) If powers exist in a species but are unusual, she won't pick them up. If a species/subspecies often has powers but different ones, she'll get a random set of powers in that species/subspecies form, and that'll become part of the things which are too unconscious to shapeshift (i.e. if she successfully turns into a mutant, she'll get a random selection of powers, but then any mutant form she turns into will get the same selection of powers. (Also, if she shapeshifts into a species with shapeshifting, she does not gain additional shapeshifting powers.)
Menolly would familiarize herself with species/subspecies by touching at least one member of them for some period of time. It doesn't have to be an intentional process.
At the start, she'd be familiar with several species from Pern. The only ones which have powers are firelizards and dragons, who are closely related - dragons are smarter and bigger. That involves teleportation and a certain amount of telepathy. Firelizards: pick up on minds anywhere nearby and get surface emotions. Dragons: can do intentional communication with willing people. Beyond that requires a psychic link (dragon and rider) or a telepath on the other side. Teleportation: disappear into nothingness, reappear at the place (*and time*) of the image chosen when you vanish. Since canonically dragons can teleport cross-time and I don't want to deal or make anyone else deal, I would say that the Core won't let Menolly or her firelizards go to any time other than exactly when she left, which means she/they can't go to a different time, but that going between and returning without aiming at a specific time takes no time, instead of a few seconds.
If you don't mind shapeshifting but think that's a bit much, maybe just change into a firelizard or a dragon? [Edit Add: I mean, one shape of each.]
Weapons: Belt knife
History/Personality/Plans/etc.
Character History:
Summary
Menolly was a seaholder who was informally apprenticed by the Hold's Harper (teacher/ entertainer musician) at a young age and taught everything he could. The Sea Hold was a gender-restricted place, harpering was man's work, and when the harper died, Menolly was put under enough pressure to run away. She acquired nine firelizards and was taken in briefly by the dragonriders.
When the Masterharper finally found out she was Petiron's apprentice, he took her to Harper Hall in spite of the societal pressure (he's the head of the harpers, and the crafts are independent: he can do that.) There the masters graduated her to journeywoman as soon as they'd placed her standard and had her fulfill the formalities (residence in-hall being an exception, waived as per pre-existing custom when the apprentice was serving under a competent journeyman elsewhere.)
She goes on to have a successful career as a Harper, further graduating to the rank of master in one of the later books. Harpers are musicians and entertainers, but also educators, propagandists, and diplomats.
Early history
Menolly is the youngest daughter of Yanus, the Holder of Half-Circle Sea Hold. She was strongly musically inclined and attracted the attention of the Hold's Harper at a young age. (The Harpers are a Craft, more-or-less a guild, and while Petiron had to give considerable deference to the desires of hs host/employer, he was ultimately loyal to and answerable to Harper Hall and the MasterHarper.) As the Hold's Harper, Petiron taught all the youngsters the basics everyone needed to know. He singled Menolly out for special instruction.
Petiron taught Menolly all the standard music, to play several instruments, musical theory, basics of singing, the theory of how to make instruments, composition theory and practice, and in fact everything that an apprentice Harper would be expected to know. In his letters home, he described Menolly as his apprentice, and enclosed some songs she'd written. He did not mention her name, rank, or gender in these; there hadn't been a female Harper in generations. (The current MasterHarper was the sort to make exceptions, and Petiron knew it, but he was sufficiently determined not to use the fact that his son was MasterHarper that he had himself assigned to an obscure sea Hold instead of a more comfortable Hold.)
As Petiron aged, Menolly took over playing his instruments for him and providing more assistance for him. This was all well and good with her family -caring for an old man was a proper task for a young lady, there was nothing wrong with playing instruments under supervision, the old man had worked for the Hold for decades and had earned the help he was receiving with his duties. They didn't approve of Menolly "tuning" (composing) but with a Harper supervising they weren't concerned. And from Menolly's point of view, if she was horribly lonely she'd been so for her entire life so she didn't notice, and she was spending her time doing things she loved, with a person she loved.
Dragonsong
Menolly's troubles began with Petiron's death. She played his funeral dirge. This was irregular - the funeral dirge should have been played by someone of higher rank - but she was by far the best musician left in the Hold and Petiron's closest contact, and it was unusual but not improper.
What was improper, and embarassing to the Hold, was that Menolly stepped into Petiron's shoes for some months. Pern is a generally low-tech society, and travel that's not on dragonback takes time. Before a replacement Harper could arrive, the news of Petiron's death had to reach Harper Hall, they had to choose a journeyman, and the journeyman had to walk or ride a runnerbeast to the shore, then sail to Half-Circle. This was far too long to leave the children without education - and having a woman, let alone a girl, teach the children was improper. More, it was embarassing as it indicated the Hold didn't have a man or older boy who was available and qualified. However, the Hold didn't have a qualified younger man and the Sea Holder didn't want to spare an older man to do something that a girl who had no current duties was more than capable of. So Menolly got the job, and everyone in the Hold was told to tell any outsiders that the children had been taught by a fosterling who had been sent home. And Menolly was given the use of Petiron's instruments, but given strict orders not to sing or play anything other than the traditional songs where anyone could hear her.
The students were well-taught, but Menolly's life went from lonely to oppressed. She was expected to do more traditional female jobs after teaching the children, and she had neither as much skill as expected (having been diverted into musical training) nor the inclination for it. More, she occasionally found herself composing on the fly, and was beaten like a boy when caught by her father doing so in front of the children. She also lost the use of Petiron's instruments over this, and regretted that more than the collection of bruises.
Menolly wasn't excused from Hold-wide callouts in order to teach the children, and on one occasion when a ship brought back a huge load of fish, she badly cut her left hand gutting packtail. The slice nicked her tendon, the slime infected the wound, Menolly became delirious and unaware, and for some days they were afraid she would lose the hand. But the infection cleared up and they bandaged the hand.
Menolly believes to this day that her mother deliberately tried to let her hand heal with a drawn scar so that she wouldn't be able to play anything which requires both hands. Strictly speaking, this is wrong - the readers see the scene from within Mavin's head, who honestly believed Menolly had cut the tendon clear through, and felt terrible hearing her delirious daughter bed to be allowed to play again. However, Mavin's normally a better healer than that, and no one in the Hold gave Menolly any follow-up care once the infection cleared up. If it's not true that her family deliberately tried to cripple Menolly's off-hand, they certainly didn't engage in normal steps to try to save it.
Forbidden from much music, unable to do others with a damaged hand, Menolly started spending much of her time outside the Hold gathering food besides fish. This was more of a boy's occupation than a girl's, but it was something acceptable for anyone able and willing to scramble up and down the cliffs. Menolly had to take it easy at first with the one hand, but as the hand healed she used it somewhat. This stretched the scar more than protecting the hand would have done, and began a chain of events salvaging her ability to use that hand.
While outside singing and gathering food, Menolly met a fire lizard queen. Fire lizards are telepathic, teleporting animals indigenous to Pern (which humans aren't but have largely forgotten this.) At first fire lizards had contact with humans, but they became scared off thousand of years ago. With their abilities, fire lizards have successfully avoided humans to the point where humans thought they were myths. At first, for unclear reasons, the fire lizard queen didn't want to let Menolly leave. Menolly successfully explained that if she didn't leave before the (unusually high) tide came in, the water would drown her. The queen then led Menolly to her clutch of eggs, also endangered by the water (because the water would be too cold for them, not because the eggs needed air.) Menolly carried the eggs back to a cave on a ledge the queen pointed out, with help from the queen, and the queen and several smaller fire lizards started rolling the eggs down into a small (seeming) cave through a tunnel too small for Menolly. The eggs safe from both the water and the girl, she was allowed to depart.
Menolly didn't tell anyone about the encounter, partly because no one would believe her and partly to respect the fire lizards' privacy. She did compose a song about the experience and left it in Petiron's belongings, along with another song or two.
When the new Harper, Elgion, arrived, things went from bad to worse for Menolly. The entire Hold conspired to keep her involvement in music a secret from the new Harper, and her mother wouldn't let her even sing in chorus above a whisper. She spent more and more time away from the Hold and was eventually caught out when she didn't realize Thread was due that day.
(Thread is a sort of voracious spore that falls from the sky in clumps about every week for fifty years, then doesn't occur for another two (sometimes four) hundred years. Where it lands it devours everything living. The high-tech colonialists who landed on Pern genetically engineered dragons from fire lizards. When Thread occurs, dragons chew phospheme-bearing rock ("firestone") and burn it up before it reaches the ground. Some Thread usually gets through, and then the burrows are burnt out. Being caught out during Threadfall is very dangerous and is perceived to be a death sentence unless you can get to shelter.)
Menolly was too far away from the Hold to make it home before Thread reached her. She headed for the ledge with the fire lizard clutch, intending to try to make it into the cave. After multiple attempts, she succeeded, to find the eggs starting to hatch. The first fire lizards hatched starving, instinctively took flight, and were killed by the Thread falling outside. Menolly had already been gathering food and gave it to the hatchling fire lizards, feeding all of them enough to keep them inside the cave and singling several of them out for special attention. When Threadfall ended, the mother queen led her brood and several older fire-lizards out of the cave, leaving Menolly alone. Exhausted, Menolly ate the food she'd packed for herself and collapsed.
When she woke the next morning, nine of the baby fire-lizards had returned and were with her, creeling to be fed. Menolly's Hold life had become unbearable, she was likely in for another beating for having left the Hold doors unbarred (taboo even when it doesn't matter, and having done so today could have let Thread in if the doors hadn't been closed in time), and she'd just survived Threadfall in the cave. She decided not to return, becoming Holdless.
Menolly managed survive and to care for her fire-lizards for some time. Without any assistance beyond baby animals, she had to use her injured hand more and more. While this hurt, it was probably ultimately the largest reason her hand was salvageable once she received medical care. She made herself a set of multiple pipes and found she was able to play them. The fire lizards enjoyed music and started to accompany her in descants.
[Life went on elsewhere. Harper Elgion became friends with Menolly's brother - the only person in the Hold at all close to Menolly - and figured out that Menolly had been Petiron's apprentice. The existence of fire lizards became public knowledge. Masterharper Robinson polished up Menolly's songs and sent them all over the continent both because they were useful and in hopes that Petiron's apprentice would surface to his own music.]
Some months later when the fire lizards were somewhat grown, Menolly got caught out in Threadfall again - without a connection to a Hold, or indeed any humans, she didn't have the Threadfall listed. This time she was nowhere near shelter, and she ran.
Dragons have very sharp eyes, and one of the dragons fighting the Threadfall Menolly had been fleeing spotted her running. He landed, his rider pulled Menolly onto the dragon, and the dragon and rider teleported (went Between - three seconds of nothingness and then you're elsewhere) to the dragon's home, Benden Weyr.
(The Weyrs are where the dragons and riders live. The Holds and Crafts tithe to the Weyrs, who protect the planet from Threadfall. Holds, Crafts, and Weyrs are all rather different sub-societies.)
Menolly tried to dismount and immediately clutched at the dragon to hold herself up - now that she was safe, she realized that not only had she run the soles off her boots, she had given herself deep cuts all over her feet. They gave her a tranquilizer and carted her off to sleep.
When Menolly woke she was assured by headwoman Manora that she can stay as long as she likes and asked who she is. She identified herself, Manora recognized her family's names, she begged the headwoman not to contact her family, and the headwoman agreed.
[The headwoman is in charge of day-to-day life and answers to the senior Weyrwoman. If Manora says Menolly can stay, only the senior Weyrwoman and perhaps the Weyrleader (military leader / in charge against Thread) could override her, and if the Weyrleader did so it would be a slight on the Weyrwoman.
Extrapolation: the Weyr isn't a charity, not everyone is welcome to stay indefinitely. In this case, the dragons liked Menolly, she didn't panic when dealing with them, she made the best of her poor survival odds when trapped in Threadfall, she had the pain tolerance to keep going on lacerated feet, and she was young enough to be adaptable. That would have been all Manora knew, but it was evidently enough. Benden Weyr was still expanding its responsibilities. They didn't get many people outside of formal Searches for potential riders, and if Menolly wanted to stay, she's already proven had the makings of a Weyr worker, possibly a dragonrider's mate.]
Menolly rapidly settles in at the Weyr while urging her fire lizards to hide. She makes friends with a girl named Mirrim, fosterling to Brekke, and the secondwoman (headwoman's second-in-command) openly regretted that Menolly was too old to be fostered; she would have liked to be Menolly's foster-mother.
She's happy there - she isn't being forbidden to make music, and while she still thinks of song creation as something she mustn't get caught at, she realizes no one here knows all of the songs from home; if she hums or sings her own work no one will know it. In rapid succession, it comes out both that she has nine fire lizards and that she knows the location of another clutch. A bronze rider takes her to collect any belongings from the cave and find the eggs.
Meanwhile, Menolly's feet heal rapidly and everyone with healing skills who see her using her left hand asks who bungled the wound's healing. Menolly evades the question and blames packtail slime as hard to treat, but grows even more unhappy with her home Hold.
The Weyr's harper prevails on Menolly to sing some of her melody variations. He doesn't know all the songs of her home Hold either, but remarks that she has a good singing voice and sense of pitch.
There's a major event at the Weyr as dragon eggs hatch, which many important people all over Pern attend, some of them given fire lizard eggs. Elgion is invited, not because he's important but because a rider to whom he's spoken several times thinks he needs to spend time outside of Half-Circle. He finds out Menolly is there and immediately goes to Masterharper Robinson (who is invited, and given two fire lizard eggs, because he's one of the most important people on Pern and an ally of Benden Weyr.)
Robinson speaks with the Weyr's harper and with the headwoman and has two lure Menolly into an admission of who she is with a rendition of one of the songs Elgion found with Petiron's belongings. Having been Holdless while the songs were being distributed, Menolly would have not otherwise known the song - and knew her original version, not the edited one Robinson had sent out across the continent.
Robinson tells Menolly she really must come back with him to Harper Hall. The objections Menolly makes as to why she can't have what she wants are rapidly shot down by the professional persuader. Since the teleporting dragons are providing transportation, and Robinton doesn't want to give Menolly more time to come up with panicked objections, the two are at Harper Hall within minutes.
Dragonsinger
When Menolly gets to Harper Hall she's near collapse, so the headwoman simply sticks her in the nearest open room. After her first night at Harper Hall, Menolly is placed in an outbuilding called a cot with the other girls her age, all but one of whom take a dislike to her, as does the cotholder, Dunca. This leads to making Composition Master Domick angry with Menolly, because everyone in the cot failed to pass on the information that Menolly was supposed to go to morning lessons with him, a misunderstanding which is cleared up when the one decent girl, Audiva, stays behind to speak up.
Menolly's firelizards enchant the kitchen drudge (retard, in this case) Camo, and fascinate all of the apprentices we meet. One of the apprentices, Piemur, manages to befriend Menolly and help Camo assist Menolly in feeding them.
After cotholder Dunca complains about Menolly's lack of a second outfit or underthings, headwoman Silvina gives Menolly a selection of clothes, promises more, and tells Menolly she'll move Menolly back to the room she stayed in that first night. Menolly complains that the room Silvina wants to put her in is too good for her, and Silvina offers mockingly to replace everything with bare bones gear. When Menolly says she'd really prefer that, Silvina points out that she was joking. Menolly points out that the furnishings really are too good for an apprentice, and Silvina starts to laugh and say that Menolly is right - replacing everything with apprentice gear will stop the others from quibbling (even though Menolly's probably the only apprentice in the Hall with a room to herself.) She replaces the gear and moves Menolly into a room near the Hall Masters outfitted for an apprentice.
Menolly has a panic attack caused by her firelizards, waking most or all of the Masters she's now lodged near. At the same time, the watchdragon launches into midair and teleports somewhere, and the watchweyr (crippled noctural dragons) howls enough to wake half the Hold. After the events end, Menolly's panic passes abruptly and she tells Robinton and Silvina about the panic, a sensation of heat and pain, and a woman's voice screaming not to leave her. Silvina gives her a sedative and tells Menolly as she collapses that Lord Groghe of Fort Hold has a similar experience and has asked for the Masterharper for information. When Menolly wakes, Silvina tells her that one of the dragonriders went to scout the source of Thread, and she heard his lover - one of the rare women who can speak to all dragons, and who has already lost a queen dragon - screaming at him to return. The dragon launched himself to help catch the unconscious dragon and rider, who had teleported back miles high.
Silvina sends Menolly to check on the Masterharper's firelizard eggs. Menolly decides that the eggs should be watched constantly until they Hatch, and arrangements are promptly made for Menolly and Sebell (the Masterharper's junior journeyman, who is to receive one of the two eggs) to rehearse there. Nevertheless, Menolly annoys the Voice Master by being late to her lesson while Sebell is fetched. The next day Domick lets Menolly practice under Sebell's supervision in front of the eggs. After some practice, Sebell goes off briefly to do an errand.
As Menolly rehearses without him, one of the chords sounds like the scream she heard in her mind when the firelizards practice. She composes a song from there, to find Sebell has returned while she was wrapt in composition, and has written the song down. As he goes over the music with her, the Masterharper joins them. She's apologetic that she was just tuning, but neither man will have any of it: yes, the song still needs work, but being able to put together a decent rough draft quickly is precisely why the Harpers looked for her. Before the discussion concludes the firelizard eggs hatch. Both Robinton and Sebell successfully Impress, albeit with a slight social complication in that the journeyman Impressed the queen firelizard. Lord Groghe shows up just before the eggs actually open, his firelizard having demanded he come with her there.
After the Impression, Robinton falls asleep from exhaustion, and Silvina immediately clears his room to let him get some natural sleep. Lord Groghe and Sebell and Menolly and Silvina talk briefly. Menolly makes a favorable impression, and he remarks to Silvina that she's a well-spoken girl, and that he's never trusted other people's opinions and never will. Menolly realizes that the girls from the cot are trying to besmirch her reputation in the Hold. She's furious, but Silvina - equally angry - tells her to let it be and let others handle it.
(There are several types of dragons and firelizards. In descending social rank, these are: golds / queens - fertile females, who lay many eggs at once; bronzes - the largest males, who mate the queens; browns - next largest males, who mate the greens; greens - females, dragons are infertile, firelizards are semifertile; blues - infertile males. The social gap from golds to bronzes is the largest. Hence the awkwardness of the Masterharper Impressing a bronze and his journeyman Impressing a gold. The masterharper doesn't mind, but Menolly later found herself squelching rumors.)
There's a Gather on the restday (one restday a week, which typically hosts a Gather in Fort Hold, weather and Thread permitting.) A Gather is basically a combination of small markets and town fair. All sorts of merchants display their wares instead of making more wares, merchants from nearby come into the main Hold, some arrangements are made for entertainment (here that's Harper Hall's responsibility, and Fort Hold probably has the best entertainment in its Gathers anywhere), people sell food, and so on.
The Masterharper gives Menolly money to spend in the Gather. Menolly's friend Piemur (a young boy who's been at the Harper Hall for some years because he was taken in early due to his wonderful soprano voice) points out this means Menolly's the Masterharper's personal apprentice, and the two go off to the Gather together. They wind up in a brawl in the Gather when the leader of the girls, Pona, accuses her of stealing money that had been given to her by Masterharper Robinton. Pona makes the mistake of making a formal accusation that Menolly had tripped her and sicced the fire lizards on her. Robinton promtly sends everyone on Pona's side of the brawl (easily distinguishable by the fire lizard scratches) back to their rooms and speaks to a neutral witness. (He doesn't send Menolly or her allies away - not only does he have an excellent idea whose fault it is, Menolly and friends have too little influence to cause trouble for contradictory witnesses.) After the neutral witness explained what had happened, the masterharper sent Pona home.
Menolly sang and played at the Gather at the Masterharper's orders, much to the crowd's delight, though she was later rebuked by the Voice Master for having sung in public without his permission. (He accepted her apology on the grounds that he hadn't told her she was never to sing in public without his permission.)
In and amidst the events of the plot, Menolly also selects a guitar from a collection of mostly unplayable ones, makes a drum, is tested on musical theory, is trained by the Voice Master (daily lessons, though events interfere with some, much to his displeasure) impresses the Composition Master with her instrumental capacity and joins his quartet, polishes the song she wrote, and makes several copies of various songs.
She helps Audiva do some private practice, and a dragonrider from Benden Weyr appeared with the boots they'd started making at Bendon just before Menolly left.
At lunch, as the remaining girls give Menolly and her one girl friend Audiva the cold shoulder and gloat aloud to each other about the trouble Pona will make for Menolly, everyone is taken by surprise as Menolly is abruptly promoted to journeywoman - the first Harpercraft Journeywoman in some time.
Dragondrums
Menolly is a supporting character in Dragondrums, as her friend Piemur has become the protagonist. She shows up in the first chapter as Piemur's (wonderful soprano which had him apprenticed early) voice breaks and sympathizes with him, then takes him to the Masterharper and participates in the discussion as Robinton explains to Piemur that Piemur will become the Masterharper's errand boy with a cover of one of the drum apprentices.
(Drums, in addition to a musical instrument, are a method of communication on Pern. There's a code called drum measures which the Halls and Holds use to communicate with each other, using huge drums and a relay system. It's the third fastest means of communication after the experimental telegraph, and dragons and firelizards.)
Menolly then became Piemur's mentor as well as his friend. He's been in the Harper Hall longer, but she's older and has been a journeywoman for years, where he's still an apprentice. He accompanied her (and/or Sebell) to Gathers and an Impression at Benden Weyr. Menolly punished one of Piemur's fellow drum apprentices for insulting her (implying she used her rank to get Piemur out of work and discipline - punishment was socially necessary.) When the conflict between Piemur and the other drum apprentices spiraled out of control and Piemur was hurt in a life-threatening prank, Menolly was one of the people to help him in the infirmary, not embarasing Piemur by helping more than necessary.
When Piemur vanishes under circumstances that suggest he's been taken to the mostly-wilderness Southern continent, Menolly takes Sebell there in a small ship. On the way, Sebell's queen Kimi goes into heat. Since there aren't any other firelizards nearby, Menolly refrains from sending her pair of bronzes away, and Diver mates Kimi. Since firelizards are empathically linked to the humans who have Impressed them, Menolly and Sebell are (as expected) lost in the experience and also mate each other. It's clear that this was something they both wanted ... but didn't want to have happened while all but possessed by their firelizards. At least not the first time.
Menolly and Sebell arrive at Southern Hold and compare notes with Toric, the Southern Holder. He's helpful but disrespectful (at least, until Menolly reminds him she lived Holdless for some months as a teenager) and they eventually get Piemur to surface to answer a drum call.
The White Dragon
Menolly was an occasional helpful confident to the protagonist, Jaxon, if one who was occasionally irritating for her tendency to turn everything into song. By then she had Impressed a tenth firelizard, bronze Pol, by accident. (It hatched in her hands as she was passing it to an irritating kid of rank, and she's attractive enough to the firelizards that it simply Impressed.)
When Masterharper Robinton retires after a nearly-fatal heart attack, she suggests the then-empty cove on the southern continent that he retires to. When Jaxom has a brainstorm and tries to leave first thing in the morning to explore what turns out (though not clear to the characters till much later) to be the starship landing site, she intercepts him in the morning - she and her firelizards are living in the same compound, and it's hard to keep a secret from all eleven of them.
All the Weyrs of Pern
The Pernese unearth a computer called AIVAS. It starts restoring some technology to the planet. (Their ancestors wanted to set up an agricultural society, but they didn't intend it to be a low-tech as it wound up being - that was due to not knowing about Thread.) Menolly's one of the people who speak to it and who spread pro-technology propaganda.
The Dolphins of Pern
Menolly had become a Master Harper (a master harper, not the master harper) before this book started. She's one of the people opening communications with the dolphins, who call her Nolly and like her songs a lot.
Point in Canon:
I would like to take her from between Dragonsinger and Dragondrums, much closer to the period of Dragonsinger. If this is not allowed, I will take her from immediately after the end of Dragonsinger; her age changes to 15.
Conditional: Brief summary of previous RP history: NA
Character Personality:
Menolly is a polite, somewhat shy girl who is prone to self-doubt in spite of an intellectual awareness of her (considerable) capabilities. She is slow to anger and prefers to avoid conflict, but is willing to stand up for herself and her friends when she's forced to it. She is fond of music - hearing and making it - to the point of addiction, takes responsibility for her firelizards, and will stand up for her friends (though that's moot until she gets some here.) She's adaptable, having lived in three different sub-societies in her home world, plus alone in the wilderness (and a good thing too, given how different Pern is from Siren's Port.) She defaults to respect for authority figures, especially those who protect others, but is keenly aware of the damage an abusive or ignorant authority can do.
Menolly's innate nature makes her curious, creative, and fond of music. Her Hold upbringing left her with respect for tradition (if not as much as her parents would have liked), respect for her elders, respect for authority figures, a reverence for the dragonriders who protect Pern in particular, a hefty dose of thriftiness, a low sense of self-worth, and a lot of perserverence. Being singled out by the Hold Harper, Petiron, reinforced her love of music and taught her the value of practice.
She grew up a misfit - more curious, more musical, and living in a larger mental world than the rest of the Hold simply by having something in her mind beyond daily life and plans for the next season. Even when Petiron was alive, she grew so used to being lonely that she stopped noticing it. Yes, there was only Petiron who understood her properly and her brother Alemi who understood enough to see when she hurt. But there'd only ever been Petiron who understood and Alemi who partly understood.
Menolly's respect for authority figures, though still above a modern teen's, decreases before she leaves home. Her father punished her disproportionately to the offense at hand (singing her own songs in front of the children - she got caught up by the tune in her head.) Her mother forbade her from singing loudly enough to be heard in group sings, while her sister sang off-tune and very loudly. The latter wasn't intended as a punishment, just to keep her away from the new Harper's notice. This made it all the worse: she can't trust her parents not to hurt her accidentally because they don't understand her needs.
When she decides to remain apart from her home Hold, Menolly loses a lot of her respect for tradition -- she's voluntarily accepting one of the harshest punishments that can be handed out, and with her firelizards for company she finds it a distinct improvement over Hold life. She gains a sense of independence. And, though she doesn't realize it herself, she gains a sense of actions and consequences -- it's no longer that things must be done due to orders in general, out of love and respect for one authority figure, or out of fear of another. Instead, she's living alone in the wilderness, responsible not only for her own well-being but for nine animals, and the actions she takes or fails to take bring prompt consequences. This teaches her a sense of personal responsibility which her parents (if they acknowledged her existence) would have been pleased to see.
The next shock to Menolly's sense of herself and the way the world worked came when she was caught out during Threadfall a second time, and this time seen by a dragon and taken to Benden Weyr. At home, she'd been one Seaholder among many -- quick with her hands and a useful worker, when her attention was focused, but the only way in which she stood out was musically and that was an embarrassment. She was the Holder's own daughter, yes, but she was the Holder's youngest, and her older sister was far more socially adept. By contrast, at Benden Weyr she immediately stood out as a Holder who didn't panic (or more precisely, took appropriate action in the midst of her panic) when outside during Threadfall, who had the pain tolerance to keep running on badly lacerated feet until safe, who didn't panic from dragons, and who the dragon rescuing her liked. These are qualities valuable to the Weyr, and the compatibility with dragons is uncommon outside Weyrfolk.
So Menolly is taken aback by being assured that she can stay. She's more surprised when the Weyrfolk find out about her firelizards are discovered and she's told bluntly that she belongs here, a message reinforced when a dragon whose rider takes her as a passenger regards her intently and the rider asks her why she wasn't found on Search. [Search = the dragonriders go looking for potential dragonriders, who will try to bond with the dragons when they hatch. It's an honor to be selected as a candidate, and even if you fail to Impress you're welcome to stay at the Weyr; while it's never made explicit, they want your genes for the next generation.] This is a continuing shock to her system during her stay with the Weyr: her home Hold regards the Weyrfolk, especially the dragonriders, with great respect, and here she is among the support system for the planet's protectors being more respected and better treated than she ever was at home. The experience ... doesn't quell Menolly's fierce self-doubt, but it helps, and it gives her a sense that there are people and places which won't hurt her.
Menolly briefly objects to going to Harper Hall, even though it's what she's wanted for years. Her pretexts were that her hand is damaged (intense self-doubt) and that she'd been told she belonged here (grabbing at the people who treat her decently and a place where she's not a total misfit.) When he overcomes her objections, she's pleased to come.
Once at the Harper Hall, Menolly is suddenly in an environment where her musical talents are not only accepted (as they were in the Weyr) but actively pursued, and she blossoms in an environment where people value music as much as she does. As an apprentice she's still a misfit - she doesn't do chores like the other apprentices, and she receives daily lessons, some of them private, with Craftmasters. But for once in her life being a misfit gives her what she wants: even more music than the other apprentices. The lesson begins to sink in that it's not bad to be different. (Not that on an intellectual level she'd thought that it was, but when she'd been pounded down her whole life for being different, on an emotional level it feels bad.)
There, in a supportive environment, she finally proves willing to engage in direct conflict with other peole when forced into it -- in the form of a starting brawl at the fair, initially highly outnumbered, rather than let one of the local bullies hurt her friend and steal the money the Masterharper gave her.
A year in the Harper Hall will have added to her self-confidence, but suddenly finding herself in yet another new environment, this time one where a substantial number of people dislike her just for being there, will reduce it again. She is somewhat more socially adept after a year at Harper Hall than she was at the end of Dragonsinger.
Conditional: Personality development in previous game: NA
Character Plans:
I'd like to get Menolly somewhat involved in school awkwardness -- she's very well-educated in her own cultural idiom, but in ours she has an eighth grade education in spots and a BA (maybe even an MA) in others. I also think that her firelizards should cause complications with SERO -- she's got a breeding pair of telepathy teleporting imprinting-at-birth animals. She'll know this is trouble, if not how much trouble, but she'll also know she's never going to keep nine firelizards, five of which sing, quiet. Some CR with other musical types would be nice.
Appearance/PB:
Tall, somewhat thin girl with dark hair. (The covers for Menolly conflict, one of the later books describes her as having dark hair.)
Writing Samples
First Person Sample
[The teenage girl in the video has a black eye, a bruise on her cheek, and a bruise around her wrist. Less obviously, she's been crying but has taken the time to blow her nose, wash her face, etc.]
Hello. [She swallows nervously.] The Greeters told me I could go ask the network questions, and I have several
First, is there any way I could get a guitar? I don't have much money. [She lifts what had been a guitar into view. It's wood and accoustic. The head is caved in, as if someone had banged it into the wall with great force. The fretboard is dented where someone had gripped it with superhuman strength.] Something like this. Or, where could I get the wood and glues and strings and use of tools to make one.
How much is a guitar like this worth here? The discipline master was angry that I couldn't tell her how much a Mark was worth in dollars. And I really can't - it depends on what you"re buying, and some things you buy with dollars here aren't put in money back home. She said I would have to find out what the guitar is worth, then. [She looks at the wreck of a guitar and hesitates.] She knows it sounds sweet. She said I was a good player and should look for a real job and told me not to busk within five blocks of the school and gave me detention.
And finally, how do I get out of the school for people who haven't learned as much as they're supposed to for their age? Even apart from the bullies, they go so slow there, I'd never catch up.
Third Person Sample
"No, sir," the girl said. The winged lizard on her shoulder was glaring balefully at the man she had just interrupted.
"I can get you a very attractive offer," the man assured her.
"Sir, it doesn't matter how much you offer me for one of my fire lizards. I Impressed them. I can't sell any of them. It's like - " she sags - "oh, you don't have dragons here either. Well, it's like a little NV channel between our minds. Our minds are tied."
"Tied forever?"
"Well, sir, we don't know as much about firelizards as we'd like to, but dragonriders often commit suicide if their dragon dies, and dragons always commit suicide if their rider dies. Please excuse me, I need to do several things and still get home before Sirens." She scooped the money out of her guitar case into a belt pouch, placed the guitar in it, slung it across her back, and headed away at a fast walk.
Additional Third Person Sample #1
"No, ma'am, I have no idea who would have sent me a death threat."
"Why would someone send you a death threat, then?"
Menolly blinked. [They hate or want my firelizards? I'm a Newcomer? I make more money busking than some of their parents get paid? I'm actually learning in school? I don't have to cope with parents - and I still won't sleep with the boys? Where do I start that she won't blame me for?] "Well, ma'am, I don't actually know what makes people send death threats. I know that some students are unhappy that I'm new to what are normal schools here, and progressing through the small groups faster than they are."
"This is hardly a normal school," the old woman said dryly. "Be thankful - if it was, you'd either be trying to cope with college freshman math, or high school freshman English."
"Yes, ma'am. I like this better than the school I was in my first week." [College? Freshman? Dictionary, later.]
"But apart from that discursion - is there any reason apart from normal teenage jealousy that someone would dislike you?"
Menolly swallowed, and said carefully, "I believe some of the students are resentful that I don't have parents to answer to, where they do." [Should I go on?] "And some of the boys expect that since I've got a room and no parents or boyfriend, I should be happy to take them - or one of them, anyway - home."
The woman's eyes narrowed, and slid over Menolly as she scowled in disapproval. [I thought trousers were normal for girls here? Or is it that she can't say I'm dressed immodestly? But - sea and stone, even if I were shameless, what they call immodest here I call cold.] "You should have told a teacher earlier. You were instructed to report harassment."
Menolly blinked. "Told a teacher what, ma'am? That the boys were being forward?" The woman's scowl deepened. Menolly hastily continued, "Nobody's done anything physical, and I don't know where pushy ends and harassment begins."
"Newcomers." The old woman sighed. "Well, Menolly, how would you cope with boys being too 'forward' at home?"
"It wouldn't happen at home, ma'am." [Ooops.] "Or perhaps I should say it wouldn't happen to me at home, so I've never had occasion to consider how to handle it. Let me think for a moment, ma'am?" [Did - yes, that appears to have successfully smoothed it over.] "At home, I'd tell one of the journeymen mentoring me, and get their advice on if I need to tell the Masterharper."
"Not your parents?"
"No, ma'am." [I'll ask my parents for help after I've been turned away by everyone else on Pern, Southern included.]
"Why not?"
"My parents and I are not on speaking terms, ma'am." [And thank goodness.]
"And why not?" The woman's scowl changed slightly.
[I hated living with them so much I lived holdless with a crippled hand.] "They think that I disgraced my home by becoming a Harper." A short pause, and Menolly added, "Not that they think Harpers are bad, they think girls aren't supposed to become Harpers. Or do much of anything besides bear children and manage the Hold. The Masterharper was - less attached to tradition, and willing to take me as an apprentice and graduate me to journeywoman after testing."
"Interesting as this discursion into your native world was, it doesn't cast any illumination on the harassment or death threat. Could you tell a teacher's aide what you would tell a senior journeyman?"
"No, ma'am." [Have you thought about the teacher's aides lately?]
A sigh. "And why not, again?"
"Ma'am, I've known Sebell and Talmor for a year, and we bonded quickly over a shared love of music and the harpercraft. I could go to them with anything I could talk to a man about. I've only just arrived here and I have very little in common with the teachers' aides." [To say the least.] "More, I don't know many of the local traditions and unwritten rules, and even where I know what the rules are and I'm certain someone's breaking them, I don't know the little cheats from the big sins. If I even once go to an adult with something that's little, I'll never smooth it over with the other kids."
The woman promptly put her forehead into her palm, massaging the headache and coincidentally hiding a sympathic look. "All right, Menolly," she said after a moment. "Handle it your way. You will anyway. But one thing -" she looked up, and her face was stern. "Keep it under control. If I, or the vice principle, have to handle a fight, or your firelizards getting out of control, prompted by ongoing misbehavior that hasn't been officially reported, all participants will be punished. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am." [Get in trouble by asking teachers to handle everything, or risk getting in trouble if anyone gets violent.] "I understand."
"Good."
Additional Third Person Sample #2
Menolly looked over the apartment. [How do they give one person so much space when Threadfall-equivalent happens every night here?] She shrugged, and started filling her bottles. "The cistern has a spigot in every room?" She closed her eyes and re-estimated the size of the building. "No, it's not that," she said aloud. [A cistern the size of the roof wouldn't hold that much water, and would break the roof as well.]
Beauty chirruped. "Just figuring the plumbing isn't the sort we have at home any more than the lights are glows," Menolly told her. Another noise, and the lizard rubbed a dusty head against Menolly's hand. "Almost done," the girl told her.
The last bottle full, Menolly went to the fresher to empty her bladder. She picked up the bucket and read "For flushing toilet after Sirens. Fill with water from shower before Sirens. After using toilet normally without flushing, pour entire bucket at once into toilet." [I'm glad I'm not expected to just use the bucket itself. What am I supposed to do before Sirens? I'll try the instructions as written.]
That done, Menolly considered the bathtub. Two inches of water and one of the cups was enough to wash the worst of the Igen sand and grit off herself and her friends, and still drained quickly. Refilling the tub to soak in hot water, she was nearly dozing when the nightfall alarm sounded. And kept sounding, and sounding. Her friends dove into the water to muffle the sound, and Menolly pressed her forefingers in her ears and her thumbs into her bones. Stay inside! Menolly ordered, grimacing at the incredible din.
Finally the sound ended, and Menolly stood, dripping out of the tub. [I can see, at least. They didn't tell me not to open the curtains. One improvement over Threadfall, I guess.]
There wasn't much to be seen out the window - the sky darker than it should have been, the night birds completely hidden. Menolly padded back to the tub and got back into the warm water. [Should have heated it up when the klaxon went off. Too late now.]
When the water cooled off, Menolly dried herself hastily, rinsed her shirt and underthings in the bucket, and left them to dry on the towel rack. A washcloth dipped into the bathtub and wrung over the sink repeatly got her trousers, jacket, and boots almost clean. "What do you think, Beauty?" the naked girl asked, surveying the clothes she'd have to wear again tomorrow.
The gold lizard chirped in confusion. Menolly laughed. "Okay, fair enough - I didn't expect you to start caring about clothing. Well, I think I've done everything I can and it's time to take my mind off my troubles."
She squatted down and took a clean guitar out of a filthy case. [I can clean it more easily if I start with a dry cloth.] Sitting down on the bed, she picked up a folder of papers. "Actually," she decided, putting them back down, "let's start with old favorites."