Persona Name: Lerenna (lure-wren-nah)
Gender: Female
Persona Age: 18
Persona Birthingdate: M4, D16
Persona Rank: Sr Apprentice Dragonhealer/Candidate
Persona Location: Dusk Forest WeyrHold
Owned By: Cara

Physical Description: Lerenna is taller than many of her peers, standing just above five feet, nine inches and her weight is average for her body type - 135 pounds. Her hair is a dark brown, and would fall to her lower back if Lerenna didn't keep it wrapped around and pinned up on her head.

She has hazel eyes, more a mixture of blue and green than either one color or the other; for some unknown reason, her eyes tend to open very wide - a fact that resulted in great teasing as a child and even up to the present. Another cause for teasing is that her upper front two teeth slant towards one another rather than being straight.

As a child, she had a fair complexion. After Turns of being burned in the Southern sun, her skin has adapted and is now almost always bronzed with a tan, generally unevenly. When she manages to acquire a good tan, or achieve a nice color, Lerenna tends to preen and enjoy the good aspects of her body. Constant exposure to the bright sun has also caused freckles to sprout not only on her face, but also her shoulders and upper arms.

Personality: With all the teasing she has undergone through her life, one might expect that Lerenna be meek and shy, easily abused. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth, for Lerenna has a tendency to make her wishes (and opinions) known when she truly wants to. She has no problem with taking charge, although perhaps that has come more for being trained as a healer than anything else. If healers didn't have the ability to take charge, then their patients would fare poorly from lack of help.

Lerenna tries her hardest to ignore teasing when it targets her, and has the thrill of being able to stop such verbal abuse by her height. Having the person you are calling names stand half a foot taller than you is quite a deterrent to most people.

From training as a healer, she has also learned how to be calm in even the biggest crisis. Or rather, to be correct, Lerenna has learned to be outwardly calm. As one of the Masters would often quip, "a patient does not want a healer who acts like they do not know their Craft." A healer being calm can go a far way in reassuring and calming down others.

Background: Lerenna was born at Clear Springs Hold, on the 16th day of the 4th month. Or, more precisely, she was born to a pair of cotholders beholden to Clear Springs. Her mother is named Herana, and her father is Nuren; both of her parents are farmers, growing foodstuffs rather than herbs or cotton. Her family also boasts a herd of herdbeasts, popular for the quality of meat they provided. The Lord Holder of Clear Springs has permitted the cothold to stay in the family for two generations - this one, and her father's family both worked the same land.

Herana and Nuren raised all of their children with great respect for dragonriders for their task of fighting Thread. Whenever a rider wished it, they provided beasts from their own herd as a meal for the great dragons. As such, Lerenna has had great awe for the dragons and their riders for all of her life. That Pern survives because of the dragons, and only because of them, is a fact that constantly amazes her. She is alive because of them, and as such believes they can do no wrong.

At the age of twelve she received her parent's blessing and applied for apprenticeship at the Beast CraftHall. Having shown an aptitude for the Craft, and not being squeamish around blood ("A farmbred girl, grown up slaughtering beasts for food, does not let a little blood bother her!" she always retorts), Lerenna was accepted as an apprentice. Her training was complicated, and her days were filled with classes. There was much to learn about each speices before an apprentice was allowed to assist with the healing of a patient.

It wasn't until she was a senior apprentice that she was finally allowed to work on animals under the guidance of a skilled journeyman. Although she was always slightly depressed when an animal could not be saved and had to be put down, Lerenna came to love the successes, even if they were not by her hand.

When she turned fifteen, a present arrived at the Hall from her parents. It was a firelizard egg, for somebody at Clear Springs had discovered two clutches on the same beach, and her family was allowed two eggs. Her parents took one, and sent the other to her for she was the only one of her family not at the cothold. A note with the egg read "Now you can send letters to us, so we shall expect them on a weekly basis!" When the egg hatched to reveal a blue, Lerenna was overwhelmed and grateful that it hadn't been a gold or a green - the urge of such a firelizard to mate would interrupt her classes and perhaps gain her trouble. A name took many days to think of, and she finally decided on Aleran, just because she liked the sound of it.

After she understood the basics of BeastHealing and was adept at it, Lerenna began to train in the other side of the Craft - DragonHealing. In her opinion, there could be no greater job than helping out the great dragons. She studied as hard as she could, often sneaking a glow and a book into the dormitory after light's out to study under her covers. Her punishment was never too strenuous when caught, for the journeywoman who watched over the female apprentices understood her (and the others) urge to learn.

Finally, at the age of seventeen, she was close to the point of taking exams to (hopefully) become a journeywoman and being stationed at a Weyr. Lerenna had never had cause to visit one before, and could not wait until then. She'd actually get to see a dragon up close! Of course, that was if she passed.

No more than a month before the end of lessons, dragons came to the Hall in Search. A handful of people were offered the chance to become a Candidate, and Lerenna was one of them. Lerenna was speechless, perhaps for the first time in her life, that she was found acceptable - her, a farmer's daughter! - to perhaps IImpress a baby dragon. She went with the Hall's blessing and wishes, as well as the encouragement of her family. Just before she left, she was taken aside by the Hallmaster and told that if she continued to study, there was no reason she could not be promoted to Journeywoman before the Hatching began - or just after, if she failed to Impress the first time around.

Attached NPCs:
Mother - Herana
Father - Nuren
Brothers - Rynel, Nolan
Sister - Nora

Pet Name: Aleran (al-lure-ran)
Age: 3
Type: Blue Firelizard

Pet Description: Aleran is an average firelizard, and has done nothing in the first three turns of his life to grant him scars or any other disfigurations. He has a fascination for the books Lerenna studies from, perhaps more because of the colors used in it rather than an actual interest in healing. His hide is a normal blue, lightening somewhat on his underbelly. It took her many months of study and patience before he grasped the idea of carrying messages, and even more before he learned that she did not want them dropped into /between/.

His favored "bed" at the Hall was to sprawl out near the kitchens to bask in the warmth from the stoves. Unlike other firelizards, who are content to perch on a shoulder, Aleran greatly prefers to fly. When he must be carried, he prefers to be cradled in Lerenna's arms so he can be scratched at the same time.