Character Name/Nicknames: Zack Hargis
Gender: Male
Rank: Sled maintenance/electrical, candidate
Age: 22
Birthplace: First Centauri

Appearance: Two words come to mind when you think of Zack's appearance--'big' and 'shabby'. Zack stands at a full 6'4 inches, with the approximate build of a tree trunk. He isn't fat, really, but he is 'big boned'. He doesn't look particularly muscular. He just looks big. However, he is actually quite strong. He moves with no subtlety at all, rather like a polar bear, as if he expected everything to get out of his way. Part of this is because he got his growth spurts rather late, and even now he is still adjusting to his size. This results in his feeling and looking somewhat ill at ease in his own body.

Zack's hair is coarse, dark brown, and somewhat wavy (enough to be unruly unless he chops it really short). He usually keeps it short on the sides and a bit longer on top. He thinks the waves make him look dashing.

Zack's facial features could best be described as blunt. He has a high forehead, a long, somewhat large nose, a square jaw, and pronounced brows. His eyes are his best feature, being large, and colored a rich warm brown with a sepia ring around the pupil. His head actually appears rather large comparted to his body, which means he can never find a hat to fit him.

Zack is, there's no polite way to put this, hairy. He also has very large, thick-fingered hands. His hands are the opposite of surgeon's hands, at least to look at. Most people are quite surprised when they first see him handling electronics or mechanical objects, because all the grace he lacks suddenly appears in his hands. The same is true when he handles his flits.

History: Zack came to Pern with his parents at the age of twelve. He was happy enough to do so, and saw the emigration as a great adventure. His parents are nature lovers, and Zack spent a great deal of time in the hills on First Centauri, camping, horseback riding, fishinge, etc. with his parents. It was an upbringing which perfectly suited him. At an early age, he began to explore the world of mechanical and electronic things, guided by his father. He had clearly inherited his father's mechanical skills as well as his nimble fingers. Given that Zack was an only child, he was in many ways the focus of the lives of both his parents. On Pern, they continued to spend a great deal of time with him, though as he grew older he began to spend more time with other boys his age. On one of his frequent camping and exploration trips with his friends, Zack found a clutch of flit eggs along the shoreline. He and his friends were given eggs from the clutch, and Zack impressed a br! own and a green fire lizard, much to his delight. He found that the little dragonets made great companions, and became very devoted to them. His parents liked his flits but became very tired of his insistance that they needed to get some too, if only for his flits to play with. Zack was working sled maintenance detail when the first fateful Threadfall descended on Landing, but his friends were not so lucky. Two of them were out with a hunting party and perished, unable to find shelter. Another was badly wounded trying to round up livestock with his father. He eventually died of his injuries despite the excellent nursing care he received. Needless to say, Zack was profoundly affected by these events, and he became extremely focused on hatred of Thread and desire to protect the colony. He spent countless hours working on maintaining sleds, but was intelligent enough to realize that the days of the sleds' usefulness were numbered. Zack has interviewed to become a candidate because he wants to be a part of the solution to the Thread problem, and he sees the Dragon Program as Pern's best hope for survival.

Personality: Zack is a little bit like a bear in personality--he likes to do his own thing and mind his own business, but he is very capable of defending himself if necessary. He is a workaholic who loves his work. He is the kind of person who rarely looks outwardly happy, but almost always has a sense of quiet contentment--a benefit of loving his work and having a good family life (he no longer lives with his parents, but still spends quite a bit of time with them).

Zack is decidedly heterosexual, but not especially anxious to settle down with anyone. He is the type of man who wants to find just the right woman, and hesitates to give his heart away lightly. He feels there is no hurry.

Zack is preoccupied with his work to an extreme degree, and this makes him rather socially awkward as he tends to self-isolate by working very long hours and spending much of the rest of the time on his flits. He is able to talk freely about anything that interests him, but he is not good at knowing how to start conversations or make small talk, especially with women. Therefore he tends to be very quiet in social situations until he becomes comfortable. His friends know that all they need to do is get him started talking about his flits or something related to his work, and he'll quickly become comfortable.

Family:
Frank Hargis, 44, sled pilot/maintenance/repair
Aretha Hargis, 46, teacher of older elementary age students, specializing in sciences

Hobbies: Zack loves to experiment with electronical and mechanical things as well as repairing items that have malfunctioned. He also loves horseback riding, camping, and hiking.

Pets: Brown flitter, Zap
Green flitter, Zip
Zap is friendly, affectionate, active, and a bit of a food hog. Zip is dainty, a bit clingy, and likes to observe things before she gets involved.

Dragon's Name: Heligrath
Age: Just hatched (hatched 8.1.11)
Color: Bronze

Physical Description: Heligrath is a handsome beast. He is a rich mid-bronze with darker blotches, particularly across his rump and flanks and over his whithers (they look almost like giant irregular freckles, just a bit darker than the background of medium bronze). He has a heavy, definitely masculine head with large eyes. His body is compact and powerful (but not quite squat), and his wings are large, both wide and long in proportion to his size, which makes them a little awkward just now as it can be difficult for him to keep them folded out of his way when he wants to do something more than just stand around.

Personality: Heligrath is easygoing and, for a dragon, somewhat philosophical, with a whimsical sense of humor. On the other hand, he also has a destructive streak and a tendency to be proud and competitive. His mood tends to be very strongly tied to Zack's.