Tall and lean, very acrobatic in body, Gares is a bit of a prankster and loves to smile and have fun. Almost to the exclusion of anything else, though.
At 13 turns of age, he was Searched once, and stood on the sands at Blackstone weyr, but he did not impress. Sent back to Mama Tani's, because of the number of people already at Blackstone, he was disappointed and showed it by being silent, sullen and in a funk for the next few sevendays.
Of course, soon after, Tani's children began visiting the Cothold with their dragons, and his interest and instinct were caught again.
Gares has pale blond hair that is shaggy and usually flopped into his face, brown eyes, and reddish-brown skin that usually is burnt from his days working or playing in the sun. He puts his back into work, not afraid of a good long day in the field, but he is not cut out for heavy lifting or mining, smithy or that type of hard labor. He is more the bouncy, on top of it all type.
V'naard chuckled. His green Zadmith seemed to echo him. "It's not hard, we have to come down to sleep, Gares. And to eat!"
And to bathe, added Zadmith. The green was almost a dozen turns old, now, and had a wisdom about her. Though V'naard had never thought about it, her few mating flights had produced only a dozen eggs, all greens and blues. He half-thought that it might be time to put her on a firestone diet--
YOU WILL NOT! Zadmith mentally bellowed, and Gares shook from it.
"What! What did I do!?" he shrieked, holding his hands over his ears, in a useless attempt to stop the huge booming voice.
Simultaneously, V'naard thought and Zadmith bespoke, "you heard that?"
"Of course I heard that! She screamed not to do something! What is it!?"
"It... It isn't you," V'naard said, weakly trying to remember what it was the dragon could be yelling about, and remembering his half-formed thought about firestone. "She doesn't want to be put on firestone, even now. It wasn't anything you did, son, it's just me. Just me being silly," V'naard patted the emerald hide of his beautiful dragon, and purred at her mentally. So you had better find me a good mate to be with that next flight of yours, sister. I want you to have at least a brown in your clutch, some day...
I will! I will! But you never like the ones I bring!
"What?" Gares said, and then the seventeen-turn old candidate widened his eyes. "Oh! Oh, I ... see... She's -- and you -- OH!" He turned a red shade, as V'naard laughed.
"You'll probably not have to worry about it. She likes older dragons, lad. Not any one young enough to be your bond." The flaxen haired rider waggled his eyebrows, barely visible under the helmet he wore. "Unless you want her to..."
Gares didn't know which was worse... That he was being halfway propositioned by this greenrider son of Mama Tani, or that he was wondering why he shouldn't worry about any dragon of his mating with Zadmith! He wouldn't impress any green! He was all man -- no one had ever teased him about anything, not like he'd heard Vanaard had when he was young. Besides, any flirting he ever did in the weyr was confined to the buxom weyr girls and the handsome crafter ladies.
But what if he impressed a blue? That would mean that... Zadmith might be a choice... Laughing, laughing at the tops of his lungs, Gares threw his arms out as they landed in Thayor Weyr's bowl, and told Zadmith that he would love her forever if she only kept her flight to her 'older men'!
For the first to hatch was a beautiful blue, who trumpeted loudly and bolted over to the boys. He looked at Gares and bespoke so clearly that the young man's heart nearly burst.
I choose you, G'res! I am Indulnith and I am hungry!
"You pick me? Why, Indulnith, I am... go glad! Let's go get you something to eat!"
"I wish we could just have the leather crafters do this... It's their job anyway," he grunted, snugging down the strap braid. "I don't want to do it wrong and then mess up and fall off of you!"
"You'd best concentrate on your work then," the weyrling master said, not harshly but with an importance to his voice. "Those straps will save you from sure death between. You must have something to hang on to after all."
"Shard doesn't ride with straps," muttered one of the girls, Iris by name, who sat nearby making her green's straps with ease. "And look where it got him..."
"Yes," the weyrlingmaster said, "and if I catch one of you doing the same thing before you've graduated out of my classes, I will personally make sure that HE tells you why you've slipped off between and had to be rescued."
Biting his lip, G'res continued to work... Indulnith grumbled a laugh. He means it! I can tell he's even thinking to his dragon about it!
"Just tell me if the harness pinches in the wrong place, Indulnith..."
He wondered if Iris and Irii would be allowing their dragons to mate within their Wing?
No eggs from them, dear rider, bespoke Indulnith. They chew firestone like me.
"Yes, but they're also greens, and you know greens!"
I sure would like to!
