Persona Profile: Th'reyos

Writer: Iluva

Name: Th'reyos
Pronunciation: ThRAY-oas
Age: 38
Birthday: m11 d25
Birthplace: Jade Harbor Hold
Rank: Wingrider, Alpine Wing
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Craft: Healer
Craft Rank: Senior Apprentice
Face Claim: Joel Kinnaman

Physical Description of Persona:
Th'reyos is tall even amongst tall men. In fact he would be downright terrifying if he carried the amount of bulk his frame was built for. Strong, sinewy, solid - all true. He's a man of sleek iron, compacted muscle without a whiff of excess. Yet for all his strength and ability, he certainly doesn't scream seasoned dragonrider at first glance. Dude is lean. Lanky. Verifiably gaunt. It doesn't help that you can almost see every ridge, jut, indent, hollow, vein, tendon, twitch, breath dance through him as he shifts, that you can effortlessly trace the rises and falls across an expanse of tanned shoulder, shade the ebb and flow of the rib cage's fingers, slip down the long lines of hard limbs.

Other than the existence of Zarkarth, the real only reason to suggest this man might be a rider is his leathers and even then Th'reyos looks a bit like he’s playing dress up. Something is usually undone or out of place - nothing stays orderly outside of 'drills or 'fall. If he had it his way he’d have leathers two or three sizes baggier than required. His oval face is pleasing, handsome even with its strong jaw, sloped nose, and kind light hazel eyes. And his are eyes that linger. His eyes hold and touch the world like it is precious, like it builds something in him. Like an artist absorbing each and every brushstroke painted by another.

Yet Th'reyos is hardly what comes to any artist's mind when envisioning the subject of great ballads.

Oh he and his clothing are probably clean, but he's just so rough and scruffy, particularly in his sporting of facial hair anywhere between a few days and a few sevendays old. Most of the time it's a close clipped beard a few shades darker than his short dirty blond hair. Or maybe it's the dark circles under his eyes, the insomnia, the vertical lines sailing down thin cheeks, or simply the general sense of not giving enough of a feck to look in a mirror. If you like them looking plucked from a lost ship or holdless encampment, or perhaps some perpetually unlucky weather-abused caravan, then phew, look out.

There's an easy charm about him. Swagger's another word. His semi-permanent smirks and smiles can be endearing in the same way a wet stray canine finally invited inside might be. His genuine self-awareness and genuine lack of concern still hint at plenty of devilish boy confined in militant man. The gnarled mess of threadscore scars littering his back and most of his right bicep tell another tale, deeper and less preferred truths. Grim reality for any man these days. And for every inch of Th'reyos that is open and approachable and at ease with himself, occasionally there _is_ a jagged edge, a murky potential. While it serves the purposes of war just fine, its occasional presence outside of 'fall suggests he might not be as domesticated as he seems.

Emotional Description of Persona:
If he sat in any other way than his effortless slouch, if he was anything other than smooth and sauntering and as pliable as taffy off duty, if instead of angling with streamlined confidence he had the kind of bulk and temperament to turn a charging man into a battering ram, Th'reyos could be mistaken for a Harper with a serious bone to pick. Thoughtful, curious, creative. He contemplates. He never paid much heed to formal education and that may account for why his appetite for knowledge is now rarely sated, why he isn't necessarily drawn to traditional or light subject matter.

Primarily he presents as calm, good-humoured, open to the world. He's definitely intelligent, at least in raw form, despite how he often comes off as goofy, foolish, even bloody ridiculous in his mock macho mannerisms and easy-come easy-go attitude. There's never been much inclination towards appearances nor tact, not when he’d like there to be anyway. He tells it like he sees it and likes to have fun with it. At worst, he gets told off or something thrown at his head. At best, he's got some hot number at his side and a song to hum on the way home.

As long as there are as many good times as the times will generously provide, Th'reyos is there with a grin and a good sense of how to keep that feeling going.

The problem, the trouble, is when that feeling inevitably stops.

And the truth is that Th'reyos struggles to fully reconcile different sides of himself. Perhaps it's because he grew up without it, but he longs for balance. He's mostly content to roll with the punches and take the dark and the heavy with the light. Gotta have all shades to paint the canvas. But beneath that cool surface is the constant gnawing of a blade. Sharp, with a hot thirst. Always there, always leading to the same place.

He wasn't as keenly aware of it until Thread came, until he really needed it. Waiting in the wings, one bad gust or bad call away. Th'reyos craves it as much as he dreads it: that dance with death. The attraction to it, the way the senses burst when nearing so close to the void, yet still living, laughing another day. Life has all new colors after that. For a time anyway.

Unfortunately there is a part of him that _needs_ it. The danger. Demands it, screams for it. The rush, the fear. Nerve endings ablaze, adrenalized veins. Threadfall opens a valve of rabid intensity he has trouble convincing himself to close. He's addicted to the fear, and the power. And that terrifies him, makes his personal life challenging. Th'reyos knows all too well what happens when he fails to keep that seductive, self-destructive part in check and away from the edge, away from others. It's a constant tension in his life. It takes concerted effort to not open to too much of it, to keep control, lest it nullifies all other needs, his every limit, burns through him like a fever. Whether he was lucky to be born so close to a Pass, to have something to feed to it, to find himself seeking it out in other places as well, isn’t something Th'reyos has decided quite yet. _That part_. He’s not proud, far from it. Nor is he under any illusions of what a liability it could make him if it ever really started working against him.

Anything is possible and anything can be a Game when that roaring energy is on tap - there's just nothing like Threadfall to turn it on. He needs Thread like he needs a fix. It makes him edgy, hot, and impulsive. Those voracious needs for stimulation and release force him into other outlets, healthy or otherwise and it's not unusual to see the restlessness, the insomnia, the fidgeting, the flings, the predatory fascinations. It's also not always easy to reign in or turn off when other things require attention.

If there's one upside, it is that it has magnified the constants in front of him, made the simple things sweeter. He's got a dragon, a weyr, a smile, and a pretty positive perspective that eventually rights him in the here, the now. Things ain’t always the way he’d like them, but things could always be worse. Th’reyos couldn’t care less about propriety, but he’s got a conscience, deep compassion burning beside the blade. It does its job of keeping him up at night, too. It doesn’t take long to see his kind heart, his capacity for boundless affection. When not overrun by hedonism his instincts are mostly sound. And he knows what matters to him, whether he's here another day or another decade. Afterall his path in life wasn't always so certain, so grounded - kicked to the curb, toiling in a field, running away, stealing, starving, dying? Nah, he knows how lucky he is. He wouldn't want to be anywhere else during any other time. Now pour some wine and deal those cards, baby. Threadfall tomorrow.

History of Persona:
Tharreyos' origins are about as far from glorious as they are from the horrors of holdlessness. But there has been constant tension, struggle, and unease that has left its mark. It first started when his father deserted when he was 4, ramped up with his mother's passing when he was 11.

Technically he was neither a planned nor particularly wanted child - his older brother and sister were already more than decade older than him and his parents were hardly of the age or station in life to start over again with a baby. Eking out a living on a small plot beholden to Jade Harbour Hold hadn't been Lothar or Aeyellis' idea of a happy, fulfilling life, nor had it been his sister Larreyl's when she inherited their station, worries, and wayward kid brother with their mother's passing.

His sister might have lost her only ticket to getting a step up in life, but thankfully she married a man who took to Tharreyos as much as Tharreyos to him. Larreyl and Kiot resolved to raise him. He never lacked for affection nor necessity, but he often lacked supervision, discipline, constants, methods of understanding. A mix of pleasure-seeking and rebellion had plenty of goods and valuables disappearing. Helping himself to store rooms and crops and the contents of peoples' pockets. It could have been coincidence, bad luck, an association with dodgy folks, or the heightened level of petty crimes in the area that eventually drew angry holders to Larreyl's door and by then she had her own children to think about.

That recklessness followed him when he was unceremoniously dumped on the Healer Hall under the reluctant eye of his brother. Tharreyos bounced around the Hall a while, barely an apprentice, and it was around that time store rooms bloomed with inconsistencies and apprentices grew ever more distracted from their studies.

It wasn't until he Impressed Zarkarth that Th’reyos really started to see those patterns for what they were. A Search dragon found him just shy of his 18th Turn when things were coming to a massive head with not only his brother, but the other Hall Masters too, and they were only too glad to be rid of him. They practically cheered when he left. He was at Vista Point a few months before his brown found him and an… odd Weyrlinghood followed. His morals and instincts still weren’t properly calibrated for structure or responsibility; he knew nothing of Weyrlife, its expectations, its demands, and he certainly didn't know what to do with the brilliant mind suddenly sublimated into his own.

The strictness of Weyr routine and accountability combined with Zarkarth’s patience and love helped Th’reyos gain some insight, if only surface-level closure. Life had always been hung by flimsy threads pulled by someone else. People were there, then they weren't. He was one place, then another. He never had real control and never knew what it was supposed to look like. Now, with the most amazing dragon, suddenly he had what he needed to grow into something more.

His focus shifted and he started coming into his own. As it turned out, Weyrlife was where he had belonged all along. With a lot of work, relations with his sister and her family mended. His brother, unfortunately, never really thawed. He was and remains unsure how to reach his brother, but he knew he wanted the future to greatly depart from the past.

And it did.

The return of Thread was nothing like he thought it would be.

Those first 'falls, with people and dragons dying and disappearing all around him, brought that old familiar need for control rocketing to the surface. Pushed beyond shock, beyond fear, beyond real comprehension and into a heightened state of frenzied and fixated amazement. Pushed too far - and it worked. Almost overnight he and Zarkarth's evolution in the air accelerated. If he was truly afraid after that, it was that they would die before he'd flown enough 'falls to get his fill.

There were no _good_ 'falls, per se, but there was a particularly bad one in his 32nd Turn, with high winds and turbulence rocking Th'reyos’ almost rock solid confidence, his entire world. Calamity in the air, panic, near collisions, and while it was decided later that it couldn't have been prevented, that it was neither pair's faults, just the sobering reality of Thread, he couldn't help but feel differently when only he and Zarkarth survived.

After that Th'reyos unravelled a bit. He questioned his fitness as a rider, his judgment, his instincts. It woke him up to real stakes he was flying in, the weight of responsibility, and the risk that _his_ over-adrenalized state could pose in exchange for the violent fire power _he_ needed just to get through. He knew he was nearing too close to the void, and he nearly lost himself to the guilt. It was the help of his friend, and more or less ultra casual weyrmate, Hailone, that got him through. She saw him. She helped him see straight again too. Hailone's faith in him convinced Th'reyos to move forward wiser than he had been before.

After that, something close to normalcy.

Whatever brand of normalcy Threadfall brought with it, that is. He was still scared and he still relied on being that level of scared to feel 'normal' in the air. He never figured out another way of dealing with it, how to adjust to the demands of Threadfighting, and he was far too ashamed and bewildered to express it to anyone, save Hailone. It worked, that was all that seemed to matter. Even with that nagging discomfort about himself, the doubt, the distrust, he slowly regained confidence. He and Zarkarth excelled beyond whatever he had envisioned for his life. He knew then that brand of confidence spliced with that state of mind could be dangerous. He knew to be more mindful of its presence, and apart from his own threadscoring no one else ever weighed on his conscience like L’riad and Taith did.

Ironically, it was no one who destroyed all stability late in his 36th Turn - no one alive, no one who had ever existed, no one who ever would. Hailone couldn't understand the dramatic change in him when she told him of her pregnancy. Th'reyos was never happier than around his nieces and nephews, but that didn't stop Th'reyos from smashing their bond in an instant. Shutting her down, pulling away. He demanded in no certain terms that she get rid of it. It broke her heart - and, later, when he could finally feel it, his when she eventually did as he asked.

The thought of being someone's father, responsible for them, attached to them. The thought of them loving him, maybe being attached to him too… He had been running as long as he had been chasing. The running won. It wasn't obvious to either Th'reyos or Hailone that while he’d never seemed genuinely afraid of dying, all that time he was really just scared of living. Knowing he had a child of his own somewhere, someone who might need him, someone he'd love that much just knowing they were alive - no. Living with that would have demanded he think less about that slippery void, the electric terror in his veins. He didn't think he could fly 'fall any other way. And living without that intensity, the prospect of growing dull, rooted, responsible, bored... Living with the idea of losing either one - a child that could rip his heart out or the part of himself that exploded to life against death - was never in his cards. If he sired any other children, he elected not to know.

It wasn't until a few months later that Th'reyos truly realized his mistake, his cowardice, his selfishness. By then it was too late. Hailone froze him out and cut her losses by transferring. A few months later the place had soured for him too. Living in Vista Point Weyr was suddenly no longer in his cards either.

It was too obvious to ignore. Living like there was no tomorrow only worked as long as there wasn't a tomorrow. And he had had many tomorrows, and many regrets piling up on that path. He put in a transfer as well hoping to find peace, redemption, and change at Dragonsfall.

On a leisurely visit to Dolphin Cove in month 8 of Turn 12 Zarkarth surprised everyone --everyone-- by catching Weyrwoman Second Nidre's gold Jossenth. Unable to be even a little chill, Zarkarth demanded they be there when she clutched, and they took a temporary transfer to Dolphin Cove's Queens Wing while they wait for the most obnoxious brown on Pern to become father.

Family and Friends
Lothar, 1, Deceased (Father)
Aeyellis, 1, Deceased (Mother)
Othellyr, 51, Master Healer (Brother)
Larreyl, 48, Cotholder (Sister)
Hailone, 33, Wingrider ((ex-lover))

Dragon's Name: Zarkarth
Dragon's Age: 19
Dragon's Hatching Date: m6 d6
Dragon's Hatching Place: Vista Point Weyr
Dragon's Colour: Brown
Description of Dragon:
At first glance he and Th'reyos are an odd match: where rider is as fair and lean as a summer reed amongst men, dragon is a large incarnation of brown, and thick, deeply rich in color, practically dripping with strength and force. Zarkarth's a metric tonne of muscle and he knows how to use it. He's not always the nicest about how he goes about it either, though is never outright malicious. Still, outside a Weyr, it can be hard to trust an animal that powerful, that proud, that unsettlingly predatorial in his bearing.

His rider has a talent for humor and light-heartedness that can't quite reach this dragon. Zarkarth is a strange patchwork of selfish reasoning and dogged principles. He's a serious and brooding fellow who can be hard to get close to, though selectively smothering and possessive. He doesn’t seem to be a fan of losing, regardless of what it is he might be losing, and without some encouragement he doesn't always seem satisfied with winning, regardless of what glorious prize he might have won. Friendly enough overall, but fairly moody, striving for greatness in all he does.

Imbued with a brand of ferocity that makes him an absolute monster in the air, and a warm, overly protective, weirdly paternal-like presence on the ground, Zarkarth is actually a sweetheart in the proper contexts, a jelly roll kind of softie around the ones he cares about. He's a good friend and doesn’t take their treatment lightly. It takes time to see it, time for him to deign someone worthy of the same favouritism he shines on himself, but when he does he seldom wavers.

Approved: March 24th 2024
Last updated: February 16th 2026

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Persona Profile: Th'reyos