Difference between revisions of "Gisele"

Latest revision as of 01:23, 11 April 2015

Gisele
Rank	Journeyman
Home	Tillek Hold
Craft	Harper (Dance Performance)
Played-By	Amy Adams
Other Ties	Rorkes, best friendKadavy, best friend
Livejournal	Gisele
Status	private
Owner:	Rose

Description

History

Gifted. It was the word her instructors had said of her when she came of age and slid on her first heeled shoes. It was the word her parents used when explaining their child's understanding of rhythm and the idle tap of her feet when harpers played. It was the words her myriad of boyfriends had used when escorting her out to the Gather grounds, and again used, albeit more gently, when breaking up with her. She was too gifted, too talented to waste such skills in the backwaters Keroon cothold she grew up in.

Gisele was fourteen before anything came out of those words, those admonishments that she could do better in life. A gentle girl full of dreamy desires and a potent charm that could turn a casual half-smile into a look of innocent flirtation, a crook of her eyebrow into withheld laughter, and an upward tilt of her chin into the precise poised reflection artists dream of painting. From an early age, the age old saying that there are girls who can turn life (or men) around with a twist of their pinky held true for her - literally. Where many girls went through their awkward stages, Gisele floated through life, understanding, intuitively, the movements that made life work and through that understanding mastered each subtlety of her gestures.

Sure, she could dance the Gather floor, her card filling up quicker than most others, and she could walk as if she were gliding. But what use are those skills to her parents, her well-meaning father who searched high and low for someone to arrange a marriage with her to. She had as little skill in training runners as she had in cooking, though riding them was something all little girls of her area learned. It was just another extension of her fascination with movements.

Gisele turned fourteen before the passing journeyman harper took an interest in the girl's lithe movements. To the surprise of her parents, a little known subcraft at Harper Hall focused on the precise skills the young teenager had been born with. The difficulties in selling her as a potential mate to bear children (her hips were too narrow), cook, clean, and otherwise help about the hold allowed her father to be far more receptive to the idea of his daughter apprenticing, but it still took another half turn, the entirety of the journeyman's circuit and return to the area, before he gave his consent.

For Gisele, the idea of apprenticing came as much of a shock as to her parents. She spent every day of the six months that passed considering the potential of her life staying at Keroon, and the life outside in the vast wilds of Pern. It bothered her that she'd be starting a craft so late, so old. It bothered her that there were so many turns wasted when there was an actual study of what she had simply understood all her life.

An obedient girl, however, her father's wishes were followed, despite her own misgivings, and Gisele joined the journeyman in his final trek to the main Keroon Hold, and from there a dragon's flight to Harper Hall.

At near fifteen, Gisele was officially apprenticed to the craft. Her misgivings gave way to precocious delight. A diligent child with letters and learning, her harper lessons up to speed to those of her like age, she moved fluidly in between her classes. Her voice was lacking, her understanding of instruments dismal, and she came in average in most of her other classes, though a notch higher in the legal systems of Pern than everything else.

But it was clear, to her peers and her instructors, that Gisele was the favored student of the dance master Tiasli. It was in dance where she excelled. Unsurprisingly, and to her supreme pleasure, Gisele became dedicated body and soul to being a senior apprentice under her beloved master.

Dance as a subcraft at the Hall focused on classical dance forms and movements as a supplement to the Harper Hall's more prevalent forms of artistic expression. It's students were not apprentices, in fact, there was only a handful of apprentices every few years that took an interest in this subcraft. Among them, Gisele excelled. Excelled and then found herself in the dead end of teaching potential Lady Holders the art of movement and the beauty of the various ceremonies of their position. After all, etiquette and dance went hand in hand and those under the subcraft were compelled to learn the artistry of both.

After walking the tables at nineteen, early given her late start, Gisele found the life of a journeyman was not as exciting as she'd come to expect. Turns of exacting training and examinations, of pushing her to the extremes of what her feet, toes, and body would allow culminated into teaching. Teaching not the art of her craft, but the imitation of it.

Still, despite it all, she was Harper trained, and harper trained brought with it a talent with words, though hers always remained few. Well into her twentieth turn, the unsettled young woman put in a request for a posting position. In her words: There is a desire to see the outside of the Hall's walls, and to discover a world beyond the bubble of academia and the safe graces Fort Hold had provided. I would see that world and expand my own understanding of people and the dances they move through in life with.

But it wasn't until her late twenties that such a request was granted and she was sent to High Reaches Weyr to teach the youngest children their Teaching Songs and to assist with the remedial education of the Weyrfolk-at-large. Patient and gentle, this seemed to suit not only Gisele, but her students as well and for a few turns, life was, if not exciting, at least something different than the monotony of teaching over-privileged lady-holders-to-be. Every season, Gisele would take part in the Tillekian festivals, choroegraphing and helping put together stage productions for the enjoyment of others, and every so often, dancing as well.

It was the arrival of an old friend that shook her life up, subsequently leading to her reposting to Tillek Hold amid a flutter of harper gossip.

Relationships

• Kadavy: Kadavy, being one of the few artists at Harper Hall at the time, and Gisele, being one of the few dancers, had an odd friendship. Both felt sort of outcast from the mainstream of the Hall, having nothing truly productive to contribute to the Hall's income. Some might say they became close simply due to the lack of other peers. Kadavy is the bad habit good girls keep returning to because it's comfortable, even if depressing.
• Rorkes: Rorkes started his apprenticeship even later than Gisele did, and thus an interest and kinship sprung. Through Gisele, Rorkes and Kadavy also became friends, and the three of them were, if not inseparable (because Kadavy is just too cool for that), at least close until Rorkes married one of his master's daughters (who less than nine months later had a child) and the trio split. She recently came back into contact with him when he was posted at High Reaches Weyr, but the reunion was short-lived as she was posted to Tillek not long after.

RP Logs

Gisele has been in a total of 1 total logs, 0 vignettes, and 0 game updates.

2009.05.04: A Date
Who: Gisele, Madilla, W'chek, Vaan
When: Day 24, Month 8, Turn 19 (Interval 10)
What: Madilla runs into Whitchek again, as well as Vaan and Gisele. Instead of studying, she gets... a date?

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