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Interview with Sondirra
Got a wild hair the other day and started writing this. It's a companion piece to the Palil interview, with some months between them.
1. What do you look like, and how old are you?
I'm twenty-six, which among the drow is counted as a young (very young!) adult. The years from twenty-five to thirty are rough ones for drow, a lot of the time. I don't know if they will be for me.
I'm tall for a drow, about 5'9", and I've always been pretty skinny for my height. Pretty flat, too, with not a whole lot for hips. (Mother told me that'll change when I hit about two hundred, or if I ever have kids; she was a skinny thing too until her metabolism slowed down a bit, and she had me and my sister Sinte.) My skin's on the lighter end of drow-normal, a shade I've been told is like old pewter. I suspect that there's some elf or human in the woodpile a few generations back, on my father's side.
I have the typical drow hair, white and stick-straight, and I keep it cut pretty short. I can pass for a boy occasionally, if the light's not too good and if I'm wearing loose clothes. My eyes don't match--the left is a dark violet, and the right, the one I lost and had regenerated, is a lot closer to blue.
I've got a lot of scars, especially on my arms and legs, from training and then from battles after we graduated. I've got an especially interesting one on the back of my left thigh, deep and puckered and shaped like the outer curve of a dragon's wing. That one Jordan gave me, a year or so before we graduated.
2. Do you have any pieces of clothing or jewelry that you love? What do those look like?
Not really. I have a bracelet that Palil saved up to give me when we were in school that I treasure, but it's not practical to wear it that often. It's made of silver, set with polished amethysts that she said match my eyes. Well, my eye, now.
Mostly, I wear a uniform, or pretty unremarkable civvies. I'm pretty fond of the pirate outfits that we got to wear when we were undercover on a pirate ship, but I can't really wear that much of anywhere.
3. What are your friends like? What sort of society do you travel in?
My friends! Wow, where to start? There's Palil, of course, but she's so close to me that the term friend doesn't really apply. The rest of my squadron--our songbird Beamer (saddled at birth with the awful name Berthold) and his bondmate Bambi, who's delightfully arch a lot of the time. Galen and Tchar, so alike that they sometimes finish each others sentences, and who are really good at getting into fun trouble.
Alvar and Garnet, Alistair and Bill--our missing friends. I miss them. Alvar and Garnet were supposed to be our leaders, not me and Palil, and I especially miss Garnet because she was always the one who could talk Palil down when she got mad. Of course I miss Bill, who once sat on me until I admitted that I'd been the one who'd dyed his tail green, and I miss Alistair a lot. Alistair loves feeding people, and I love eating. We're obviously made for each other. I've dropped some weight since he's been away and not feeding me weird meals like second breakfast and after-nighters.
I think about them a lot. I hope they're okay, but I have this feeling that they're not.
Of course, there are others--Paloma's group, who are fine folks all. Paloma herself is pretty easygoing, except for three days during the month, when she turns into the bitch-queen from hell. We all know the signs by now, and Aldaric tends to buffer for her for those days. Olin, too, is a good person--and it turns out he's a dragon fancier! And here I thought he just liked boys all these years.
I've got a few friends in Hypatia's team, especially Blaise, who I like despite the fact that I think she still has my best goggles. There's Oberan, about twenty years older than me and a Colonel. We're sort of working our way backwards--I met him a ways back when I didn't even know he was military much less MI, jumped into bed with him a few months after I first met him, and now we're getting to be friends, and maybe more. I like him a lot, though he's kind of moody sometimes. He's a good person, a very good fighter, and he has the cutest birthmark on his--wait, why am I telling you this?
And then, the weirdest thing of all--I'm friends with Jordan, now. Yeah, Jordan, he who was a major asshole to me when we were in training. Turns out he liked me all along and couldn't deal with the fact. Whatever his damage, I've pretty much forgiven him, and we sort of fell into this instant friendship. The Jordan without the mask is actually a good guy, devoted to the safety of his team and the people around him. It's really weird being so instantly comfortable around someone who nearly killed you a couple of times.
Palil, of course, isn't happy. We're working on it.
4. What was life like for you growing up?
It seems like the fourteen years before I bonded with Palil belong to someone else. My parents get along, though they didn't really show much affection in front of me. It was kind of a shotgun wedding, so I hear--my folks had been married five months when I was born, and I was full-term. My mother is going to be two hundred and twenty at the end of the year, and my father's a lot younger, he'll be seventy-seven this year. Do they love each other? I couldn't ever tell. They like each other, at least.
Neither of them had ever come within spitting distance of the military, and it was sort of a scandal on my mother's side when I bonded with Palil. Not much my grandmother, who's cranky as an owlbear in the early spring pretty much all the time, could do about it, thankfully. My grandmother and I never got along, and I doubt we ever will. I'm not a proper granddaughter at all, with my short hair and looking nothing like her side of the family and the military career and the dragon and all. She even suggested once that I was swapped in for her real granddaughter when I was born!
Going back to visit my parents gets a little touchy because of her. I know my little sister Sinte adores me, and she thinks Palil is the best thing ever, and I should be being a good example for her and all, but I hate going back and having to endure the nasty looks and the little remarks and the digs at Palil.
I haven't been back since before I graduated. My parents and my sister sent me a nice letter after I wrote to told them I was out of training and in the real military, though. Overall, I prefer Palil's family to my own.
I was older than most of the other recruits, having bonded almost the last year I could. It was a little strange at first--can you believe Paloma was six and Dillon was eight when I first met them? Humans grow up fast, though, and the elves and drow in our group all started out older. What we all had in common were noisy, demanding dragonets, and homesickness.
I've said pretty much everything else before. I hit puberty and spent a lot of time sleeping my way through the male half of the classes a year or two ahead of us. Funny thing, that. Looking back on it, it almost seems like I was afraid of having something other than Palil to lose...
But, never mind.
5. If your current life more or less burned down and you could keep only one thing or person, what or who would it be?
Palil. No question.
6. Is there anyone who hates you? Do they have good reason?
I probably would have said yes, a few months ago. Now...I don't know. I don't think so. Our superiors seem to like us, I don't think we've made any real enemies that we haven't killed except Andromeda, the leader of the Capricorn dragons, and now even Jordan is friends with me.
If anyone hates me, they haven't told me about it, I guess.
7. Are you religious? What form does your religion take?
I'm a ranger, we're religious by definition. I belong to Gorld, the god of Luck, Change, and Fortune, a good-natured god who's something of a double-bladed weapon. He likes it when I take chances, I like taking chances; we get along.
I'm not very loud about it. If other people are interested, I'll talk, but hardly anyone's interested.
8. What are you attached to? Does it bring you joy, sorrow, or both?
Palil, my friends, my extended circle of family. Joy, of course, sorrow and worry, of course. I'm scared for our missing squadmates.
I used to love the idea of this country, but I think I've had my innocence on that removed forcibly. I don't know what our leader's up to, but I suspect that it's not good.
9. What do you think of people who don't follow your moral or ethical code?
I'm still deciding. Sometimes, they're all right. Other times, whatever it is they're doing needs to be stopped. Like what was going on in the former hatchery at Bulkaric.
10. What is your definition of evil? Good?
What's that people say about art? "I know it when I see it"?
Yeah. I know it when I see it.
11. What have you given up to become who you are?
Everything, and nothing.
I gave up everything I was when I bonded with Palil. All of my hopes for the future, all of the dreams of my family for me. Then again, since at the time I desperately wanted to be a horse or a cat when I grew up, not such a big loss.
I guess, if I'm telling you this in confidence, the biggest thing I've lost is any privacy whatsoever. It's pretty strange, actually; she's the other half of my soul, I have no secrets from her, but I couldn't have any real secrets even if I wanted them. It's a good thing I love Palil so much, or we'd both be in trouble.
The time in the military's not so much of a sacrifice; twelve years is nothing, and even a century in wouldn't make much of a dent in either of our lifespans. We're good at what we do, and we're ambitious. It's a good combination. Though, I'm starting to worry a little bit...dying is one thing. I mean, you die, and it's over with. But after I lost my eye and the completely horrible month I spent regenerating it, I'm starting to worry that there will be other losses, other maimings. Could I live without a hand, or a leg? An ear? An eye? Because I never want to go through another regeneration. The one I did go through has left some lasting marks on me.
Overall, it's a pretty good life though, despite a few rough patches. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
1. What do you look like, and how old are you?
I'm twenty-six, which among the drow is counted as a young (very young!) adult. The years from twenty-five to thirty are rough ones for drow, a lot of the time. I don't know if they will be for me.
I'm tall for a drow, about 5'9", and I've always been pretty skinny for my height. Pretty flat, too, with not a whole lot for hips. (Mother told me that'll change when I hit about two hundred, or if I ever have kids; she was a skinny thing too until her metabolism slowed down a bit, and she had me and my sister Sinte.) My skin's on the lighter end of drow-normal, a shade I've been told is like old pewter. I suspect that there's some elf or human in the woodpile a few generations back, on my father's side.
I have the typical drow hair, white and stick-straight, and I keep it cut pretty short. I can pass for a boy occasionally, if the light's not too good and if I'm wearing loose clothes. My eyes don't match--the left is a dark violet, and the right, the one I lost and had regenerated, is a lot closer to blue.
I've got a lot of scars, especially on my arms and legs, from training and then from battles after we graduated. I've got an especially interesting one on the back of my left thigh, deep and puckered and shaped like the outer curve of a dragon's wing. That one Jordan gave me, a year or so before we graduated.
2. Do you have any pieces of clothing or jewelry that you love? What do those look like?
Not really. I have a bracelet that Palil saved up to give me when we were in school that I treasure, but it's not practical to wear it that often. It's made of silver, set with polished amethysts that she said match my eyes. Well, my eye, now.
Mostly, I wear a uniform, or pretty unremarkable civvies. I'm pretty fond of the pirate outfits that we got to wear when we were undercover on a pirate ship, but I can't really wear that much of anywhere.
3. What are your friends like? What sort of society do you travel in?
My friends! Wow, where to start? There's Palil, of course, but she's so close to me that the term friend doesn't really apply. The rest of my squadron--our songbird Beamer (saddled at birth with the awful name Berthold) and his bondmate Bambi, who's delightfully arch a lot of the time. Galen and Tchar, so alike that they sometimes finish each others sentences, and who are really good at getting into fun trouble.
Alvar and Garnet, Alistair and Bill--our missing friends. I miss them. Alvar and Garnet were supposed to be our leaders, not me and Palil, and I especially miss Garnet because she was always the one who could talk Palil down when she got mad. Of course I miss Bill, who once sat on me until I admitted that I'd been the one who'd dyed his tail green, and I miss Alistair a lot. Alistair loves feeding people, and I love eating. We're obviously made for each other. I've dropped some weight since he's been away and not feeding me weird meals like second breakfast and after-nighters.
I think about them a lot. I hope they're okay, but I have this feeling that they're not.
Of course, there are others--Paloma's group, who are fine folks all. Paloma herself is pretty easygoing, except for three days during the month, when she turns into the bitch-queen from hell. We all know the signs by now, and Aldaric tends to buffer for her for those days. Olin, too, is a good person--and it turns out he's a dragon fancier! And here I thought he just liked boys all these years.
I've got a few friends in Hypatia's team, especially Blaise, who I like despite the fact that I think she still has my best goggles. There's Oberan, about twenty years older than me and a Colonel. We're sort of working our way backwards--I met him a ways back when I didn't even know he was military much less MI, jumped into bed with him a few months after I first met him, and now we're getting to be friends, and maybe more. I like him a lot, though he's kind of moody sometimes. He's a good person, a very good fighter, and he has the cutest birthmark on his--wait, why am I telling you this?
And then, the weirdest thing of all--I'm friends with Jordan, now. Yeah, Jordan, he who was a major asshole to me when we were in training. Turns out he liked me all along and couldn't deal with the fact. Whatever his damage, I've pretty much forgiven him, and we sort of fell into this instant friendship. The Jordan without the mask is actually a good guy, devoted to the safety of his team and the people around him. It's really weird being so instantly comfortable around someone who nearly killed you a couple of times.
Palil, of course, isn't happy. We're working on it.
4. What was life like for you growing up?
It seems like the fourteen years before I bonded with Palil belong to someone else. My parents get along, though they didn't really show much affection in front of me. It was kind of a shotgun wedding, so I hear--my folks had been married five months when I was born, and I was full-term. My mother is going to be two hundred and twenty at the end of the year, and my father's a lot younger, he'll be seventy-seven this year. Do they love each other? I couldn't ever tell. They like each other, at least.
Neither of them had ever come within spitting distance of the military, and it was sort of a scandal on my mother's side when I bonded with Palil. Not much my grandmother, who's cranky as an owlbear in the early spring pretty much all the time, could do about it, thankfully. My grandmother and I never got along, and I doubt we ever will. I'm not a proper granddaughter at all, with my short hair and looking nothing like her side of the family and the military career and the dragon and all. She even suggested once that I was swapped in for her real granddaughter when I was born!
Going back to visit my parents gets a little touchy because of her. I know my little sister Sinte adores me, and she thinks Palil is the best thing ever, and I should be being a good example for her and all, but I hate going back and having to endure the nasty looks and the little remarks and the digs at Palil.
I haven't been back since before I graduated. My parents and my sister sent me a nice letter after I wrote to told them I was out of training and in the real military, though. Overall, I prefer Palil's family to my own.
I was older than most of the other recruits, having bonded almost the last year I could. It was a little strange at first--can you believe Paloma was six and Dillon was eight when I first met them? Humans grow up fast, though, and the elves and drow in our group all started out older. What we all had in common were noisy, demanding dragonets, and homesickness.
I've said pretty much everything else before. I hit puberty and spent a lot of time sleeping my way through the male half of the classes a year or two ahead of us. Funny thing, that. Looking back on it, it almost seems like I was afraid of having something other than Palil to lose...
But, never mind.
5. If your current life more or less burned down and you could keep only one thing or person, what or who would it be?
Palil. No question.
6. Is there anyone who hates you? Do they have good reason?
I probably would have said yes, a few months ago. Now...I don't know. I don't think so. Our superiors seem to like us, I don't think we've made any real enemies that we haven't killed except Andromeda, the leader of the Capricorn dragons, and now even Jordan is friends with me.
If anyone hates me, they haven't told me about it, I guess.
7. Are you religious? What form does your religion take?
I'm a ranger, we're religious by definition. I belong to Gorld, the god of Luck, Change, and Fortune, a good-natured god who's something of a double-bladed weapon. He likes it when I take chances, I like taking chances; we get along.
I'm not very loud about it. If other people are interested, I'll talk, but hardly anyone's interested.
8. What are you attached to? Does it bring you joy, sorrow, or both?
Palil, my friends, my extended circle of family. Joy, of course, sorrow and worry, of course. I'm scared for our missing squadmates.
I used to love the idea of this country, but I think I've had my innocence on that removed forcibly. I don't know what our leader's up to, but I suspect that it's not good.
9. What do you think of people who don't follow your moral or ethical code?
I'm still deciding. Sometimes, they're all right. Other times, whatever it is they're doing needs to be stopped. Like what was going on in the former hatchery at Bulkaric.
10. What is your definition of evil? Good?
What's that people say about art? "I know it when I see it"?
Yeah. I know it when I see it.
11. What have you given up to become who you are?
Everything, and nothing.
I gave up everything I was when I bonded with Palil. All of my hopes for the future, all of the dreams of my family for me. Then again, since at the time I desperately wanted to be a horse or a cat when I grew up, not such a big loss.
I guess, if I'm telling you this in confidence, the biggest thing I've lost is any privacy whatsoever. It's pretty strange, actually; she's the other half of my soul, I have no secrets from her, but I couldn't have any real secrets even if I wanted them. It's a good thing I love Palil so much, or we'd both be in trouble.
The time in the military's not so much of a sacrifice; twelve years is nothing, and even a century in wouldn't make much of a dent in either of our lifespans. We're good at what we do, and we're ambitious. It's a good combination. Though, I'm starting to worry a little bit...dying is one thing. I mean, you die, and it's over with. But after I lost my eye and the completely horrible month I spent regenerating it, I'm starting to worry that there will be other losses, other maimings. Could I live without a hand, or a leg? An ear? An eye? Because I never want to go through another regeneration. The one I did go through has left some lasting marks on me.
Overall, it's a pretty good life though, despite a few rough patches. I wouldn't trade it for anything.