Neat. Neutral colours and blues. Almost always trousers and tunics. Never, ever dresses. She has one dress in her closet in case she

723 & 0-6:
Born to Yesha and Mirala at Telgar Weyr, no complications. Rather a nice day out as far as autumn was concerned. Nice scarlet trees. Her eldest sister, a Healer, assisted the birth. Meryem was one of those wide-eyed newborns who sharing freaked everyone out by not crying at all. She just stared at everyone and decided food was better than yelling about the sudden event of her birth. She stayed that way, quiet, watchful, almost sneaky.

At six, the dark haired, blue-eyed Meryem was so good at going undetected, she would frequently give the instructing Harper minor heart attacks as she showed up for gitar. It was easy to see she was going to be a fine gitarist and for such a small thing she had a massive voice when she sang and exquisite control. Too bad she wasn’t a boy, her father said way more often than he praised anything she did. Those were the words that made her double down in learning. Yesha, who barely acknowledged the child, lamented her lack of penis. As if just possessing male genitalia somehow made things better!

She could compose!

She could sight read!

She had perfect pitch!

But time and again the instructing Harper doted on the boys (unbeknownst to her on her father's advice) and it infuriated her to no end. At seven, she took her mother’s shears and cut off most of her hair in a fit. Her mother was aghast. Her father was oblivious.

733 & 10:
Meryem wanted the rank she was due, even at ten, but speaking up for it was difficult and there were few people she let in her quiet walls. She clawed and fought for every solo, she used her words and eloquence on paper to appeal to Harper Hall and was not deterred when no word came. Her father was blocking the letters from getting to the right people. The letter writing continued, neatly written, beautiful penmanship, with scores she had composed herself.

Silence from the Hall. Kitchen duties for her gall.

735 & 12-18:
At twelve, against all odds, she was picked by a Harper not as biased as the ones her father always had around. Her apprenticeship at the Hall begins. She studies the same, hard and focused, quietly keeping her head down as she makes music instruments that are vastly superior to her classmates if only because she is so focused on perfection and “beating the boys” that she sacrifices sleep for designs and scrapped projects. She wants her Apprentice rank to become Journeywoman in a way so driven she has considered Standing for clutches if she can’t have what she wants. It’s a feeling that persists to the present day.

Her instruments are nearly flawless with the work she has put into them and are really pieces of art. A drum that looks like a firelizard holding a moon, shaped and pigmented so that if you didn’t know, you might thing it was real. A dragon-headed violin, a guitar painted with excruciating detail with a Flight spiraling up its length. Whatever she puts her mind to she does it with all of herself and with a determination that is almost so intense it’s become cutting.

741&18: Meryem is transferred to Telgar Weyr (Sr. Apprentice) with as little information as possible, a move by Yesha, who is still embarrassed by how good his daughter is with her hands and forever pissed off that she isn't a man. When a request for a Harper was sent it and it happened to be as far away from the Hall as possible, he jumped at it. Meryem is actually okay with Telgar, it's far enough away that her father essentially has little control and she thinks it's a breath of fresh air. Cold fresh air but fresh nonetheless.