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Hardly born to the life of a Harper, most would have expected Graham to grow up a sailor - an official Seacrafter like both of his parents. Truth be told, he was born at sea, and lived the majority of his young life sailing with his parents and two younger siblings.

It wasn't a bad way to grow up, truth be told. He got to see a lot of Pern during those turns, despite it being turn 32 of the Pass and thread still a threat. His mother's specialty was cartography, and his father was noted as a fine captain, so the family vessel - comically named The Traveling Uncle after the kind-hearted benefactor that gifted the ship to Graham's father - fared rather well even as the Pass wound onward. Their main course took them often between the harbors at Boll, Fort Seahold, and Ista Hold, with only occasional stints back to the main Crafthall at Tillek.

For all that he enjoyed his youth - a thing not every child can profess as truth - Graham looked to his thirteenth turn with a sense of dread. It was expected that he'd join the Seacraft; the simple fact of the matter was that he didn't /want/ to follow in his parents' watery footsteps. He had nothing against the sea itself, or even the Craft that sailed it, but something about a life at sea just seemed too... too... /something/.

As with a lot of teenagers, Graham was not then gifted at gilding the lily. When pressed by his parents why he was reluctant to join their Craft, he was unable to express more than a feeling that he wanted to do something else, something different, something that didn't smell like fish, "something that seems important."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Graham regretted them, of course. He hadn't meant to belittle his parents' livelihood, nor imply that he thought being sailor was anything less than a superb way to live one's life - but there it was anyway. The words were out there, and - unlike a fishing line - there was no way to reel them back in.

Graham's parents were good people, mind you, and they naturally understood that teenagers are perverse creatures, but they quietly admitted to each other that they were disappointed that their oldest son wasn't going to follow along. His mother and father spent many an evening in council over the situation, finally agreeing that they'd hardly force the boy to join a Craft that didn't suit him, but what /would/ they do with him? It wasn't as if he'd shown any aptitude toward any other way of life.

Graham himself didn't particularly know what he wanted to do at this stage, just that he wasn't ready to resign himself to a pre-determined walk of life. In an effort to provide him with options - perhaps even to drive a wedge into his life that might force him to realize that he did belong as an apprentice - Graham's parents found lodging for him with a retired uncle at Ista Hold, setting him up to work the docks with the old man until he could figure things out for himself.

Had his life continued along the course his parents laid out for him, Graham undoubtedly would have buckled under the sheer monotony and agreed to join the Seacraft. But life worked out differently for the then fifteen turn old fellow.

It would be nice, at this point, to imply that Graham had always had a love of music and a natural aptitude for it, but that's simply not the case. Like a lot of traveling youths, he never had much cause to spend abundant time among the Harpers. Sure, he knew the teaching ballads the same as every kid, but it never really occurred to him that being a Harper was a feasible possibility for him. That is, of course, until he met Lindsay.

At thirteen to his fifteen, she was an Istan holdgirl, born and raised on the island with all the prettiness one would expect of a seaside child. Graham, in a fit of youthful passion, fell desperately in love with her - or, at least, as in love as a boy can be at all of fifteen - and spent his every waking moment trying to excite her to feel the same way. But Lindsay was too driven to be swayed by some amorous dockworker. She had /goals/.

Herself the daughter of a Journeyman Harper long posted at Ista Hold, Lindsay was only a matter of months away from formally apprenticing to Harper Hall. When he heard this, Graham suddenly found his path in life opened up for him: If she was going to Harper Hall, then - dammit - he was going with her.

The upshot of all this was that Graham found in himself a strength of character and determination of spirit that might otherwise never have surfaced. He was no more in love with Lindsay (back then) than any teenage boy who ever fell under the thrall of a pretty girl, but he /believed/ he was, and that was enough.

Again, it would be nice to say that Graham was a natural - but he wasn't. First, he had the disadvantage of never being properly trained to read and write. He knew his letters, but it was a long summer studying with Lindsay's father to learn the mechanics of grammar and punctuation before he was considered up to snuff. Second, he had to learn to read music - which took longer. By the time Lindsay left at the end of the summer, her father was still unwilling to sign off on Graham as a potential apprentice, for all that he had no real disapproval for the boy's affections toward his daughter.

To make a long story short, Graham spent the better part of a turn studying how to be an apprentice before he was ever permitted to study /as/ an apprentice. Ultimately, by virtue of perseverance, he was able to make himself suitable apprentice material, and shipped off to Harper Hall.

It was a hard time for the young man. Though his affections toward Lindsay - then a very popular and well-respected Apprentice - never waned, he had to work twice as hard as everyone else to get half as far. Fortunately (oh, so fortunately), it eventually came to light that he was quite adept at playing music by ear. Though he had to work harder than the others at reading and writing music (and the archiving, history, and law facets of Harpering), he turned out to have a knack for actually playing instruments, particular gitar and pipes. Never much of a composer, even to this day more adept at "parlaying another man's genius than my own," he showed a talent for essaying the meaning into the notes, playing with /feeling/.

Over time, Graham managed to win the affections of Lindsay in return. While it might be nice to say this little love story has a happy ending, it obviously does not.

Lindsay was impatient. Her ambition would not settle for a man who wasn't on the same level she was. She walked the tables at eighteen, at the time full of love-words for Graham - who still struggled as an apprentice, despite having reached his twentieth turn by then. But it was fewer than three months after she received her Journeyman knot than Lindsay "broke the news" to the so-called love of her life: She was ready to receive her first posting, and she simply didn't think the two of them could make it work over long distances.

Graham was dumbstruck, and nearly walked away from the Craft at that point. Lindsay left within the week, and he felt himself adrift - moreso than even his youth spent at sea could have made him feel. He blundered along aimlessly, going through the motions of his daily life with no zeal left. Simply for want of anything better to do, he turned in his body of work at that point, played an audition piece, and walked the tables the following turn - with absolutely no excitement for it.

Having proved himself capable if not exceptional at this point, it seemed a waste to have Graham rattling around the Crafthall. An unsavory posting had opened up in the High Reaches area, full of cold little cotholds and long, bitter winters. In true melancholy fashion, Graham felt the icy northern wastes would suit his current state of mind just fine, and he packed up without so much as a complaint.

The next seven turns were fairly banal. Graham did little to distinguish himself, never did find a girl to settle down and marry, but he was just good enough. His music turned out to be better than one might have thought for someone who began life a far cry from Harperdom, and he progressed far enough as a scribe to make it worthwhile to practice his penmanship, but he was lackluster in general. A few silly romances here and there with holders' daughters who were too far north to look for anything "better" filled in the gaps in the intervening years.

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