Despite his scars, he is still smoothly friendly and polite and usually in control of a conversation at any time. He dresses well, with a bit of flair for his rank despite Nidus Descendi's informal military organization. He reads, at a glance, as a man who has been made victim by battle once, but who has not allowed it to destroy him.

By the time he bonded Sokanonth, nobody would have bet on him bonding a blue. Aaron was invited into the boys club right from the start.

He spent a lot of his weyrling training watching his friend and secret crush, Fara, losing her grip on reality, and worked hard to help keep her afloat. Eventually, once they'd graduated to full dragonriders, he was the one who suggested they join others who had talked about settling a new world with opportunity. He wanted to help bring the American spirit forward with them both, to help pass on values of democracy and strength of spirit; he could see the rigid rank and file of Pernese culture and he ultimately did not want to have anything to do with it. He'd never become a Lord, nor even a Weyrleader, and a little petty part of him balked at servitude to backwards, cave-living people. But a larger part also rejected the idea that Pern would become his home, when its people had also been Fara's captors and, in a way, his as well.

Nidus Descendi has not been everything it's been cracked up to be. Fara is better now, Aaron thinks, but the ongoing skirmishes with Arx Infusco have been terrible things, and he's paid a huge price for his lack of experience fighting acid-spitting and acid-bleeding creatures who regularly try to worry the edges of Descendi's territory. He's become a much more savvy fighter, and so has his bond.

Aaron has, since moving here, spent a lot of time studying not only Arx Infusco's footsoldiers, but its command structure as well. He's particularly fascinated by the Arx Lord, whose tactics seem impermiably evil. He's more than once in the recent past predicted skirmishes based on small amounts of evidence from scouts based on the profile he's begun to build on the Arx's methods. He may well be cut out to plan the first effective deep sting into the Arx to make it reconsider harrying Nidus Descendi altogether.

Sokanonth lives more in the moment than his bond, and he absolutely detests shows of insubordination. Luckily, Aaron's input has also smoothed his prickly instincts enough that he's made his own friends, rather than peons, among the ranks of Pernese dragons. He is much smaller than some other breeds of dragon at the Nidus, but he is adept at catching their attention and holding it. He has become much better at helping to assuage egos and balance his own in the name of the good of the Nidus.