The Dragonriders of Pern® is a trademark, Registered U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, of Anne McCaffrey.
Here's Pyrene's history in highly condensed form. For more details, you can go to the full and illustrated history, or for a log by log account, look here.
She ran away to the weyr at the age of 12, in a childish fit with some vague idea of Impressing a dragon and thus showing up her family. Her parents were none too pleased, but after a few turns of trying to get her to come back, they gave up and let her be, provided that she was still alive and well and sent them a letter once a turn or so. Meanwhile, she waited to be Searched without notable success and developed various prejudices against blue dragons.
By the age of 14 a good deal of her older friends had Impressed and she was confident enough about her own chances that she didn't worry about taking on an assistant nanny position. Looking after children was one of the few things she was capable of, and earning your room and board had its benefits. She had her own room for now, and of course once she Impressed, she would be in her own weyr. Looking after the brats was just a temporary thing to fill in time.
At the age of 16, she was given the job of head nanny, but still hadn't been Searched, while just about all her friends, older and younger were Impressed or had gone on to better things. Obviously things weren't going according to plan. Not really sure of what she was doing in life and giving up all hope of ever getting Searched, she continued head-nannying (and acquiring as many assistants as possible) for another couple of turns feeling vaguely depressed about it all, but determined to be capable of doing the job she'd ended up with.
Then D'renn and Thesy made her into a candidate for ambiguous reasons that she didn't quite trust. Left standing, she waved another lot of friends off into weyrlinghood, blamed D'renn for everything (Thesy got off lightly all things considered) and went back to the nurseries to mull over life. She'd not lost anything by standing, and while the Impressees were enduring the restrictions of weyrlinghood, she was free to drink and indulge in other sins with C'lan, who it turned out didn't seem to think any less of her at all for being a nanny. And Thesy reminded her quite forcefully that just because she was a nanny and had to be respectful to former peers, that didn't lessen the fact that they were friends.
Having finally reached a point where she felt she could be reasonably happy with her life, it was swept off course again when a string of pregnancies spurred a stressed Pyrene to swap knots with her reluctant assistant Tyara in a fit of temper. Thesy promptly sent her back into the candidate barracks, which she took as an opportunity to relax for a few months.
Yet, although she was planning around returning to the nurseries, fate dictated otherwise when it directed the newly-hatched gold Cadgwith to Pyrene's feet.Finally, the 20 turn old Pyrene had the dragon that the 12 turn old had longed for. Riding wasn't as easy as she would have liked, and certainly the stresses of being a weyrwoman were not something she'd ever wanted, but Cadgwith was there and life, if far from perfect, could not be bad. Not even when the news of her Impression prompted her youngest sister, Treneere, to follow in her footsteps and run away to the Weyr. Or when Cadge's first flight resulted in Pyrene waking up next to B'art, a far cry from the bronzeriders of harper tales.
What could make life less than desirable was her accidental pregnancy after a drunken fling with bluerider F'ish on her turnday. Cadgwith wanted to keep the child as did the father and Pyrene reluctantly acceded to their wishes. She regretted it throughout the next eight months and especially when she nearly died due to a difficult birth, but now she and F'ish are proud parents to a daughter, Sephne. Her family were also delighted with the child, although a visit home proved to Pyrene that her family were no longer part of her life.
High Reaches was nearly no longer part of her life either, when Telgar requested a gold to transfer. While Pyrene was a popular if unwilling candidate to go, Mitria was eventually selected. Pyrene's world was nevertheless rocked by this, and as she moved into her late twenties, she again grew unsure if she was where she really wanted to be. She had Cadge, she had status, but she wanted something else, someone else.
Too frequently one to take the direct approach, desperation drove Pyrene to visit G'deon at night in his unlit weyr—to which he had retired, drunk, after a green flight. Mistaking her for Ilare, the Weyrleader fell for her ploy, but it did Pyrene no good and G'deon and his weyrmate, Ilare, much harm. Both women became pregnant, but G'deon only wanted forgiveness and a child from Ilare. It did not help that he seemed to be the only person who did not blame Pyrene for what she had done.
Pyrene kept a low profile for a time, busying herself with her new son, Pidgery, and a string of disasters that befell the weyr. By the time these were past and Pidgery was too old to care for his mother's fussing, Areiah had fallen sick and stepped down from the Sr Weyrwoman position on the advice of the healers, despite her relative youth. Cadgwith proved to be the next gold to rise, and Pyrene found herself with a rank she hadn't seriously dreamed of since she was twelve turns old.
She only had a couple of turns to settle into the role before she came up against a challenge that she couldn't have prepared for. Cloudburst wing, who had disappeared during a plague at High Reaches twenty-six turns previously, appeared above the Weyr one night, having jumped through time to look for help.
Last updated December 23rd, 2003
Please note! The image of the lizard that I used in the title is copyright Kelly Matten, and was taken from her Pyrene and fire lizards picture.
