I had about three months to figure Pyrene out before I could create her, which included her (not particularly original) background and of course the name. The original Pyrene was a princess in an obscure Greek myth: she was raped by Heracles, was kicked out by her father, gave birth to a snake and was eaten by a bear, but Heracles did name the Pyrenees after her to make up for it so I suppose that's alright then. Angst in character histories goes way back before M*ing. Anyway, my Pyrene hasn't suffered half as much as her namesake, no matter what she may tell you.

    I was smugly proud of having thought up a distinctive name right up until she became a resident at High Reaches Weyr where there was a certain greenrider by the name of Cyrene. Sigh. Fortunately for me, if Cyrene (who had had her distinctive name years before I had even heard of online gaming) minded a newbie turning up with a name almost identical to hers, she was good enough not to show it and it's since become a standing joke. In fact, numerous Reaches' denizens still have *yrene aliases. Oh, and since she's Pernese not Greek, I say her name 'Pie-reen' instead of some classically accepted pronunciation.

    When I created Pyrene, it was with the intention of only playing during her my holidays, when I had plenty of time and a free internet connection courtesy of my parents. I did want her to ride at some point ideally (preferably gold of course! Typical newbie intentions), but even just from browsing the web to find out about PernM*s, I realised that I'd be lucky if there was a Search Cycle entirely within my vacation. So I created her young enough to get a couple of years worth of chances and took her to a Weyr to be around dragons at least (I chose High Reaches largely because it had just opened and had a PC Search, so when I was browsing the webpage, I found a lot more on it than on Ista). After two weeks, I realised that I was going to be playing her in term-time too. Instant addict. Even so, I was about to head off to Italy for a year and I had no clue what I could expect in the way of access there, so I couldn't apply for High Reaches Search starting in October. Undaunted, I established her as a weyrbrat at High Reaches and spent the summer making the most of things (and sulking at everyone who said they were applying for Search. The least they could do was wait for me!). 

    Italy proved to be severely limiting in the access stakes: nothing at weekends, and not before 2pm MOOtime weekdays. But most of my friends had been Searched, and there's nearly always RP to be found when there are candidates at the weyr. When I came home for Christmas, most of those friends Impressed too, and I found out that a weyr immediately after a hatching is a tired weyr, with little RP about. I should probably have foreseen this, but it came as a huge shock to me that most weyr residents are there for the sake of Search, and if they don't make it, the idling out rate is high. Of the people who I'd played with over the summer, the riders were recovering from Search, the weyrlings were busy with their new dragons and the non-riders were either getting over not making the cut or simply nuked. Pyrene was still my only character at that time, so I was suddenly reduced to scrounging for RP (oh alright, it wasn't that bad). But among the Impressees had been Rade, Py's old head nanny, leaving that position now vacant. Rade had been huge fun as a nanny and had made it fun for me to be a weyrbrat, so after Mirisae had found a new head nanny, I asked her if Pyrene, now 14, could be an assistant, and assistant she stayed for the next six months (two IC turns) until the head nanny got idle reaped, and I took on the role. We had to run to young nannies in those days; we didn't have many options. By this time, I'd also done a stint on SearchCo, putting off applying Pyrene until I had enough access to be able to make the most of it.

    At this point, I reached something of a turning point in how I viewed Pyrene's future. I was pretty well established at the weyr by now, doing SearchCo had been a lot of fun, very eye-opening and had let me feel included, regardless of activity or knot. The fact was, I didn't really feel that I needed a dragon anymore. Or perhaps to be more accurate, I knew that Pyrene would always be able to be part of High Reaches Weyr, even if she never Impressed. Also, I was thoroughly enjoying being a nanny. There were all sorts of RP opportunities there, partly due to some truly fabulous people playing brats (among those joining the ranks that summer were Auri, Siannen and Saendi, now Ndi) and some equally great nannies, specifically Tyara. RPwise, Pyrene could moan at people getting pregnant, whine about her workload and be bitter about the fact that she'd never Impressed. I think it was essentially attention-seeking vanity on my part... there were plenty of riders at the weyr, but precious few nannies. I still wanted her to ride, don't get me wrong, but I also wanted her to stay as she was. 

    Faced with this dilemma, I weighed up potential goals for Pyrene: Stay a nanny; stay a non-rider with perhaps changing career to headwoman or something; Impress blue and freak out Pyrene (this was what everybody else wanted!); Impress gold which was what I really wanted; Impress brown or green. Applying for blue was more or less what everybody expected me to do, and I think it was that more than anything that put me off. It was too much "Oh, she hates blue dragons, so let's impress her to one. Hah hah, chortle chortle." and I wasn't sure where I would go with it once that joke was over. There was nothing in brown- or green-riding that particularly appealed to me (not that I had anything against them either). Impressing gold would be fulfilling all those crazed newbie dreams and giving me a chance to try something that was completely the other end of the spectrum from my current low profile, the drawback was that I wasn't sure if there would be another gold while I was young enough to apply... HRW already had four, and even if there was another, the odds of the SearchCo deciding that Pyrene would be the best person for it were slim. Nannying was huge fun for all the reasons I already knew about, and I knew that if I ever did get tired of it, there were other weyr positions to play with for non-riders. Plus, non-riding at a weyr had the advantage that very few people actually try it long-term and actively, which meant that in an understated way, I'd be rarer for doing that than any of the other options. 

    So, with everything weighed up, Pyrene's future was settled as gold-riding first, nannying second, blueriding third. Which, as far as Search went, was gold-only. I don't know if it's the greatest reasoning, it's certainly no better than anybody else's motivation for doing what they do with their character, but several people have asked me why I wouldn't apply for blue, so this is my way of laying the question to rest once and for all... or at least pointing people to my answer. There isn't anything wrong with blues, they're one of my favourite dragon colours, and usually one of the best played and best to play in my opinion. But in the end, she was my character, I was the one who had to play her and I didn't think I would be able to do all that much long term with Pyrene on blue, or at least not as much as on gold and certainly not as much as a nanny.

    So I went ahead with non-riding at the weyr unless there should be a gold egg laid that I could apply for. Poor Pyrene... all she wanted was to Impress and escape the nurseries, and she'd just about given up hope of doing either by this time, but then, I always did have fun playing her as stressed. I did apply her for the next Search, but as Stand-only, finally getting my chance to play her as a candidate. Sometime after that, I decided that a new head nanny would help keep the nurseries on their toes and swapped knots with Tyara... only to have my new assistant nanny knot exchanged for a candidate one five minutes later when Thesy Searched me. This latest Search, luck went my way as a gold egg had been laid and SearchCo let me give Pyrene the shock of her life in Impressing Cadgwith. So that pretty much sealed her fate, although I like to think that if Cadge had gone elsewhere, I would have stayed active with Pyrene as an assistant nanny. I still maintain that there are more RP opportunities in nannying than in most other weyr positions, riding included. I knew when I applied for gold that I'd be giving up that RP and taking on something that wouldn't provide RP to such an extent, and I still miss nannying. But fortunately Cadgwith is incredibly fun to RP, and I'm having a ball with Pyrene the weyrwoman.

    It was inevitable really that someday I'd get Pyrene pregnant. The question was how to get her into a state of mind where she'd keep it. Thanks to the assistance of many good friends, I succeeded, although it's anybody's guess how motherhood is going to affect her. Still, she was entirely too happy with Cadgwith for company. Then, thanks to Lis, she started thinking about family life and wondering if perhaps there was something to be said for it after all. Not that she had the best start to it. After two and a half years, I realised that I'd never nearly killed her. She'd had a relatively angst-free experience, aside from the original running-away and feelings sorry for herself before she Impressed. I do feel that every character deserves to stare death at the face at least once in their played lifetime, so when it came to the birth, I consulted Kariel and we pulled out all the stops, ending with Pyrene nearly bleeding to death during an emergency caesarian section.

    After Sephne, life settled down for her a bit. I was busy with SearchCo, for which Py was playing clutchmother. I didn't need to RP complications around that... beyond her tentative crush on G'deon and jealousy of Ilare, which I didn't really have time to get into. Besides this, I was busy RL moving house for a new job... and then quitting said job when it proved to be a nightmare. Still, I used the TP we did to transfer Mitria as a means to throw Pyrene into uncertainty over who she is and her happiness with that... again.

    It was sometime after G'deon was Searched in autumn 2000, I think, that I noticed that his and Pyrene's names could combine to form Pigeon. I felt that this was the greatest thing that I had ever seen, and it became a joke that he and Pyrene would have a baby someday. Likewise, when pregnant with Sephne (by F'ish) I said that she would be called Puffin. Now, Gid is actually a lot of fun to play with, so I did seriously consider the possibility of having a kid by him. Plus he was romantically involved with the delightful Ilare, who I adored and would feel very comfortable RPing jealousy/angst with. By the time they weyrmated, we had discussed the possibilities a few times, and I was already having fun with Pyrene's unrequited crush on Gid. With both other players quite amenable to a bit of drama, I decided to use that crush to turn Pyrene into full-fledged villainess (she's not much of a femme fatale, but she's got the evil down pat). We had to, in order to work around G'deon's boy-scout nature. The result? Pyrene pregnant, Ilare pregnant, G'deon in big trouble and Cadgwith snubbed by Chanticoth!

    Following this, my attention to Pyrene waned as my relationship with my SO waxed.  Lylia and I did our NPC creepy-crawly clutch of all the dragon-descs no (or at least very few) PC candidates would want, Pidgery was born, SearchCo's came and went, and Py RP'ed occasionally, but very little really happened.  In early 2003 however, we finally admitted that Areiah who had been Sr WW for four years was not going to ever be active again.  Nuff had already been Sr and wasn't interested in another go, Vaeli, our newest goldrider, was still in weyrlinghood and wasn't ready to leap straight into Sr.  Myself and Shaela were both in our early 30's ICly and had always wanted to be at least 40 before taking up Srhood, owing to the influx on games of unusually young Weyrwomen who also retire at implausibly young ages.  However, somebody had to take over, and since Shaela was doing a year in Australia and not particularly active due to that, it ended up being me.  Don't get me wrong, I always did want to play Pyrene as Sr someday, but I'd wanted her to be older.  Still, as I got engaged RL around the same time, perhaps better to play it earlier while real life left me some time for games.  Of course, I immediately got into trouble with staff over not informing them of the TP to change WW in advance.  I'd got so used to playing down gold and stressing it as a purely IC thing, that I had simply got the permission of the people involved.  As staff pointed out, WW is something that affects the whole weyr, and while they'd already agreed that Areiah was too inactive and I'd take over, they'd not been given any warning about the TP.

Currently and upcoming?  Well, I foolishly commented on the area chat channel that it would be amusing if the Weyrleaders who disappeared through time in the original opening TP for HRW should come back now.  Everybody leapt on it and I found myself running the durned thing.  Pyrene will be involved in the TP, and I intend to use to try and firm up how she acts as Sr WW: basically capable but with a habit of overstepping her bounds.  Cadge, on the other hand, will be getting a break from the norm by displaying a territorial and hostile streak against the other queen dragon, Ulrinath.  As for the long term... I'll see how it goes.  I'm not making guarantees, but I've got a renewed interest in High Reaches which has got smaller after reaching an absurd size.  With the current amount of people in the Weyr, it should be easier to forge IC relationships, and I'm intending to try and bump up activity again.

    My ultimate goal has always been, I suppose, to see if I can continue playing her actively right through old age. Of course, this would mean I'd have to play her for another 15 years RL, and the chances of me being able to do that are minimal, never mind whether or not she'll sustain my interest that long. Still. We'll see what happens.

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.