Author's Note
I do not own the Dragonriders of Pern or any related content. All rights belong to their rightful owners.
A big thank you to Glass Dragon's Rose and jaydubya338 for your follows, rowy16, and Queen Akadeanna Hawk for your follows and favourites, Allysha Dragonblood for your follow, favourite, and review, and to Dragonsrule18 for your follow and review!
In response to the question Dragonsrule18 asked about what fandom Yornam is from, she's actually one of the ones who aren't, and a play on a trope instead. Some of the characters are from fandoms, but not all of them. Feel free to take guesses/opinions on what they are! Naeressa from this chapter is actually a bit of a mix of both, and the other characters we've seen so far have been normal compared to her.
As the sun rose over the hills, a young woman sat upon an impossible to reach rock ledge and gazed out across the land with luminious pink eyes.
It had been thirteen years, nearly to the day.
Thirteen years since her life ended.
…mysterious flashback to thirteen years ago time…
Five year old Naeressa was a perfectly ordinary little girl, thank you very much, with straw coloured brown hair and mud coloured brown eyes. There was nothing extraordinary about her whatsoever. She was a sensible child who liked to have fun, yet never broke her parents' rules, which was perhaps a little unusual for a child, but there will always be well behaved children just as there will be naughty ones. She lived in a small cothold with her parents, her three older siblings and one younger brother. Their parents were simple ovine farmers, and one day their children would marry and become simple ovine farmers too, as would their children after them.
It was the way of the world.
That day, five year old Naeressa, who was completely normal and uninteresting, was helping her older sister, who has no other purpose in this story than to exist and be a future source of angst, make lunch for their parents and brothers who were out farming the ovines, as ovine farmers do. One moment she was cutting up the bread with a blunt knife, because she was a very normal child who would probably cut herself on a sharp one, and the next moment the entire cothold was flattened!
Go back one moment, as Naeressa often has over the years.
…mysterious flashback to three seconds ago…
From inside the cothold, Naeressa and her sister couldn't see the danger approaching, because there were no windows and they were too busy cooking. But from outside, her family could see it from the fields where they were herding the ovines as they did day in day out every day.
A huge, rainbow coloured comet was falling from the sky.
And it was falling towards their croft.
Naeressa's mother thought about her daughters.
Naeressa's father thought about his croft, which had been owned by his father before him, and his father before him.
Both of them screamed.
The comet fell on the croft and exploded in a huge burst of light.
…mysterious flashforward to three seconds later…
The comet left behind only rubble and burning ash.
Five year old Naeressa, who had only a moment ago been a perfectly ordinary little girl, thank you very much, was in a lot of pain, and she couldn't see her sister anywhere. She wailed for her mummy, which didn't really help given the circumstances. Coughing and choking on the ash and dust she stumbled through the remains of the croft as fast as her little legs could, pushing large chunks of stone from her path as best her little hands could.
At last she fell out into the open air and collapsed upon the ground.
When her parents returned to the croft they found it had been obliterated, leaving only a smoking crater in the ground. Naeressa laid upon the ground. Her hair had all been burnt away and her skin had an odd rainbow shimmer to it when the sun hit. Her mother dropped to her knees and scooped the child up in her arms, while her father dropped to his knees and gaped at the remains of his croft.
…end mysterious flashback time…
Never again would Naeressa be an ordinary little girl.
Her parents knew that as soon as she opened her eyes at the Healer's Hall and instead of her normal mud brown they were a glowing, luminescent pink. The Healers said it might fade but it never did. Nor did her hair, which grew back the colours of the rainbow and so shiny one could see their reflection in it on a bright day
They would never find the body of her sister, who had, presumably, been disintegrated upon impact of the comet.
Such were the origins of Naeressa's curse.
Her parents worked hard to build a new croft. Naeressa surprised everyone by picking up a sack of stone with one hand and carrying it over to her parents when her brother complained it was too heavy. When it grew cold and the ground was hard with frost, Naeressa glowed with warmth and formed small flames in her hands to keep her brothers warm. When she tripped over a branch, because she was still a five year old girl, if an extraordinary one, she fell not on the ground but instead floated there above it.
Her parents cautioned her that she mustn't use her gifts in public or where anyone could see, but Naeressa was a bold, kind, and heroic girl, and when she saw a farmer's son tumble through the ice one cold winter's morning she wasted no time in diving after him to pull him out, leaving him on the shore for his friends to find and vanishing into the timber.
Thus was her legend born.
As the years went by Naeressa grew into a tall, slender girl with well defined muscles and a fit figure. Her rainbow coloured hair fell to her ankles and her glowing pink orbs shone brightly in her face. Even the plain dresses she wore over the more practical plain trews and tunics she preferred die nothing to hide her beauty. She protected the local lands with a fierce devotion, saving folk from flooding and fires and ovines. She left her home and brothers behind when she was only fifteen, seeking refuge in the wild so she could better protect people. She built her own cave in the cliff she sat on now, filling it carefully with only the things she needed to survive. For three years the only people she saw were those she helped and saved – and the boy.
He was the first she ever saved, a farmer's son with soft chestnut hair, sparkling blue eyes and a musical voice. Every day he would walk up and down by the river, singing, and search for her.
Naeressa watched him.
Sometimes she let him see her then darted away into the shadows and darkness.
This day was different.
This day he hadn't come, the first time in years, and she saw dragons fly over the cliff as the son reached its peak. She watched them soar towards the cothold.
Naeressa lived to help people, and wasn't that what dragonriders did?
Quickly she changed into a simple looking dress and pulled on a cloak to hide her rainbow coloured hair before flying up the cliff and racing towards the cothold.
She landed a little way outside and joined those hustling and bustling around, eager to see the dragons. Naeressa was quick as a flash, darting between them to enter the Hold and push her way to those trying to see the dragonriders. Many were clearly too young or too old, children or young adults outside the age of candidacy, though the riders had chosen two boys, a small one with brownish hair and her musical boy from the river.
One of the riders gazed at her. "You," he said. "What is your name?"
"Naeressa, bronze rider," she said shyly, for he was the first person she had spoken to in many years.
"A beautiful name for a beautiful lady. Naeressa, the dragons have chosen you. Would you like to come away with us and stand as a candidate?"
Naeressa's smile outshone the sun. "Oh yes sir, I would very much!"
And so it was that Naeressa set off with the riders to the Weyr in hopes of a new baby dragon and a new way of helping people.