Islands of Pern

Weyrwoman Rayira

Name: Rayira NPC/Free
Age: 27
Gender: Female
Rank/Craft: Gold Rider, Weyrwoman, Wingleader: GW
Residence: Ithaca Weyr

Description: Rayira has a naturally tan complexion that can be deceiving in the fact that it leads others to believe that she is originally from the Southern Continent, or perhaps Igen. However her tanned skin and narrow, dark brown eyes that appear to be almost black are simply traits that she has inherited from her family. Her straight hair is pitch black and shines with almost bluish highlights when the light hits it just right. The dark mane reaches down to the base of her shoulderblades where it is cut off in a straight horizontal line. At times the goldrider can be seen going around with her hair tied into an almost impossible amount of tiny braids, sometimes even decorated with a few beads here and there. Other times she pulls it back into a runnertail, sometimes a bun, and on the rare occasions she actually does nothing to it except brushes it out.

Rayira's face leans more towards what others would classify as 'cute' rather than 'beautiful' with her narrow nose and the very faint dusting of freckles across it. She stands on the taller side of average though there are other women who are taller than her. However the goldrider can appear taller than she really is because of her rather skinny figure. What she lacks in curves she makes up with her well-toned physique, though she isn't overly-muscular.

Personality: Out of all the facets of being a queenrider there is only one aspect that Rayira has not gotten used to: The fact that people always want to know where she is and where she is going. The young woman has always been a free spirit; the result of being brought up in a trader caravan. Even though it is hard for her to quench her wanderlust at times, Rayira is still a responsible and sensible woman and has adapted well to staying in one place. When she sets her mind on something she will not give up and she always stands up for what she thinks is right. She has a tendancy to look out for the 'little guy' and has no time for bullies.

When the goldrider is angry, which is a rare occurance since she is generally even-tempered, it can be hard to tell that she is even perturbed at all. Having a sort of silent anger Rayira's approach is often to become rather quiet until whomever made her angry realizes what they have done wrong, then she will be willing to talk calmly and rationally. The woman is so laid back that if a person were to be screaming at her she would simply wait until they had finished and then reply calmly and sincerely: "I'm sorry you feel that way." Only one creature is able to drive Rayira to raise her voice to the screaming level and to nearly make her pull her hair out: Naliveth. When Rayira is happy she can seem almost borderline bubbly and she loves to make people laugh. Often the queenrider will go out of her way just to bring a smile to someone's face.

Background: Rayira loved growing up as the daughter of a pair of traders and was actually born in one of the wagons of the caravan that traveled the Northern Continent. It seemed as if the girl was born to travel for it didn't take her long to learn how to wander off after she learned how to walk. To some it seemed as if the little girl was fearless for even if she got lost when she was found she was never crying but usually had found something that had drawn her curiosity. As she grew older she began to take on some of the responsibilities of being a trader and it was discovered that the girl had strong determination in no matter what she did and almost didn't know when to quit.

Because of Rayira's facination with everything that was foreign to her it came as no surprise that when new faces joined the caravan for a time she always seemed to learn something from them, even if it was simply some tidbit of information. The girl's favorite thing to say as she ran around the caravan usually began with "Did you know that...?" The most prominent of her learned skills turned out to be the self-defense she learned from a young man when she was only twelve turns old. The man taught her not only how to ward off blows from another person using her body alone, but also how to render people twice her size helpless with only a few moves.

Shortly into the girl's seventeenth turn something happened that she hadn't expected. While the caravan was visiting one of the Northern Holds a dragonrider from Southern Weyr who was visiting his family took notice of Rayira. Or rather, his green took notice of her and surprised nearly the whole caravan by announcing to her rider that the girl was fit to stand for the clutch hardening on the sands at Southern Weyr. It took some convincing before Rayira was willing to try her luck and she knew that it was hardly customary to refuse the Search. Therefore it was just later that same day that the young woman found herself on a whole new continent.

The clutch at Southern Weyr that Rayira was to stand for contained no gold egg, yet that didn't downplay her chances. She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to impress or not, though the excitement got the best of her once the Hatching was imminent and she couldn't help but hope one of the little green beauties would choose her. When all the dragonets were free of their shells and Rayira was left dragonless she felt more disappointed than she thought she would. That old determination of hers kicked in as she watched the happy grins on the faces of the new weyrlings and she vowed to continue trying to Impress until she either found her dragon or she became too old to stand.

Luck would have it that another of the Weyr's queens was egg heavy and laid a clutch only a few months after the one Rayira stood for hatched. This batch of eggs contained a gold egg much to the excitement of the Weyr and this only added to Rayira's determination. The girl knew she would love her dragon whether she was green or gold, but the notion of impressing a gold was a rather appealing one. The girl spent the first few days after the clutch was laid simply trying to get the attention of any dragon that would notice her until one finally Searched her. This time when she stood Impression was made, and it was not a green. Rayira knew she would never forget the day the little gold Naliveth waddled into her life.

Adjusting to the life of being a gold weyrling and then later a full fledged queenrider wasn't hard, except for the fact that everyone made a fuss over her. Rayira rarely liked how people either doted on her or tried to keep tabs on her being the free spirit that she is. Her Weyrlingmaster often told her that she was adding more gray to his hair everyday with her fearless attitude and her sometimes silly stunts to make the other weyrlings laugh.

As Rayira grew more into her role as a queenrider she developed a rather strange attitude when it came to relationships. (Or at least, strange for a goldrider.) Never one to settle with any one person, place or thing, Rayira was not one for lasting relationships. In fact the young queenrider wasn't one for any type of romantic relationship at all. Some of the bronzeriders who participated in Naliveth's flights were known to remark that the woman had more of a greenrider mentality when it came to relationships. More often than not Rayira thanked the winner of Naliveth's flight for the good time then cheerfully told them that she would see them later at the Hatching. Mating flights don't mean anything to her, and she refuses to settle down with any one man.

However mating flights still come with consequences and it was around the time that Rayira was twenty one turns old that she became pregnant after one of Naliveth's flights. Nine months later she gave birth to her only child, a little boy that she named Relin. As the child grew older she found that she did not have time to take care of him. The woman who had scoffed at the idea of having any children when she was younger now was quite reluctant to give her little boy up. Instead of fostering her son to a lower caverns worker like many of the other queenriders Rayira simply attempted to send Relin to the Weyr nursery when she had to attend to Weyr business.

As it became harder to take care of her duties, her dragon, and her child the goldrider began to look for different options. It was then that she noticed that Relin had taken a special liking to one of the young girls that worked in the nursery. It wasn't much later that the girl, Chela, was surprised when Rayira summoned her and asked her if she would be willing to move in with the goldrider and assist her with raising Relin.

Things moved smoothly over the next few turns and the new 'family' adapted to their way of life. Rayira became nearly as close to Chela as she was to Relin and began to think of the girl as a sister, or perhaps even a daughter. Chela, who had been a weyrbrat in her youth really had no official parents and was only too happy to accept the kind goldrider as family. Around the time that Relin had turned six turns old and Rayira was well into her twenty-seventh turn a call went out for any available goldriders from the brand new Ithaca Weyr on the Western Continent. Feeling her old wandering spirit stirring from its long sleep Rayira decided that it would be nice to experience something new. It wasn't long later that she, Relin, and Chela were packing their things and heading to Ithaca.

Upon arriving at Ithaca Weyr Rayira discovered that recently the Weyrwoman, Shylye, had been invovled in a fatal accident while assisting with the construction of the Weyr. Rayira was only too happy to share the duties of Weyrwoman with the other goldriders of the Weyr until the next gold would fly. It took a month or two, but Rayira soon began to realize that the next gold that would be rising would be her own, and the fact that she would most likely be Weyrwoman began to sink in.

As Naliveth began to grow brighter in color by the day, Rayira became certain that she would be Weyrwoman. It was now only a matter of time.

Dragon's Name: Naliveth
Color: Gold
Age: 10
Age of Rider at Impression: 17

Description: Naliveth is an averaged sized gold though she borders on the small side of average. Her golden hide is a bright, cheery shade which is reminicent of the first light of Rukbat's rays on a glittering body of water. The dragon's hide is such a bright, bold color that it can sometimes be difficult to tell when she is near to rise until the very last minute, a fact that brings the gold great pleasure and her rider great annoyance. Naliveth's hide is unmarked except for a faint threadscar that snakes its way down her right hindleg, a nick she recieved during her second Threadfall.

Personality: Rayira still can't decide if it is a good thing or a bad thing that her queen's personality is like a reflection of her own in a mirror: It appears to be the same; however it is flipped. Naliveth shares many qualities with her rider but it is the major aspects of her character that seem to be almost completely opposite from her lifemate. While her rider tends to befriend riders of the 'lesser colors', Naliveth finds herself treating the blues, browns and greens almost as if they were younglings. She is polite to them, but in a sort of snobbish, motherly sort of way, and often prefers the company of bronzes and other golds. She is on the whole laid back, but is a little more likely to become angry or grumpy than her rider.

Naliveth isn't laid back, however, when she is clutching. From the moment the gold shows signs of being egg heavy until the last of her children have waddled off the Hatching Grounds the queen becomes a royal pain. For the most part Rayira finds Naliveth's complaints to be amusing, though it is while Naliveth is clutching that the two fight with each other the most. It was in fact the gold's attitude during her first few clutches that developed the almost customary banter that the dragon and rider share most of the time. Lately Rayira has noticed that her gold has been developing a bit of a foul vocabulary when she is at her most angry and the woman swears she has no idea where the dragon learned it from...

Reserved Characters:
Relin, weyrbrat, son, 6 turns old
Chela, Relin's nurse, friend, 17 turns old

Last Updated: 9/18/2004