Den of Seyahn
Sean at age 15 or so
Training to be a healer, dragon healer or whatever else she can make herself useful around riders.
Born in Ablan - though the Pernese version not Zekiran - moved to Paniya, and finally moved to her real homeworld.
They almost threw the baby out with the bathwater! When the midwife and healer saw this child that had killed her mother in birth, they were both tempted to claim that she'd died along with Sayran. But her father Anyar couldn't help but hear her loud protests when she came into the world.
They blocked him from seeing her, until he pushed both the aged healer and the squat midwife aside. With shock registering on his face, they looked at each other from behind him, as if to claim 'I thought as much, he hates her'. But instead of refusing the child, the old Holder nodded deeply and gave a bit of a grunt.
"She's the oddest child I think I've ever seen. But then, perhaps her mother brought this on herself..." Anyar was old, and so was his consort Sayran. Almost past childbearing age-- perhaps that had killed her. They lived among the tall snow covered peaks some days travel away from Ablan's valley. The healers there would know what to do with such a child, and as the Holder raised his odd little girl to his head she let out quite a wailing.
With his eye winced shut -- and wishing that he could do the same for his ears -- Anyar nodded again. "We will deliver this child to the Healers at Ablan and let them keep her fostered. I ... am too old to do it, and ... Sayran is no longer with me to help. I think this is my last child, my friends..."
The girl struggled but finally accepted a swaddling bundle and curled her hand around her father's finger. So pale, her skin was! And her hair! But what amazed the group the most were the bright red marks over her eyes. As if two blood-soaked fingertips had brushed against her in the womb, against her snow-pale skin they were vibrant.
And when this child opened her eyes, they were a brilliant green, not the pale blue of her mother, nor even the darker hazel of her Holder father. But her wide, flat nose and the grip she had on her father's finger told him that this was indeed one of his. That, he chuckled while walking slowly around the cothold of his own birth, and her huge feet! They ran in his family and would continue to run in it so long as this last living daughter of his continued it.
***
As a young child, Seyahn terrorized her cothold. Every time she visited home, the maids and drudges ducked for cover and played whirlwind-tamers to her frantic examination of every single thing in the hold. The hillside which covered the cothold served her best though as a place to sit and listen to her father tell stories of her older siblings. She was never to meet any of them: more often than not the endings of their stories were sad ones. But he had sired a line of dragon riders, of crafters and most happily in his eyes, of healers and harpers. That his own parents came from small cotholds and mostly poor beginnings, Anyar did them proud before they themselves passed between.
"Why are the dragons here?" Seyahn asked her father, pointing.
"There are no dragons here, my child," the elderly Holder announced, but Seyahn tugged on his shoulder and pointed into the air. There in the cloudless but frigid mountain sky, were three dragons flying in a wing formation overhead. With surprise, Anyar tossled his daughter's white hair and chuckled. "Well, that's one bet I've lost, eh! You want to meet them, don't you."
"They're landing," she said, sure. The trio of dragons were far away, still, but they did appear to have slowed their progress through the sky. Anyar licked his lips, and hoped that his last daughter did not go the way of... He sighed. What could he do?
He hugged his daughter to him, and whispered into her ear, "when you fly, and go between, you will greet them. Do them honor, my daughter... Do them honor."
And though she did not understand at the time what he meant, she listened and kept those words with her forever.
The dragonriders landed in the wide hillside area near the cothold, and one of them got down from his brown dragon. He approached and was greeted cheerily by Seyahn and with a hesitant but respectful salute by the Holder.
While he and the Holder discussed something, Seyahn zoomed over to the dragons. There was a blue, green and brown in this small wing. They seemed quite different from one another, perhaps from different weyrs. The green rider laughed and told Seyahn to go ahead and scratch her dragon's eye ridge, and from that moment on, Seyahn could not think of anything else.
Her father did not speak about the search riders, after then, but wrote in his journal which she would find many years later. He told her of their insistance that even at a great distance, and even as a four-turn old child, this would be a great rider.
***
"Hand me that stitching box, quick!" Seyahn yelled and the nearest apprentice scurried to assist. A dragon had fallen over Ablan while Thread was coming down out of sequence. So isolated was this place that the dragon could never have flown back to his weyr, and the rider had too been scored deeply across the leg. He would be remaining in the healer's hall at Ablan for quite some time. The dragon, however, howled in pain.
"Please calm down... We know he's hurt, but you can't help him by bellowing so much!" Seyahn said, as she coated the blue's wounded shoulder with numbweed and began stitching together the flesh. Her training as a healer had prepared her for many things, but for some reason she simply knew what to do with this dragon, while the rest of the Ablanese healer hall folk stood by in awe. Most of them had never been this close to a dragon, before.
"Seyahn, the rider is resting. He's not come to his senses yet, though." One of the Journeymen told her, as she dropped tiredly to the ground.
"You see?" She looked up at the blue. His angry red eyes turned more orange and then finally to a more mellow shade of grey-green. He was worried, obviously, but he was no longer panicking. Seyahn patted his leg and told him to rest. Only then did she thank the Journeyman for telling her the news about the rider.
Later, when the rider had awoken and his leg was obviously healing, he called Seyahn into the small warm room.
"I've been told that you're the one who patched up Onronth. He's been blabbering about the 'white one' all sevenday. Thank you very much for keeping him from doing something ... bad."
"He was frightened for you," Seyahn said, almost off hand.
"You can hear him, can't you?" The rider asked, and she nodded.
"Yes, of course," she answered. "Why?"
The rider blinked. Surely she wasn't this innocent?
"Because ... well, only the riders usually hear their dragon. They don't go blabbering to everyone around them. And only certain human people can hear dragons at all, let alone... Anyone's dragon."
Seyahn jolted a bit. "You mean that's special? I thought..." She smiled to herself. "I thought everyone could. I had read my father's journals about my older siblings, and they were all quite special then. Many of the riders claimed they could hear more than just their own."
"I've heard that your father was a special man, himself," the rider said. "But... you should come to Istabitha's weyr when I'm healed. I've heard they have an opening for a very special hatching. I think..." he looked at her the way that said to her 'he's watching my skin again'. "That a special girl like you ought to attend."
She did so, and what she found.......
Seyahn wandered around Istabitha's weyr long enough to get stared at, watched and even curiously followed by some of the youngest weyrbrats. It was her unusual skin and hair, probably.
Doubtless.
She wandered down into the lowest section of the weyr, and then found herself in a huge cavern which at first looked like a hatching sands. But it was very cold. Almost frozen over! It was as if a snowdrift had replaced the sands which usually kept eggs warm and snug.
But what was this? She did see an egg! In fact, there was another nearby it. Only a couple of them, though. Mostly white eggs, snowy white like their surroundings. She dared to reach out and touch the one she'd first spied.
Curiosity thrilled her, the touch of the egg was warm! It wasn't frigid at all, it was almost as if it heated itself!
"Oh, I wonder what's in here..." She said, her voice echoing in the large, frozen cavern. "It couldn't possibly be a dragon. It's much too cold in here. Maybe a tunnel snake. But... this egg is much too large for that." she sighed.
Sitting down, the cold never really bothered her, she watched the eggs for a long time. Then, to her amazement, the one she'd touched began to rock back and forth! A strange chiming song came through the chill air in the cavern, and she realized that it was a host of fire lizards which lined the tall walls! They sang, as if the hatching were really going to take place right here and now!
To her delight, the egg began rolling around on the snowy base. She had to dodge it lest it roll right over her!
Then suddenly, Seyahn had to cover her face, as the egg began to shatter down the middle! Pieces of it flew into the air and landed in the soft frost on the ground, and the inside of the egg seemed to steam! Then, out came...
...The white parts of the dragon were so bright, like her own skin. Seyahn looked on in amazement as the dragon that came from the egg looked around and chirped more like a fire lizard than anything else. Then, Seyahn noticed that the white dragon had a brilliant strip of green down her back, from nose to tail! And, that there were vibrant red tips on her wings, all along the edges. The same color as the birthmarks on Seyahn's forehead! She went to embrace this miracle, and was rewarded by the warm breath of the dragon chuffing out a laugh.
I am your Ajandeykth. Your gift in this season. I fear I will not be very big, nor very easy to explain... But I love you.
"Oh, Ajan! You're the best gift in the world!" Cried Seyahn, as she led the dragon away into warmer climes and to find some meat to feed her!
When Ajandeykth and Sean had grown a bit, they wandered around the weyrs of Pern during another Winter season. And when they found themselves at Cincanta Weyr, they located a stall selling very unusual Holiday filt eggs! After a heated barter session, Sean's egg was about to hatch!
Little green and red-brown ("wow, is it male or female?" asked Sean,) HollyLeaf came from the egg!
