Fort Weyr

An oval face is framed by straight dark brown hair shot through with lighter red-tinted highlights and hangs down below her shoulders. Silky in texture, her hair is apt to fly around her face and be unmanageable, which is why she usually keeps it pulled back in a runnertail. Her eyes are a jade green, muted and muddied with some flecks of brown, but are expressive beneath thin brows. Her lips are full and her cheekbones high, giving her a squint when she smiles.
Her body is slender but not very shapely, a small chest and narrow hips requiring an almost masculine cut to her clothing no matter what she tries to wear. Most days it's riding gear, thick trousers and boots, a sweater and a jacket pulled over that. Her knot is that of a goldrider, with Fort Weyr colors laced through with a band of dark and burnished gold.

Nyalle was born in Fairfield, an optimistic name for a rather bleak farm etched into the mountains around High Reaches Hold. Despite the climate, the farm managed to feed its own and send tithe to the main hold, and Nyalle's father often boasted that his food often graced the weyr's tables. Nyalle was a middle child, with an older brother Nstran and two younger siblings, Eston and Ashtase. Life on the farm was challenging but she enjoyed growing things and tending to the animals, as well as helping her mother with the housework. Then a drought came. The farm shriveled, belts tightened, and a hard winter brought even harder times to Fairfield. To the family's grief, both Eston and Ashtase caught a bad cold that winter, and without sufficient food or marks for medicines, both children withered away and died. It took a long time for the family to get over their grief and get the energy to pick up and keep going, but they did. Several turns later, when Nyalle was fifteen, she was at the hold with her brother when a dragon showed interest in her. It was the hardest decision of her life, and she was going to turn the rider down when Nstran insisted that she go. With a tearful goodbye at home and the promise to return if she did not impress, Nyalle went to the weyr.

She was definitely a fish out of water in the weyr, having never been there before this occasion. She was very shy, keeping to herself and sometimes regretting her decision to accept search. Still, she was stubborn enough to stick it out. On hatching day, she did not expect anything. Other candidates were more confident more assured, more ready than she. But that did not stop golden Kayeth from choosing her above all the other more qualified (in Nyalle's mind) candidates. The pair settled into weyrlinghood, Nyalle struggling to come to terms with the sudden and irreversible change in her life. Her family was incredibly proud, but she often worried that they were not doing as well as they could without her.

Her Weyrlinghood was completed as normal, without anything odd occurring. Some changes in High Reaches leadership made things a bit unstable but she kept her head down and did her duty as a Junior. So it was quite a surprise to her when she was suddenly being transferred to Fort, rumors swirling around her departure having to do with a lusty Weyrleader and a jealous Senior. So it is that Nyalle finds herself even further from her cothold home, knowing no one, and with another weyr's rhythms and people to learn.