Nashi

Healer washout: Nashi doesn't talk about it, but it's an open secret that despite having two healer parents, she washed out of her apprenticeship at sixteen.

A little bitter: Nashi tends to see the worst in everything. Imagine how enthusiastic she is now that there's Thread and she's going to be stuck fighting it.

Igen clutch Turn 150-a: Nashi Impressed brown Nakaskioth in the first clutch of Turn 150 of the Interval.

The daughter of two well-regarded journeymen healers, Nashana was raised firm in the expectation that she would follow in their foosteps, rising through the ranks of the Hall and perhaps even, one day, taking on a leadership role within it. Neither parent was particularly attentive to their daughter, both busy with their own concerns, but they certainly cared for her in their way, and she strove to make them proud.

Throughout her childhood, her parents were posted to a variety of locations, and so-- secure in her Interval childhood-- Nashana gained an appreciation for the diversity of Pern, and her place within it. She was proud as anything when, age thirteen, she passed her entrance exam and joined the Hall as an apprentice.

Having been raised to this, having been prepared for it, Nashana anticipated her first few turns of apprenticeship, at least, to be relatively straightforward. Hadn't she been learning from her parents almost from birth? But it wasn't that simple. Instead of sailing through, she found herself struggling. The theory was fine, but somehow her hands didn't respond the way she expected them to; somehow she wasn't as quick on the uptake, wasn't as adaptable and responsive as she ought to have been.

Her heritage likely gave her a longer reprieve than most, but after failing a practical examination in her third year, the die was cast: Nashana had washed out of the healer craft. Deep in her own shame, she confirmed to her masters that yes, she remembered the promises she'd made when she joined, and would never share all she'd learned; and left.

Igen Hold was chosen largely at random, perhaps as much as anything because the Igen area was one place she'd never travelled with her parents (her parents, whose disappointment in her rang constantly in her ears). Instead of taking up a job as an assistant in the infirmary, which she felt would be humiliating, she joined the seamstresses: sewing seams might be different to sewing flesh, but the basic concept was the same.

By and large, she kept her humiliation to herself, avoiding the hold healers as much as she could, and deliberately avoiding contact with her parents.

She was seventeen when, with a clutch on the sands, dragonriders from Igen Weyr came calling. Some of the hold young people were excited by the prospect, and others dismissive, and reluctant to comply with the order. There was no Thread, despite the Weyr insisting there would be, and no one particularly liked the fact that the Weyr expected to be given what it needed.

It had never occurred to Nashana to consider Search before, and in truth she found herself without an answer when the opportunity was presented to her: the blue dragon in front of her thought she had potential. Would she do her duty, and come to the Weyr?

Most likely, she accepted simply because it offered another new start.

Three sevens later, she found herself in the weyrling barracks, now Nashi, rider of brown Nakaskioth.

And that's when the Hall got back in touch.

Short and slight, Nashi seems almost too delicate to be a dragonrider, particularly to a large brown like Nakaskioth. Though her dark brown hair is cropped close to her scalp in the traditional weyrling cut, there's a hint of a wave to it that promises curls when it grows out. Her eyes are similarly dark, framed with heavy brows in an otherwise dainty face.