It was a beautiful morning in the Eralayel Forest. The sun shone brightly in the eastern sky, and only wisps of clouds dared to show themselves on such a perfect day. Siyae saw all of this as she left her home that morning. She had a long way to travel before she would reach her destination.

The sunlight turned green as it passed through the canopy of trees. Siyae paused for an instant to take it all in. She sighed. There wasn’t enough time to enjoy the day yet. She wanted to be able to find the spot again before noon, so she began to run. The wind felt wonderful as it blew her long brown hair behind her. Siyae’ s mind began to wander as she continued on her way. There was much for her to think about.

It had only been three weeks since her father had died in an accident. A huge storm had gone through the forest, and afterwards, he had organized a group to clear the debris. While he was out, a tree limb fell on him and broke his neck. It had been quite a shock for Siyae. She hadn’t been very close to her father because he was the leader of their small clan, and he had stayed busy. She had always believed that there would be plenty of time for her to get to know him, but she had been wrong.

Siyae stumbled, but she caught herself before she fell. The interruption brought with it a different line of thought: her mother. Siyae’ s mother had died giving birth to her eighteen years ago, so she had asked all of the adults in the clan about her mother. What she managed to gather was this: her mother was extremely beautiful, kind, and generally a wonderful person. Sometimes, Siyae felt that she had been extremely cheated in not being able to know her. Siyae had no siblings, so when her father was taking care of business, she had stayed with various relatives. Usually it was her father’ s sister. How she had hated those days! Her aunt was a very strict woman who didn’t believe in allowing younger people to have fun. Siyae thought that this was due to the fact that her aunt had never had fun in her life. Siyae paused to catch her breath. She was almost there. Just ahead of her was the beginning of the path that would take her up to the top of the cliff she had fou nd the day before.

An hour later, Siyae stood at the edge of the cliff. Below, the ocean lapped in soothing waves. It looked high enough for her purposes. All she needed was a good running distance. She backed up about thirty feet and galloped towards the edge. She soared off the cliff before she began to plummet. Suddenly she snapped her golden wings open and caught the wind current. It felt so wonderful to be able to glide through the air.

The wind currents changed abruptly. Puzzled, Siyae looked around for the disturbance. Then a brown dragon appeared out of nowhere in front of her. She folded her wings and dropped like a stone before she rose again. She was equal with the dragon again and could see that there was a rider on its back.

“HEY!!” she yelled. “What do you think you’re doing? You could have killed me with that beast of yours!”

The rider was either ignoring her or couldn’t hear her. Either way, Siyae was fuming by the time she landed back on the cliff near the brown. The rider dismounted and removed his riding gear. He was a tall, blonde-headed man. He seemed somewhat bewildered. “Potuth, where are we?” he called up to his dragon.

“You’re just outside the Eralayel Forest,” Siyae told him. She was getting very annoyed with this person for ignoring her.

The rider finally seemed to notice that he wasn’t alone, but he seemed very surprised when he noticed his companion. She was half horse and half human. The horse part of her was chestnut colored. The human half of her was wearing a long sleeved, green shirt. The most astonishing feature though was her golden wings. “What… I mean who are you,” he corrected.

Siyae was usually a patient person, but she didn’t have very much after almost being knocked out of the sky. “First of all, my name is Siyae, and I happen to be a half pegasus if you must know. May I ask who are you?”

“My name is L’van. Where on Pern am I?” he asked confused.

“Well, for one, you aren’t on Pern. You are standing on the planet Oriya,” she answered. She was more interested now than annoyed. “How did you get here?”

“I’m not sure. I was on my way to a nearby weyr, and now I’m on another planet,” he said with a laugh. His eyes became unfocused for a second. “Siyae, how old are you?”

“I’m eighteen. Why do you ask?”

“I just wanted to be sure that you were old enough. I mean you do age the same way that I would, right?” he continued.

“Yes. What am I old enough for?” she asked growing a little suspicious.

“Siyae, have you ever considered going to another planet?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked generally confused.

“Potuth here,” he said indicating the dragon, “thinks that you would make a good candidate for bonding with a dragon.”

“Bonding? What do you mean?” she asked.

“Bonding is kind of hard to explain,” L’van stammered. “When a dragon hatches, a person can form a mental bond with it. If this happens the dragon and the rider will become bonded forever. It’s like having a permanent friend always by your side.”

“That must be really nice,” she said with a smile. “I could use a friend right now. Are you and Potuth bonded?”

“Yes, we are. We’ve been together for a while now,” he added patting the brown. He looked around for a while before he began again. “Could you tell me how far off the mark I am in my travel?”

Siyae shrugged. “I don’t know where Pern is, but our sun is Hyal. We’re the fourth planet from it. That’s all I can really tell you. Does that help?”

“Did you say Hyal?” he asked laughing. He looked up at his dragon. “Potuth, you’ve landed us in another solar system. What do you have to say for yourself?” The dragon gave a low grumble. “Yes, I guess I should have concentrated more, but I can report my findings to Weyrwoman Yulara when we get back to Harana.”

“Did you just talk to him?” Siyae asked interestedly.

“Yes, I did. Part of bonding with a dragon is being able to communicate with it telepathically,” he explained. He looked up at the sky. “Wow we’ve been talking for a while, and I have to go back to my weyr, that’s a place where dragons and their riders are trained and live. You should come with me. We can find somewhere for you to stand I’m sure. What do you say?”

Siyae’s thoughts reeled. She had always wondered about the stars and the planets, and now she was being asked to go to travel by dragon to another world! What could she say? Her life had already been turned upside down by recent events, and now she was being offered a chance to start over. “I would love to go with you. Let me get my stuff. Just wait here.” She galloped back to her home and gathered her belongings. Her aunt was waiting for her.

“Where have you been?” she screeched.

“I went exploring,” Siyae answered calmly.

“How can you be exploring at a time like this?” her aunt asked.

“A time like what? Father’s death was three weeks ago. It’s time for us to move on,” she stated firmly, “and that’s exactly what I plan to do.” She finished packing her belongings. “Good-bye.”

“Where do you think you’re going? It’s time for you to grow up. You should get married and do something with your life,” her aunt bellowed.

“I am doing something with my life,” Siyae said with a laugh. “I’ m starting it all over, and as for your other question, I’m going to another planet called Pern.” Without another word, Siyae turned and raced out of her house and away from her former life.

An hour later she met L’van again on the cliff. “Sorry…I… took … so … long,” she huffed, out of breath. “I’m ready.”

L’van stood in thought for a moment. Then he looked back at Siyae. “I have a question for you. Do you think you could get close enough to my dragon in flight to touch him?”

“Yeah, I could probably do that. Why?” she responded.

“You’ll need to touch him to go with us,” he explained. Siyae looked puzzled, but L’van waved away her questions. He threw some extra riding gear. “Put that on. Then we can go, and make sure you hold on tight.” L’van mounted his brown dragon, and they took off. Siyae shook her head and did as she was told. This was still unbelievable, but it was time to go. She took off and drew level with Potuth. Her bright blue eyes sparkled with excitement as she reached to touch his wingtip. Then all three disappeared.

Siyae has bonded with green-blue-purple Daylaponth!!

Background from Free-Backgrounds

Image of Siyae created on Shiver's fantasy dollmaker and then edited by Weyrwoman Rhiannon.