#Brekke siblings

[sharpestasp]

Pern, Anne McCaffrey, Nerilka ?

Nerilka of Fort, Nerilka of Ruatha… HELLO FIRST GIRL I ACTUALLY CONNECTED WITH IN A NOVEL.

Okay, that might be a fib, I am sure I had empathy at others before her enough to count. But Nerilka was the first Pern novel I got that had only JUST been released (in paperback, so a few months after it hit shelves), and I clicked with her in ways I had not with Menolly or Lessa or Brekke or any of the others. I was 11 years old, too mature for my age, my entire life had gone BOOM that year — Nerilka gave me hope.

Ugly duckling, ostracized by her family, useful skills overlooked, a parent's sibling a formative part of her life, a more glamorous (maybe older) foster 'sib'? OH LOOK. Hello Tiny!Asp in a nut shell.

And she succeeds. She is invaluable to the efforts to save Ruatha, and gave so selflessly. Even the eventual relationship made sense to me then and now, with it being a settling at first, that grows to more, but began in friendship and grief alike.

In short? She was my favorite for a very long time. She was, eventually, surpassed by Moreta herself, but that was more to do with my maturing than with the character herself. Nerilka was the heroine I needed as a preteen/teenager/young adult, and that matters so much.

[theblackwellpagesincorrectq-blog]

Reyna: I just got hit in the head with a bird??

Fen: You should've ducked.

Reyna: Was that a bird pun!?

Laurie: Forget ducking, birds drop crazy low when they need to, you should've dove.

Reyna: WAS THAT ANOTHER BIRD PUN?

[tbp-but-make-it-incorrect]

Laurie, watching Fen push a door that clearly says pull: You're not pushing hard enough.

[tbp-but-make-it-incorrect]

If Janey Brekke raised both Fen and Laurie

Laurie: Mom! There's a monster under my bed and it's REALLY ugly.

Fen, from the bottom bunk: Honestly, fuck you.