Alike in Dignity (1/2)

Writers: Corrin, Estelle
Date Posted: 19th April 2025

Characters: Sybana, Ashela
Description: Sybana seeks out a visiting goldrider at the Hatching Feast
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 3, day 22 of Turn 12

Sybana

Ashela

What a dazzling night.

Not long ago, Sybana had dreamt of a night like this, a night where, in the presence of her family, her life would change forever; a night where she would, at last, be invited to the world stage; a night of pure happiness and triumph. That was when she thought she would marry Corofel and become lady of one of the greatest holds in the South. Now, the colors of the bunting were different, as were the faces around her-- and she was bound to a dragon, not a man.

It wasn’t as she imagined, but it was a grand coup all the same.

No sooner had she settled Galgaith and changed than Sybana was whisked away into the thick of the festivities. The inexorable tide of well-wishers carried her along from one introduction to the next, a seemingly endless cascade of congratulations and curiosity. There were faces, familiar and foreign, many with impressive titles and heavy knots. They all wanted a word, a moment, a chance to clasp her hand. There was a seat for her at the high table and the cavern rang with toasts to her health and her dragon’s. It was intoxicating. She’d never felt so important.

She was ecstatic. She was exhausted.

Galgaith’s distant slumber dragged at her thoughts, warm and heavy, a siren song calling her back to the barracks. She wanted to see that precious golden face again, to touch her, to sleep-- but there was one thing left to do.

In the days before the Hatching, Sybana had made a study of the South’s recent goldriders. She has been determined to find any pattern or edge she could, anything that might tip the odds in her favor when the little queen hatched. It had been mostly fruitless, but she had been intrigued to learn that there was at least one highborn holder in their ranks and that she had even risen to Weyrwoman’s Second at Dragonsfall. Ashela.

Sybana had hoped to meet her, to perhaps glimpse something of her own future, but the high table had been too crowded and long for her to do any more than put a face to the name. There hadn’t been a chance to talk.

So when she finally spotted Ashela again, Sybana didn’t hesitate. It didn’t matter that she had been in the middle of a dance. She made her excuses to her partner mid-step and spun off to the table where the senior goldrider was holding court amid a cluster of men.

“Goldrider Ashela,” she called over the conversation, her voice a touch breathless and a touch eager. “Pardon the intrusion, but I’ve been dying to meet you all night.”

Hearing her name, Ashela turned from the bronzerider who'd been telling her just how much he'd missed her over the past month - very gratifying, but a little hollow when all the evening's excitement had been about Chioneth and her precious golden egg - and her slight frown smoothed away when she recognized the girl who'd Impressed that very hatchling. Despite herself, she was more than a little curious.

"Please excuse me." She cut off her companion's speech with an elegant raised hand. "I simply must go and meet my new fellow goldrider. Perhaps we'll talk again later?" With a brightly promising smile, she slipped past him, her silvery gown glittering like scales as she moved.

"Goldrider...Sybana?" Her voice rose slightly as if in a question, although she'd been hearing nothing but that name all evening. "Congratulations! You must be so very, _very_ happy."

“I am,” Sybana confirmed with a beatific smile. “Galgaith is perfect. I feel… whole. Isn’t that so strange? I never lacked for anything before, but now… she’s everything I needed. Really. It’s all been _wonderful_, and thoroughly exhausting.”

She punctuated that comment with a soft, self-effacing laugh, but she didn’t look exhausted. Sybana looked as she painstakingly intended-- properly polished and gorgeously dressed. Her gown, with its emerald folds, had originally been commissioned for her trousseau, but Sybana had been inspired by its rich gold embroidery and had optimistically packed it for just this eventuality. Only the bruise blooming high on her cheek was unplanned and imperfect, her souvenir from the scuffle on the Sands. She’d chosen not to cover it. It wasn’t like it was a secret-- and she had ultimately triumphed.

Ashela, she noted, wore silver. What a clever choice on such a gilded occasion. This was not a woman who liked to blend in. Was any goldrider?

“I’ve been hearing your name quite a lot tonight,” Sybana confided as she stepped closer. “Apparently most of the current goldriders are from the weyr or craft families. You are one of the rare exceptions-- and now so am I. I was hoping you might have some advice. I gather Dragonsfall will be quite different from my life at the Cove and Skyvale.” She didn’t clarify that she meant Opal Cove, there was only one that mattered to a certain circle of people. A circle that Ashela also bore all the marks and poise of.

"Of course. Why don't we take a turn around the cavern together? Here - if I remember rightly from my Impression, you must be parched from talking." Ashela waved to a drudge to bring over a tray of tall glasses, and handed one to Sybana. "I expect if you've been here more than a day or two, you'll have noticed that the - ah, morals - are quite different to those of the Hold, so I won't bore you with that."

She lowered her voice confidingly. "Well, perhaps not so _very_ different, but they are more open about it. What's more of an adjustment is becoming used to what the weyrfolk value in a dragonrider. Strength, confidence, decisiveness... all the qualities we were brought up to hide behind an air of delicacy and pretty manners. You must have those qualities, or you wouldn't have Impressed Galgaith, so you needn't be afraid to show them. At least while you're in the Weyr."

Sybana accepted the glass with grateful thanks, turning Ashela’s words over in her mind as they began their slow circuit of the cavern. Strength, confidence, decisiveness--of course she had those things. They were necessary at a certain rank in the hold, but she had never wielded them openly, not the way Ashela seemed to be suggesting.

Strength had always been tempered with charm, confidence coupled with tact, decisiveness couched in sweet words so no one felt slighted.

“I’m not sure I know how to set all those manners aside,” Sybana admitted, a girl who’d never needed more than a soft touch and a powerful name. “I always thought they made everything so much more… pleasant. But if the weyr expects something different, I’ll try. I’d hate for them to-- to mistake things and think me weak.”

"It isn't easy. A goldrider has to have many faces," Ashela said. "Wingrider, fighter, diplomat - you'll need your manners when you're meeting with Holders, so don't forget them - guardian of your dragon's clutch, and one day, perhaps, leader." She wondered if perhaps it was that ability to slip into a role that Aglayath had seen in her.

"But you have your training to get through first," she added. It was meant to be reassuring, but since Ashela had few fond memories of her own weyrling training, she couldn't help a hint of amusement. If this girl only knew what was coming...

At the mention of training, Sybana exhaled in something between amusement and resignation. “Yes, my training. I imagine I won’t be getting anything quite like this for a while,” she gestured vaguely to the festive cavern, the dancing and music, the attentive gazes still lingering on them. "I suppose I'll need yet another face for training. I was only at the weyr for a couple seven's of candidacy and that was already a shock. They had us cleaning the barracks like a pack of drudges. I do hope that doesn't continue in weyrlinghood? I always assumed goldriders were a lot more like lady holders."

"They haven't told you?" Ashela tutted, as if in disapproval of whoever had been teaching the candidates, although she suspected a few of the girls might have been daydreaming of the gold egg through their classes. "Oh dear. I don't want to ruin this lovely evening for you, but I'm afraid cleaning the Candidate barracks is going to seem like a pleasant relaxation next to weyrling training. Your dragonet must be cared for, and the gold being the largest results in the most scrubbing and, well, certain other bodily functions which I won't mention. But when she grows larger, you'll have help, I'm sure!" she added brightly. "Weyrbrats and candidates are often happy to help bathe a dragon."

Weyrbrats and candidates. Somehow Sybana had assumed there’d be… draconic stablehands at the weyr. Still, Ashela had survived it all-- and here she was, shining in silver, as elegant and graceful as one could hope. And there was something in Sybana that rebelled at the idea of anyone else touching Galgaith. “Well, I’ll certainly do my best.”

Last updated on the April 25th 2025

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Alike in Dignity (1/2)