When Everyone Can Say Your Name

Writers: Rochelle
Date Posted: 1st December 2007

Characters: Ariau
Description: Ariau worries over an aspect of being a goldrider she never thought of before.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 6, day 25 of Turn 4

There were many things about being a goldrider, Ariau decided, walking in the sunshine on her way to the dining hall, that were just disturbing.

Alabieth was wonderful. The little queen was so much more than she'd ever dared dream of, and she could no longer understand how she could have ever survived missing so much of herself. Alabieth was hers, forever bonded, by the most magical moment of Impression Ariau thought she would ever see.
She wouldn't give up her darling queen for anything else in the world. But it didn't mean she had to like -or agree with- the other things that came with it.

Watching Alabieth eat, for one. She was getting better at blocking it out, but there were times when she could feel the chunks of meat sliding down her throat as she fed her gold. She was a terrible chopper, but as long as it was mouth-sized --forget bite sized!- Alabieth didn't seem to mind, and she ate endlessly. Even more so than the other, smaller dragonets.

For another, there was the strange insistence of people giving lectures about taking care of her dragon properly, because she was a queen.
Alabieth was a queen, yes. But Ariau was getting heartily tired of the whole spiel. She was perfectly aware that Alabieth was different. But she'd been told that for weyrlinghood she was just another weyrling. She wanted that anonymity, at least until she knew what she was supposed to _do_.

Third, was the ring of people that seemed to form around her and Alabieth where ever she went. Silent, unarmed for the most part, rarely offering advice or anything useful. Just watching. She didn't want to be a spectator event. At least, not yet. When Alabieth rose, she would have no choice, but then, neither would any of the greenriders in her clutch, or the weyr for that matter. But what she found the most unnerving was her name. All her life, she'd had people who saw her name first mangle it horribly. She had been everything, from Ahreoo, Aree-ah-oo, Ahreeow, to Reou. When she was younger, it had driven her nuts, and she'd wondered why her parents wouldn't have picked a more common way to write her name, or at least have given her a name that didn't strangle people when they tried to pronounce it. As she'd gotten older, she hadn't minded so much. She'd heard all the variations, and people were generally happy for her to correct them the first time, and she'd gradually gotten over the annoyance. She'd come to expect the mistake, and feel a sense of power that she was allowed to correct even Lords and Weyrleaders on one small thing.

Now however, it was almost scary. Not once, since Impressing Alabieth, had she needed to correct someone's pronunciation of her name. Every time, it had been Ariau, properly said. There had been a few letter carriers delivering from her family who had carefully enunciated it Ah-ree-au, but that was all.

Did everyone know she was a goldrider now? Even the most remote people?
And how would they know how to say it correctly, unless it was the biggest gossip network on Pern? None of the ones in the Northern Continent that she knew of were _that_ good. Dragons gossiped, yes, but Alabieth's name would be the subject of conversation, not hers. Did they all expect her to miraculously become someone new if they said her name right? She knew there was no way to convey pronunciation through writing or drums, and yet.. she wondered. Was someone clearing all the messengers, to make sure they could pronounce it correctly before they faced her?

Were goldriders really that frightening to _everybody_?

The thought was disturbing. Sure, she knew that the Weyrwoman could be intimidating, and that goldriders in general had a reputation for being difficult at times. She saw now that they had to be. If all the golds were like Alabieth, they had strong personalities or opinions and had to be dealt with accordingly. But that was no reason to be frightened of them.
Respect, sure. Especially the dragons. But some of what she'd seen hadn't been respect, but fear or nerves.

And what was there to be nervous about with a freckle-covered girl with hair that frizzed to the size of a small wherry if not restrained? She wasn't anything special right now. She was just a weyrling, and she wanted to continue to be just a weyrling, just frizzy-haired, freckle-faced Ariau until she graduated to the wings. And when she joined the wings, she would still be Ariau. Ariau and Alabieth. She had changed with Impression, she wouldn't deny that. But she hadn't turned into someone everyone needed to tiptoe around.

Or had she?

Last updated on the December 2nd 2007

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When Everyone Can Say Your Name