Their New Home

Writers: Rochelle
Date Posted: 29th February 2008

Characters: Ariau
Description: Ariau and Alabieth have different reactions while settling into their new weyr.
Location: River Bluff Weyr
Date: month 8, day 15 of Turn 4

Ariau stood in the center of the large cavern, her eyes traveling the wall upward to the impossibly high ceiling, before looking over to where Alabieth was excitedly investigating the cavern. The queen was still growing, but was large enough that it was obvious that the enormous weyr would be necessary, particular if she took a liking to cuddling with bronzes.

}:It is big.:{ Alabieth commented happily, lowering her nose to investigate the worn rock of her new hollow as closely as possible. "I certainly hope so." Ariau said, amused. "There aren't many weyrs big enough for a queen."

Alabieth gave a contemptuous snort, and began turning in place like a feline about to lay down. Smothering a giggle, Ariau backed up a few steps to avoid a wingtip and watched as Alabieth flopped down with a whooshing noise as the air escaped from under her. Within moments, the gold had relaxed out of her careful, neat positioning and sprawled across the cavern, her belly flat on the rock and her wings sagging half extended to either side. She sighed, a contented whoosh of air, and let her inner eyelids close, the outer two sagging.

Ariau moved close again, scratching the great golden head around the headknobs and along the eyeridges, letting herself bask in the contentment and happiness Alabieth was projecting at finally having enough room to sprawl. She hadn't really fit in her wallow in the weyrling barracks for sevendays, and that wasn't even considering her habit of plastering herself to the floor in her sleep to take up every possible inch of available space. But Alabieth was happy, and for Ariau, right now that was enough.

It didn't take long for the young queen to drift into a happy snooze.
Ariau patted her gently and took a step back, watching the sleeping queen. Alabieth was not quite the size of a full sized green yet, but the same size as the bronzes in her clutch, and growing quickly. It wouldn't be long before she filled the cavern with her bulk, but... It wasn't going to matter. The weyr was designed for gold dragons, and clingy ones at that. Unless Alabieth grew to twice the size of Tabanirth, this was their new home.

Home. She paused, poking tenderly at the thought. This weyr, River Bluff, were going to be home now. Her actual, real home. Not somewhere to stay for the night. Not a barracks shared with dozens of others and only intended for temporary use. Not somewhere she just stayed at for a while until it was time to move on. A real home. Somewhere she could make her own, a physical location to go with the home she'd been looking for turns before finding it at last in Alabieth's jeweled eyes.

True, it may still be temporary. Queens were often shuffled, to improve the gene pool at the weyrs. But usually not for turns, not until they were really needed elsewhere -or the Weyrwoman couldn't stand them. It was entirely likely that she would be here for just as long as the hold she'd been born in, where she'd stayed until her parents died. If she was honest with herself, she wasn't sure she wanted it to be home.
Having a home, a real one and not just in the heart of her dragon, meant that her wild dreams of always traveling to the next horizon were just what her rational brain told her -impossible. In that dream she had found her match, and just as she knew that Alabieth would be happy to take her anywhere, she also knew the queen loved the thrill of aiming for the horizon just as much as her rider. But having a physical home was an anchor, a reminder that her reality was entirely different than the dreams she'd created during endless candlemarks on horseback as a child.

Alabieth shifted toward her left side, her sagging right wing mostly closing under the weight of gravity in its new position. Ariau smiled again, the soft, involuntary smile that all dragonriders gave their lifemates, and forced herself to turn and enter the actual living quarters of her new weyr.

She'd been here before once, when the Headwoman had taken her to show her where it was. She still found it a bit unnerving that her new weyr had been picked out for her practically since the day Alabieth was laid, but it made sense. There were only so many places you could put a queen.

Hesitantly, she stepped to the doorway into her part of the weyr. She fumbled along the wall, looking for the switch. She finally found it, a few finger widths above where she'd expected it to be, and only flipped it by accident while she was waving her hand along the wall. But once the light was on...

It was a comfortably sized sitting room, just the right size for entertaining a few guests, if she ever had anyone over. The walls were mostly even, light colored stone through here, and the furniture looked new. Probably freshly replaced from the storerooms, she realized nervously, eying the nice carving along the edge of the small table and the overstuffed cushions on the couch. Nothing but the best for a goldrider...

She shook her head, trying to ignore the thought as she moved slowly through the rooms. There were four rooms in her living area, she knew. The main sitting room, a little bubble shaped alcove off to the side the perfect size for a small office and already containing a desk, a spacious bedchamber, and a rather luxurious bathing room. All of them had new furniture, and there were a few homey touches here and there, such as a rug by the side of her bed and vase of flowers on the table. Her trunk had been moved from the barracks and placed at the foot of her bed. The last time she'd been in here, there was no furniture. Nothing but large, echoing rooms that felt too large for one person to live in alone.
Now... it was very nice. She could tell there had been some obvious care to pick furniture that matched in each room, rather than whatever simply fit there. But the new furniture didn't seem to do anything to the rooms themselves. The rooms still felt strange. As if they were... untainted, somehow. Waiting for someone to breath the life into them. Someone who knew what a real home felt like.

Ariau bit her lip, looking around the sitting room again. How did you make a home out of a place like this? Everything was so... bland. Light walls, dark woods, plain, solid colors. As if the previous occupants had cleaned everything up to perfection, and were now watching over her shoulder, waiting to critique what she did with it.

It really was too big for her. All she needed was a bedroll...

No. This was her life now. She was a dragonrider. And not just any dragonrider -she was a queenrider. Alabieth was flying now, and they would be learning to /Between/ soon. She wouldn't be able to pretend anymore.
She wouldn't be able to be just Ariau anymore. Just Ariau wouldn have been fine with a bedroll on the back of a runner that she could lay out on the dirt. But these rooms were a result of her new position now, as Ariau the goldrider. The rooms were a result of the position, not her. She just had to learn to live within that role.

And yet...

She slipped outside, onto her ledge, sitting and letting her legs dangle from the edge of the shallow ramp. She breathed a sigh of relief. She would manage. Living alone in that massive weyr... was gong to take some practice, but she would manage. Somehow, she would find a way to make it home. But until then...

She smiled at the sky, relieved to be in the open air, with the warmth of the sun on her freckled cheeks. She'd make the weyr her new home somehow, make it somewhere she didn't mind retreating to rather than having to escape from. But for now, there was always her first home, under the open sky.

Last updated on the March 2nd 2008

Welcome to Triad Weyrs!

Their New Home