Rarities

Writers: Corrin, Duskdog
Date Posted: 17th March 2025

Characters: Sybana, Zaphare
Description: The weyr’s newest goldrider and female bluerider venture out for a meal for the first time since the Hatching, and find themselves the subject of attention.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 4, day 15 of Turn 12

Sybana

Zaphare

The dining hall was louder than Sybana remembered. Maybe it had always been this way--full of voices, the scrape of chairs against stone, the clatter of dishes--but after two sevendays spent in the quiet intensity of the barracks, wrapped up in the all-consuming world of a newborn dragon, it was almost overwhelming. Then add to that the scrutiny she now received as the weyr’s newest goldrider…

Sybana thought she knew how to handle attention. She had grown up with it due to family, her fortune, her face. In the holds, where alliances were woven daily over wine, she had learned to bear the spotlight with grace, to meet curiosity with charm, but as she navigated the aisles with her food tray, things felt different.

She was used to judgment, she had told the weyrlingmaster as much, but in the holds, judgment came laced with deference, softened by manners and the knowledge that her position, her blood, carried a certain untouchability. Now, there was no such buffer. Now, there were countless weyrfolk watching, measuring her against standards she did not yet understand, waiting to see her stumble or soar.

And, of course, there was her shadow.

The guard assigned to her was subtle about it, as much as one could be while keeping her in arms reach. His presence was a constant pressure at her back. Another set of eyes, another one of Them, always watching.

Zaphare could feel eyes on her as she entered the Dining Hall. A few people turned their heads, a few tapped a buddy on the shoulder and nodded in her direction. And that was fine, really -- let them stare. Whatever. It’s not like she had anything to hide, right? She had a _dragon_, and some of these people didn’t even have that. Moreover, she had the greatest dragon who had ever lived, and _none_ of them had that.

Still, it was a little annoying. Back at the Hold, she wasn’t anybody special, but there was always a sense that people were watching. There were behaviors that were expected, and behaviors that were frowned upon, particularly for the girls. The Weyr had been a breath of fresh air. Nobody cared about her. Nobody watched -- not really. So long as she didn’t go breaking any candidate rules in an egregious way, it didn’t really matter that much what she did.

Now it seemed people were noticing and trying to figure her out. Trying to figure out what made a blue dragon choose her, she supposed.

She didn’t see how it was any of their business.

“Why don’t you just commission a portrait, arseface?” she asked a young rider who looked a little too long as she passed. “It’ll last longer!”

Ugh.

Spying Sybana ahead of her, she hurried to catch up and tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey--”

The guard, sandy haired Ferrig, stepped into the path of her finger. The little smirk on his face as he stared down at her made it abundantly clear he didn’t consider her a threat. He was just being a dick and finding what joy he could in a boring shift.

Behind him, Sybana rolled her eyes. Ferrig was her least favorite guard so far. He had let her get horribly lost in the lower caverns earlier, only leading her out when she told him Galgaith was hungry. “Hello, Zaph. Care to join me?” She had finally made it out to a relatively empty table and sat, smoothing her skirts. “Try to ignore him, I do.”

“Try to ignore who?” Zaphare asked pointedly with a smirk, very deliberately not looking at the guard. She pushed past him and sat down across from Sybana. “Seriously though, what’s it like having a pet follow you around everywhere? Do they even go in the bathing room with you?”

Sybana gave an airy laugh. “I wouldn’t call it a pet. Pets are cute. Pets are affectionate. This one,” she flicked a glance towards Ferrig, who had taken up a stance just close enough to be obnoxious, “is decidedly neither.”

Ferrig just crossed his arms as he took up station nearby, the ghost of a smirk still on his lips.

“But they follow me pretty much everywhere. Except the latrine. Those they just check first, thank the stars. I usually have Cadella with me in the morning when we bathe. She’s more subtle than a Certain Someone, that’s probably why you haven’t noticed her.” There was also the fact that Sybana was still bathing painfully early, in a vain bid for some privacy in the weyr’s communal baths. “Apparently it’s for my safety after that tragedy at Barrier Lake, but I’m starting to think I should take my chances. Honestly, this really isn’t what I had in mind when I came to the weyr.”

“Which part? Impressing a gold dragon, or having a shadow like Chuckles, here?” It was hard to believe that someone like Sybana hadn’t expected any of this. She seemed tailor-made for a gold dragon, didn’t she? And smart enough to have thought about it. Though the guard thing was especially weird. Nobody could have predicted that, she supposed. “It’s… not what I expected, either. I didn’t really expect to Impress. I just thought I’d ride that out until I was too old, then, I don’t know, find another thing to do here so they’d let me stay. I just knew I didn’t want to go back.”

“It’s the shadow part that came as a surprise, but honestly--" She trailed off, glancing at Ferrig who’s expression was now suspiciously innocent, his eyes on the ceiling.

“Would you _please_ give us _some_ space?”

The guard didn’t so much as blink. “I have my orders.”

“You can still follow them, just from slightly further away.” Sybana frowned, Ferrig smirked. They were at an impasse. Fine. “I’ll give you a sixteenth later for every step you take away from me right now.”

There was a long pause as the guard weighed his options. Then, with exaggerated nonchalance, he took a few measured steps back.

“Larger.”

He rolled his eyes but obeyed. When he was finally far enough to be plausibly out of earshot, Sybana turned back to Zaphare, lowering her voice, “Honestly though, everything is a little different than I expected. I thought being a goldrider would be more like running a hold. I thought I’d be doing things I’d been raised to do, things I _know_ I’m good at-- and maybe I will, in a Turn or two. But right now… it’s all so _physical_. The training, the care, and soon, the drills. I know it’s technically new ground for all of us, but I’ve never done anything remotely like this in my life.” She huffed a small, self-deprecating laugh. “The candidate chores were already exhausting, and I wasn’t caring for a dragon then. And the worst thing is-- the weyrfolk aren’t going to wait a Turn or two to make up their minds about me. I have to be good _now_, and I hardly know how.”

“I don’t envy you,” Zaphare said with a wry half-smile. “Like, I _get_ why you have to be good. And I know I couldn’t. I don’t want to have to be good for anybody ever again.” She paused. “I mean, not that I want to go out of my way to be _bad_ or anything… I just don’t want to have to worry about anybody over my shoulder judging me. At least not anybody who has any control over my life, anyways. Weyrlingmasters? Well I guess I’ve gotta at least _try_ if I don’t want to get stuck with latrines. Everybody else, though? They can go blow.”

She turned enough to make a face at Ferrig, as a clear representative of “everyone else” then looked back at Sybana. “I know maybe it’s not great help for me to say don’t worry, but I _really_ don’t think you have to worry. You’re gonna be fine. Muscles and stuff can be trained easier than running a Hold or Weyr or whatever can, I’ll bet. It’s just body stuff.”

“I think you’re underestimating ‘body stuff,’” said Sybana skeptically.

“Nah, the more you work it, the better it gets, and almost everybody is bad at it right now. But knowing how to handle people and lists and goods and… whatever? That’s sharding _difficult_. I mean, I know _I_ couldn’t do it.” She sighed. “Being watched all the time is un-fun. I’m definitely with you on that. People are nosy, and _they should learn to mind their own fecking business_!” she added, raising her voice for emphasis and staring pointedly over Sybana’s shoulder at someone a couple of tables over who had half-turned to look at them. She kept staring until they turned back around.

“Half the weyrfolk don’t even have the decency to be subtle, do they?” Sybana mused dryly, glancing back at the target of Zaphare’s ire. “They stare as though they have a right to.”

Even as she said it, the thought struck her that maybe they _did_ have a right. That belonging to Galgaith made her, in a way, belong to Them. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, so she smiled prettily and buried that thought for later.

“I _am_ glad you Impressed,” she confided warmly. “Whatever you expected. You can say all the brilliant things that I can’t. I hope you never have to be ‘good’ either.”

Zaphare blinked, suddenly at a loss for words. “Uh… I… thanks? No, I mean _thanks_, really. I don’t think anybody’s ever used the word ‘brilliant’ talking about me before. You’re an actual nice person, you know? I don’t know what to do with that.” She laughed a little -- more genuine than usual. “I’m glad you Impressed, too. I know a lot of other girls who would’ve been insufferable on a gold. Including me. Maybe.”

Sybana’s lips curved in amusement. “Why do you sound so surprised?” she teased. There was no bite to it, she seemed honestly pleased at the compliment. “I try my best not to be insufferable, at least not with people I like.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you from being insufferable to everybody else. They probably deserve it.” Zaphare gave a crooked grin. “Nice to know I’m on your good list. I promise I’ll keep you on mine, too.”

“It’s a deal.”

There were still eyes on them, still speculation about the weyr’s newest rarities, but it felt less lonely now.

Last updated on the March 26th 2025

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