You Have To Know

Writers: Aaron, Sia
Date Posted: 12th September 2025

Characters: I'thralos, Vianne
Description: Vianne meets Vorlogoth at the feeding buckets
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 10, day 15 of Turn 12

Vorlogoth.

The name was hard in his mouth. I'thralos stumbled over the consonants. The letters felt rough, jagged. It fit, somehow. The dragonet was a massive expanse of bronze hide, chubby in the same way babies were before they grew. The fat would turn into muscle eventually, though right now all I'thralos could picture was an oversized wher as Vorlogoth tried to inhale the entire arm that held a fistful of meat.

"Hey! Whoa. Stop it!" He admonished. "You're lucky you're toothless."

}: First you refuse me, then you starve me.:{ Vorlogoth said with a loud harrumph from deep in his chest. He did as he was told and let go of I'thralos' arm, though instead he forcefully nudged his rider out of the way to stick his nose in the bucket.

I'thralos surveyed his arm, the sleeve of his gather best drenched in blood and saliva. He wrinkled his nose. "Ugh. Don't choke, at least. Fine form for you to try to bully your way into the crowd just to get done in by beef."

Vorlogoth snorted.

Vianne had almost hoped that she had been mistaken somehow. Somehow. That the dragon that climbed into the Stands had chosen someone else. But if this was not proof that her eyes had not deceived her, there was nothing that could convince her.

She struggled to find words. What was she supposed to say? It was not fair. _She_ had been the one the dragon Searched, the one who had brought them away from the Holds, the one who had found freedom for them.

It felt like a betrayal. But how ridiculous was that? As if Ilthralos -- or whatever it was he would be calling himself now -- had done anything to cause this. No, it was the dragons who had betrayed her. The dragon who Searched her when it was not she who the dragons wanted. The dragons who did not want her. The dragon who insisted on having him.

“You’ll need a new shirt,” she said. “I should have brought you one.” Somehow, she was sure that was the stupidest thing she possibly could have said.

I'thralos glanced up, surprised to hear her voice above the background hum of feeding buckets and all the other new riders desperately trying to manage their dragonets. For a moment he forgot about the runner-sized beast snuffling around the bottom of the bucket as if starved. Guilt that he hadn't had time to process threatened to overwhelm him.

"No, that's not on you." I'thralos managed. "That's why you have a candidate robe, in case your dragon is-"

Vorlogoth looked up from the bucket to stare at this new intruder, a low rumble beginning in his chest. }: Tell her to leave.:{ He said simply. Forcefully. As if I'thralos listening to him was a resounding fact that he didn't consider-- it just _was_.

**No.** I'thralos stumbled over how to explain what Vianne meant to him. How could someone explain the complexity of love, of duty, of everything they'd been through together, in a thought sharp enough for a dragon who had just been alive for less than a candlemark? **She's-- mine. My wife.**

Vorlogoth’s eyes whirled with a deepening yellow, a flicker of confusion beneath the growing possessive agitation. }: _You_ are _mine_. :{

"Stop it, right now." I'thralos snapped. "She was here first."

Vorlogoth huffed.

I'thralos looked helplessly at Vianne. "I didn't ask for this," he said, "You know that. You have to know that."

“Hm,” said Vianne. Was that thing _growling_ at her? She scowled at it and resisted the urge to growl back at it. How quickly a dragon could become an ‘it’.

She supposed she should congratulate her husband.

“...”

Well. If she could not be happy for him, at least she could be concerned. She ought to be with that thing growling at her. Ilthralos-or-whoever had a lot of hardship ahead of him that he did not ask for now, all because of that thing.

The least she could do was ask what his name was. The husband’s name, of course. Not the dragon. She had never cared less to know a name than she did his.

“Have you… decided what I should call you now that this…” Vianne stopped herself from referring to the dragon as ‘this thing’ where her husband could hear, but she did gesture at it. “...has happened?”

Despite managing not to _say_ anything horrible about the thing, her face gave her away. She had not stopped scowling at it. Was she crying? No. Surely not. Maybe a little.

"I'thralos." He said eventually, frowning. "He doesn't seem to care, so why make a big change?"

}: You are you, whatever your name is. :{ Vorlogoth agreed.

"I, um. I left 'Anne in the Stands." I'thralos said. "With a brownrider. I couldn't wrangle both of them at once, and I didn't trust him to be gentle."

“Your foster-mother moved fast. She had her by the time I got out.” said Vianne. She had done everything she could to stall before coming to confront this… Injustith. Whatever its name was, it would always be Injustith to her now. At least it had not insisted on changing her husband’s name to anything _too_ ridiculous.

“Look, is it going to sleep soon? Or should I just wait for you at the feast?” She wanted to go away somewhere, anywhere. But she could not pass up the opportunity to rub it in to the little monster that she would be taking her husband back the minute its little eyelids fluttered shut. At least for a moment.

Both I'thralos and Vorlogoth bristled this time. I'thralos because he didn't exactly know what 'getting her settled' meant when it came to his daughter, when she was used to spending her evenings at home with him and when she was having so much fun watching the hatching. At least until the bronze had pulled her dad away from her. At how flippant Vianne was, with both Ithianne and at Vorlogoth, and that fed into the dragonet's own already-inflated ego and offense.

I'thralos took a deep breath, and tried to sort what feeling was _him_ and what feeling was _Vorlogoth_, and ended up lumping it all into the overwhelming maelstrom of the new, irreversible bond. "He needs to finish eating. Then a bath. I'll find you both once he's asleep and we're both calm, all right? Then we can talk."

“Oh, _I’m_ calm,” said Vianne. Who was not calm? Everyone was calm. If anyone was not calm, it was Injustith. “I’ll see you there.”

Vorlogoth sat back on his haunches in victory, watching the woman go. His wings half-flared out, partially for stability and partially to try and make himself look bigger and more imposing. Then, once he was certain the threat was gone, he pawed at the empty bucket with one blunt, oversized foot, sending it clattering a few inches across the floor. }:I don't like her. :{

"You don't know her."

}: I don't want to. :{ He pawed the bucket again. }: I am still hungry. Get me another bucket.:{

Last updated on the September 18th 2025

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