What's her name?

Writers: Francesca, Paula
Date Posted: 16th April 2019

Characters: A'be, G'dori, Arrilon
Description: G'dori and Arrilon help A'be name his firelizard.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 10, day 9 of Turn 9

***
"So, what should I call her?" A'be was sitting at the dining hall with
G'dori, his new firelizard on the table between them.

}; Doesn't she know her name? :{ Uljath asked.

**No, not the way you do,** A'be replied.

"You know, her colour is same emerald shade that my Naryath's," Ged
remarked, petting the little green. She crooned, enjoying the
attention.

"It is the same colour," A*be agreed. "Should I call her Emerald then?"

"So she can be confused with dozens of other flits named Emerald?"
G'dori countered.

"You're right, too common. Lady?"

"I know a guy who has canine named Lady and there's several
runnerbeasts named Lady Something."

"You're not helping," A'be sighed. He spotted the harper from the
firelizard hatching and waved at him. "Hey! Wanna join us to brain
storm names?"

Arrilon had to hold back a groan at the question as he joined the two
dragonriders, plate of food in one hand and his own green firelizard
in the other. She had refused to perch on his shoulder but, seeing her
clutchmate, chirped in greeting and was happy to be placed on the
table next to her. With a shake of his head, he said, "I don't know
how helpful I'll be. I just gave this one a name. Why can't firelizards be
born knowing their names, like dragons?"

"That would make it so much easier," A'be agreed. "So far we have
ruled out Emerald and Lady."
His flit abandoned G'dori's scratching and went greet her clutch sibling.

"This is G'dori, he's cousin of some sort," A'be introduced. "Arrilon
got his flit from same clutch. You're a harper, right?"

"Nice to meet you," Ged flashed a flirty smile.

"Yeah," he said, embarrassed he didn't know the names of anyone else
who had Impressed at the firelizard hatching. He had been too
concerned about the risk of not Impressing to pay attention to much of
anything else. He returned G'dori's smile, unsure if there was
something extra behind it. "I also started off thinking of colors," he
said, taking a bite of food. "Then I started thinking of her
personality, but Sleepy or Hungry didn't seem right. What's your green
like?"

"Curious," A'be replied, his flit was currently sniffing the harper's
hands and trying to explore the contents of his plate. "Also hungry
and sleeping a lot of time," he picked her up before she could eat his
food. She protested a bit but couple of scratches made her forget what
she had been doing.

"Curious could be a nice name," Arrilon said, moving his plate a bit
away from both greens so it didn't tempt them as much. "Or maybe
there's a similar word you could use, like fearless or adventurous?
Or, I wonder if there's a way to shorten any of these and use a
nickname."

"Pesky?" G'dori suggested cheekily and A'be glared at him.

"Hmmm, Curious, Curio, Curry?" A'be took Arrilon's idea and tested out
various versions.

"Curry is some sort of spice, yellowish in colour, I think," G'dori remarked.

"You're not helping," A'be said again and continued. "Curi, Curia,
Curie." When he offered the last version, the little green lifted her
head to look at him and made an inquiring chirp. "You like that,
Curie?" A'be asked and she butted his hand. She was probably wanting
more scratches but A'be took that as affirmative. "Curie it is."

"Well that was easy." Arrilon almost felt disappointed that the
process had been so fast. He had only had a few bites of food. "What
does your dragon think of her? I know some dragons aren't fans of
firelizards."

"Uljath's totally enamoured with her," A'be replied.

"Was he hoping the egg would hatch a green? I know my sister's green
was excited about it." Arrilon quickly shoved some meat in front of
his firelizard to keep her from stealing anything from his, or anyone
else's, plate.

"I don't think he cared. He was just excited of the idea of having
flit of our own," A'be replied.

"Do you know anything about training them? I'm hoping to at least get
her to be able to send messages to family, but I've never trained any
animal before." So far, he was just glad she hadn't caused a scene
during class or rehearsal.

"Nope, not a thing," A'be replied. "Can't be too hard, can it?"

"My granma has a firelizard and some other family menbers too," G'dori said.

Arrilon found A'be's carefree answer perplexing, but maybe being
intimately familiar with dragons made the idea of training a
firelizard trivial. "She doesn't seem very good at following
directions, but I'm hoping that changes when she's older."

"Positive reinforcement," Ged dug into his old beast craft training,
"like with all animal training. You reward her when she acts the way
you want her, disregard, ignore her or scold her when she's not. You
need to be consistent and avoid conflicting messages. So no laughing
and scolding at the same time. Firelizards are pretty smart, she
should pick it up fairly quickly."

"She is smart," Arrilon agreed, with a smile. The greenrider sounded
like he knew what he was talking about. "That makes a lot of sense."
He was silent for a moment in thought. "It just seems it will be hard
to do much scolding when she can just disappear /between/. But, maybe
having an older, well-trained firelizard to follow would help. Then
she'd know exactly what she's being asked to do. Luckily, the Weyr
seems to be full of firelizards."

"Simply ignoring her might work as punisment, if she's as hog for
attention as all the greens I know," G'dori suggested.

}; I don't hog for attention, :{ Naryath protested.

** Yes, you do, dearest.**

"I'll keep that in mind," Arrilon said. He took a final bite of food,
then picked up his now-empty plate. "I need to get to rehearsal, but
I'm sure I'll see both of you, and Curie, around."

"It was nice to meet you," G'dori said, his tone flirty.

"See you around, Arrilon and thanks for the naming help," A'be said
and rolled his at his cousin.

Arrilon smiled at both of them, just glad G'dori hadn't flirted for
the entire conversation. He'd have to find a way to learn the
bluerider's name before they spoke again.

Last updated on the May 3rd 2019

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What's her name?