Chapter 484: A Name
"Zavier is a great name. You think Zavier has a great ring to it?"
"Yeah, damn, that’s another great contender. Ulrika... you see, if she’s a girl. Right?"
"It’s good, it’s good, yeah. Orion? Orion is cool as hell." Arkai stared at the spreadsheet they had been building for the past hour. "You know what? This is hard. This is hard as hell."
Eastiel was cross-legged on the rug, his laptop open in front of him, twelve browser tabs dedicated to baby name websites, ancient mythology databases, and dragon lore archives.
His lion tail twitched with barely contained energy as he scrolled. "Listen, we are naming a dragon, so the name should sound hella ancient and divine too. Like, for example—Agami? Misra? Misra can be used for both boys and girls."
He typed furiously, adding them to the growing list. "Arkai, we gotta write everything down for our own bio kids later too. And don’t you think Orion matches me more?"
"Kinda? What name matches you is Aslan, right? Like Narnia’s Lion?" Arkai snorted, but Eastiel was already typing. "Well—oh! Oh! Also, add Kriya. Like the best ’creation’? Wait, if I got myself a bio daughter, I’d like to add Arwyn, you know? And... Neoma. That’s gorgeous. Add them to the list."
"Aaaagh—this is hard, what’s the best? We got hundreds already!" Eastiel dragged both hands down his face, his ears flat with overwhelm. "Can we even do this? Damnit! I remember my mom wanted to name her granddaughter Jubilee..."
"Calm down." Arkai reached over and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. "Out of the three of us, only you still have a parent. We should call her and ask her opinion. I’m sure she’ll help us."
Oathran returned to the living room carrying a large bowl of nachos, the cheese still steaming. His brothers had turned the space into a research camp, laptops, notebooks, printed articles spread across the coffee table. He set the nachos down and turned toward the kitchen to grab the water jug.
Eastiel’s hand shot out and grabbed his ankle.
Oathran stumbled. "Are you trying to kill me or something?!" He kicked his leg free with irritation but absolutely zero actual force.
"Brother, ehehe." Eastiel’s grin was wide and slightly unhinged, the grin of a man who had been staring at baby names for too long. "Sit down, we wanna ask something..."
"I said all honor is yours." Oathran sighed. "Name our baby by yourselves."
"Yeah, but the question is still important for our research." Arkai patted the empty spot on the sofa behind him. "Brother, sit here."
Oathran shook his head and sat. The sofa cushions welcomed him like an old friend. "Alright. What question?"
"So, we were discussing the meanings of our names, right?" Eastiel leaned forward. "My name is just basically Eastern Deity, or Eastern Star. It’s the sun!"
"And my name is from my Dawnoro Allfather, Aro Dawnoro. Arkai just means Aro’s Warrior." Arkai shrugged. "And Aro is just a diminutive for Aaron, essentially. Aaron also means ’mountain of strength’ or ’exalted’ or ’strong.’ It’s generic."
He paused, his wolf ears flicking. "But my mom’s diary actually connected my name to the sun. My Dawnoro side might interpret my name as Aro plus Kai, but my mom actually interpreted it as Arka plus I. It’s associated with the sun."
"While we’re talking about name meanings..." Eastiel swiveled his laptop around to show a document covered in highlighted text. "Cecilia’s name is actually more interesting than we thought."
"We know the Araceli surname is what the church or temple you’re adopted into usually gives to orphans. It’s one of the names on the list of ’God’s children’ names."
Arkai nodded, picking up the thread. "Exactly. For example, the Celeste in Saintess Lilyca’s name is also one of the names on that list. Araceli means ’altar of heaven’ or ’altar of the sky’ while Celeste means ’heavenly’ or ’of the sky.’ So our point is—"
"Cecilia’s name means the Blind of the Altar of Heaven," Eastiel said, his voice dropping.
"But!" Arkai raised one finger, his wolf ears perking forward. "Now we know that’s not how she was named originally. She’s Iris Cassia. Which means..."
Eastiel’s grin returned, wider than ever. "The hollow iris. The colored part of your eye that regulates pupil size."
"This coincidence is craaaazy."
"It also means rainbow, by the way."
"And rainbows are optical illusion—"
"Aaaand, the sun just HAPPENS to be connected to a lot of EYE symbolism. You see?"
Oathran leaned forward, his nachos forgotten, his eyes sharp with concentration. The threads were coming together in his mind. Sun and eyes and rainbows and altars and the strange, beautiful tapestry of meaning that seemed to weave through all of their lives. "Yeah, we know that now. So, for our kid...?"
The two brothers looked at him with utter seriousness. The playfulness faded. Even the nachos seemed to pause their cooling.
"Brother." Eastiel’s voice was quiet now. "What do you think if we name our first kid Sol?"
"And Solaria, if she’s a girl?" Arkai continued.
Oathran widened his eyes. His eyebrows lifted, the mist-grey irises beneath them flickering, recognizing something.
This felt... fitting. Like fate. Like the name had been waiting for them all along, until they were ready to find it.
Suddenly, he could imagine himself calling the kid that exact name, and it made the perfect ring to it. As if the child was named the Sun before they even named them.
"That’s... too perfect." His voice came out quieter than he intended. "You two... if I named the baby, I might not be able to come up with this. And this just feels... right."
He nodded solemnly.
"But before we lock it in." Eastiel raised a hand, his lion ears swiveling forward. "Our question is..."
Arkai leaned forward, his expression shifting to curiosity. "Brother, we can’t find the meaning of your name anywhere. It’s barely around. Maybe a diminutive of Othrain as a surname, which means noble or warrior, or... well, strong."
"We kinda want to connect the four of us together, though." Eastiel’s tail curled around. "Soooo... we hope that your name too has some kind of connection to the eye, or the sun."
Oathran scoffed a laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing. "Guys, it doesn’t matter. You can connect everything through anything, but it doesn’t have to be like that."
"Just..." Arkai hesitated, his wolf ears dipping slightly. "Maybe you know the real meaning of your name, brother? Like... maybe your mother..."
Oathran laughed more, rumbling deep in his chest. His brothers and their research. Their obsessive need to find patterns, to weave meaning, to tie everything together with golden thread.
It was endearing.
"Don’t mind things like that. Sol or Solaria is great. I mean, my mother just named me casually with an obvious meaning." He waved a dismissive hand. "Also, it doesn’t come from Othrain. It comes from Dragon’s ancient language that means—"
He stopped.
The word died in his throat.
Oathran means—
His mother... had named him...
The Key.
Oathran’s eyes faltered. The mist-grey irises, usually so steady, flickered with confusion or might have been the first tremor of an earthquake.
His mother had named him The Key.
In a language so old that only dragons remembered it. She had looked at her newborn son, this white-scaled hatchling, and she had given him a purpose. A function. Not at all... a name.
This world...
This wasn’t his world.
.
.
.
.
.
--------------------
Bonus Chapter 2! So sorry for the wait, everyone... My throat decided to swell again, and I had a few rounds of fever to keep it company, but happy to say it’s finally broken! 💪
Throat infections are no joke, friends. In my case, I got caught in two days of secondhand smoke during a family gathering last month, and my body did not appreciate it. You know what I’m gonna say next. Quit smoking for you who smokes! For the people who breathes around you too!
Thanks for sticking with me, though! I’m pushing through!