A/N: Well, here it is, guys! My first S/T story. I should probably warn you that I'm not a writer, but this idea just wouldn't leave my head!
Did anyone else have the darndest time learning to pronounce this name? It doesn't help that the actress Saoirse Ronan pronounces it differently! I thought it would be cute to show Sybil, who's unfamiliar with the language, learning how to pronounce their daughter's name.
"Sah-o-ear-say?"
"Seer-sha," Tom repeated patiently.
"Seer-sha."
"Better," Tom encouraged his wife. "Next time try and roll the end of the r, like this." He demonstrated.
Sybil shook her head. She loved the way the word sounded when Tom said it, how his Irish accent brought the syllables to life. Her own tongue felt like a disobedient slab in her mouth. "Tom, I just can't imagine calling our daughter by a name I can't even pronounce."
Tom laid a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. They both gazed down at the swell of her stomach, which, by this the eighth month, had become a serious obstruction. Sybil found herself unable to do many of the daily tasks she had once breezed through, and getting out of bed in the morning on her own had come to be out of the question.
"Perhaps we ought to have considered this sooner than now," Tom said dryly.
"Or at the very least we could hope for a boy." They had quickly settled on Michael, after Tom's father, if the baby were a boy. Tom had told her of an old Irish naming tradition, which dictated that the first son was named for the father's father.
"Cora is a lovely name," Tom argued. The naming tradition went for girls, as well. "I'd be proud to have our daughter wear it."
Sybil shook her head.
"Saoirse was merely one suggestion—"
"No," she interrupted. "It's more than that, and you know it. 'Freedom'—it's important to you. And I want it. For us, and for our daughter."
A smile began to spread across Tom's face.
"You seemed awfully sure just then that she was a she," he joked, placing a hand on her stomach.
Sybil began to smile as well.
"Perhaps I am," she said. "Perhaps she is. Is that right, Sir-sha?"
"Seer-sha."
Any good? Tell me what you think!
