Enchanting Moonrunner Blue Istrayath
Enchanting Moonrunner Blue Hatchling
A dragon it is that your eyes settle upon. What is most prominently noted at first glance is the entirely vivid hue of this sturdily built creature. When he stills, a pool of vibrant living ink he is where details are initially lost in the fact of that initial overwhelming image. When the eyes adjust one will begin to settle upon the subtle details that tease out what is actually quite an impressive figure. Spiky ridges are cast prominently along his short neck, the last centered between the somewhat elongated headknobs at the back of his rather large skull. The bony skull protects placidly whirling eyes and ends in a rather flattened tip with notably elongated nostrils that are well suited to dealing with Igen’s desert sands. A mottling of a shade somewhat darker than the main hue casts upon the sides of each arm, leg and along the length of his tail. From his belly down, the underside of his tail is frosted in sunset purple, overtaking the mottling completely at the end to ensconce the very tip. Large, thick talons protrude from each finger and toe and, unlike the rest of his body, are a flashy gilt gold. The final piece, of course, are his wings. When settled across his back they blend into that same vivid hue but, when stretched, the light pierces and reveals tendrils of moonlight weaving their way like a spell within the fabric of billowing sails. Entrancing, enchanting one could watch forever the snaking lines as they shimmer and shift with each subtle movement.
Specter of an Egg
Black sands sweep in all directions the eyes may look, dotted by colorful and creepy eggs and the larger guardian dragon parents. The sands themselves lend to the mystery in an endless obsidian night yet dotted with the sparkle of stars. Within the artificial dunes created by mother dragons past and present the silver-blue and blue-gray sparkles across a dark surface are the thing which sets out that one is not looking at just another bit of sand but an egg. Not a particularly big egg, maybe, it’s hard to tell actually it blends so perfectly. One really has to squint and focus and try to make out this one. When you think you see it, blink and it disappears again such that perhaps it’s there, perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s just a trick of the sands, or the light, or horror even of the mind.
Mind Touches
Hatching Message
Wobble: That spot, that dark spot on the dark sands which may or may not be something like the Specter of an Egg draws a not sort of attention as the most keen of eyes note that something about the darkness seems to have just /shifted/. Then again it could totally been a figment of imagination, the choas of the sands is already quite a bit much don't you think?
Crack: Look! Look seriously there is /something/ there. There, .there. you know. That dark spot of that thing which might be a Specter of an Egg (or not). That pile of dark sands nesting a pike of more darkness suddenly seems to emit a -presence-. You can sense it can't you, that something is there, brooding, waiting, lurking for the not egg that is an egg. Is there a not hatchling within the not egg, or merely a ghost of a hatchling that will endlessly haunt the sands.
Hatch: Movement there has been not. Sucking, lurking darkness finally draws the attention it has so far been deflecting as the Specter of an Egg is suddenly just /there/. A ominous swirling the dark grains of sand around the dark shell seem to lift and bounce around the bottom of the ovoid as a rumble of tremendous power bursts from it. A flare of something intense from the hatchling within that causes many to flinch and miss whatever happens to the shell but for the next moment the egg is no longer and a rather vivid blue hatchling stumbles forth.
Impression Message
Public
There! Finally! His single-minded pursuit seems to finally pay off when he fixates on one candidate in particular. Enchanting Moonrunner Blue Hatchling's pace quickens as he races toward a young woman with mismatched eyes and a beastcrafter's touch. For she might not be food but she is the bringer of it… and, more importantly, she's the holder of all of his hearts.
Private
The world is whisked away in a swirl of sand and gold, leaving you temporarily lost and alone in a maelstrom of blinding light. It's only a moment later that the world coalesces again, if altered - suddenly, you see yourself as he sees you and you are aware of another mind enmeshing itself into your own. « Karma. » Your name is like honey on the tongue, a sweet utterance woven with the finest gold thread of adoration. « I am your Istrayath. » Forever. As the color and light infuses itself into your very being, you are aware of his breath, his heartbeats, the love and affection he holds for you. His hunger, too, is made manifest, and your stomach cramps in sympathy. This time, there are no words, just the raw connection of mind-to-mind: he is hungry, will you feed him?
Personality
Your Istrayath is a son of Igen, through and through. You'll know it the moment he wakes from that first slumber and begs to see the sand that he knows you have seen. The sun and warmth will compel him almost as powerfully as the need to eat and sleep. It will be hard to deny him naps out in the sun - but you will have to, unless you have a really good sunscreen or a parasol or something to protect yourself from Rukbat's rays.
He will sleep and sleep well at night, but will insist on being up just at the moment Rukbat rises - and he'll strive to stay awake until it sets. It will take a while for him to be able to do that without napping but… he will. Eventually.
The sun will seem to restore him and energize him more than most and he will revel in the days when he can spend his hours lazing out in the sun, wings spread, to soak in all of Rukbat's energies. Unfortunately, that will be for a mature Istrayath; for young Istrayath, he must suffer the indignities of being helpless for several long months.
He will despair at his inability to feed and bathe himself; he will lament that he is unable to fly or flame or go anywhere he likes. He is, at his core, fiercely independent - with the great exception that he absolutely needs you - and he will be frustrated that you have to do so much for him for so long. He may try to take matters into his own hands in those early days - getting into the meat by himself or tipping over an oil container to wallow in it or any number of other antics - and you'll have to teach him that it's okay to need help sometimes.
He will be prone to a particular kind of single-mindedness, which is balanced against a memory that runs longer than one might expect in a chromatic. He'll be exceptionally good at remembering things (or, more accurately, finding memories in others very quickly) and he may surprise you with the things he recalls or can recall enough to look up. As for the single-mindedness, well- once he's hungry, he'll be so focused on food that itching hide won't matter until he's fed, then it'll turn into an emergency to oil him before his hide falls off.
That won't get much better over the turns, either; you'll just have to learn to guide him to other things when he gets too focused on one thing or another.
One thing you'll never get him to stop thinking about is gold. Or shiny things in general. Mostly just gold, though. He'll hoard it if he can and, if not, then he'll find anything gold-adjacent and collect that instead. This will be a problem in weyrlinghood and, rest assured, it will get much worse in adulthood.
He'll do well enough at lessons that interest him and, fortunately, physical exercise is one of those things. Especially when lessons turn to flight training - for flight training means flying and hunting and he will love both of those things almost as much as gold.
Of course, he will struggle a bit with any flaming practice; it'll take him a while to figure out which stomach to use and, even then, he'll always flame too much or too little and- well, it's good that this isn't a time of Threadfall or he'd really be having problems. On the other hand, he'll prove to be absolutely exceptional at both flying and hunting, making him a remarkable example of what dragons can do when they're just allowed to be… well, dragons!
It'll be a rare day that he'll miss his mark when hunting and you will be relieved to know that his tastes trend toward white ovines more than anything else. He'll seem to avoid patterned animals or animals that, to him, just don't look like food (like runnerbeasts or felines, for example).
Sometimes, he will ask for some firestone so he can roast his dinner. Whether he tastes a difference or not probably doesn't matter at the end of the day, but he will enjoy it on occasion.
As he grows into adulthood and the freedom that allows, he'll be quite the adventurer - if, that is, the adventure is to be found in the desert. He will be loath to go anywhere that isn't Igen, interestingly enough, and he'll claim that the sun just feels better there. He can also give himself sand baths, which he just can't do anywhere else. His love of sunbathing will continue, as will his love of gold and shiny things, and you'll discover over time that he also has a powerful 'survival of the fittest' mentality that pops up from time to time.
He'll often try to push others to become stronger in some way - physically, mentally, or otherwise - if they show signs of weakness. He will feel that the strength of the Weyr hinges on the weakest link and he will strive to strengthen all of those links. In some ways, yes, he will lament that he cannot be a sire and add his strong genetics to the gene pool… but he will adapt for that by 'adopting' other dragons that seem to be adrift or in need of guidance.
All of that, then, leads to this final bit: flights.
That single-mindedness of his will flare with a vengeance when he senses a female is about to go up in flight. He may or may not chase with some frequency - really, that's something that no one can know until the time is right - but, when he does, he will do it with an intensity that's terrifying.
An unfortunate side-effect of mating flights is that he will start to stink whenever a green he's interested in is about to rise. Why? Who knows. He'll go back to his normal levels of scent after the flight and a bath, but it will confuse the dragonhealers to no end.
Before the flight, he'll try to win the green over with his dancing and singing - which, charitably, will sound like someone is riling up a cat. If that doesn't work, then he'll surely dazzle them with his brutality in the feeding pens. He will be a bloody mess after the flight, largely due to his own efforts. He might pick fights with other males if he thinks he can win them, which will have to be something you either train out of him or find some other way to mitigate.
If he loses, be prepared for sulking and grousing and a dragon that will be in desperate need of a bath and oiling and reassurances.
If he wins, though, then he'll be perfectly fine coiled up with his mate until she's done spending time in his company. It's okay: he'd really rather spend the time with you anyway.
Physicalities
You'll be quick to realize that his hide is thicker than most; there's no seeming rhyme or reason for it, no more than the fact that his wings will be strong enough to carry him in flight some time before the other weyrlings will be ready (he will not be happy to know he has to wait, either.) He'll also be especially blessed with both endurance and aerial maneuverability; the trade-off is that he'll be far less graceful on the ground.
His hid will be especially fragrant as well; where most dragons will have a scent that's faint until you put your nose to them, he'll have a spicy-musky-pleasantly animal smell that you can pick up a short distance away. It will get stronger with physical exertion or before a flight where he's going to chase, but it can be controlled with more frequent baths and oilings.
He won't have any particularly itchy spots, but his golden talons will need more care and tending to make sure they don't grow too long.
Mindvoice
The greater space of Istrayath's mind is a strange thing - it's akin to a cave filled with gold, hot and dry and not especially inviting unless one's avaricious… or it's you. You have a special chamber of your own, much like a bedchamber in a weyr, but that's not for anyone to visit except you.
The cavern is vast and full of tunnels and bubbles and offshoots; it's like a maze unto itself, a place where one can get utterly lost in those echoing caverns and scintillating walls. The greedy will find themselves lost forever - or seemingly so - while others might prefer the relative safety of knowing where the exit of his mind is.
In either case, visitors will only hear the echo of their own thoughts, for your Istrayath is not one to talk. Of course, if you ask him to, he will - and his voice is sonorous, rich, and honeyed. It will sing to the very depths of your soul if you ask but, otherwise, he's perfectly content to relay his thoughts through the artful weaving of image and color and pattern.
You'll instinctively understand the patterns, of course: you're of one mind with him so, yes, the translation is almost immediate, though you'll not really be able to explain why you understand it so quickly.
Others might have to learn or will struggle with it. This is part of the price of dealing with him - but, once they learn how to read the weavings of light and color, they'll realize just how deep his thoughts and articulations can go. The stained glass visions and woven tapestries of thought are gorgeous, expressive, and ephemeral; a Harper could draw lifetimes of inspiration from even the most fleeting of his thoughts.
The colors themselves will betray his mood quite quickly - blues and silvers for sadness, red for fury and frustration, orange and yellow for concern. The shapes will be jagged or soft, flowing or ragged; they tell as much as the colors do, if not more. Most of the time, though, the cavern is sand and gold and light, warm and whispering wordlessly for all eternity.
Now, as for that space you have? It's appointed sumptuously, with enough room for the two of you to dwell comfortably and converse about anything and everything that's on your mind - or his. It will be an exquisite place, one that grows and shrinks as you need it to, as if by magic.
Inspiration
Egg
Iwa was thinking about Halloween and common themes there and well this egg settled into the domain of ghosts. Plus it's all Trick or Treat, so this Specter of an Egg is definitely a trick to tease you if you can determine if it's there or not. It’s an egg to doom the betting public into underestimating Verzhuqueth. Can a queen really have that many eggs? Just a pile of sand, surely, until it hatches and switches from trick to treat indeed!
Egg Touches
While the egg may hide, the dragon within called out to be anything but hidden. Halloween lasts but one night and the playful ghost within sought to make the most of it. Keeping that mindset and listening to the source inspiration of Levitating by Dua Lipa, the touches are what resulted. Not all specters have to be sad or scary!
Dragon
Your dragon is inspired by none other than the dragons from Melanie Rawn's "Dragon Prince" books! We decided to take the suggestion and really lean into it, which we hope you really enjoy! It does make him 'more dragon than dragon' in a way - after all, how many other dragons can claim to be inspired by other dragons?!
Name
The name Istrayath is pulled loosely from various words for 'star' - for some reason, that just really came to being and stuck, so we didn't want to tempt fate and try for another name that didn't fit quite right! If it doesn't pass the vibe check, let us know; there are so many other options we can throw out there!
Mindvoice
Really, I couldn't say it better than what T'syn put here:
Dragon gold and rainbow colors play a huge role in Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince books. Sunrunners and dragons both communicate via a weaving of their minds’ colors, each laid out in a particular pattern (sometimes imagery as a tapestry or as a stained-glass window). For this dragon, we should develop a pattern (dragons have large patterns, so look at about five-seven distinct shades with underlying tonal hues) as his primary method of connecting with his rider (words are drenched in color, carried on color, against a background of color). In fact, dragons in her world don’t use words, they use imagery. That could be a nice quirk for this dragon: he speaks only his name (and just the once), and everything else is said in pictures and weaving of light and color.
For a mindscape, perhaps a dry, hot cave glittering with gold (dragon eggs turn into gold when they’re burned).
Credits
| Name | Istrayath |
| Dam | Verzhuqueth |
| Sire | Qhatiratrixth |
| Created By | Iwa, Ligeia, T'syn |
| Impressee | Karma (Karmelia) |
| Hatched | December 23, 2024 |
| Igen Weyr | |
| PernWorld MUSH | |
