Time of the Phoenix Green Shemsuth

Age-worn contours frame the shape of her in a weatherworn, elongated expanse of time gone by. Her spine is a serpentine river, from her crown to her tail-tip — a darkened sand-splattered beryl-green line that wends its way widening in some places, narrowing in others, all the length of her back. Her flanks are so lean as to almost be gaunt, adding further to the ophidian feel of her, the fields on either side of the river truly lush with the rising of sap and the first verdant growth of fertility on a flood plain. Around her narrow face and well-formed headknobs, flecks of deepened, sepulchral shadow create length and hollow, contrast indeed to the brilliant sandstone and vine-entangled outcroppings of her 'ridges and talons. Her wings are magnificent though, truly things one could imagine as lithium flames of fireworks across the sky - brilliant hues of her hide colour, laced through with lime and traceries of oxydized copper, spars wended through with lines of spectacular emerald and malachite. Truly, this green is a land of wondrous things, faded only by the passing of memory.


Egg Name and Description

Key of Mysteries Egg
From apex to base, the surface of this shell is a uniform sandstone shade, picked out in odd parts by the trace of gold and luxurious lapis lasuli: but it is a broken thing to see, lost in a dark place for a thousand turns. Cracks and fissures seem to cover the curves of its surface, in amid the illusion of script and glyph encoded and bizarre. The eye can make out what looks like an avian perched upon one leg here, odd caricatures of humanity disguised by stylization. Further down, near the base where the stone seems to become enshrined in shadow, there are strange fractures that might seem like writing, worn down by the sands of time that have baked it far more than any hatching sands could possibly encompass.


Hatching Message

The sandstone hues of the Key of Mysteries egg seems to foil the eye for a moment, as the strange script and glyph like markings on it vibrate with a motion from within. A shiver, a rustle of sand whispering to nearby ears and it once more stills.

Once more, the sandy contours of the Key of Mysteries egg flurries with internal activity. This time, the cracks and weatherworn blast of the desert seems to deepen across the ancient-seeming surface, splitting chasms in some places, flaking that wisdom onto the hatching cavern floor to be lost. Then it still, broken further asunder.

With one final heave, the codex of the Key of Mysteries egg is forever ruined for it splits and rips apart down each fissure that was made over its sandy surface. For a second, there's stillness. Then the shards fall away to reveal the hatchling within.


Impression Message

Everything is quite manic on the hatching sands. Egg shards all over the place, candidates doing the sands dance under the eyes of everyone in the galleries and the clutch parents. But for you, there's no immediate respite. The heat doesn't fade away, if anything it gets hotter, the bask of the midday sun, brilliant and blinding. The music of an exotic reed instrument fills your ears. The aroma of rare spices twang in your nose. Only then does the heat get replaced by a cool, dark sanctuary. The sound of approaching footfalls pitter patter through dark passageways toward you, the rustle of cool linens, a mystery uncovered and then the voice, deep but feminine. «There you are.» Almost a whisper but growing louder, everything returns in a rush. Before you, the Time of the Phoenix Green Hatchling is nudging at your hand patiently. «Akeylah, do you know my name?» And you do. She is Shemsuth. «You know my secret… let us eat now.»


Personality

GROWING UP: From the moment she hatches, Shemsuth will be a shining bright illumination on everything, seeking every dark shadow, wanting to know every mystery and secret that's out there. As Apep wended through the underworld, so does she, facinated with things she really shouldn't BE facinated with, but instead of reveling in catharsis, she seeks to expose it and scourge it out. Yes, that means if someone has a crush, if someone's trying to keep things quiet because they did something wrong, if there's an area of the weyr they're not permitted to go… that's exactly where she'll be, you rushing after her with the clean-up crew! Tact and subtlety might be things you need to work on. Her need to /know/ will sometimes overwhelm her natural filters, and she'll ask things and say things that would have benefited from a moment's forethought. It's strange though, for all that she may make you cringe for her tenacity, she carries with her a perpetual calm. The unblinking eye you felt when she was in her egg remains when she's hatched, you see — Ever open, seeing everything, vigilant. In this, you may find a strange form of sanctuary. Still, you may find yourself apologizing on her behalf, but as she ages her questions will become more clever, her probing more thoughtful «Well naturally some things are forbidden, but /why/ are they forbidden? Tell me! I demand to know!» More generally, she has a very strong presence. She won't be -all- about incorrigible uncovering of secrets. Of course not! That would for one, be boring and for two would lessen the whole that she is! But she'll always be very present, very in the moment, very involved in everything that's going on around her. Perpetually ready to learn something, to join in on a conversation, to be a part of things, she won't limit herself to being an observer. Learn by doing, learn by teaching, learn by /being/, that'll be her approach and you will simply have to grow along with her.

ADOLESCENCE: She'll soon develop what you'll come to realize is a keen need to protect. This is sometimes misplaced and misconstrued as stubbornness or occasionally as bullying. In the /future/ this will make her a /superlative/ search and rescue and police-type dragon. Who else is going to look after and protect against the things that come in the night. And yes, you can believe in her days growing up that when the sun goes down.. your young dragon will not be quite at ease. The dark holds things she cannot see… her imagination turns those things into terrible entities that she -must- be vigilant against. «Akeylah! Something moves in the shadow! What is it? I cannot see it, we must ward against the evils!» Indeed, it is almost a mantra and a prayer in the night. She will dream far more vividly in these times and you may have some sleepless nights while you adjust to having such a presence in your own mind.

If Apep was the enemy of Ra, and Shemsuth represents Apep's antithesis, then her love of the sun will come as no surprise, once she's relatively free of the cycle of eating, oiling and sleeping. She'll want to just bask in it all day long, and while most of Igen is hiding in the cooler shade, your girl will be sprawled out and simply soaking it up.

MATURITY: Much about Shemsuth will be tempered as she reaches maturity, but it will be a very gradual trip. Indeed, she won't be fully mature until she's close to four or five Turns old. As she makes this journey, a nervousness in the dark, a tendency to ask tactless questions will temper into a determination to shield you, and others from the dark things in life, a sharp mind that probes with clever questions, even if the answers are quickly forgotten. Once able to fly, she'll like to perch high places. Certainly she'll demand you pick a weyr high up, and she may even lounge on the ledges of friends — she wants to know what's going on all around the weyr, and this is the very best vantage point available. Oh! And in the growing of her adult personality as a torch in dark places, she may develop a love of collecting exotic items that seem to be steeped in antiquity. The older the better in her mind. This will only truly develop when you both are free to explode and see what pern has to offer, visiting your kith and kin.

When she's proddy, she may well let her darker side out — there won't be nastiness, but rather a dark, looming presence in the back of your mind, a sense that many things are insignificant, meaningless and without measure. The tendency not to bother about the small stuff will probably rub off, after all there's time for all that later. Her love of the sun and basking will reverse during these times. It'll be a very handy warning sign, if only you work it out! Expect that you may find doing chores and pittance work a very hard task, mayhap even that your schedule switches from daylight hours to the darkest of night. Insomnia? Shemsuth can take that to new heights! «The dark is our mother. She is our friend. Mother night conceals everything in the folds of her embrace. What need do /we/ have of light?»

In flight /and/ in flights, Shemsuth becomes almost like a desert sandstorm, spiraling far and high and wide. She is a /very/ canny flier: the Phoenix has a long route to fly after all in the cycle of its life. She likes to cover a lot of ground, heading right out over the desert, swooping low over the sand and then arching around in a dizzy spiral that goes almost straight up. She'll make the very most of the thermals that come with the hot weather, and might perhaps prefer to fly at dawn or dusk, when the cooling land causes some interesting updrafts and downdrafts. In these times she truly is uninhibited, wild and free. You may find yourself with wings of your own during this time, Akeylah. She will take you to the very brink of heaven before she allows /anyone/ to catch her glory!

Essentially, the whole of Shemsuth is a divine mystery. Contained in her is a bold, proud defender of everything that is good and light: From being a champion of truth and insight, to being a preservationist of wisdom and knowledge that it may never be forgotten. Her essence is the bastion against the dark. Her /own/ sanctuary found in you and your company. «We are as we should be.» With you, she is safe. With her, YOU are safe. Perhaps in the duality of that, there is peace or at the very least, hard-won harmony.


Mindvoice

Harmonious Voices
Shemsuth's mind is a calm one, in contrast to most aspects of her personality. It favours the soft music of a reed instrument, rustling dry heat, sirroco winds, folds of white linen as her colour. Sanctity and sanctuary are her everpresent self, with a darkness beneath. She carries a sense of majesty and power, contained in a blind eye that it often seems to formulate in her touches to your mind, seeing right through everything. Think a hidden depth — that's where her strange sanctuary is and inside it is both safe, and yet slightly dark in nature, where everything begins and everything ends. This is a part of her voice that only you will generally know, saving for those odd times when she's either very curious or very annoyed with someone… then that dark, blind eye might focus on /them/ and take them down to the dark sanctuary. Oh yes, she likes to entomb and pick apart all mysteries presented her. But above that, heat, reed instruments, winds across sand and something slow and stately, like the flow of a wide river, is what she usually flavours her mind with. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen: This is why she gives the blind eye image. She has a good ability to retain information given to her, to learn with patience and to remain calm, although even when wreaking bloody havok: think about the questions. They will come, demanding answers time and time again, some of them for difficult issues and she will never quite be satisfied until she's driven you to the point of wanting to clobber her with a paddle. Only then is the serpent of knowledge in her mind, quelled. Sometimes, when unravelling a connundrum she plays passages along the mind of the observer, taking those that touch upon it on journeys, whether into her own psyche, or into theirs. When such things occur though, there are stars and constellations glimmering in the blackness.

Mind Touches
Harmonious Voices sussurate into your mind. First there is darkness, then there is the sound, softly at first, of a thousand whispers in the blackness. Gradually, as the mind within the egg stretches itself out, you become aware of heat, a subtle fragrance of exotic spices, a cool, dark sanctuary inside that holds great secrets. A rustle of crisp linen, the colour of white clouds in a cerulean sky rustles into your perception and a single unblinking eye that hovers, watching you blindly. Leave your woes here, your secrets at the entrance to the dark sanctuary.

Harmonious Voices vibrate with the sounds of distant reed instruments, esoteric and strange to hear. Perhaps though, it could be the sound of wind across strange, distant canyons. As the blind-eye continues to watch in silent observance, the darkness that surrounds you carries you deeper, where everything that ever was comes to a start and an end in a cyclic, slow-flowing river of dreams. To know such dreams, to travel this river that flows slowly out toward you, must be a splendid thing. What sights you could see, what mysteries you could uncover! It seems to beg you to tell it of such dreams of forgotten majesty.

Harmonious Voices carry you with them to the final destination of this slow riverboat ride along its mind. The destination it has arrived at is the sky made land… or is it the land made sky? Great constellations familiar and not, sparkle like the diamonds in a splendid coronet, the white linen and sandy surface that slides over the great river closing on this strange plain as the unseeing eye finally closes. It has much to think upon for now. It was good of you to come. When you sleep and when you dream of things… it asks that you bring it these things, like tokens. It enjoys wisdom, that which you bring forth before it.


Inspiration

The theme for this clutch was 'Ancient Treasures', the dragon inspiration theme being dragons of myth and legend. As such, your Shemsuth (pro: SHEMsuth) is based upon Apep or Apophis, the great destroyer wyrm/serpent god of ancient egypt. Or rather, she's based on the /antithesis/ of it, flavoured with some of the darker representations. Apep wasn't so much worshipped by the ancient Egyptians, so much as worshipped /against/. Her name comes almost directly from the Shem'su Heru, meaning the loyal/beloved of Heru or Horus, who were most active in the priestly rites, along with the priests of Apep themselves, in battling the forces of the dark god. Her hatchling name comes from the representation of the final times or 'Phoenix time' of apocryphal Egyptian mythology, her description from the ancient Nile valley when the lower and upper kingdoms were separate and rain still fell on the Sphinx. Phoenix time is also celebrated annually, when the phoenix itself would fly from the source of the Nile down to Bubastis to die and be reborn, bringing with it the annual flooding of the Nile and the triggering of the lushest greenery of Egypt. Her egg itself is based on the Rosetta stone, the key to the mysteries of the heiroglyphics, on which was carved the ancient Greek alphabet and the Egyptian pictography. - She comes in her entirety from the mind of Jess. I hope she's what you were looking for. Of course, she is your dragon, so modify her as you see fit, if you dislike aspects. It's just a template, Akeylah!


Credits

Name Time of the Phoenix Green Shemsuth
Dam Gold Isisith
Sire Bronze Albarith
Created By Jess
Impressee Akeylah
Hatched February 11, 2006
Igen Weyr
PernWorld MUSH

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