Xanadu Weyr

In a world where fortune favors the bold, this green treads a careful path betwixt the extremes. She is neither large nor small, long nor short, bulky nor frail, beautiful nor ugly - she is a creature comprised of averages, and this suits her just fine. This is not to say she is unremarkable, for her hide is the pale, cool brilliance of a sunlit sea, rippling with shades of varying intensity as subdued waves push down from shoulders to the dark shores of her paws. Deep dark celadons drawn from a tidal abyss cast cool shadows across the leading lines of her wings, fading to a pallid jade along the trailing edge in what at first might be mistaken for a simple gradient. It is only with study and proximity that one might realise that subtle dapples of sunlight through dark waters are in fact an elegant brocade, lacy stitches and swirls that form a complicated pattern that never seems to stay the same from day to day. Hints of glacial green curve about her eyes in a subtle mask, arching over her brows like a thin, vapored veil before spilling over the soft curves of her neckridges in a long trail of color. It persists in wraithly veins, in small twists of threads and fabric until it pools at the very tips of her tail. Freckles dot and dash across the bridge of her nose, the smooth lines of her neck, and the curves of her shoulders before fading away entirely, some lighter than her hide, some darker, but ultimately lending a subtle charm to a creature otherwise comprised of cool composure.

• Iczobyth artwork by the talented, amazing Tanit

Egg Name and Description

Seldom What It Seems Egg
This egg is not terribly remarkable in size, or shape. Unassuming. Moderate. A simple ovoid, it rests comfy-cozy upon the sands. It’s the color of this egg that seems to make it most unique. The smooth, silky shell seems to change depending upon the angle one looks at it. A rosy-silver hue from this direction, a powdery-blue from that. As though it could not settle on which it may want to be, and so somehow, impossibly, it has become both at once. A twist of the head, or a squint of the eye, and the color appears to shift once again. Not a purple or lavender, as there is no mixing of the two. Each is distinct in its moment of clarity, only to vanish and change in the next look. Pink in the pale light, blue in the deeper shadows, and a silver mist that seems to swirl and sparkle over the whole of it that does well to make discernment of its true hue a challenge at best.

Hatching Message

Wobble Message
Seldom What It Seems Egg starts to move, a tilt this way and that in a manner almost delicate.

Crack Message
Seldom What It Seems Egg moves more violently this time, hard enough to shift it into one of its co-habitants and leave a crack in that beautiful shell.

Hatch Message
Seldom What It Seems Egg comes to life! Cracks crawl and expand, spiderwebbing across the entirety of its shell until the whole thing seems as if it just might break. And it does! It bursts: one snout out, a paw, another, a tail and a silhouette that reveals a dragon, dripping in egg goop.

Sands Pose #1
Shroud of the Truthseeker Green Hatchling lifts a paw towards whirling eyes, curiosity in the tilt of head as she inspects mess and talons alike before she sets it daintily back onto the heat of the sands. Her attention shifts, coming to rest on the row of lifemate-hopefuls in brilliant white, seemingly studying faces, and hands, and clusters of hand-holding nervous friends before she moves forward. Or, well, she tries. So far she's only managed to face-plant right into her sire's hide, but don't worry: she's totally got this.

Sands Pose #2
Shroud of the Truthseeker Green Hatchling is reluctant, but gives up her spot against warm bronze hide when encouraged (WHAT? All that hatching business required a moment to just breathe, okay), whirling eyes affixed on those dragons already out of their shells on the sands. She tries again, a steady step this time, one tiny paw in front of the other, her direction clear: candidates. We wouldn't quite call her movements graceful by this point despite photographer-flattery, but at least she's moving, and in the right direction this time. She'll take what she can get!

Impression Message

Public Message
Shroud of the Truthseeker Green Hatchling slows that awkward-limbed trot, tilting her head as she slows along the scattered line of candidates who watch her like she watches them. It's an almost alarming attentiveness paid to each candidate in turn, a shying away when one after the other, she does not find the one most worthy of seeking worlds with her. No, not you, sweet little brunette, nor you, picture-taker, but good try though, giving her a second appraising glance like that. At least — wait. She almost walked too fast to pass him by. She turns back, tail clipping an anonymous candidate gently 'round the ankles as she moves to re-examine one she nearly overlooked in her haste. Yes. This! Her. This is the one that she will spend her forever with.

Private Message
Awareness fades. The sands, their heat, those occupants still waiting in sandals that do little to protect them from the heat a mere afterthought in the window of a room, a place that sparse signs of inhabitation invade where once there were dragons: a table laden with scrolls and charcoals, a vase of flowers, an over-turned bottle of perfume and a stick of incense that combine to give a mixture of smells for you to process. It's musk, and spice, and honey-sickle sweet — things that should not work together, but somehow do. But they shift, just as you've figured them out, change into something else as a presence finds you in the deepest recesses of your mind and lays a claim irrevocable to you both. « My Ricki. » There is relief in the sensation of touch, an excitement that expands and grows without overwhelming the senses. Scents and textures change again as together, as one, you watch a mess of broken eggshells that signal new life and the beautiful dragons they produced through that window-glimpse outside of your worlds together. You watch the faces of other candidates, some of them looking back to you through panes as she waits to find words adequate enough for speaking. « I am your Iczobyth, like you are my Ricki. We are each other's. » A fluttering of pages, a book — yet unwritten — that appears open and blank beside innocuous flowers that have changed again to something representing freedom, joy, triumph. « Teach me. I wish to learn. Together we will see the world, and find its many truths. But first, my Ricki, I would learn how to sate this… what do you call this, mine? Ah, yes. Hunger. First I would learn how to sate this hunger, if you would be so kind as to show me the way. »

Personality

“I seek the truth,” Shallan said. “Wherever it may be, whoever may hold it. That’s who I am.”

Ricki, one of the things you will realize about your Iczobyth right out of the shell is that she's exceedingly malleable, even for a dragon. In a way she is like liquid: in a constant state of flux. She can be ice and water and steam, she can be storm-tossed brine or a gentle reflective pool. To some this makes her tempestuous, others mercurial, others still, impossible to pin down, but the truth of the matter is she is as real and complex as any living being. In being able to understand this about herself, she is better equipped than most when it comes to handling others. She's not one to shy away from Talanoath's boisterousness, nor the kind of dragon who's going to ignore the humor found in Asceorth's rambunctiousness. She'll appreciate Tsarziath's pragmatism, learnedness, and manners, and she can understand Nysaiwenyth's aloof disregard for their clutch as a whole (even if sometimes she has an opinion about her opinions, and they don't always mesh).

Out of all her clutchsiblings, Iczobyth will probably be the one who knows each and every one of them best. She will be the glue that keeps them together, the single thing that they all have in common, the one best suited to understand their plights, and setbacks, and reasons. But for as selfless as this may seem, Iczobyth will also remember these interactions. She will learn from how Talanoath's storytelling draws in an audience, she will retain how Asceorth's clumsiness means he is more often dismissed as a threat, she will make careful note of all those charming manners Tsarziath employs in the face of scrutiny, or how Rosalyth's gentle kindness inspires heroics in others — and she will use them. Sure, this means that you will likely end up sitting through more than one session of Talanoath's tall tales, even if you and Iczobyth both know that Rukbat does not exist in the sky simply because he put her there, or lead you down a rabbit-hole discussion about history and politics with Rosalyth, but if nothing else it will be worth the accrual of knowledge for her to use. She will do this in small bursts at first, experiments and tests that hurt no one, but in a way that will certainly benefit the both of you once she comes into her wings.

What she cannot learn from observing her siblings and your interactions with other people, Iczobyth will desire to learn from books. Iczobyth will have a passion for text, a near-obsession with seeing the world as the written word presents it when translated from your mind into her own. This means that you will probably find yourself spending a good portion of your 'free' time wherever there's a wealth of knowledge to be found — like the library, or, borrowing from Iczy’s studied charm, a Computercrafter’s tap into the AIVAS archives. Worry not, you will not be alone in this venture; Iczobyth will likely find Rosalyth to be a constant in this pursuit of edification, and Tsarziath as one of the more worthy dragons to bounce her wit and ideas off of, if only because their combined research means that Iczobyth can learn more than either of you might have on your own.

One of the benefits (or, perhaps disadvantages) of all that bookish indulgence is that Iczobyth likes to make up her own words. Sometimes the meanings and limitations of actual vocable found in language as it's structured to date are lacking for the points that she wants to make, and so she creates her own words, with their own definitions, and she uses them. Mercilessly.

« I wonder if Talanoath means to be so errogant all of the time. »
"Errogant? Don't you mean arrogant, Iczobyth?"
« No, I mean errogant. He is twice as certain as someone who is arrogant while only possessing one-tenth the requisite facts. »

But no matter how many hours you spend hunched over countless tomes, devouring scripts and materials as they pertain to natural history and the workings of the world, it will never be enough. Not just in the sense that Iczobyth's thirst for knowledge simply cannot be gorged on a surfeit of other people's knowledge, but because there's always more to see, more to read, more to hear, more to learn and no one can seem to capture it in its entirety. The world is endless with possibilities, replete with history, full of people, and places, and things that she wants to witness, and study, and immerse herself in. Textbooks lack all of that: the imagery, the honesty, the accuracy of bearing witness to it yourself. And Iczobyth hates the not knowing.

As she gets older, she will show a very real desire to explore. This will translate into outings with Tsarziath and N'kon whenever they allow Iczobyth to come along. As N’kon studies his subjects through a lens, Iczobyth will encourage you to study them with your eyes, ears, and body, marking mannerisms, habits and dialects. All your turns of studying the peoples and places of Pern will come to a forefront, comparing what you have learned to what you can see with your own two (well, four) eyes. Yes, Half Moonians are just as relaxed as you have heard them to be, content to siesta their way through the heat of the day, but at night when the air is cool they are twice as industrious as expected to make up for the lack. The people of High Reaches are cold and chilling as they were described, but put a beer in the hand of a working man and he’ll describe for you the sound of a borealis, the sensation of being surrounded by hundreds of feet of glacial ice, things you could only ever have imagined and that no written word could possibly encapsulate.

All of this combined knowledge is fascinating, to be sure, and would be worthy enough as scholarship for scholarship’s sake, but the reality is that Ricki can, with Iczobyth’s encouragement, use this study in her own interactions with people in a variety of situations: meeting intimidating leadership, ingratiating herself to people who might otherwise frown on outsiders, and otherwise blend with a crowd that might not ordinarily flow with Ricki’s demure upbringing. An arrogant Bitran might not ordinarily respond to a little slip of a girl with a barrette in her hair, but do you recall that woman you observed in Ista last month, who slammed her mug to the card-playing table and forcibly claimed her place amongst the players with barely a scrap of coin to her name?

« Crimp your hair. Pinch your cheeks for color, and do that thing the headwoman taught us where you can tie your shirt into a dress. Yes. Very good. I know we don’t have much, but buy a glass of wine and if anyone asks, proudly declare it your fourth. Everyone wants to take advantage of an easy, drunken mark. Now. Gambling is just a lesser man's mathematics. We can do this. »

For though it will be Ricki often wading into the lion’s den - only so much can be handled from upon dragon-back, after all - Iczobyth will always be there with her, present, attentive, attuned to the moment. With her she will bring her skill at recognizing patterns, be that personally, mathematically, or simply in the way creatures big and small interact with the natural world. She will tap into this pattern, draw up for you a character, archetype, or mien to adopt, and is content to even feed you lines when you need the extra bolstering of encouragement.

The only drawback of this is that oftentimes, Iczobyth can get lost in her library of personalities. She will become so immersed in unravelling Fortian intrigue that she will forget where she is from, and sometimes who she is ,or who you are supposed to be. It is so comfortable to think as a simple crafter with no family, or so lush and carefree to have you play the part of a lady holder’s daughter, that she might soon forget where she ends and where you begin, forget what part she truly plays in your life outside of being unerringly and irrevocably yours. It is in these moments that she will need Ricki, will rely on her to reassert reality and remind her of their purpose. She might need taken back to basics, drug home and put through the paces of being a normal dragon, of being Iczobyth and only Iczobyth, while you remain Ricki and only Ricki. These will not be easy times, but they will be necessary and perhaps, in the end, rewarding and fulfilling to know that even without the charade, you are both strong, interesting, impressive individuals who are worth being despite your own inherent faults.

This is why she is good for Ricki, and why she chose Ricki for herself from amongst the multitudes: Ricki grounds her, reminds her that while being mysterious and masterful and educated and insightful is thrilling and might well meet the needs of her fast-paced brain, at the end of the day, it’s okay to be the you that just wants to lie down on the couch and read a silly novel in your jammies and slippers. Just because something you do is not amazing or impressive does not make it any less perfect or any less you. In the same way that she will need you to remind her of this, she will be willing to offer it right back, pulling you into the circle of her wings when you are tired, frustrated, overworked and overspent, surrounding you with the smell of home and dropping all pretenses to speak to you from one brilliant young woman to another: it is okay, and she is here for you - all of you, even that dark little corner that sometimes wonders if you’re not enough. You are. You always were. And you always will be.

Where all of this leads or leaves you is entirely up for the luxury of choice, and may wind up with you both exploring multiple avenues and experiences without ever really settling for just one profession. When young and untested, you may wish to choose transport to expand your horizons, to slake Iczy’s thirst for exploring new places, faces, and experiences. As you both settle into yourselves, you may wish to make use of Iczobyth’s changeability and look into policing for the weyr, drawing on the personality repertoire to take on challenges that riders with that perpetual ‘cop’ air about them can’t quite manage. There will also be time for you to explore things you might like, with Iczobyth’s full support given you don’t mind her mentally tagging along the entire way in the hopes of picking up some scrap of something new. Who knows. Your future was always so full of potential, but with Iczy at your side it can only be exponentially moreso, and there is no denying she is thrilled to find out where your lives will take you.

Mindvoice

Radiant Veil
Iczobyth’s mind is a curious thing to be party to, for at base, it is a simple demure room utterly lacking in lavishness. There is space for resting, a window that reflects an image of the outside world, and a small table laden with a variety of objects. It usually contains scrolls and charcoals, mental copies of the books you have most recently read, and a vase of flowers, sticks of incense, bottles of perfume, or maybe a mix of all three to create an undercurrent of smell in what is otherwise a very visual mind.

For you see, though her personal mindscape is limited indeed, she is capable of capturing mental images of any place she has been, and can store them away for future use. This may be as simple as creating a mental safehaven for Ricki and herself, an image of a cottage atop a lonely mountain into which you can retreat, stoking fires and resting atop plush furs in a place so remote, you know you may not be reached; it might also be as complicated as an entire library of things she wishes to remember through your combined efforts lit by the soft light of crystals embedded into the walls and ceilings.

Lesser-used images will fade with time and memory, but these two places will remain constants, a place to relax and allow the pair of you to be your true selves, and a place of learning and knowledge, where she can access not only that information that you have gathered about the world, but also its people. It is in that vast library that she will store dossiers of people to emulate, situations to replicate, but also behaviors to avoid, an entire row of shelves dedicated to just this cause. As with her images, these will need replacing constantly to maintain their upkeep lest personality achetypes dominate over creating a complex and believable character, but the information is there nevertheless.

This peculiar mindscape may well come in handy depending on how your future changes. She may be able to hold on to these landscapes long enough for you to peruse them a second time, for example, a mental projection from your mind to hers with sharp attention to detail, down to the sounds of the surroundings. Whether you use this mental replay to assist with writing, documentation, or to assist in providing information that otherwise might have been missed the first time is up to you, but Iczobyth will frequently desire to take these mental snapshots and tuck them away, for future amusement if nothing else.

Physicality

Changeability is not merely isolated to Iczobyth’s mind and personality - it is an inherent facet of her physical makeup as well. There is no one way to describe how she walks, or flies, or even sits because one day she will be soft, modest, unassuming in her actions, all careful movements with nary a paw out of place; the next, she will be a veritable freight train, bold of movements and clashing with everything in sight - surely much to your chagrin. This might start as imitation, inheriting scraps of Asceorth’s coltish blundering or Rosalyth’s gentle countenance as much as their mental fortitudes, but as she grows this habit will also encapsulate the physical attributes of those she is having Ricki copy, citing the concept that it makes it easier to keep in character: a switch of hips for flirtier personalities, a schoolmarm’s cool regard, a renegade’s fearless swagger, none of them are beyond her reach.

People can call her mentally mercurial as much as they want, but she has her tells no matter how hard Ricki might try to school them out of her, or she might try to command them herself: huffy stomps of a hind leg in times of frustration, a rising spread of her wings when excited, a lowering of her head towards her chest in fluffy, swannish grace when she is particularly pleased. You will find others still in your interactions with her, and though some might be subtle enough for only Ricki to truly be able to notice, they will be there nevertheless, little aspects that are purely Iczobyth in nature despite her best efforts.

But first she must be a gangly little youth, all skinny limbs and too-big wings, covered in freckles nigh-on from head to toe. She’ll grow out of this as fast as the rest of her siblings, regular exercise building muscle, control, and confidence, with the added curiosity of her hide changing as she grows. Speckles and spots will fade away, slowly enough to be missed by all but her weyrling and closest friends, not markedly enough to draw any unwanted attention, but with a curiosity and almost humanization that is unusual amongst her kind. It might be worth a trip to the dragonhealer’s just to make sure this isn’t something strange, but ultimately the hide-warp with not bother or concern Iczy much, so maybe it’s just another anomaly inherent to her morphic nature.

Once she hits adulthood, these freckles will be reduced to small spatterings across her nose, neck, and shoulders, hardly notable against the rest of her coloration. Though not a stand-out beauty, Iczobyth is pretty enough to pass muster, her physical movements doing much to either aid or sabotage herself depending on her mood and actions. She knows the just-right way to move so that dark-gloved paws - one curiously spanning higher than the other - carry her with allure and grace, but as with all things, there’s a time for being pretty and there’s a time to get things done and so it can also be said that she knows the just-right way to place those pretty forepaws when she wants to rear back and give someone a well-deserved kick, too.

This will tend to make her excellent at obstacle-course work. Any dragon can fly (with… varying shades of success, must you be a show-off, Talanoath?), but it takes a real, focused mind to be a master of moving on the ground as well. She wants to be though, wants to have that connection with Ricki, that closeness, and may very well wind up preferring to be ground-bound even whilst executing their grand adventures. How else is she to appreciate indigenous flora and fauna, stick her nose into a cave passage to compare its stalactites to those of more calciferous regions, pull algae to the surface to study the growth and spread of their blooms? It is unfair to make you do all the work while she lurks like a hovering cloud, and so outside of moments when intrigue and undercover work requires her to be distant, you will often find yourself in her company in the realest of ways.

Flights

Flights and the preliminary proddiness are another matter entirely, and to the best of her ability she will attempt to exclude Ricki from its thrall. Will it work? Probably not, but hopefully it counts for something that she tries her very best, even if she fails. She doesn’t mean to push Ricki out of her own skin, for her outgoing nature to overwash their borders and encourage her rider to do things she might otherwise not without having a mental safety-net to fall into but… Well… in this she is unfortunately helpless, and even the most firm and guided reminders are doubtful to help too much.

For to her, flights are a courtship ritual, replete with gifts and betrothals, and who’s to say it can’t be the lady who initiates? Indeed, she will have her favorite suitors (surprise: like her mother, it will probably be the very first dragon her eyeballs land on that day, or the one that accidentally does something impressive in her line of sight) and upon them she will dote with an intensity that borders on ridiculousness - borders, but does not cross. Please, Ricki, even proddy-brained, she knows her limits.

She’ll present them with gifts of words, or knowledge, encouraging banter and tests of mental acuity, sometimes offering physical things like a twist of vines that brings out the color of their eyes (her eyes aren’t purple, your eyes are purple) or a choice tear of meat, the better to persuade even the staunchest, most dedicated dragons that she is the mate to vie for. With each passing day of her proddiness, this process will start again, until she has a full complement of dragons to be getting on with, and only when she is satisfied that she has lured in the best of the best will she rise.

As a primary ground-dweller, her flights will perhaps predictably be short affairs. She does all of the hard work ahead of time, after all, so by the time she rises it matters very little who will win, because in her eyes, they are all exemplar examples of what dragonkind has to offer. Should a male she does not approve of, that she did not select, impose upon the flight she will weigh him soundly with her mind rather than her body, lashing him thoroughly with wit and tongue, and only if he keeps up with her in mind as well as form will she allow him the chance to remain in her flock. If not, well… she may well become known for thrusting herself into the arms of the one that suits her best, shameless in making it her choice in response to this egregious arrogance.

Fortunately, Iczobyth isn’t one to bemoan her lot in life, to be saddened by being unable to produce a clutch. That was never in her cards, never something she wanted, and so life after flights will return more or less to normal. She may in time develop an affinity for one particular dragon, perhaps favoring the dragon of someone you weyrmate with, if they are of the right gender or if that is even in the cards for you, but ultimately she is not a clingy nor particularly meddlesome dragon post-flight. She’ll enjoy her snuggles, and perhaps be content to linger if you do as well, but the second you’re up and ready to move on with life, so will she, falling in behind you with a confident stride, gaze focused ahead on the next big thing.

Inspiration

Rickiiiiii! First of all, let us start off by saying WELCOME TO WEYRLINGHOOD HERE AT XANADU WEYR! We are excited to have you, and hope that you enjoy your Iczobyth as much as we enjoyed writing her. We also (we being Siobhan and Risali) hate you, because yes we did buy book one of the Stormlight Archive, and yes we do enjoy it. If nothing else, at least we will have somebody to geek at once we've finished the ding-dang book. ON WITH THE DRAGGO!

Egg: Our theme this cycle was ‘fairy tales,’ with your dragon’s egg themed off of the story of Sleeping Beauty. This egg’s description and touches were written by the ever-lovely Sephany!

Dragon: The name Iczobyth came from an African Soga name, Isoba, meaning "walks slowly, stealthily." We combined this with Greek Kalypso, meaning "she who conceals." In mythology, this is the name of a sea nymph and daughter of Atlas, tying together Iczy’s watery desc and also her liquid, ever-changeable personality, and added in a requisite ‘z’ because we love that letter, too!

The rest of Iczobyth is based around Shallan from the Stormlight Archives series; in particular, Shallan’s use of Pattern to create personalities for herself. We did try to focus in on her use of Veil in particular, drawing on her habit of using Veil to gain access to places she might ordinarily not be welcome or met with information, but also her use of Veil to enjoy a lighter, more carefree personality. While we embrace the changes this brings for Iczobyth and Ricki both, we wanted to make a nod to Shallan’s identity crisis and make sure there were not only times but also needs for Ricki to just be Ricki, and Iczobyth to just be Iczobyth as well.

Overall, though Iczobyth is your dragon and we encourage you to play her however you see fit! Feel free to change her, here or in RP, and make her into what you want to see for your own play and for Ricki both! We can only hope we have done justice for what you wished to see in your dragon.

<333, Risali and Siobhan

Credits