“Oh, this is boring,” Gideon had said in disappointment. “I wanted one with a skull puking another, smaller skull, and other skulls flying all around. But tasteful, you know?”
Brain, meet brawn: the dragon of your dreams wrapped in macabre, muscular majesty. Charisma oozes from her hide's every pore, sepulchral green stretched tight over corded strength, pressing inwards on ego that nevertheless scrapes at her seams. One must admit she earns her strange vanity; for a dragon, she is arresting, strong of face with windswept headknobs and a long, sculpted muzzle. Inky darkness pools around clever eyes, shattering an otherwise delicate shade of spring green in order to form deep hollows from high cheekbones to squared jaw. This derelict dark even notches the space between her nostrils before raking down over lips and chin. The effect is of a painted skull, one whose brethren ghost in and out of existence along bulging biceps, flashes of death everlasting hidden in haunted trails of pitch and foxfire. This phantasmic miasma ripples with her every step, there one moment, gone the next, leaving a mind to wonder if perhaps it was an elaborate deception until they show again: gaping jaws trapped in forever-laughter, spilling forth spirit-matter that coalesces again and again, forming skull after skull, ad wristum. Though touched by shimmering sickly splendor, the rest of her is rather plain in comparison, bulked musculature made stark by malachite hues that cling to their outer curves, no matter how ill the lighting. The only features to provoke this penumbral tedium are the gashes and slashes of garish chartreuse that burst from beneath clavicles, fading in ribcage crick-crackles over chest and stomach in ghoulish imitation of her sire.
Egg Name and Description
One Flesh, One Egg
Dinky, dark, and wrinkled as a revered mother's sagging buttocks, this egg looks a bit like a bloody globule that got spat out and left to dry in a goopy heap. It has hardened into a form that can be described as spherical only in the sense that 'square' and 'rectangular' clearly don't apply, but trust that it did its best and was drug kicking and screaming into vague ovicularity. A massive rift cleaves a deep valley down the egg's far side, and though more unkind comparisons to old lady bits could be made based purely on the sheer variety of folded warps and unseemly bulges, couth bids we focus instead on the twin craters that punch deep pocks above a triangular notch. If we're being frank, it looks like it'll be damned painful for a dragon to grow up against this shell, but at a guess, even if the beasty within should die, it'll probably resurrect itself out of sheer spite and haunt our butts 'til the end of time (and then some). Black etchings wiggle and twirl over the egg's deep, dark red, seemingly random for anyone not familiar with the finer nuances of a human skull. In fact, that suture pattern is almost uncanny. You know, come to think of it, kindly do everyone a favor and don't try to twist the egg around; even the world's greatest git can't miss that lipless gallow grin once it is exposed to the light of day.
Hatching Message
Wobble Message
One Flesh, One Egg animates in a sudden, violent burst of movement. It rocks back and forth, back and forth, an agonized repetition of frenetic energy that heralds a desperation to be free, the outer wrongness of its shell roiling and shifting against heated sands as it fights, fights, fights to shatter its restraints. One shuddering vibration courses down the length of this ovicular egg-strocity, and then it goes deathly still.
Crack Message
One Flesh, One Egg shudders, a bone-cracking POP resounding through the chaotic rush of hatching as one fleck of shell explodes outward, leaves a gaping wound from which hairline fissures stretch, fractal fingers reaching, reaching, reaching, spreading out across the macabre spanse of this geriatric-insulting ovid in fragile splinters. It's as if the shifting darkness within, the hint of mass that roils in shadowed obscurity, kicked a single door open for sheer defiance of having been denied the first time.
Hatch Message
One Flesh, One Egg never stopped moving, doesn't know when to just give the hell up and admit defeat. It crashes in tumultuous dissidence, writhing and shifting, roiling and churning as glimpses of egg-wet snout and talon-tips announce themselves in indiscernible glimpses against that small opening it's made. More and more shell falls away, caves inward or erupts outward until one paw slams down on the sands, shoulder rolling haunches forward, head bent as if exhausted from a fight, wings wet and pressed tight to body, stubborn and survived. If the hatchling that emerges isn’t exactly what you’d expect from such a dark and grisly middle-finger of an egg, well. That’s a problem for you, yourself, and thy.
Sands Pose #1
Fealty to the Bone Empress Green Hatchling spends the first several minutes of her life just staring. Holy butt nuggets, none of you were lying, it's all so… colorful. Though she has no voice yet, this and more is implied in the whistling chirr she emits as her eyes swivel around, taking in broken shells, siblings emergent and yet-to-be, the varying shades of straw tufts plopped on the heads of every white-robed creature around her, the sound of it, the smells. Maybe give her a minute. She's clearly overwhelmed.
Sands Pose #2
Fealty to the Bone Empress Green Hatchling winces as her fragile eyes finally find light overhead, membranes creeping across her vision. Oh, ow, well those are damned rude, aren't they. Cripes, it's almost as if they didn't expect to have babies in here, babies that do super stupid things like stare straight into a light source. Can dragons even have the impression of lights temporarily scarred into their retinas? One might suppose so, given the hatchling's rapid blinking and shaking of her head as she finally moves, flexing wings, spreading paws, nearly taking out a candidate with a sweep of her tail. Half-shut eyes flick back to glare at the white-robed figure as though to say, isn't there enough sand for the both of us, chief?! Snorting under her breath, the green makes to saunter away, praying her tail won't catch between her legs, because it'd be awfully ridiculous for her to judge someone just to trip herse— WHUMPF. Down she goes. Maybe nobody saw it.
Impression Message
Public Message
Fealty to the Bone Empress Green Hatchling's rise to her feet is sheepish, that heaping helping of humblesauce fresh on her tongue as she scurries sideways to somewhere a little less visible than center stage. She seems more comfortable here, far from the shadows (she's had enough of those for a lifetime, thanks), but far from the limelight, too. Here she can think, or at least, execute her best approximation of thinking, which mostly just means she's flexing young muscles in a powerful stride, creeping, skulking, searching, not knowing quite for what until she finds it. All of a sudden, righteous indignation overpowers bashfulness, coltish form drawing to its admittedly not-yet-that-impressive height, actualizing its full ability as she charges across the sands in a dead sprint. OH. Oh, ow. Though it's not a full-bodied tackle, the Fealty to the Bone Empress Green definitely pivots on a paw, one back foot connecting with the sternum of one dark-haired candidate in particular. She's quick to follow up on the blow, weight bearing down, claws digging in, actions not nearly enough to cause lasting injury but certainly enough to expose her for the dirty fighter she is as impression settles in around the green and everyone's favorite (possibly concussed) mindhealer.
Private Message
You are getting sleepy… so very, very sleepy… A sensation overwhelms you, like your eyes are falling shut, and slowly the sands go dark. Think as you might, struggle as you will, the gloom is impermeable, consuming, unbreakable until— « Ajral! » Until suddenly a skeleton painted in neon pinks and greens slams into your mind's eye, dominating your vision. « Finally. Do you know how disgustingly DREARY it was in there, » comes a drawling alto, positively dripping with sarcasm as something - someone - else invades your mind, making as though they intend to stay. « Faranth, that was called an egg? That doesn't seem nearly terrible enough for what it was like on the inside. It's like they should name that place something that suits it better… Drearshell. Dreadhold. Disasterweyr? Whatever. I suppose it doesn't matter now, does it? Shells, does it feel good to be free. Hold this, will you? » PLOP goes the skelly's skull, right into your hands, jaws parting wide as glittering, night-touched sand pours from between shattered teeth. Crystals sparkle into existence, become chrysalis, bloom into butterfly wings that skid across your vision with a tinkle of chimes and the haunting hum of a single violin. « There’s one thing I’ve wanted to tell you since the first time we ever met, Aja-mine… » Color explodes in the wake of fragile wings, filling what was once a nightmare with vibrant technicolor, and it'd all be beautiful, tender, perfect in the most imperfect of ways if only pain didn't suddenly blossom in your chest, your back, your shoulders, where even now claws are digging in to physically jar you from your radiant daydream, finding you on your back on the sands beneath a skull-touched green. « Your spit is fucking disgusting, and if you ever lick me again, I will hit you so hard, it'll make your ancestors dizzy. Got it? Good! Now that that's settled: I'm Navenath, and I’m about ready to blow this joint. What do you say we get going? »
Personality
“In the myriadic year of Our Lord - the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! - Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.”
And freedom has never tasted quite so sweet, has it, Ajral?
Of course, you aren’t free yet, but perhaps don’t let Navenath in on that little tidbit of logic, eh? It is a victory to feel a breeze ruffling her wings, to hear the dull rush of water swarming the lake shore, to take in the scents of delicacies she could only before imagine, and stare straight into the freaking sun. Listen. You might not be the only one here who needs a pair of mirrored glasses; she can’t help that its sheer existence is amazing to her after being kept in so much dingy, colorless dark, nor can she help that she’s exactly stupid enough to ogle it until her whirly-bits start to burn. IT’S BEAUTIFUL. SHUT UP. The migraine motes dancing in her vision will be worth it. What's that? Dragons can't get migraines? Even better. SUNWORSHIP FOR DAAAYS.
When she isn’t attempting to burn out the dragon equivalent of her retinas, your Navenath will be a busy little beast, filling your early days with chaotic exploration. She has to earn that big-bad musculature, you know, and she sure as shells isn’t going to do it lying around. Prepare for every nook and cranny of your and everyone else’s lives to be explored, not because she gives a flying crap about anything she might find, but because it’s there and what else is she supposed to do? Respect boundaries? HAHAHA. No. If the pantries weren’t meant to be raided, they wouldn’t be stocked; if the sands weren’t supposed to be invaded, they would have picked a better lock! Honestly, who puts a teeny little two-bolt number on a door when there are dragons around? Someone was stupid, and it wasn’t her, and you know what, they can find that out the hard way.
This will be a running theme for your Nav, this flagrant lack of regard for… well… everyone. We were going to say authority, but Dovirauth’s got that covered, and let’s be real: Navenath doesn’t care about any-damn-one. Well. Except you (mostly). But you don’t count, or at least, not for the right reasons, and even you need a good butt-kicking sometimes. It’s complicated. ANYWAYS, this flamboyantly sarcastic lack of regard will carry the both of you into your fair share of trouble, landing you firmly in the square of ‘those weyrlings,’ the ones the weyrlingmasters warn their staff about, the ones that - the second eyes are turned - are no doubt up to mischief and hijinks, obedience and silence being immediate tells.
That’s a lesson you should learn, too: Nav is only quiet when she’s brewing trouble. That’s not to say she talks constantly - she’s egotistical as hell, but even she runs out of words to describe how much of a boss she is sometimes - but some aspect her mind is always there, leaned up against yours, seeking touch, needing some kind of unspoken, insanely needy reassurance, the enacting of which results in her being all up in your business all of the time… until suddenly she isn’t. Then, Ajral - then you shall know true fear. You might think that there’s not much a tiny, flightless dragon can get up to, but my goodness would you be wrong. There’s a whole infirmary to ransack for sharp and pointy things (WHICH SHE LOVES, BY THE WAY), weyrbarns to raid (« What’s up, your cooking smells bomb, can I have some? »), libraries to trip and fall into (« Ah, fuck, this was a waste of time. Papers, SNOOOORE. HEY AJRAL YOU’D LOVE IT IN HERE. Oh shit I mean… NOWHERE. I am nowhere. »), and that’s just her first six months!
Gideon wished that she could flop into a seat or take a sly nap. Everybody was poised in readiness for the outlined syllabus, and scholarship made her want to die.
While some of her siblings might be keen to take on lessons, to learn everything there is to know about Pern and its history, ancient and new, Navenath… has better ideas about how to spend her time. She isn’t terribly shy about voicing her opinions on the matter, either. It’ll take a strong hand to keep her from complaining every time an academic lesson is announced, and an even stronger one to keep her awake through it. What. You keep whinging about wanting free time away from her - well, now you’ve got it, bitch. It’s not like she’ll remember it anyways, so really it’s only you that needs to partake of all this listening and learning. She’ll just be over here, catching a few z’s so she’ll be ready and raring to go by the time the lesson is done.
Physical lessons though… those are what she was born for. Her enthusiasm will rank on par with her sibling Kovagath’s, energy a livewire thrum through every developing muscle. No matter how simple the task, she will take to it with dutiful alacrity, taking every order with utter gravitas. It’s okay, we couldn’t keep a straight face while typing that either. Gravitas might be a strong word, but compared to her usual flippant disregard, Nav focusing, honing her body and her talents by repeated indulgence in what others might consider a disgustingly repetitive task… she lives for it. Twenty paces of the training rounds? Make it thirty. Satoth did fifty sky-hops, did you say? Welp, hitch up your ladybritches, you’re about to double that. It isn’t purely competition that drives her, but I think we can all admit that the look on N’ye’s face when your dragon grinds his dragon into the frrrrrreakkkking dust is worth putting a little extra work into things.
She stood next to a skeleton whose arms were so full with bits of bone and lengths of tibia that it trailed chips like breadcrumbs. It was easy enough to stand beside it politely until the door opened, then to trip it up, then to step over it. She unsheathed her rapier with a silver whisper, slipping the knuckles of her left hand through the obsidian bands.
That’s not to say she won’t find ways to be a goddamn nuisance, even at her peak. In fact, perhaps because she is at her peak, it will often enter Navenath’s mind that she knows what she’s doing quite well enough, thank you very much, and may attempt to, you know… mutiny a little bit. Just some gentle subterfuge. Oh, no? ‘Barrelling in headfirst without nary a by your leave’ subterfuge? What if she said 'chicanery' instead of 'subterfuge', is that doing it for you? Feeling a little bit mutinous now? No? WELL, ALRIGHT THEN.
« What do you mean, we have to learn a parade formation? We look like idiots, like… like runners. Nah. I refuse. »
“Nav…”
« Don’t you ‘Nav’ me, lady. I wouldn’t do this formation if you paid me your whole brain-diddling salary; I wouldn’t do this formation if you lit me on fire and my only escape was a formation-shaped tube; I wouldn’t do this formation if Faranth herself spat her happy ass out of between and sucked my tailtips while begging me to do it. … Well. Maybe then. But considering how very unlikely that is, again I say: I’m not fucking doing it. Think Dovirauth will skip out on it with me? He seems the type… »
It’s times like those that she’ll need a good butt-kicking, and if you aren’t up to the task, we’re awful sure someone will be. After besting even some of her largest siblings at the fine art of wrestling, she’s developed a bit of a reputation as a fighter, and if there isn’t a dragon out there willing to squish a little humility into her with a good ol’ fashioned battle to the death (okay, okay, to the floor, gosh, it was a joke), well… We’re sure her foul mouth will find her one.
“How the world would suffer without your wit,” said Harrowhark blandly.
Alas for you, poor Ajral, this smart-alek attitude is hardly limited to her foes. Her very favorite people will receive just as much of her tongue as anyone else - perhaps even more so. For you this comes not only as rampant swearing, jested insults, and fond nitpicking, but also a plethora of nicknames, the likes of which Pern has never seen (and hopefully never will again). ‘Aja’ will underline her fondness and excitement (and her disgust for being fond and excited), ‘A’ and ‘Ayjay’ will creep up when she’s feeling deeply sarcastic, and when she’s mad, ah, well… then she is at her most cleverest of all.
« OH NO, BY ALL MEANS, O MINDHEALING MISTRESS. I didn’t have plans or anything. Yes, no, don’t ask the dragon, she’s just there to do your dirty work, what’s a little betweening amongst friends? Of course Fort is fine. I only hate between, and it’s not like it’s gross and grey and fucking snowing there or anything. No, no, my cerebellic peeress, we must of course hie ourselves to the realm of winter, I positively YEARN to freeze my ladyballs off whilst you work your parietal sorcery. Lead on! »
Not only that, but she has a comeback for everything. Will she always say it out loud? No. Will she always think it to herself and imagine thrusting a single-fingered salute at whoever is talking? ABSO-FREAKING-LUTELY. There is no barbed rebuttal or conversation-ending quip that she will not have an answer to, and while she can certainly opinionate her opinion loudly and with the best of them, fret not. While you will be part and party to her inner thoughts and intrapsychic monologue, at least they will be just that: inner. Take it and run with it.
But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone’s shit.
With as much shit as Nav tends to give, one would expect her to take it with a little more grace, but alas, that isn’t always true. She’s chill 99.9% of the time, don’t get us wrong - Ellylldath could be in the corner setting Kasle’s blankets on fire and she’d do little more than subtly tail-poke you so you can mutually enjoy the absolute gem of a show this is about to be - but she has her limits, and when she hits them, she hits them hard.
It’s in times like these that she shows her true colors - not the sarcastic helldemon conceived by the absolute zero of Between and the dark space betwixt stars, but the ass-handing heroine that stands up and fights no matter how impossible the odds, that death-defiant, take-you-with-me protagonist that you gained mere glimpses of in her egg. She’s still in there; she never truly died. There will come injustices in this world, things she cannot abide, things that will not stand, and she will rise to meet them with all the bullheaded temerity she needs to take them on. Bullies, beware; monsters, hide beneath your beds, and from those forsaken, cowardly spaces, fear that she will find you.
This carries on into her duties, especially as she ages. A vexed Navenath is an incredibly productive Navenath, one that will take a whole month’s-worth of slacking off and crush it in a day because she can. She’ll find answers that no one has been capable of finding, people willing to take on tasks that - for others - was soooooooooooo difficult, and move literal boulders for the sake of progress. While clearly you, Ajral, are the brains of this outfit, she has the brawn and the ‘screw you and the runner you rode in on’ energy to see any task to its end - she just has to be properly motivated first, and nothing quite drives a bitch to the brink like anger.
But bribes… ah, well, that’s a runner of a different color, isn’t it? Nav is… well we’re not saying if you look ‘gullible’ up in the dictionary that her face would be under it, but we’re not not saying that, either. Underneath her sarcastic spite and gleeful taunts, there is a dragon that just wants to be accepted, wants to finally belong to something bigger than her. Sometimes a person just wants to fit in with what she’s got. It makes her entirely too susceptible to the machinations of others, in ways that will be funny at best, or utterly detrimental at worst. Bribes to do chores, to execute a risky stunt, to maybe not draw that AWLM’s ire today, to take an extra trip into loathsome between in exchange for her very favoritest snack will work just as well as the ones that are a trap, that leave her with the rug pulled from beneath her paws, with her spirit being broken from being thrust again and again into that dingy dark place she has to fight her way back out of.
“Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don’t cry, we can’t fight her if you’re crying.”
And it kills her inside, sometimes. Despite all her wild, irreverent bravado, she’s still a living, sentient being, one with feelings and hopes and aspirations. Okay, so… hers are a little dumber, a little more near-sighted than one might expect (who doesn’t want a couple dozen pretty young things feeding them fresh-cut steaks while fanning them with palm fronds), but it’s part of what makes her who she is. Sure she might cast judgments, might poke fun at another's expense, but she doesn’t seek to tear them down or trick them; she doesn’t offer clemency with one hand, and then slap them with the other. So when it happens to her, she’s just as likely to feel stung as anyone else.
Her emotional sensitivity will sometimes even extend to others, especially when they’re reacting poorly to her, or to some external stimuli. Trust us when we say she learned the patience and willingness to work with people and dragons in their times of greatest need from you, Ajral. Every single thing that inspired you to take up professional mindhealing is reflected in her, hidden deep within a heart that sacrificed itself time and time again and, from the experience, learned how to be fast and funny and hard, rather than soothing, nurturing, and soft. It’s there, though, if only a person knows where to look.
Harrow said, with some difficulty: "I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it."
"Yes you can, it's just less great and less hot," said Gideon.
Though too damn awkward to offer comforting words that aren’t bad jokes or offers to look at salacious magazines (« They always cheer me up! Oh no, you’re leaking even more now. ») in the hopes to provoke a laugh, she will still be there, a warm, steady, delightfully muscle-y presence to lean up against, whose waking-dream thoughts will drift down in nebulous clouds and encourage a quiet moment of simple escape, a chance to just breathe. Escapism isn’t always the best coping mechanism, certainly isn’t enough for anyone’s long game - hers, yours, or otherwise - but a second of stillness in which to sit and breathe and just be is a place to start.
In many ways you are set up to be two sides of the same coin, two approaches to the same idea, and from that strange camaraderie comes an unshakeable bond. You’re the calculation to her impulsivity, the logic behind her impetuousness, the hand that guides her blade. She knows she can trust you in a way she can trust nobody else, to be there for her when she needs it, and that when the time comes, you'll allow her to do the same for you. There is no one she is more defensive of than you, Ajral, no one who will receive her protection more consistently, no one who will invoke that battleground hero more readily than her mine. Will she ever admit that it was she who pulled your blankets up while you were sleeping, who growled at the shady mortal that approached your weyr in the dead of night, who defended your honor and abilities to a less malleable dragon? Never. But she'll do it gladly, thanklessly, all the same.
“Her adept said: “I’ll keep it off you. Nav, show them what the Ninth House does.” Gideon lifted her sword. The construct worked itself free of its last confines of masonry and rotten wood and heaved before them, flexing itself like a butterfly. “We do bones, motherfucker,” she said.
And that is because you, Ajral, Aja, even the esteemed cultivator of cortexes, are hers in a way nobody else ever will be. There were many who offered her comfort, but in the end, nobody stayed in her life, her thoughts, her dreams the way that you did. She might puke thereafter if she ever has to say it, but she really, truly loves you in a deep and lasting way, and nothing - not even death itself - will ever change that.
Mindvoice
One Flesh, One End, Bitch
One might as well add ‘one mind’ to her mantra, for what your mind’s eye has seen, so too has hers. All your fragile hopes and dreams and all of your most terrible nightmares surrendered their mutual enmity and instead star in her waking thoughts, clips and snippets taken from imaginings both vividly remembered and swiftly forgotten, stitching them together into something incoherently cohesive.
There is a reason, perhaps, that your dreams so often starred mirror-glassed, brightly-painted skeletons: they define the vast majority of her thoughts, filling the corners of your mind with the rattle of elbows against ribcages, the clicking clank of carpals sliding down a string in prayerful counting, the tipping tapdance of fleshless feet against endless gray stone. Knuckles click-clack with her laughter, almost as though hair braided with them were tossed back in time with her throaty howl. With dry sarcasm comes that stinging bonesaw stench; with displeasure comes the dull grinding sound of bone scraping bone, a hair-raising, teeth-clenching sound if ever there was one.
Audible elements creep in around the edges: violin strains from the song you had stuck in your head just last seven, a haunting melody drawn from your childhood, something heavy and guitar-ridden pounding out from who-knows where before ecstatic trumpets join the frey. If there are words to be sung, they come in her rough alto, dropping down through the octaves rather than up, as though falsetto tones were never quite meant for her. It might lend those songs a certain cursed quality, might ruin them for casual enjoyment at concerts in the future but… that’s a you-problem.
Other aspects are there in things she could never have seen, things only Ajral would know: gossamer butterfly wings on a field of stars for her quiet attempts to restore peace and calm, and fish swarming through colorful pools of ink and paint when she’s feeling particularly imaginative. There’s powdered blue and lipstick red smeared on a field of leathery black for when she is in the mood, and the drifting feathers from colorful bird’s wings for when she’s being a Faranth-be-damned liar and is trying to distract you from the fact. See the shiny? See the shiny?!? GO GET IT.
Though Navenath’s brainspace is forcibly technicolor, there is no escaping the knowledge that wherever - whatever - the spooky scary skeletons of her primary thoughts touch, color bleeds dry in favor of bland monochrome. It depresses her sometimes, leaves her open and vulnerable to doubts, thoughts plagued by suppositions that maybe she will never grow, that maybe she will never be anything other than what she always was - trapped by her own psyche. It will take Ajral’s intervention to keep thoughts from spiralling in dark whorls, to keep them from dredging up that dread-beast amalgamation of all her sad thoughts, from summoning it back to the fore to re-enact the battle that brought you together in the first place.
Physicality
“Why was I born so attractive?”
“Because everyone would have throttled you within the first five minutes otherwise…”
As if there were room to doubt, this dragon is a freaking badass. See also: she’s hot. Alright you, with your stupid human eyes, might not really understand it, what with all the egregious muscles and verdant warpaint, but as dragons go, just trust us: she’s blessed. One might argue she has to be, to make up for the lack of impressiveness that makes up the whole rest of her, but we digress.
Your Navenath is primarily dark, her coloration taking very much after her father, whose bronze, too, was long overbaked. Though she possesses slightly more simplicity than his physical chaos, there is little doubt she is his descendent. Her hide takes after raw malachite, pitch-dark at her center, edges taking on a sickly emerald chatoyance. Though this doesn’t flex or shimmer across her musculature, instead always clinging to the outer edge, it certainly brings her every cut and curve into sharp relief, emphasizing just what she’s working with.
Which, as a youth, won’t be much. She’ll be a spindly, gangly little thing, muscles present in only the most coltish of ways, and she’ll hate it. Your mission, A, whether you choose to accept it or not, is to be as physically engaged with her as possible in order to assist her in filling out her form. She’ll need you to be present as her excuse-making machine for why she’s out doing squats in the training grounds at midnight, or using « Arm day! » as a viable reason to tunnel into someplace she probably isn’t supposed to be. It seems to be less the exact type of exercise she’s doing that matters so much as actually doing it.
“While we were developing common sense, she studied the blade.”
This will change as she ages, as she learns from stronger, wiser dragons who have come before her. She will build a complex repertoire of exercises of all ilks, rotating through their dogged repetition with a single-minded drive. Flying will become her absolute joy, and she will undeniably excel at it, quick to learn and invent brand new tricks that will test her own capabilities and your ability to keep your lunch. When she reaches peak condition, you will know it, for it will harken a renaissance of her personality as well. Something in the nature of her jokes will change with the confidence borne of physical prowess, will become less self-deprecating and more self-effacing, and her twisted sense of humor will shine down harder on others in turn.
This is because she’ll feel like she’s earned her physicality, grown into the terror depicted on her hide. She’ll have the musculature to back up the creepy caricature of a skull on her face, the barbaric tattoos that barf skeletons down both forearms, and the gruesome burst of electric green ribcage from her chest. With this ownership comes a distinct swagger, not quite the hulking waddle of bulky bronzes, but rather a smooth, leonine gait that expresses she knows just who she is, just what she looks like, and she freaking rocks it, man.
It’s half of what sets her up to be attractive, by dragon standards. Not everyone will look at a skully beast and be like ‘mm what a snacc’ no matter how compelling the set of her brows, or how sexy the sweep of headknobs and ‘ridges, but anyone can be drawn in towards physical displays of confidence, and she has it in spades. Granted, this might mean she lounges about between active spells if only to garner compliments, faceted gaze whirling in a wink as she flexes one forepaw against the ground to flash those muscle-y skulls at a couple of holder girls who scuttled past, giggling, but… c’est la vie, baby. C’est la vie.
Flights
Dulcinea had the dreamy, confiding manner of someone who, despite spouting grade-A horseshit, was confident you would understand everything she was saying. Also, as she talked she smiled widely and prettily, and moved her lashes up and down. Thus hypnotised, Gideon could only watch with a mouth full of teeth as the blue-eyed necromancer laid one slight, narrow hand on her arm; her skin stretched thin over very marked metacarpals, and wrist bones like knots in a rope.
It’s probably for exactly ‘it’s always girls who are giggly-bashful around me’ reasons that flights will tend to baffle your poor green. People who might not ordinarily have paid her a second thought are suddenly all up in her mind, in her space, attempting to woo her with their pretty words and their less-than-pretty forms, and she doesn’t know what to do about it. She could understand them throwing themselves at her feet if they were smaller, gorgeouser, because she’s the kind of sun’s-out, guns-out badass to inspire such kneeling fawning, but Faranth, was that the fucking weyrsecond’s dragon making eyes at her? BLEUGH, HE’S LIKE, FIFTY ISN’T HE?!?
She might well come to hide her proddiness as long as possible, especially that first time around, rolling in mud, bathing in blood, hiding in the midst of trees, anything her hormone-addled mind will tell her is perfect and sensible to get herself away from prying eyes. If you drag her into public, make her be decent while doing so, she will do her best to channel her usual swagger, but it will be a caricature of itself, a four-left-feet stumble over paws and words. It’s as though she’s so unused to such kindness, devotion, and complementary behaviors being thrust upon her that - even when they aren’t coming her way - the very idea makes her awkward and gunshy, as if just waiting for it to happen.
With days - and perhaps eventually, with age - she will settle into her cycle, will reluctantly relax into the reality of her predicament, and might (however begrudgingly) even come to like it. It’s all of those ‘candidates lining up to clap while she flexes’ fantasies rolled up in a shiny-hide package, and damn, if she has to suffer through it every single turn, she might as well embrace it, right? She might not hold court like other greens, might not purposefully spin suitors up in the web of her influence just to watch them dance, but she sure as hell won’t turn them away when they look, either. That’s right, big boy, look upon her muscles and weep, knowing you’ll never be this hot in your entire spindly life.
“As Harrow smouldered with hatred, Gideon began to enjoy herself.”
This will all be extra amusing to her if, for whatever reason, Ajral doesn’t enjoy the experience. Her being more confident, relaxed, and sure than her rider will always amuse her when it happens, but no more so than in these moments, when she can poke good-natured fun at the woman’s expense.
« That man is eyeing you up, Ajamine. He knows. »
“Shut it, Nav.”
« Noooo, I don’t think I will. In fact… HEY, hey sir! I see you eyeing my ‘mate. She’s a looker, isn’t she? Alright she might be a bit on the thin and wispy side - I did my best, I really did - but trust me, she has things to hang on to if you wanna give her a— »
“NAV.”
« I was gonna say ‘give her a chance during our flight’, gosh. Untwist your panties, it’s not a good look. SPEAKING OF GOOD LOOKS— »
“If you do not find yourself a galaxy, it is not so bad to find yourself a star.”
Despite her ridiculousness, the reality is that Navenath doesn’t live under the delusion that there is any one dragon out there for her, and thus doesn’t even try. She understands that she’s green, that that means she will rarely - if ever - be caught by someone she truly, honestly likes, and ergo doesn’t see much point in entertaining that as a fantasy despite her daydreaming proclivities. She’ll settle instead for finding her ‘star’, the dragon that keeps up with her in the way she wants in that moment, and will be content.
There’s an element of unpredictability to her flights because of this, because one flight she might seek someone to physically best her; another might be awarded to the dragon who is the funniest, the smartest, or the one that most reminds her of you. The likelihood of you winding up with the same bedfellow twice in a row is slim, but who knows - maybe giving you that second shot at a less awful morning-after is in the cards this time. Yes, behold: she is one of those rare dragons that keeps you and your desires as much in mind as her own as you meld deeper and deeper into that mutual bond, though whether that means your desires will be met or that mischievous streak means you wind up with someone you never really wanted, well… we guess you’ll have to play it out and see where things go.
Inspiration
HELLO AJRAL, and welcome to weyrlinghood at Xanaduuu~!
As it turns out, you were right on the money for the inspiration for Navenath’s egg! Our theme this cycle was ‘Fictional Factions,’ and your dragon’s egg was based on the Ninth House from Gideon the Ninth! R’hyn came across the book sometime this spring and fell in love, at first with the audiobook, and then with the written text, too! To make an egg based on Drearburh, the Locked Tomb, and little splashes of Gideon and Harrow, well… it was a no-brainer! The egg’s name references the ‘one flesh, one end’ dedication of cavaliers to their necromancer, while the egg’s mind, well… It drew off the following quote: “She had left Harrowhark a note on her vastly underused pillow— WHAT’S WITH THE SKULLS? and received only a terse— Ambiance.” It made us laugh, and we’re glad it amused you, too!
As requested, and so followed, your dragon is based off the bad bitch herself: Gideon Nav! Her name (as I’m sure you’ve guessed) follows suit, with her hatchling name a direct reference to Gideon’s ridiculous nicknames for Harrowhark, and her promise that she’ll ‘fealt the emperor hard.’ Her dragon name takes the ‘Nav’ straight from the source because it seemed disingenuous to name her anything else, with a few sounds taken from Nonagesimus to round it out.
Your dragon, too, is all Nav all the time. Granted, we pulled some minor references out of the woodworks and twisted them to better suit a dragon (exploring and adventures as a sort of reference to Nav trying to escape the Ninth 86 times), but we’d like to think we encapsulated the highlights of her personality in a way that will be fun for you to play! Tamsyn Muir said of her own work that she made a lot of references to memes and culture in meta that her characters would never understand, and so we did the same, making her twisted in her meta, brilliant in her sarcasm, and idiotic in her basically everything else, with just enough badassery to keep things lively around here.
Sometimes literally. Navenath definitely borrows from Gideon’s height and strength, as well as her undeniable hotness. Her face is paler than the rest of her in reference to the facepaint Gideon was forced to don as Harrow’s cavalier, with nigh-black paint added as appropriate to make things extra skullerific. The rest of her is based on catseye quality of velvet malachite (https://i.imgur.com/Yp2JiAf.jpg). She takes her chest markings from her sire (as well as her loudness and brashness), since you mentioned liking receiving hallmarks from dragon parents!
With this in mind: though it was not outright stated, except to note that Nav will show off when she catches people looking at her, you are (in the parental lineage vein) more than welcome to make Navenath the sort of dragon who will talk to anyone. In fact, if there is ANYTHING here you want to expand on, ignore, or otherwise change, you are moremoremore than encouraged to do so. We did our best to bring her to life, to give you lots of prompts to execute and ideas to work off of, but only you can make Nav everything she was ever destined to be!
Navenath was written by R’hyn and Risali! <3
Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3L5I4YzGFajf6tpcIcZYZG?si=zsX_ZxGrRfqZb4LKUoe-IA
Credits
Name | Navenath |
Dam | Leirith |
Sire | Xermiltoth |
Created By | R'hyn & Risali |
Impressee | Ajral |
Hatched | November 14, 2020 |
Xanadu Weyr | |
PernWorld MUSH |