Here is a dragon without excess, every inch of him honed, forged, planned with purpose. The dark russet of his hide grips tight to economical strength, musculature prominent without traipsing into the ridiculous, for his is a body built for one thing, and one thing alone: ridding the world of its monsters. He's a handsome beast at least, not in a 'cleans up nice' rather but in a 'dirties up well' sort of way, rugged and liberally streaked with soot. It concentrates in a stripe up his nose, splitting at the bridge to frame both of his narrow eyes, breaking up the faint luster of rare metal that helmets his low brows and strong jaw. This color darkens to ash, both smudged and sprinkled, as it courses down his neck and back, adding texture to the otherwise militaristic precision of well-formed 'ridges and loose, chrome-tipped wings. Legs are powerfully built, forearms strong, thighs bulked, ambidextrous paws leading to long, bladed talons whose colors vary from left to right. Argent slashes cut across his chest, shoulders, and sides, remnants of battles well-fought whose numbers are destined only to grow as turns pass.
Egg Name and Description
Arrow of Fire Egg
Go Big or Go Home - This large egg has definitely chosen the former, as the top of its shell is enveloped by bright oranges and glowing yellows, thin ribbons of red rising upwards like a giant tongue of flame. This bright, rich, bold color is in stark contrast to the lower portion of the egg, which while no less saturated in hue, is instead a deep, never ending field of navy. While the upper portion burns, the lower is merely an expansive field of darkness, split only by a single, straight line of shimmering gold that aims upwards, holding the flame aloft and setting the night sky ablaze.
Hatching Message
Wobble Message
Arrow of Fire Egg ripples and quakes, almost as though something within the egg were rolling over - and promptly going back to sleep. Five more minutes…
Crack Message
Arrow of Fire Egg definitively cracks this time, splitting straight down that shimmering line that runs around its center. The drama behind the act must exhaust it, for it settles into silence once again.
Hatch Message
Arrow of Fire Egg finally surrenders, the side facing upwards rolling back as though it were a carriage opening to expose its precious cargo… You know, if ‘precious cargo’ was a brown dragonet the size of a small horse, one that stretches from nose- to tail-tip in celebration of finally getting free of its egg. With one big shake, it flings egg-goo thither and yon, finally exposing the surly little beast beneath.
Sands Pose #1
Find the Way Home Brown Hatchling observes all of the goings-on of the sands, the hub and bub and general chaos… and is not impressed. He watches it all with an already-weary eye, gaze slowly - so slowly - swinging up to his dam and sire as though to say ‘you present me with this’? What a world, what a world, he seems to think as he shakes himself yet again, this time to shed discomfort from his rugged form before taking his first steps towards those candidates.
Sands Pose #2
Find the Way Home Brown Hatchling can feel the call of destiny - he’s getting close. Silvered nostrils lift skywards, sniffing delicately at something upon the air. Hmm. It’s not quite a grumble, not quite a harrumph, but a sound of displeasure no less as a scent that was previously strong is now buried by the shuffling of sweating bodies on the sand and the haphazard waving of some child with a batter-wrapped sausage in the stands. At least that he can do something about. No fantastical stands impression for this brown - he gladly cold shoulders them in a very literal sense before padding onward.
Impression Message
Public Message
Find the Way Home Brown Hatchling freezes, sensation visibly rippling through him. There. He didn’t smell it this time - he felt it, felt the tug on his heart, his mind, his very soul. He was certain the person meant to be his was here, but to feel the bond creep into place is shattering, life-changing, even for one so new. It’s a revelation that has him paying little attention as he first walks, then sprints across the sands, all but taking out a young, curly-haired brunette. Surely she’ll forgive him.
Private Message
One moment, light - the next, shadow. It creeps in slow but sure, drifting over your vision like dark fog and black clouds, until you are suddenly, desperately alone. « …Izobet? » Or are you? For with that gruff, breathed word, there's suddenly a tumult of borrowed emotion that pours into you, bringing with it all manner of scents and flavors you cannot hope to separate from one another. Gasoline, leather, blood, steel, so many heavy and scary things that are somehow comforting despite what they spell out: the quiet desperation of someone who played at belief, portrayed utter faith, but perhaps, underneath it all, was worried that faith would be betrayed. « But it wasn't. But here you are, » might be rough around the edges, but that voice is full of wonder and appreciation and gratitude, a love that will last beyond all others sealing into place. Stars explode into that night sky, galaxies whirling, light condensing into its rightful place above, illuminating the wild world around you. Witness the power you have, to be a light in dark places, a hope that burns on and on. A moment passes as your vision clears, allowing you to see the ash-stained brown before you, behold the adoration in whirling facets before they simmer to something nearing normal. The moment for unfettered emotion has passed - at least for now - but it nevertheless thrums beneath his every word, no matter how business-like he pretends to be. « I am your Xulanth, Izobet, and I am very glad to meet you at last. »
Personality
The Mandalorian: I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold.
WELL, YOU DID IT, IZO. You wanted a dad dragon and HERE HE IS, ALL DAD-PUNS AND 'GO THE F@#% TO SLEEP' FEELINGS THAT YOU CHOSE AND CAN NEVER ESCAPE. The difference between a normal dad and THIS dad is that a NORMAL dad can't see inside of your head whereas THIS dad is in your head. You can never will him away with any amount of sass or defiance or 'I'm about to tell you about this lover that I have and just how much I like to kiss them' because he's there forever, dadding up your space with his dadjesty. Just kidding. About the dad-puns, we mean. No JK on the never parsing your thoughts from his ever again.
Lucky for you your Dadgon (no, that wasn't a typo; TAKE OUR PLETHORA OF DAD JOKES AND LIKE IT) doesn't have much to say, and it's probably for the best because half of it would be the kind of words we can't put up on the wiki and the other half probably wouldn't be very nice. At all. To anybody. Except maybe you. Maybe. At least when you've made a gross error in judgment, he tends towards strong, silent shows of disappointment with his EYES instead of yelling. …Which is probably worse than anger (in our humble opinions) because he never really gets on with the loud noises when you make a misstep, just smacks you with a dead-eyed you knew better stare that cuts to the core because sometimes letting down the people you love is the worst kind of punishment. And he knows it. And he knows that you know that he knows that you know that he knows it.
So let's talk about Xulanth.
The first thing that you should know about Xulanth is that he's an old soul from the moment he hatches, tired and world-weary and embittered by whatever experiences touched him deep within the confines of his sun-kissed shell beneath the hands of too many candidates eager to impress him. He has lived a hundred, thousand lives, endured the failures and victories of millions (okay, so that's a wild exaggeration of numbers, but let us have our poetry and he his dreams), and experienced every emotion both good and bad and in between that were never his but shaped him into this anyway. He is a creature made from the thoughts and machinations of everybody around you – including you. He was forged in the fires of their tribulations, manifested from the bones of their sorrows, painstakingly crafted by every sordid experience he lived through them until something in him broke and gave you this beast who is certainly not perfect but loves you in a way that may as well be.
Understand, Izobet, that you did not imprint your soul upon a lifemate who will coddle you when dark things go bump in the night, seeping like inky-black oppression into your brain. He is straightforward and direct, either because it's in his nature to be so or he just has no capacity to conceptualize why he should be any other way. These hard-to-swallow things are truths whether you want to hear them or not, and there is no part of him that subscribes to the belief that pretending their edges are not sharp enough to wound nor their blades lethal enough to kill will protect you from their carnage. This is why he seems so cold and detached, born jaded and cynical to the world he inhabits, because he's traversed the rot of hell and seen the ugliest depths of human and dragon-kind alike well before actually touching paw to Sands.
It's important to understand that, for all his flaws, for all his callous disregard, for all that he might seem indifferent to others, he is not an unkind dragon. Xulanth just doesn't believe in sugarcoating the truth even when it's painful, will never hide you or anybody else from the ugliness in the hearts of those you thought might love you, nor will he shield you from the tremendous capacity for depravity in others, diminish those things that weigh heavy on your soul because he believes that you are more than capable of shouldering the burden and – even more than that – he believes in you. The world is not kind and will never treat you fairly, and while he doesn't pretend away the darkness that lies in wait around every corner, you'll never have to face it alone. You will always have him by your side, and he is a fearsome protector.
The key to unraveling your Xulanth's truest nature is persistence, being willing to endure the caustic temerity of a dragon rigid in structure and principles while tip-toeing around those potential landmines he isn't willing to sacrifice to stay friends. Those daring enough to exist in the shadows of the very real threat he imposes will be rewarded with a glimpse of what humanity that lies underneath, and there's so much humanity underneath. He's a very nuanced dragon, complicated in ways even he may not understand. He has a sense of humor, dry though it may be, and his tongue is sharper, his wit quicker, his ability to empathize more profound than one might give him credit for. And that is their loss if they choose to give up before they get to see just who he is, but you will see it all.
Beneath an exterior both gruff and stoic, there is an abundance of goodwill, a friend who is willing to listen, who has patience beyond measure. He will accept your failings with grace, will endure miscalculations with patience, is willing to stand beside you with quiet belief in your abilities while you fail over and over again because he knows that all you need is somebody willing to teach, willing to stand by your side until you get it right and he is all of those and more.
Geralt of Rivia: Mistakes are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them.
But there are darker aspects of his nature, too, like just how willing he is to fight no matter what the odds against him. He is willing to fight for you, to fight for those who get close enough to be considered friends or even those who merely find themselves in an unlucky situation at exactly the right time. He is willing to impart his own wisdom, his own advice, or to simply listen, even when he disagrees. No matter what disparaging epithets others might throw in his direction – either in a misguided attempt to get a rise out of him or merely because they don't like him – he's good. And okay, maybe he's also a little morally grey, but he isn't the first dragon to toe the line between hero and villain, and he certainly won't be the last. The difference here is that your morally grey dragon tends to choose what's right – just… in his own way.
Speaking of getting a rise out of him, Xulanth doesn't need to fill the world with cheapened words and conversation he isn't actually interested in having. He is a dragon of action, a – as Leirith would say – Certifiable Badass who doesn't have to yell because his strength, his ability, how viciously and accurately he can wield talons and paws and teeth doesn't require boasting. He will certainly never start a fight, but you had best believe that he is going to finish it when a fight finds him. He's dangerous and unnervingly capable, never offering a warning outside of the resignation in a sigh or the slow shift of his body before he unleashes himself.
And that's where you come in, Izobet. You are his counterbalance, the one thing he treasures above rules and tradition and structure. You are the one thing that he will go to any lengths to find, to protect, to keep safe because he loves you. You are the only one he will break the rules for. You are warm and vivacious and bright, a thousand points of starlight lining his forever-midnight and he will change because of you, will learn to speak more softly, more carefully because of you/. He is patient with you, willing to talk you through steps you might find complicated despite how easy they might be for him, gentle in his guidance albeit firm. At the end of the day, no matter where your well traveled or yet unseen paths might take you, his sole purpose is your happiness, and this will take precedence over all else. This is the way.
But we admit, Izo. It takes a liiiiiittttttllllleeee bit of learning to get there. There will be no drastic shifts in him – not on the surface, anyway – but we should probably take it back a little bit further to where you are at the first time your eyes will alight on these words: the very beginning.
It is the privilege of the young to be self-absorbed and your Xulanth is no exception to the rule. He is much more interested in his own version of right and wrong, in upholding his valuesand those of whatever weyr you choose as a home in the future. He will turn a blind eye to the plight of others so long as it means he is fed and warm and alive with you beside him. It's not that he means to be cruel (and we want to stress that he is never that, willingly giving up comforts in a way that might contradict his demeanor, but that is only because others don't understand him in a way that only you ever will), it's just that whatever sufferings arise in the normal course of existing are not his business – and they aren't yours, either. His only concern in the beginning will be the two of you – if you are fed, if you are clothed, if you are paying attention to those lessons meant to bolster your strengths and shred your weakness along with his own. What the others do and don't do, have or don't have, holds little bearing for where either of you are headed.
But don't worry. As he grows there will be a softness that makes its way beneath hardened hide, a safe harbor meant for you but no less appealing and open (reluctantly) for those who might unwittingly fall into his sphere of influence. He will cling to stoic indifference even then, because it is his armor and his safety and because it is what he knows, but more and more you will find that, despite continued warnings that it's neither of your business, he simply cannot ignore a wrongdoing or a need if it's before him and he can do something about it. Let's be honest: he's unable to walk away even if he cannot. But there's a fine line, Izo. He doesn't suffer fools gladly, and whether they were cruel in their choices and found themselves ousted by luck or merely fell victim to the schemes of life and every vice within it will determine how much he actually cares and how willing he will be to help.
The Mandalorian: You have something I want. You may think you have some idea of what you have in your possession, but you do not. Soon, he will be back with me. He means more to me than you will ever know.
At the end of the day we can say this about your Xulanth: he's a reluctant father figure to you in so much as a lifemate can be. He's all gruff, «Stop that»s and, «You're doing that wrong»s, and «Do not put that in your mouth, Izobet»s because he loves you, because he wants to protect you, because he wants to see you succeed. You are his child surprise, his foundling, the one thing he will forgo vows and religions and sacred traditions to defend and there is no mountain he will not move in order to do it, to find you, to keep you safe from those that would do you harm and keep you from him.
Mindvoice
Exulansis
n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.
Xulanth’s mind is dark.
That is no metaphor for ill thoughts and bad temper, though those moods do strike him - no, he is merely dark in a very literal sense, a creature of smoke and fog, of starless nights, deep space, a coffin’s bleak interior. It cloaks his true intentions, his deeper meanings, shrouds them from those he assumes will not understand him the way he wants them to even if he tried.
And so he doesn’t bother.
Those he speaks to, those who visit, are offered little more than these caliginous wisps, scraps of dark fabric, steel blackened with foreign ichor. There might be sounds (a faint metallic hum, the shred of blade over whetstone, an audible vibration that speaks to warning), occasionally smells (fire and blood, cured leather and polished metal, and something distinctly male), but to open his mind fully to others is to court their opinion on it, and that’s just not something he’s willing to tolerate.
But we were not lying when we said you were the stars in his sky, for when it comes to you, everything is illuminated in its feral splendor. Xulanth’s true mind is the one place he doesn’t have to pretend to be anything but what he is. Here he is the hunter, bold and fierce, fearing nothing and noone. Here he is the wild wolf flying through old forests; he is the hideous tang of ichor and blackblood, protection to you, but poison to others.
He is the shuddering vibration of rare metal against black plasma, the grind of sword against sword, the burst of sound that chases on the heels of thunder, or a vessel reaching the supersonic. He reeks of herbs and leather and musk, of something singed and bleeding, but persevering through the wounds. He revels in your starlight, cavorts beneath the course of your constellation and your galaxy’s spirals, hedonistic, just a little unhinged, because here, with you, he is safe. He is all of these things because he knows you will accept them, if not at first, then with time. Trust is hard to come by in his world, and he savors it like any sweet treat, like any fine wine: with reverence and alacrity.
Physicality
Your Xulanth is a weapon meant to point at danger and unleash. He's agile and quick in a way that not many dragons of his size and build can be. He's all sleek lines and aerodynamic muscle, lithe instead of bulky but no less strong despite the deception. There's something almost felinic about him, a dismissiveness in every step, a confidence that speaks to his ability and how capable he is of wielding it.
Remember when we told you that your Xulanth is a fighter, Izobet? Yeah… sorry about that. He will probably get you into trouble more than once as you navigate your way through weyrlinghood because he's never met a challenge he wasn't willing to rise to meet, and while he never goes looking for perilous quandary – if anything, he goes to great lengths to avoid it – he's always willing to answer when it comes looking for him. He is still learning to temper his own reactions, and while he's quietly confident and harder than most to actually offend, he doesn't always get it right.
Luckily, when it comes to physical lessons, he will excel, and it might well become his outlet for all of those wild emotions. He enjoys the strain on his body, pushing himself to his limits, learning which way to move, to stretch, to lean in order to be the most lethal he can be. Don't mistake this for a competition, Izo. The only adversary that your Xulanth aims to overcome is himself, his own limits, his own weakness, and perhaps that is why he is so successful at what he does. He doesn't care if any of his clutch siblings can run faster, can fly better, can master the use of their bodies well before he masters his, he isn't paying attention to them.
This is because mastery of oneself is a deeply personal thing, a path he will encourage only you to walk alongside him. Someone else might teach the basics, the foundational tools to hone edges and sharpen blades, but at the end of the day only one person can wield them. It’s intimate in a way few things are with him, an achievement of inner peace, something in which he can succeed by literal brute force and a wealth of determination. It lends his otherwise fractured self a sense of calm to repeat stances, hold poses, slide deftly through the motions of a battle dragons have long won, but that someday may have some use for him yet.
It’s a gift of precision one gives to oneself and if nothing else, Xulanth is that: precise. He doesn’t have to watch where he’s going, or turn to see where he’s been, because he is deeply aware of himself, the path he carves and the wake he leaves behind him. He is confident in his body and its every movement, and though some might regard this as thoughtlessness or swagger, you and he will know otherwise, and that is all that matters.
Flights
When it comes to flights and wooing the ladies, there is not much that changes about your Xulanth. It's not that he's immune to their charm and their womanly-wiles, it's just that they don't have the same effect on him that they might have on most male dragons. He isn't disinterested in flying them, he just… doesn't care. He will not pursue a lady-dragon to the ends of the world, will not posture himself to look more desirable, write them poetic lines within his brain and preen until he seems anything other than what he is. He maintains being aloof, detached, just a whisper shy of being out of reach, and maybe that's what makes him successful in those flights he does win.
When the time does come to rise, he will do so at most opportunities unless you ask him not to. But if you do not stop him from male passions and carnal pursuits, he stands on the outside of his brethren, a lone wolf posing an unrealized threat, a whole hell of a lot of potential that sits silent and waiting. There is something feral and undone about him in these moments, an intensity found only when he is in the middle of a fight – a thrill, a calm, a something other that makes him so tremendously fierce without having to boast of his own abilities.
He will not sabotage another dragon's chances with cheapshots and brutal tides, but woe be unto those blues, browns, and bronzes that try to sabotage his. He is a lethal predator, tactical and cunning, looking for ways to outsmart and corral his prey without backing down from any challenger that might rise to interfere in his hunt. He is quick, and brutal, and skilled, and while he might not always win every single confrontation, he will certainly walk away from every single one having dealt just as much damage in return.
His overall success, however, is treated with the same brutal passivity that defines the rest of his personality. In the end, they will either come to him or they will not, choose him or not, and whether they freefall back to Pern's face caught in the twist of his tail or the talons of another doesn't really matter to him. Win or lose, he remains as steadfast as ever. He has you, after all. He needs and wants no other.
In the aftermath, he will never scorn affection, turn away those who find it in their whims to cuddle up against his hide and steal his heat, but he will never actively seek them out. He is patient with them as he is patient with you, willing to endure but never desperate, never seeking, never the one who will beg or plead or fight in order to prove his worth of their affection. If they wish him gone from their ledge, gone he will be, content to remove himself until you are recovered enough for retrieval.
If he is lucky enough to ever catch a gold, he will be – unsurprisingly – a very devout companion on the sands both to dam and future progeny alike. Whatever queen was lucky enough to be captured will want for nothing, need for nothing. He is patient and attentive, helping without being obtrusive, never really overstepping boundaries and bolstering instead those strengths while quietly filling in the gaps of any weakness.
Even when it comes time for candidates, he's a patient creature. He might not be the most approachable dragon, but there is something about him that instills trust. He is not quick to rise to anger, is more apt to give a gentle-but-firm command well before he ever dares to show his teeth.
Inspiration
HELLOOOOO, IZOOOOOOO!
WELCOME TO WEYRLINGHOOD! YOU DID IT!! YOU DID THE THING!! AND NOW HERE YOU ARE WITH YOUR DADGON, PROBABLY WONDERING ABOUT YOUR LIFE CHOICES YET AGAIN. But WE are so very happy and thrilled to have you, and want to thank you SO SO SO MUCH for giving us this opportunity to write a dragon-friend for you. We really genuinely hope that you love him!
As for his inspirations, he was based off of both Geralt of Rivia and The Mandalorian because we wanted to give you that badass, reluctant dad-vibe that you were aiming for and all of the stoicism that comes with it. His name and mindname both draw from ‘exulansis,’ a term coined by John Koenig in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Your dragon was written by Risali and R'hyn!
AS FOR HIS EGG, WELL. The clutch theme this year was ZODIACS!!! EYYY! Your egg, Arrow of Fire, was written by the ONE, THE ONLY MS. RICKIIIIII! Her inspiration for her egg was Sagittarius.
We hope that you enjoy your dragon and that you have a whole lot of fun with him! Please remember that no matter what is written here, Xulanth is YOURS to play as YOU choose and everything we've offered are merely suggestions and/or guidelines that you can pursue or ignore as you see fit! Thank you again for letting us write for you, and we hope to see many scenes with you and your Dadgon! THIS IS THE WAY!
Credits
| Name | Xulanth |
| Dam | Leirith |
| Sire | Xermiltoth |
| Created By | R'hyn & Risali |
| Impressee | Izobet |
| Hatched | July 25, 2022 |
| Xanadu Weyr | |
| PernWorld MUSH |