Bloodletter's Bonfire Gold Iskiveth
| Bloodletter's Bonfire Gold Iskiveth | |
|---|---|
| Impressee | Teris |
| Hatching Date: | 20 March, 2010 Day 4, Month 4, Turn 22 |
| Current Age: | 46 turns |
| Egg Name: | The Gold Egg |
| Size: | 38 feet |
| Dam: | Imperial Faberge Garden Gold Iovniath |
| Sire: | Kinetic Knucklebones Bronze Cadejoth |
| Lineage: | Here |
| Clutch: | Clutch:35 |
| Egg Credit: | Tiriana |
| Dragon Credit: | Tiriana and Z'yi |
| Puppeteer: | W'chek |
Though small, a thin and sinuous beast, there's only fire in this brilliant gold, from the tip of a pointed, scorched muzzle to the whipping tail behind her. Her headknobs steal the yatagan's distinctive recurve, swooping over a crooked outcrop of spiky neckridges that look quite inhospitable to riding, their tips seared as though by living sparks. Along her narrow sides, her color may brighten to treasure's true gold, but those ruddy touches show up again on white-hot wingspars and tiny paws that always look like they've been playing in blood. Everything about her is sharpened into daggers, from the lethal array of charcoal talons on every foot to the bony wings edged in ichor-green. With a proud arch to her neck and eyes like embers, she's a fearsome creature, less regal queen than simply awful.
Contents
The Gold Egg
In size, it's one of the largest; in shape, a perfect ovoid. And in color? It's gold, pure and untarnished. The deep color permeates the shell from one end to the other, at points darker and in others lighter; the hue undulates across the smooth surface in waves like beaten metal. Only a few specks mar the surface otherwise: a smattering of marks encircling its middle, as though its origin and carat were stamped into its shell.
The Gold Egg has had enough! With a loud cracking noise, the egg splits asunder through the force exerted of the occupant. What was within is now out; and the scrawny, bristly creature that is Bloodletter's Bonfire Gold is certainly here to terroriz-er, make an impression.
Bloodletter's Bonfire Gold
Though tiny, a thin and sinuous beast, there's only fire in this brilliant gold, from the tip of a pointed, scorched muzzle to the whipping tail behind her. Her headknobs steal the yatagan's distinctive recurve, swooping over a crooked outcrop of spiky neckridges that look quite inhospitable to riding, their tips seared as though by living sparks. Along her narrow sides, her color may brighten to treasure's true gold, but those ruddy touches show up again on white-hot wingspars and tiny paws that always look like they've been playing in blood. Everything about her is sharpened into daggers, from the lethal array of charcoal talons on every foot to the bony wings edged in ichor-green. With a proud arch to her neck and eyes like embers, she's a fearsome creature, less regal queen than simply awful.
Temperament
You'll figure out early on, Teris, that there's only one good decision Iskiveth will ever make in her life: picking you. Hopefully, that will make up for a multitude of worse ones.
She's a firebrand and a bully, one who won't hesitate to throw around her weight at every chance. In this one respect, it's good to be a queen: everybody tends to look when she gets bossy. The problem is that she's not likely to be giving good orders when she does. She likes minions who follow her unquestioningly, especially small dragons like greens and blues, because she hates that she's so small herself. But meek followers get boring fast, so don't be surprised when she wants to recruit other brash personalities like her own. Chances are, she'll probably be way more fond of Szadath than you'll find comfortable, particularly since her shenanigans are likely to be the sort to cause international scenes that would make her dam's rider proud, if not said dam.
It's not, mind you, that Iskiveth is stupid. She's not. She's quite smart when she wants to be; she just... doesn't care about stuff like book learning. For someone so interested in fighting everything and everyone, she's not even into the fighting-wing strategies her peers will still be drilled in. Who needs strategy when you have /fire/?
Except she doesn't have fire. For a queen, Iskiveth might seem awfully ignorant of what makes her different from the other dragons. As far as she's concerned, she's just another fighting beast, and you can be damn sure she's going to be eager to go find something, /anything/ to fight from the moment she hatches. What do you mean, no Thread? Wait, she can't flame Crom out of existence? Not even her siblings? « TERIS. I want to flame something! »
Which leads us to Bad Decision #... What are you going to be up to by now? Iskiveth likes fire. Bonfires, hearth fires, but especially breathing fire. Too bad she can't-but don't trust her to believe you when you say she can't. She'll want to try it for herself-and if that terrifies the rest of the Weyr, who'll think they're stuck with Iovniath for their only fertile queen, well. So be it. Who needs eggs anyway? They're boring and they just sit there and fire is /so/ much better.
As she grows, Iskiveth might start to settle down, but don't count on it. She might just get sneakier-or at least, try to get sneakier. Is she being quiet in your head? Is nobody in the Weyr in an uproar? You best start finding her, because something big is about to go down. If she ever settles down and gets not quite so fascinated by all things firestone and fight-y, you'll discover she has plenty of other vices to keep you busy making amends for.
For one thing, Iskiveth is a hoarder, especially of all things shiny. Marks? She doesn't understand marks, but she does understand gold, and jewels, and fancy combinations of gold and jewels that she's going to want made in her size. A possessive dragon, of you and everything else she owns, she loves treasure of all sorts, and when she discovers there are other ways to get treasure than having you buy it legally for her... Well. She might just go on a privateering phase.
« Teivoth left his weyr unattended. If they wanted to keep it, they should have taken better care of it, » Iskiveth'll declare. And it'll move on up if she can: she can sell ships for lumber, right? And ransom Holders, and steal their tithes for herself, and and and... There's always a scheme in her head, but if you're on your toes, Teris, maybe you can keep the worst of them from coming to pass. Or at least give all the unsuspecting fishermen in the area a heads' up.
If Iskiveth /does/ somehow manage to get away from you, there are still ways to control her. Make your hurt plain to her, and she'll feel guilty. But she might even not listen to you sometimes, so convinced is she that she knows best-or just too busy getting into everything to think about consequences to you. In these cases, it might be wise to call on nearly the only two people that Iskiveth will regularly listen to: Tiriana and Iovniath. Iovniath, of course, is about the only dragon out there qualified to boss Iskiveth around, and Tiriana, well. Isn't she just a /great/ role model? But those two, if nothing else, can punish /you/ enough that Iskiveth will feel guilty about her antics, and maybe even promise to straighten up-for as long as she can. Not only that, but (if only to keep themselves from being bothered at all hours) the pair has given the customary hand-me-down authority to the weyrling staff... who are likely to impose punishments of their own if need be. Don't count on that to last, though, because you won't be weyrlings forever. (Probably. Remember hearing about P'ax?)
Don't count on those promises being while she's proddy, either. There, Iskiveth is all matter-of-fact: there's nothing romantic in it for her. It's all about making the best baby dragons possible. Her dam might be focused on proper lineage, ensuring her place in history as a Reachian queen, but Iskiveth? She just wants her kids to be monsters even /more/ powerful than she is. Which, she feels, is saying something indeed. She'll want the biggest, the strongest, the best flamer and fighter, and Faranth help him if he doesn't like her. She's going to have him anyway.
The eggs themselves, though, will be boring. She has to watch them? All the time? Don't count on it. She'll be more likely to abandon them to the sands, or their sire if he's so inclined, rather than bothering with them herself. If she does spend any time with them, expect her to indoctrinate her eggs with gruesome stories, or spend time arranging them into battle formations-particularly in recreations of her own exploits.
She's a child at heart, after all, and while nothing can quite compete with fire and fighting and all those exciting adventures she wants to have, she still loves you, Teris, and she doesn't want to hurt you. It's just sometimes she seems to forget the positions she puts you in-or more likely, not realize that however much treasure she gives you, if it's not rightly gained, it only puts you in a more untenable position. Remind her, and she'll be penitent, for as long as she can remember it. Until next time, because you, as her biggest treasure, deserve only more from her.
Public Impression Message
Bloodletter's Bonfire Gold tires of teasing the boys, though she still spends a radically long amount of time staring longingly at a tall, dark-haired boy from Crom. Heart attack given to the weyrleaders, she now impatiently paces the line of girls until flinging herself at her chosen person, wrapping herself around a local blonde. Yes, yes, all the terrorizing is all well and good; but now, there's her treasure.
Private Impression Message
Perhaps you thought the heat was bad before, out here on the Sands. But that was /before/. Before Iskiveth was there. « Teris, » she says, a petulant alto not bothering with pleasantries. Instead, bold treasures, fully-imagined, are /there/, in platinum and sparkling gold, jewels as large as a man's fist in spectacular settings. « I'm going to go kill something! And eat it, » though that bit just might be secondary to the killing for her. Her tail, so adroitly wrapped about your ankle, draws you closer-marking her most important treasure, and the one she's undoubtedly most possessive over.
Mindvoice
Brash and bratty, hot-natured to the core, your Iskiveth is all petulant tones and vivid, living dreams. She will be instinctively wonderful at envisioning, as she's so very well-prepared by her lusting after pretty things. Fire is her standby, a raging inferno particularly unleashed when she's mad. Obviously, that will be more often than not. In the rare moments that she isn't agitated over prizes or destroying things, her warmth will be a lovely thing, comforting like hearthfire, just for you. Her tones themselves are a middling alto, neither sharply high or scratchily low-and her range is impressive within such, able to reach horrible screeching when she feels the need.
Itchyspots
Except when she actively itches, Iskiveth doesn't have a lot of time for oiling - and even when she /does/, well, it takes far too long, and is far too boring. Her itchiest spots are in her sharpest edges: spiky neckridges, the edges of her bony wings, the points where her talons connect with her blood-limned paws. And then there are those headknobs of hers: with a curve like that, is it any wonder those itches can get intense?
Dragon Inspiration
You mentioned Iskierka from Naomi Novik's 'Temeraire' books, and we couldn't get over how perfect she'd be for Teris - so here she is. She even fitted in perfectly to our theme: surely the game of war is the oldest there is! There's no particular meaning to her name, aside from the obvious link back to Iskiveth herself: in the end, after trying any number of combinations of letters and sounds, it was the one that spoke to us most.
Egg Inspiration: Because we don't do subtlety real well: a gold medal.
Clutches
Iskiveth has produced 1 gold, 5 bronze, 4 brown, 7 blue, and 10 green dragons.
| Clutch 38 | Iskiveth | Szadath | 13 eggs | Day 11, Month 1, Turn 24 |
| Clutch 69 | Iskiveth | Yesdrieth | 14 eggs | Day 1, Month 12, Turn 26 |
| Clutch 35 | |
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