Melding Metal Chain Bronze Valioth
| Melding Metal Chain Bronze Valioth | |
|---|---|
| Impressee | A'riste |
| Hatching Date: | 19 July, 2008 |
| Size: | 35 feet |
| Dam: | Sleekly Eloquent Pale Gold Ciath |
| Sire: | Soldreth |
| Lineage: | Here |
| Clutch: | Clutch:25 |
| Egg Credit: | Samantia |
| Dragon Credit: | P'draig |
Contents
Witch Lights at Dawn Egg
In the background, streaks of dusty purple and hazel streak this egg, creating a sort of hazy, smoking atmosphere. Near the base, murk lingers, a sludgy brown like too many paints mixed together that never achieved a true black. Burning above this sludge are plumes of a violent, electric blue color. At its core, it burns a hot, intense white. As it trails upwards, it dies out from blue, to purple, finally becoming a more natural shade of orange as the flames lick eagerly at the sun rising on the horizon.
Boom! The intent shaking of the Witch Lights at Dawn Egg comes to a halt and bursts outwards in a rain of broken shards. A compact bundle of bronze hide and limbs remains behind, one eye cracked open and peering this way and that around the Sands. The Melding Metal Chain Bronze hatchling opens the other eye, takes a more complete look around. Finally, he unfolds one wing, one limb at a time and without any further hesitation plows off across the Sands to make his mark.
Melding Metal Chain Bronze Hatchling
The subtle sheen of disparate metals melding together twines in flickering whorls and traces along this stocky bronze dragon's sides. A squared muzzle and deep-set eyes are the highlights of a blocky head that sports blunted headknobs and is high-set onto a solid neck. Looping, angled ridges drape a long chain down his back before spilling between his wingspars. Sturdy limbs support a broad torso that tapers back through the midsection, hips seeming narrow by contrast and trailing down into long, well-formed paws. Folded wings drape his back like a long cloak, billowing wide when open, light tracing out the impression of hammered, mottled shapes within translucent vanes.
Temperament
« Y'know. This whole 'wait and learn' thing is seriously overrated, boss. » So it goes with your Valioth, wise-cracking his way into your mind from the get-go and bringing you up short with his witty observations on whatever is going on around you. Most of the time, he's cavalier about what gets thrown your way, tackling lessons and drills with a devil-may-care attitude. « Yeah? Flaming targets? So what? » But underneath all of that, you know better. He's a planner, a watcher; his crafty, calculating mind sussing out how everything works, pulling apart the clockwork, figuring out how everything ticks and then putting it all back together again. His way. « Nope. That's not gonna work, boss. Give it another try. Maybe like so, yeah? » And he's laughing a little while he says it, just that pleased with his cleverness.
He is a clever dragon, no doubt about it. There will be times when it seems like you're the one plodding along, trying to stuff the information into a soggy, sodden brain, and Valioth is soaring ahead having picked it up on the first try. Other times you won't be able to get him to focus, not for all the wheedling or ordering you can manage. It's as though he's too busy being distracted by all the other things going on in that busy mind of his. You might not always understand what he's up to with all the planning and scheming going on in his head, but it often leads to sweet surprises for you by suddenly mastering something he didn't seem that interested in before, or if he turns up something that you lost in the Barracks and couldn't find. Where Valioth tends to fail is in the social arena: his wise-cracking ways and blunt statements won't necessarily make him a favorite amongst his fellows. It'll take a certain patient, confident personality to see past his outer shell and unless you push, he won't make much of an attempt to connect with other dragons. His focus is all for you and in spite of your own sometimes abrasive ways, the social graces are something that you may find yourself having to teach /him/.
As he gets older, Valioth won't lose that edge of mischief and wise-cracking humor though it may turn more sophisticated, tempered by your own philosophical and poetic outlook on life. Your steadiness will temper him, while he brings you the motivation to broaden your horizons and think about things in new and different ways. One of the ways that will help him to slow down and stop scheming for a bit is your music. Nothing calms and captivates Valioth like your playing, or the sound of your voice. Where you've often been dismayed by the change from boy soprano to young man's tenor, Valioth doesn't care. He loves your singing, whether your voice cracks or not. « A'riste. Just keep going. I want to hear the /rest/ of the song and I like your voice no matter what. C'mon boss, no big deal. » His practical pragmatism swings to the fore, urging you to push through the temporary difficulty and get on to the other side of it so you can both enjoy the song together.
As a lover, Valioth taps into a deep well of passion that will likely make him reckless in the air. His usual careful, crafty planning goes right out the window as the heat of the moment blinds him and he simply throws himself willy-nilly into the fray. This means that he may be a little violent towards other males in the air, knocking them aside to be /the one/ to make the catch: « Sometimes winning is painful, but it's always better than losing, yeah? » Conversely, pulled muscles from trying too hard may force him to drop out of more chases than he cares to remember. To succeed the pair of you will have to work together: your own willpower and restraint to pull him into line and get him to /think/ a little, to draw on his own cleverness to actually /win/. Green and gold, he makes no distinction between them. While he may develop a close attachment with a particular lady or three, the lure of the chase is strong enough to draw him after many a teasing set of wings. If you don't want to find yourself familiar with the guest weyrs of every Weyr, learn the subtle signals of his interest early, for there'll be no stopping him when he launches himself after the object of his desire.
Should Valioth win a goldflight and sire a clutch, he'll present a rather odd combination of devotion and distance. Though passionately interested in both queen and eggs, he's not one to stay on the Sands with her. His outward attention to his mate peaks in the early days after the flight, but long before the eggs make their appearance he's gone back to his devil-may-care casualness. It's not that he doesn't help out, it's just that he prefers the less hands-on approach. Maybe he prefers to bring his queen her meals, or he'll guard the entrance to the grounds from just outside, or watch over the clutch from a high ledge. He's just not that great at sticking around to roll eggs back and forth. In fact he's probably gone more than there during that stage of things unless compelled to stay. He's more likely to take the indirect route and ask /you/ for information about his mate as time goes on, rather than making direct contact: « Everything okay with our queen, boss? She's all right, yeah? » Once the eggs have hatched and chosen their mates, he's more than willing to cut ties entirely, except to ask about his offspring, which continue to interest him beyond the Hatching, but only at a remove. « How're the little ones doing? Remind me which ones they are again, A'riste? »
Utterly committed to you, no matter how much he razzes you, Valioth is a stalwart, loyal presence in your mind, his love for you never really in question. He just has a funny way of showing it. « Got all wet because you forgot your jacket, didn't you boss? Don't forget next time, » or, « Dead wherry on your bed, boss? Nah, don't know how that got there. » He can take as well as he gives, laughing with you all the while. It's not about scoring points with him, or making fun at the expense of another. Well, maybe a /little/ expense, so long as you're amused too. Should you be fortunate enough to be tapped as a 'Second or Wingleader he'll actually take your duties pretty seriously. Your wise-cracking delinquent could turn out to be an excellent leader of dragons. « Yeah. See how Zerith swings left too much in Formation B? Gotta fix that, boss. » He'll do anything to help you out if such opportunities come your way and do his best to make sure that you both come out shining.
Public Impression Message
The Melding Metal Chain Bronze sneaks around an eggshell and peers out at the ring of Candidates, done playing around for now and seemingly intent on getting down to business. He glides from eggshell to eggshell and sidles up to a slender lad with blond hair and taps his muzzle against the young man's ribs, nudges at his hand then looks up expectantly. Waiting!
Private Impression Message
Hot sands, fellow Candidates, eggshells cracking... all of it suddenly seems to get /louder/. A lot louder. Something moves in on you, opening up pathways in your mind, poking into what makes you tick and chuckling or hmming at what it finds. « Ohhh, so y'like to sing, huh boss? Gotta let me hear that sometime. » It's a dry voice, like the rustle of leaves in autumn along the ground, the light thrum of an electric storm somewhere behind it plucking at your emotions. « You gonna stand there all day boss, or come on with me to get us fed? » Now there's just the faintest hint of impatience, the sense of a foot tapping and it's then that you realize, that everything you are just shifted two steps to the right and that you /know/ this voice, it has a name: Valioth. And boy is he ever here to /stay/.
Mindvoice
Dry and scratchy almost always, Valioth's mindvoice encompasses the sounds of different materials rubbing against each other, be it a rake along the ground, rough fabrics, bark and branches in the wind. When he gets emotional, an electric hum sneaks in, making your mind zing with anticipation at what feelings he's about to share with you. That hum turns into an all out zapping current when he's upset or chasing a lady, bidding fair to wipe out your own thoughts with its searing intensity.
Dragon Inspirations
Vlad Taltos and his faithful Jhereg Loiosh are an engaging pair in the Dragaera books by Steven Brust. The combination of the two hopefully meets your desire to have a dragon with a multi-layered, ambiguous personality who keeps A'riste on his toes. His mindvoice embodies my own take on Loiosh along with a little hint of Dragaeran magic with its capacity to zing and burn. and his desc is loosely based on Spellbreaker. Vlad is a man caught between two worlds, gifted with a certain amount of talent and not a little luck and Loiosh is his wise-cracking companion and partner in crime. With Vlad's own luck this will also be true of Valioth and A'riste.
Egg Inspiration: Witch fire is an event that sometimes occurs when methane and other natural gas pockets in a swamp spontaneously combust. The gas usually burns off quickly without taking hold, but in times of drought, it can catch dry vegetation and burn for days.
Name Meaning
His name is a combination of Vlad Taltos and Loiosh flipped around with a resemblance to the word 'valiant' which, underneath it all, Vlad and Loiosh both are.
| Clutch 25 | |
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