Dragon:Ziandryth

Flower Gleam and Glow Egg

A deep, warm red is the dominating color of this egg. Rich and unyielding, it envelopes the ovoid. Burnt orange etches out some long, vaguely fluffy shapes from the apex on down towards the wider midsection. One side of the egg has a splotch of saffron yellow; almost a half-circle that is fuzzy at the edges, as if the heat rising from the sands is making the view hazy. The reds and oranges darken into black along the bottom third of the egg, though the darkness does rise up against the yellow backdrop like shadows walking a landscape.

From the Flower Gleam and Glow Egg tumbles a scrawny green with wings two sizes too big for her body, her small form all a tangle of wing fibre and limbs. For several long moments, she lies sprawled on the Sands, extended wings bent awkwardly over her like a tent, unmoving. She's still long enough to suggest that she might never move again, yet no keening sets up around the Hatching cavern and she soon drags herself up and stumbles unerringly across to a dark-haired girl who embraces her and tries to sort out those too-large wings.

Hidden in Plain Sight Green Hatchling

Pale, so pale, with hide the colour of a forest canopy reflected on clear water, this young green looks decidedly under-strength, her awkward frame defined by the murky shadows that her delicate joints call to gather in the hollow curves of her gaunt figure. Thin flanks are mottled with faint whirls of emerald, smudges of which also touch the corners of her large, bright eyes. Elongated limbs and spars draw her out of proportion, her oversized wings dragging along at her sides, threatening to unbalance her. Those wings are finely-crafted and heavier than her fragility suggests she can handle, their lines sharp and the undersides of her sails bathed with a cloudy vapour to match the darker, inky midnight green that marks only the pads of her paws. Her long, slim tail lends her length if not stature, often coiled close to her body.

Temperament

Sometimes, the young are sweet in their innocence and charming with their questions about the world. Ziandryth? Is not. From the moment she hatches, it's very obvious that she leaves much to be desired so far as being a finished, whole being is concerned, and this roughness to her edges extends to her somewhat clumsy and ill-mannered exploration of the world. Her enquiries will seem impertinent and her observations blunt and even crass, at times, yet it's all done in a genuine and desperate quest for knowledge. Why /does/ that person behave like that? Why is /she/ seeing /him/? Her lack of manners might well get you into a lot of trouble, for she has few social graces and will be perfectly happy to blurt out both painfully personal questions and any answers she receives to all and sundry, completely oblivious as to why anyone would mind. Feelings? People have feelings? What are they? Not cruel, she just /doesn't get it/, but she will try, as she grows older, to react as she thinks others expect her to.

If she knows someone is trying to protect her from what she 'shouldn't do' or trying to shield her from something a 'baby' shouldn't see, that's exactly what she'll want to find out about. She will move awkwardly and those wings of hers /will/ drag (and could lead to more than one or two tears and scrapes) until she builds up the strength to support them, but she will do her very best to keep up with everyone else. She won't understand why she simply isn't allowed to just get on with things, for she fears nothing, pain accepted as a part of her being and not as a consequence to any actions. Through you, she may learn what fear is and learn to /listen/ to it, yet never to /feel/ it.

For the longest of times, you will be the only one that she trusts, if only for the fact that she chose you and therefore you will not leave her (or so she believes). You are the only one who knows what is right. Her siblings didn't choose you; how can they be right about anything? How can they be relied upon? This is not to say that she will be obedient and listen to every word you say, more that she will trust you to be there when she falls and has to come slinking back to your side in silence. The physical side of training will be difficult for her as she learns to move without tearing her wings and just plain falling over, her first few months apt to be marked by pain and exhaustion from extra exercises to strengthen her muscles. She is truly one who will have to grow into her frame and seeing any of her siblings advance ahead of her will only make her all the more determined to catch up, whatever she must do.

When the time comes for her to join a wing, she will have as much trouble bonding with her wingmates as she did with her siblings, with a tendency to hang back and observe rather than join in right away. When she does try to join in, she will try and precisely mimic her wingmates despite differences in size and agility until she feels that she's got the hang of it, which will make everything all the more difficult for her. Drills are something that she will probably never be comfortable with, a close-knit relationship with her wing something that she doesn't desire. Those she does bond with will be a select few, watched from a distance first. In the air, she is more prone to letting the wind dictate where she goes, those oversized wings of her catching currents she'll embrace before attempting to manipulate them for her own purpose.

Flights will thrill her more for the rush and the transformation she feels herself undergo, shedding one skin for another, than out of any desire for the outcome. She will eagerly give in to the need to fly and escape, losing herself in the joy of acrobatic flight for as long as she possibly can until giving herself over to joy of any other sort. With this lust and love for the high and the adrenaline rush, she might be more apt to be caught by surprise than run herself ragged until exhaustion sets in. Her temporary mates are just that: temporary, though she'll accept affection if she finds his advances not too cloying. She's more likely to form a long-term attachment to a male she has known for a while and not apt to fall for the latest male to snare her.

At the end of the day, there will always be a measure of childlike insecurity about Ziandryth. She trusts but a handful of people and loves even fewer, if she truly understands love at all. What she does understand is right, wrong and devotion to a cause; devotion to those who are her cause. It might seem that she is never truly finished; that she never truly grows up at all and becomes secure in her adulthood, but she knows that you're going somewhere and you must get there, even if she doesn't know where it is. As for that and what you do... Well, that's down to you.

Mindvoice

Ziandryth speaks with the turning of pages and summoning of magic from her own personal spell book. Contemplation brings the faint rustling of ancient pages; the quiet, steady scrape of a fountain pen across paper. She has the elements at her disposal, from the sparkle and chill of ice when displeased to the crackle and intense heat of swirls of fire drawn forth to express her anger. With feelings and emotions often foreign to her, it may take her time to decide which page she wants and needs, strong blasts of air directed at any who disturb her at the wrong time and scatter her decision-making process, even if that very act might upset pages and make her lose her place.

Dragon Inspirations

Rain from 'Out of Oz', the last in The Wicked Years series by Gregory Maguire. Granddaughter of the Wicked Witch of the West, she is magicked into the disguise of a girl of no certain origin and hidden away from and by her family for most of her formative years, resulting in poor social skills, an inability to forge strong relationships, and a lacking education.

Egg Inspiration: Rapunzel's hair from Disney's 'Tangled'.

Name Meaning

A combination of the names that Rain is known by throughout 'Out of Oz': Rain, Miss Rainary and Oziandra (Oziandra Rain Ko Osqa'ami Thropp).