…Blue Mzadith…
"Solstice Bonfire Blue Weyrling"*

Inspiration
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Let us take a few silent moments to turn inward, to contact
the place of winter within us - the cold, contracted
places
and the familiar enclosed haven in which a part of us has
begun to live since fall began….
- Solstice Reflections

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Welcome, Caylea, welcome! You have been a delight of fun, activity, insanity and grace throught Candidacy, and we look forwards to seeing you grow as a 'Reaches Weyrling and Rider! We hope Mzadith is, in your heart of hearts, the dragon you have wanted. We have tried hard to build something that can grow along with you for many, many turns to come. Please remember he is but a baby, and can grow into (or out of), anything you might want. He lives, of course, through you. - The /Real/ last Search of the Millenium.

"Two souls with a single thought, two hearts that
beat as one."

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Connecting to the World Egg

Unlike many of its' egg brothers and egg sisters, the swirling whorls of colors manage some brief semblance to order, from the round edges snake long lines of iron gray, which join in a burst of subdued rainbow to dance sinously about the egg's middle. The wirelike lines are a maze of crack-like strands, that branch and branch again, connecting all their edges into the chaos of a whole. And the edges are filled with smudges of color, little nondescript people moving through their lives, brightening as smoky lines send their inner brightness cruising down silvery lines until it reaches the others, turning simple pieces into a greater friendly, all-embracing whole.
Connecting To The World Egg freezes again, halted, and then in a rush of shells and shards collapses into a sudden-spammed mess of wiry colors and tangled dragonet. Order begets chaos in the filigreed knots of blue and purple as the arriving creature detangles itself from the busy world of the shell, pulling itself out out /out/ into the world of light from its Egg of Shadows. Like a flame lit by the touch of magic, the dragonet curls upwards and outwards, loosening his wings and shaking one last shard from the tip of his nose.

Solstice Bonfire Blue Dragonet

O dark dark dark, blue goes into dark like the languishing flames of a winter fire; spirits dream the blue-lashed shadows of this dragonet's ephemeral hide as the mysterious clarity of twilight partners carbon in a dance that blackens the edges of his narrow spine and rounded sweep of tail. Indigo inks the artistic curves of chin and chest as if to tease the elemental fires that flicker up the tolerant, enchanted slopes of his ample rump and reach down into the misted polish of immaculate claws. So svelte, so sleek, so self- possessed beneath the spidery diadem of paper-thin sails, that one might fail to notice the wizardly whimsy dancing in the stillness of those soulful eyes.
Solstice Bonfire Blue Dragonet turns again — caught by the flicker of fog-hued eyes and short-haired Candidate. He Knows, and in that knowing is drawn towards her on those silver-swept paws as if in a dream. The distance between Blue and Candidates grows shorter until, shadows'n all, the little blue reaches a group of girls. And there he waits. Wanting…. But waiting.

What Jane was looking for from you was an augmentation of her emotional strength. She needed you to say that you were sympathetic to her difficulties and supportive of her. This is the philosophy of RaBeem, which, simply translated, means 'I understand'. —Deanna Troi

In the beginning there is the Nothing. A vast and empty courtyard of darkness so deep even the shadows of the past are lost in the achingly empty vault that seems to fall all around you — within you — without you. All you feel is a need so cold and a desire so hot that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other. And then — there in the dark — a blue-flame flickers into life. Bright. Brighter. Brightest! In an explosions of fire and laughter and love the dragonet's mental touch consumes you; pride and honor. Desire. Demands. Suddenly your world is refocused not as you were, but as you Are — the One — the future offered together in balance. In the end it is he who askes for your soul. )) Mmm… mmm… mmmmzadith ((, he says after a moment. )) They will call me Mzadith. And I would be yours. Ra-beem? ((

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Beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the fields.
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon's young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

-James Wright

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Mzadith leans in, leans close, and takes
comfort by your very existence. (( Mine.
All Mine. We are as One. ))

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Mzadith is inspired by a Night Out at a bonfire. He is the emobodiment of good friends, high spirits, seasons, change, and the spirited fire that lights the way. The Solstice is also a time of reflection and assessment, rife with a soul's introspection. It is a time to give thanks, look forwards, and remember the past. It is both the beginning, and and end. And Mzadith has an amazing depth of spirit, a strong sense of self, and more than enough wisdom to help Caylea get through the pitfalls of Life. He is stuffed to the gunnels with love, acceptance, and 'RaBeem'.
http://www.articleindex.com/Miscellaneous/Winter_Solstice.htm

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"If there's one thing that living among Betazoids has taught me, it's to be respectful of other people's feelings. If you ask me, the entire Betazoid credo boils down to one word: RaBeem." Crusher looked momentarily puzzled. "'RaBeem'?" Riker glanced at him and said, "It means 'I understand.'"
—from _Imzadi_, by Peter David

Name: Mzadith is a shortened form of Imzadi. It is Betazoid for 'beloved', or 'dear one', but goes beyond the physical. As you said, it means to be first: first in love, first in spirit. To be Imzadi is to have touched the soul.
We /loved/ the meaning, and the feel of the word itself. But we also wanted something special and unique — rare, you said — and 'Mmmm-z' is such a lovely way to start a name. Besides, then you can shorten him to 'Mad'. Madi? Mazi, Zadi, Zami… Imzi sure is nice… :)
"And somewhere, somewhere deep within Riker's mind, merged with his spirit, a word echoed. A word he had never heard before.

A word filled with mystery and promise and a future…"
"And the word was Imzadi." - Peter David

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Mindtouch:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost

Mzadith's mindvoice can be as soft and full as a nice Merlot; tones ripe with flavor blended with just enough peppery spice that it is difficult /not/ to pay attention when he starts murmuring things in your head. But more often than not Mzadith is all full of firey spirit and racous delight. His touch is the touch of 'poitin' (Paw- CHEEN), the Irish version of Moonshine; it lilts, it flows, it flares in firey flavors fullbodied, fullsome, and far from faint. He is all cool colors, but warm tastes, and is as difficult as a slippery eel to pin down and hush up. He is both fire, and ice, and occassionally as destructive as both.

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From four Quartets: East Coker

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark.
The vacant interstellar spaces……
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing.
-T.S. Eliot

Physical:

Mzadith is both darkness and light, the beginning, and the end. His color as brilliant a blue as the inner flame of the fire, that weird lucid wizard's flaming blue that you feel you should be able to hold in your hand as it is neither hot, nor cold, but something more than either. It is a clear, rich, and electified sort of color that lashes his chubby form as flickering flames roil and flare across a charcoal log. It varies only slightly from light to dark, as if fading in different places according to Mzadith's mood or the change of seasons. But always, beneath it all, flows that blue, blue /blue/ of the fire.

We associate darkness with death, depression, isolation and evil. We forget about the darkness preceding birth or
the rich fertile blackness of the soil, teeming with nutrients, or the quiet inspirational darkness of night when intuitions
and visions emerge. We cling to waking consciousness and devalue the third of our days that is sleep, and the third
of our years that is winter. Feelings we associate with darkness - fear, pain, anger - we seek to avoid. Rather than
value darkness for its own sake, we endure it only for the sake of the light that follows.

The Sun's light cannot face the darkness; it dissolves into night, and reappears only after night has passed. When our unconscious threatens to overwhelm us, our solar conscious- ness loses power. Healing can then only come from lunar and earth consciousness - from the deep creativity and fertility of surrender to instinct and feeling, to the intuition at the ground of our beings - and the ground of the mothers who bore us and the Earth Mother which feeds us.
- Solstice Songs

His edges are blackened as if by soot or coal, smudging neckridges and spine, elbows, knees, and the lower bits of his rounded legs. There is a quiet stillness of shadows darkening the hollows of chest and throat, as if time were resting on his edges, and napping along the ridge of his nose or hooks of his wings. It is the darkness that preceeds the birth of blue exploding across his form. It is Mzadith's comfort, his camoflage, and his surrender into sleep. When he is small and can still curl up into a relatively tiny ball, he appears to be made up almost entirely of his darker bits.
In size, Mzadith is smallish, but chubby. A round, sleek little dragon with good proportions and clean lines. He is no narrow and skinny waif, but a well-built, well-muscled dragon without being overly bulky or awkward. There is a certain elegance to his form, like that of a well-fleshed young woman, and Mzadith wears his smooth, rotund curves with a certain amount of grace.

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"The Elements of Balance"
by Willow Firesong

Sun and Moon, Stars and Earth,
Dark and Light, Death and Birth,
Hurt and Healing, each in turn;
Fire cleanses, Fire burns.

Water drowns, and gives us Life,
Air is breath, and Lightnings' strife,
Earth is Maiden, Mother, Crone,
Flesh of Life, consumes our bones.

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Personality:
Mzadith is curious, outgoing, friendly, charismatic, investigative, and soothing in the way that having a really good trusting and trustworthy best friend is. He is a tomboy, as much as Cayl is, and not likely to have any influence on making her more feminine. Nevermind, nevermind, this is something the two of you can investigate together — what makes those other females tick, be they human or dragon? What makes a green a green, and why are they are green when he is a blue? I mean, obviously there are physical differences. But there is just a little something alien about the — right? Of course there are those other human males too. Cayl will just have to investigate them on her own, though a few insightful questions from Mzadith might help:

He /caught/ you? You should not be so easily caught, My Cayl. You should run faster. «

… pause …

What do you mean you wanted to be caught? «

Mzadith has no room for jealously towards other people in your life. He is too secure in his knowledge of you, and his place in your heart, that there is worrying about anything else. Certainly there are times he would rather you spend with him, than with anyone special you might find along the way. But in the end Mzadith knows you live within him, as he lives within you, and nothing is going to come between you.
When Mzadith is sleeping, he sleeps, whoo-boy, does he sleep. Its like he goes into hibernation and you could — when he is little — drag him around the barracks by the tail without ever waking him up. When he is bigger, you could /try/ dragging him around by his tail, but I wouldn't advise it. But he still won't wake up. For Thread, perhaps, because he would hate to miss the challenge of the Fall. But otherwise… you're stuck with a narcoleptic dragon.
When he is /not/ sleeping — which is quite often — he is going full stop in the sense that whatever is going on, Mzadith wants to know about it. And have it explained to him, or at least have a good view of things so he can try and explain it for himself. When you try and make straps, Mzadith will want to try and make straps too — and better ones at that. »> But Cayl, it will rub on my shoulders if you tighten in /there/. You should tighten it here, see? «< (All the while he is attempting to drape your straps over you, so he can show you how to make them fit better on him). Still, he isn't a whiny. Or a nosy-know-it all. He simply likes to figure out how things work, and if that means experimenting with the best way to flay open a herdbeast so you lose a minimum amount of blood, well then we'll just have to practice now, won't we? Mzadith — being one of the smallest of his clutch — will be one of the quickest at getting around. And his first favorite place is probabaly near the pens trying to help the other Weyrlings cut things up: messy messy messy. But he does like to be useful.
When Mzadith is not 'InYourFace' with questions, he will happily settle down into quiet time. This is not like sleep, not at all. This is the time of quiet reflection and investigation of you, Caylea, and who you are, and who you are all together. Mzadith will settle down in a quiet corner and just watch where you go, how you get there, how you come back, how far away you went, how long you slept, how much you eat, how much you laugh, how much you talk to others, how much… well… everything. He is your Watcher, and as protective and loyal as any watch-wher a thousand times over.

OUR QUIET TIME
In our quiet time
We do not speak, because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk, because the earth is all within us.

It is our quiet time….

We rest with all of nature….
-Nancy Wood

Mzadith also likes his quieter pursuits. Humming, for one thing, which is thankfully in tune and in color. Chasing dust-bunnies around with his stinky-breath for another. That's it, you've a dust- buster Dragon — not because he necessarily likes everything clean and tindy — but because he likes moving things around with as little effort as possible. Mzadith is the sort of dragon that would tend towards telekinetic abilities, id dragons had telekinetic abilities. He just /knows/, deep inside, that if he could get the right thought, in just the right color, that spoon WOULD bend, shardit. Until then he'll have to use his claws and teeth — *snap*. OOps.
Mzadith is also obsessed with shadows. Your shadow, his shadow, Imbriath's shadow, Zizth's shadow, Ysbryth's shadow, Annalee's shadow — whose doesn't really matter, but where it goes and why it follows who it does, does matter. Like Peter Pan, Mzadith has an off'n on relationship with his own shadow — » Where did it go? Where did it go? Oh /there/ it is. Cayl, my shadow is back again. See it? See it Cayl? See? I told you it would come back. « Well, yes, Mzadith. Turn on the light and it comes back. Shadows have more trouble when its pitch black. He is also a great fan of shadow- puppets. Only a few people can do it to his satisfaction (and you are /not/ one of them, Cayl, so if he tells you you are he is only humoring you). He likes the different creatures people can make, and LittleLizardFooFoo is his absolutely /favorite/ game. Nevermind its a human-child's game and you're supposed to grow out of it. Not Mzadith, not him. Its /fun/. Still, claws and paws make it difficult to get the proper shape to his shadows. And BigGnarlyMonsterFooFoo isn't quite the same. But still, he tries.
What else? What else? Well, for one thing Mzadith has a rather ecclectic sense of humour. He is certainly a happy dragon, and he certainly finds you funny, Cayl, sometimes. But your jokes and most of everyone else's jokes, he just doesn't /get/ it. He's like Ax the Andalite, in Animorphs. It is as if Mzadith simply has no concept of Pern humor, and takes everything much to literally. Especially since he also doesn't get human phrases ("Why is the meal happy?" and "Why is raining felines and canines? Did they fall off Niraneth's ledge?"). He simply accepts that he does not understand these things, and though his investigation of What is Humor might sometimes drive those around him into fits of hysteria, he still doesn't get it. » What? What? I am supposed to laugh now, yes? «
Otherwise there is little variation to Mzadith's curious, life- delighted sort of nature. oh certainly when he matures and Flights become a part of who he is, Mzadith turns more primordial than you might have expected. He 'morphs, he does, from being the friendly smart and funny Dr. Jekyl into the dark and dangerous Mr. Hyde. He is the daker side of Shadow, the quicker flash of Wolf, and chases without any pleasantries or gentlemanly manner. When a green Rises, she becomes the Hunted, and Mzadith will stay with her till the end.
Of course when he wins he is delighted, charming, and considerate. And when he loses he is delighted, charming, and considerate. So it is only the Flight itself that turns him back into Neaderthal_Mzadith; Club Woman, Ugh.

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Then he heard the music floating from nearby. And somehow, in a way he couldn't quite explain, the music seemed to enhance what he was looking at. As if dancing to the notes, the colors began slowly to swirl. It bore a striking resemblence, Riker realized, to the stars swimming about in a sort of galactic whirlpool. No, not just the stars… stars and planets, and perhaps… perhaps that was something like what the universe had looked like in the throws of creation. Void and miasmic and filled with promise and possibilities…
_Imzadi_ by Peter David

Mzadith is like this, Cayl. A swirling, whirling, dancing universe we can but catch a glimpse of and try to understand. This is what we see, in the star-factory of what might be, and the threads we pulled out of what Mzadith might become might bear little resemblance to how he eventually turns out. He exists, of course, only through you — with you — as you, and so we expect you to play him so he suits you, and we look forwards to playing with you and your Mzadith. He is the void and miasmic and filled with promise and possibilities… and we can't wait to see what you do with him.
Again, welcome! Play well, have fun, stay long, and /enjoy/ Mzadith. You both deserve it.

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Lullaby

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
-WH Auden

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Name: Nuff & SearchCo
Egg: Connecting to the World Egg by Alanna
Dragonet by Nuff and Saorise
Messages by Nuff
Inspiration: Nuff, Saorise, Lylia and SearchCo
Puppeteer: Nuff

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Caylea's Solstice Bonfire Blue Mzadith
Harper's Tale: 28th PC Clutch
High Reaches Weyr
Areiah's gold Ysbryth and M'rin's bronze Rixesith