Diem's Sage Before Beauty Gold Zsaviranth

Clutching Pose

With a heave and a shudder Elniath tenses, the muscles in her belly hitching rhythmically to slip Beauty Lies Within Egg onto the Sands. One hopes beauty lies within. The egg is a homely thing, glistening there. Sire and clutchdam see only the life it promises, breathing benediction over this newest hope as it is mounded with warm sand. On the heights Starsmiths watch the red star crest the horizon, the day when the Pass will begin is no longer marked in Turns… or even months. Sevens.

Beauty Lies Within Egg

Dignified. This egg is dignified. Really, it looks like a hunk of rock. A dignified hunk of rock. Settled into the Sands, it is simply there. Something about its unremarkable appearance incongruously draws the eye and keeps it. Up close is where a different story emerges. What appeared as a fine skim of dust from afar is revealed as tiny inclusions, catching and throwing sparks of light even in shadow as if the dragonet within does not live in darkness.

Hatching Message

There is sound before there is action, a sort of peal from the capsule that holds her. A portion of shell on the egg’s crown is chipped away, a neonate snout pushing through the opening before the encasing shudders and sunders around her shoulders and furled wings. Shards, sand, and albumen cannot mar the crystal lattice glitter of citrine and banded agate as she gains her feet under her and, head level, views the world, listening for a particular resonance pattern she knows to find.

Sage Before Beauty Gold Dragonet

Citrine matrix glitters elusive, glimpsed then gone, a treasure cloaked in stately solitude. Neckridges hail twilight’s gentle touch in warm embrace, crystalline abundance, seeding elegant spurs along a lithe and luminous frame. Gilded neck and throat darken into smokey citrine deep beneath the underbelly and willowy muscles of slender legs, powerful, a form promising weathered strength and mettle, bespeaking regal grace. Faceted headknobs flicker a jeweled sweep into rounded eyeridges set upon pale crest, descending, sharpening into a hooked patrician snout. Coruscations ripple along smooth hide, inclusions, deep and mysterious, glimmering in shadow, dazzling in sun, lifting to stretch aureate and wide upon glassy sails dusted with fair iridescence.

Public Impression Pose

Sage Before Beauty Gold Dragonet moves purposefully over the sands. Faceted eyes glare red with hunger, but she is focused, ignoring this as she slowly flows over the sands in search of the spark that will complete what her sire and dam began. Her pace deliberate as she goes, ducking under the raised wings of a clutchmate, over the tail of another, pausing to preen a bit of shell stuck to her leg, weaving in and out through the white robes of the Candidates, touching none with anything but the force of her presence. The Candidates fall away from her approach, eyes wide. Every queen’s birth is a beacon of hope… they are watching history. This little queen, she is one of the first born under the Red Star. Maybe the first. She lifts her muzzle and cries a single note, clear, heart wrenching and melancholic, like the chiming of a bell. The power of her voice and mind coupled press out and the Candidates fall further away. Save one… The dragonet’s cry is still echoing over the hush upon the sands when faceted eyes unlid to fall on Diem.

Private Impression Message

Ringing clarion voice without trembles and echoes in the darkness within. Darkness that stretches endless. Thick and heavy. Crushing. Cold and wet. Suffocating. There is no air. No light. Just unbearable weight pressing in. Squeezing. Choking and then… a wisp of scent. Sage. Sage smoke… a tendril touching with warmth and presence. Distant tinkling draws nearer, light and sweet. Musical. Sage and chiming push back the blackness. Lift the spirit. It is unseen the light that billows up. Present. A glowing warmth that dispels fear and fills the chest with a boundless radiance. Her voice rings like a bell, clear and resonant, powerful, « Diem. » The chimes ring like dancing, and though hunger eats at her, the fire that makes the smoke, she presses forward, enveloping, « I am Zsaviranth. »

Egg Inspiration

What better to spawn your citrine queen than a rough-looking geode egg? This egg is a reminder to all that beauty is as much an inner quality as an outer one.

Theme Inspiration

The element of Air. Windchimes. White Sage. Crystals.

Description Inspiration

A citrine point. It can be described as golden yellow on the tip with a natural root and contrasting opaque cream color throughout. Glistening at certain angles in natural light, it has an overall happy tone that is known to raise vibrational frequencies.

Powered by the Sun, citrine warms, cleanses, and energizes. It’s a highly protective crystal and an excellent tool for transmuting negative energy in personal space and beyond. Citrine heightens self-discipline and willpower, and also attracts abundance. It’s a general good luck stone and often carried or worn as a pendant on a necklace.

Known as the citrine queen, Zsaviranth's coloring is very much like a natural citrine point (pictured above). She has darker tones near her face, head, and neck while blending into lighter hues on her back and tail. Her underbelly and legs are a natural looking mix of gold settling somewhere between the dark and light coloring that make up the rest of her hide. There are also a few inclusions (IE: darker spots, ‘beauty marks’) found on her feet and legs that give a textured appearance.

Name Inspiration

Zsaviranth. Zsa-VEER-enth.

Yes, of course 'Zsa' is pronounced like the infamous Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Mindvoice

The element of Air.

A gentle breeze makes up Zsaviranth’s subconscious presence with an intensity that matches her present mood. Gentle summer breezes, or a crisp winter wind. How she responds when approached is a clear indication of how she is feeling and whether or not a visitor will stay or return at a less tempestuous time. With the wind current also comes along tiny leaves or snowflakes or sweet flower seeds to tickle and tease senses, to lure, or to warn.

Then there is the delicate melody of windchimes that sway with the breeze and predict an impending shift in her mood.

She prefers the nuance of image and scent to communicate powerfully and deeply. As much as she is inspired by crystals, crystals are too stable, too powerful and in some ways too blunt to hold all that she wishes to communicate when touching the mind of another.

White sage, a calming and distinctly beautiful fragrance, is Zsaviranth. The touch of the Citrine Queen’s mind is the curling brush of smoke lifting from a wrapped ceremonial bundle burning in an abalone shell, soothing and smoothing through the air, cleansing.

Other scents and mixtures underscore her moods. Dew covered gardenia. Pine and earth. New grass bent underfoot. Rose oil dripped into a hot bath. A burning candle. The ozone tang after a lightning strike. Mint and juniper. Must and mildew. Decay. A lover’s sun-warmed skin. Air freshened by a rainfall. Lichen. Damp limestone. Crisp eucalyptus. Peppermint tea.

The more intense her emotion and intent, the deeper and more nuanced the scent. But, most often, white sage. White sage precedes the touch of her mind and lingers after she has withdrawn.

Physicalities

Zsaviranth is a small Nowtime dragon, elegant and refined. There are only a handful of Oldtime bronzes who are larger than she, but few queens who are smaller.

Personality

Dualities define this citrine queen, though a dichotomy is scarcely sufficient to describe the complexity of her nature. Where she falls on the poles of myriad axes shifts, clouds in the sky. Enigmatic and ephemeral or present and powerful. Demure and gentle or bold and aggressive. She’s as difficult to contain and define as it is to catch smoke in your hands.

A Queen at all times, she holds herself aloof from the dragonry of Igen, that she may support all equally. It is from this emotional and physical remove that she gains perspective on the Weyr as a whole. The dragons, their riders, the people… all the living things in her domain. They are all of a piece. She is connected to it all.

Connected and engaged, the impact of her regard may not be something anyone could put a finger on. Sometimes, and more often when her mating cycle approaches, she becomes more directly engaged. Some inner wisdom drives her to a particular person or dragon, place or thing and this becomes the focus of her great awareness for a time.

Despite a demeanor that might be considered (fairly) as haughty, a thread of humor winds and she enjoys a good joke and the rippling amusement that follows, the lift of mind and spirit. As such, she finds herself attracted to the clever and witty, gravitating towards them when she seeks company, or encouraging you to do so, Diem. She loves the feel of your laughter across the ‘link and often not-so-subtly ‘encourages’ you to be in situations to elicit that laughter.

When duties do not press (READ: Rarely), she loves to see other parts of Pern, sifting through the minds of the dragons as they return from ::Between:: to select choice images and ask you about them. There is a small map that she urged you to buy when you were Weyrlings, so that you could mark upon it the places you wished to travel and the places you had been. You couldn’t afford the map at the time, but made do with visits to the archives instead, to read and satisfy this wanderlust. But, for her, there is no substitute for the feel of different air upon widespread ‘sails. Different scents. Different vistas. Any chance the two of you get, she likes to be away to new places.

And though you are the only home she’ll ever want or need, one of the best reasons to travel is to return. The true meaning of home becomes clear only when you have been away.

Zsaviranth’s mind is a wonder. Able to connect and feel all the dragons of the Weyr, to buoy them in times of trouble and rally them in times of need. She is affectionate, curious, adaptable, but these traits have a flip side. This ability to take in and process so much information - to anticipate the needs of all as one… it can lead to doubt and uncertainty. This is perhaps her greatest weakness and what she relies on you for the most, Diem: Decisiveness.

She is not always aware that she is vacillating and needs reminders even now to exercise her will and act. Sometimes she is aware and the quibbling between the two of you have become something a comfortable game…

She is a cerebral Queen, watchful. Sentinel. The goings on of dragons she notes by her very nature, but she is also fascinated by the workings of humans and the many ways they have devised, in the absence of a mindlink, to communicate. Music. Writing. Song. Semaphore. Hand signals. They are all so crude and lacking in nuance, but… somehow… visceral and exciting for their very lack of clear meaning. She has an endless appetite for these forms of communication - not least because she doesn’t retain memory of particular songs or sayings and is delighted anew each time she hears a tune or refrain - and urges you to seek them out as often as you may.

Flights

Thread

Credits

Name: Diem
Egg Desc: Th'bek
Dragonet Desc: Diem, F'in tweak
Messages: Th'bek
Puppeteer:
Inspiration: Diem, F'in, Th'bek