Taini's Lightning-Struck Wildfire Gold Birgith
"Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light." Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and footcandles. Light is metaphor. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light." -Frolov and Schneider
Taini, darling, you are the light we need, all on your own, but we couldn't help but want to brighten that with Birgith, so here she is, just for you. We adore you and love having you at Fort Weyr, so indulge us as we indulge you with your feisty little dragon and may you enjoy many years of RP with her. You have been such an active and integral part of Fort Weyr for so long now its hard to imagine the place without you. May you enjoy Birgith as much as we enjoy you. – nomi, March 25th, 2008 (Backtimed TP Hatching)
"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better. -Ellen DeGeneres
Sire and Dam: Backtimed
Hatching Date: March 27th, 2008 (Back timed with the advent of Threadfall)
Theme of Clutch: The Four Seasons
Theme of Dragonets: Weather / Elements / Elemental Things
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." -Vladimir Nabokov
Egg:
Truth Time Reveals Egg
Like the walls of a sandstone canyon, ground and washed with the passage of raging storms and grit of reality, this egg’s shell is wrapped in multiple hues as if representing the layers of truth that time reveals. Glinting brilliant, the illusion of moisture dapples across deeper red and ochre shades. Pale, off-white speckles descend gently into undulating layers of cream and tan lace, curling around the narrow edge of the egg until ivory is overshadowed by whorls of murkier browns and a slice of umbral darkness. Then the eye is fooled, for the egg’s colors are reflected back into themselves within the splash of impossible blue reflecting Rukbat’s illumination like a mirror; there are hidden secrets yet to be revealed.
Hatch Message:
Truth Time Reveals Egg seems to darken into twilight under the helping hands as bands of color become crackling, crevice-deep shadows about the shell. The new fault-lines seem to run along the colors of the egg turning cream to coal and ochre to deep, dark umber. The earth-sided egg quakes — two hard shudders – and then simply falls apart into three approximately equal pieces around both the dragonet and the women that help her.
Impression Poses:
Lightning-Struck Wildfire Gold Dragonet will. She must. Life goes on, when it can. The bluish-green fades from her head and after a cough or three she'll lift her head. The world is bugled at — well, more an annoyed squeak than anything else — and then she lifts up her shoulders and wings and struggles to her feet. This has NOT been a good day.
Lightning-Struck Wildfire Gold Dragonet stands there, so very un-queenish. She makes a few half-hearted attempts at stepping out into the world. There's a bit more buoyancy to her than to her flattened bronze Wae-mate, but she's unsteady and exhausted. When a dark-haired girl moves too quickly towards her she startles back against Aadi but buries her head into Tai's dark skirts and tries to crawl into her lap. This is difficult when a human isn't sitting down.
« Birgith »
Lightning-Struck Wildfire Gold Dragonet just stays where she is. The decision is made. It is already done.
Impression Message:
The disorder, chaos, confusion and turmoil that is life, alone, is just suddenly gone, swept aside with careless ease and no little intent. For a time that seems like forever but takes no time at all, there is Nothing: a blankness, a whiteness, an absence of Everything. Then there is a spark. It is not a flash in the darkness, for there is no dark, but where there was Nothing there is now Something and it is hunting you – stalking you – seeking you out with dogged determination and a certain bright romanticism. She’ll find you and the spark will become a flame – inspiration, protection, purification – till the dragon is regarding you from the inside out. There is an amused crackling-purr to the way she forms your name into a meld of hot rum and cedar « Taini. » Such a simple greeting to hold so much love and adoration. Then the flame becomes a fire becomes a pyre and she burns away all that you were in a wildfire of energy and chaotic glee. « Tainitainitaini. We /are/. »
Imbolc is a white time, burning with inspiration and protection, cool with healing and purification. Prophesy flares, painting luster on the dark. Light your candle, call on Brighid, and know that under the snow the seeds of spring stir.
Dragonet Description:
Huntress, goddess, seeker, guide her storm-wrought form burns with the coruscant brilliance of both hide and heart and sets this dragon on fire with the power of her intrinsic, garrulous, golden flames. Storm's feral forces strike silver across the patterened spars of her long wings and charr her vast wingsails with soot and ash while coal likewise singes the thorny cut of her spine and smudges her tail with black. The rest of her blazes with the uncontrolled ambers and oranges of a spontaneous wildfire, scorching her broad chest and belly with carmine and yellow before burning with the fierce heat of blue-flames up her neck and knobs. Only here at lean-sculpted head and well-defined muzzle does hunter's green remain unconsumed by this warrior queen's bright inferno. Built tall and lean, there is a bow's taut brevity to her sinuous and lissome frame.
Egg Inspiration:
This egg was for Taini, with the request to meld the Timing TP with something Southwestern and kind of like the Arroyo egg, and /for/ Taini. To me, Taini seems to be this young woman who has passed through more than her fair share of trials and tribulations, and each has stripped from her some illusion she held about life, but those experiences have also allowed her to grow, to learn about herself and others. The trials she’s been through are like the water that carves the unshaped sandstone into a stark and twisting canyon. Taini has taken some of that toughness onto herself as she has been developing her own striking and enduring character. The pale, creamy images represent Taini’s rich personality, complex and with that insufferable streak of /compassion/ that draws her into so many situations. Humor and spark is represented by the fall colors, sort of subdued and yet always present. And Taini, like the rest of the Barlords, possesses aspects of an inherited wicked nature. The blue pool reflects to some extent what she knows about herself, yet symbolizes that there is so much more to Taini, and like water, what will come is both hidden and yet will change to reveal new truths, new beauty and new darkness. Egg by Th’deus with considerable help from Esther. Original Arroyo egg by N'tan.
Name Inspiration:
"We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light." -Mary Dunbar
Well you and your fellow clutchmates came up with Birgith and it really seemed to suit. Especially when someone mentioned you'd also like a dragon based on a character in a book that would inspire you to read the series, so Birgith was, as Davram said, a good opportunity to bring in aspects of Robert Jordan's Birgitte, from the World of Time books… but more about Birgitte later. Right now we're talking about Birgid, or Birghid — resolved strength, bright one — and all her various Celtic forms. Like Hestiath, she is a hearth goddess and keeper of the sacred fires, but Birgith is much more a warrior queen than a hearth-maiden. I chose for her 'Breo-Saighit', the Gaelic incarnation of Birghid that means 'fiery arrow'. She is of course symbolized by fire, flames, hearth, cauldrons, grain, a white cow with red ears and a swan. If you can't find something in there that peaks you fancy, then we give up!
Dragon Inspiration:
Like Birghid is also the goddess of inspiration, healing, poets, creativity, prophecy, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, spiritual healing, and fertility (crops, land, and cattle). Whew! You think she'd get tired. She is /very/ much Lawful Good, but feisty enough that if you get her riled up all that is burned away and you've a wildfire on your hands (and in your head). Should you ever get her settled, we're thinking Birgith might do well at dragon-healing — something Fort Weyr will have need of, in the turns to come — and more so than the other queens be able to steady the injured and heal the hurt… if you work at. If you don't she'll keep you busy enough just being Dragon. Trust me. That's lots.
Birghid is also the goddess of hearth and home, but this is something she builds in herself for /you/. You sought her out. You broke her free. You made room for her, in this world, so she will make room for you in her own and be all the home you ever need. Wherever you are. Whenever you settle, Birgith will be more than enough of an achor for all your restlessness. This might make it difficult for others to get inside, as well, so watch out for that and don't let the world become nothing but you and Birgith. We want to share you too!
She needed a weather-hook though, and I like the idea of you with something about wild and uncontrolled, at least to start. Oh she'll start out like wet wood, hard to light and barely warm, and take some care at first to get over the trauma of Hatching, but Birgith is nothing if not resilient and it won't be more than a few days before she's living up to the bright fires of her hide and proving herself a willing, spirited dragonet.
Robert Frost - The Bonfire
“Oh, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves,
As reckless as the best of them to-night,
By setting fire to all the brush we piled
With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow
Oh, let’s not wait for rain to make it safe.
The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough
Down dark converging paths between the pines.
Let’s not care what we do with it to-night.
Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile
The way we piled it. And let’s be the talk
Of people brought to windows by a light
Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper.
Rouse them all, both the free and not so free
With saying what they’d like to do to us
For what they’d better wait till we have done.
Let’s all but bring to life this old volcano,
If that is what the mountain ever was—
And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will….”
…"You were made perfectly to be loved - and surely
I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long."
Personality:
Birgith, like Birghid, is happiest at the 'in-between' places of the world: doorways, shorelines, fords, dawn, dusk, not-quite-sleeping, not-quite awake, and the seasons when they are changing. Something that is almost in, but almost out. A glass half full and half empty, both at the same time. She represents the meeting place, of all things, including the real and the imagined, and has a real good sense about her that endears her to many. Of course she's always stopping in the middle of doorways, when small enough to fit through them. Loves the twilight, hates actually waking up, and is happiest when not-quite wet, not-quite dry, not-quite hot, not-quite cold. It can be maddening at first trying to figure this out, till you realize it doesn't /need/ to be figured out, its just how she is.
"Firelight will not let you read fine stories but it's warm and you won't see the dust on the floor." -Irish Proverb
In complement to Imogen's more temperate, motherly Hestiath and Iona's more frenetic Orlaith, Birgith stands again in the place between, melding her own hearthfire and innate infernos into something Fort needs, against thread. A warrior queen. A wildfire. Spear in hand, bow on her back, and all the troubles of the Weyr her quarry.
The third sister holds sway over the fires of the hearth, smithies, and other similar crafts. It would be this sister who would forge and carry her spear into battle.
This seems to suit, too, what you mentioned about Third Culture Kids, those that find themselves 'between' cultures, but of none. Unlike you, perhaps, Birgith is comfortable in this world between and will use her cosmopolitan energies as armor in the battles to come.
Glory calls us
With trumpet's tongue,
calls us do great deeds
on the field of valor,
calls us to give our blood
to the flame,
to the ground,
the thirsty ground,
the holy fire.
-Mina's Battle Song
To wage the war on Thread and all Fort's troubles, we give you Birgitte Silverbow from the epic fantasy series by Robert Jordan, The Whee of Time (WoT).
Typically described as having a long blonde braid of hair down her back, wearing a man's coat and trousers, and being deadly with a bow and arrow, Birgitte Silverbow is the heroine of many hundreds of gleemen's tales and legends. Like many of the great heroes of the Wheel of Time, she has been "spun out" into the Pattern many times, taking a different name but always following the same pattern: an archer, sometimes a soldier, who is linked to a lump-faced man who fights with two swords (most famously known as Gaidal (G’dal!) Cain), whom she at first hates but eventually falls for. She is also one of the Heroes of the Horn of Valere, and, like Artur Hawkwing, like Gaidal Cain, like a hundred other heroes, can be summoned to fight for he who blows the Horn.
Deadly and unspeakably competent with a bow, she is also by far the most raucous of Elayne's entourage; she and Mat Cauthon share a fondness for drink, carousing and foul language and friendship.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet,
Long live the weeds and the wildness yet.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, Inversnaid
As Mat Cauthon is unavailable, Birgith will just have to settle for T'jano's Mrrth as a partner for her more racuous moments. Unfortunately those two clucthmates do /not/ bring out the best in one another so Birgith might be encouraged to seek out little Alysiuth's adventuresome spirit or Thera's Hadamarth — the gentle giant, to balance out her wildness.
Like Birgitte, in the books, Birgith has bonded herself to you as a Warder — a guard — a partner, a friend. Like in the stories, its a bond that is almost too tight, sometimes and your moods will feed on each other in spirals, the good and the bad. Thankfully Birgith is more happy than not, quite a content dragon and easily spreads wellness and light. She'll get drunk when you do, though, especially at first. Happy when you are happy. Despondent when you are sad. All dragonets mirror and reflect their human, but Birgith seems to do it with just a bit more intensity than most.
There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton
Bigith is definitely the candle, most days, it will be up to you to reflect and deflect her light to where it is needed the most.
Physicality
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen
Birgith is a slender, mid-sized queen with a certain sparsity to her lines and a bit of bluntness to her head and angles. She's quite long, or seems to be, with elegant lines of the wing and tail which gleam with a gentle silvery sheen: ash and smoke, on her higher edges, wispy grey among the leaves that seem to stick to her sails, and darker soot along her spine and tail.
The rest of her is that lovely burning amber-orange of firelight, it courses along her frame in layered, sometimes gritty brilliance cloaked in a bit of smoke, or night. Her hide glows more than burns, licked with golden fire that leaves her amber just about all over. The hotter blue-white flames up her neck might well fade with age, as might the greeny tones on her head and 'knobs, but she might well bear a serrated crack of hunter's green in under her chin for always.
**Flight, Mates, and Clutching. **
"I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars." -Og Mandino
Birgith might well enjoy night flights, when its her time to rise. This doesn't do her any good, of course. She glows under the lightest touch of Belior or Timor, even moons' pale light setting off the wildfire that burns to orange and angry reds when she's proddy. She shines in the dark, a beacon to all those that might chase her, but they'd chase her anyway and she will be a hellion in Flight. Its the warrior in her, defending the maiden. Woe be to all who might stand in her way.
Once caught she picks up the cues from you whether to turn domestic and lovey-dovey with her mate or just ignore him as a necessary but not-very-interesting part of the mating and clutching that is the life of a queen. She's social enough that she can appreciate his friendship, but independent enough that until she really cannot fly anymore, she's happier getting her own food and hunting her own dinner.
Eggs she'll tend out of necessity, neither passionate or disinterested. More like the eggs are a science project she has to figure out, while guarding them at the same time from any troubles. Attentive, yes, but not obsessed.
She'll like the dragonets more, when they're small enough to whuffle around and tease.
Threadfall:
A warrior queen, Birgith likes to rise in the Falls. Oh she won't be reckless or rash, but strike with a bow's bright flight and let you fiery arrow any Thread that makes it past the higher waves of dragons. She's good at strategy, too, seeing the other dragons like chess pieces on the board above the ground crews and that which needs covering most. It will be some turns before she might help the wingleaders plan out an attack, but she is always watching and waiting.
As mentioned, she might make a good dragonhealer too.
Mind Voice:
"Light can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm and soft." -Sven Nykvist
Birgith is all these things, and more.
In your head, Birgith is that elusive Warder in the woods, almost elvish, almost fey. But like Birgitte Silverbow, she has more substance than that. Its hard to pin down really, exactly how she sounds, but it is a mellow voice of all things in between — dreamy — twilight again and as soft as fur that can, in an instant, go as hard as stone. She always sounds slightly amused and definitely confident.
Mind Scent:
"Wine is sunlight, held together by water." -Galileo
Birgith has much that same flavor — wine into sunlight, held together by water. The rum and spice of her initial contact still burns hot and fierce when she is angry or scared or proddy, but most of the time she offers you a more refined pallet of wines. When young, they are raw and brutal, easily collapsing into vinegar and renin, too oaky, too rank.
Her touch will age well though, for there's a vitner's spirit somewhere in her soul. Something creative. Something talented. With time she will age the touch into merlot and sunlight and set you drunk with just her happiness alone.
** Eating, Movement, and Growth **
"I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes." -e.e. cummings
Birgith seems, most of the time, very content in the world now that she made it here. She is very much all that is /yes/. She loves the feel of weather, the call of stars, the shoreline, and trees fascinate her if there are any left on the Pern, from Thread. She exists in all things natural as if she belongs in them, which indeed she does.
This makes her movement — once she gets over awkwardness — to sort of blend in with her surroundings. She's not as elegant as some, nor as clumsy as others, but seems to have a good handle of who she is and what she can do. A warrior's efficiency, in flight, with a brevity of wing-beats and an good ability to read and ride the wind.
She's definitely not 'dainty', and once she gets over her troubled start, should grow in starts and stops like most dragonets. Of course she just seems to grow bits and pieces all at once. Like one week it will be here feet that get really big. The next week her tail gets too long. The third week her wings get too wide. Then she'll grow into her feet, but her head gets really big. Never enough that she's seriously unbalanced, but enough that it seems funny she can't just seem to grow all together into her wilder hide.
Weyr Relationships:
"Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in." -Alan Alda
As noted, Birgith will find affinity with T'jano's Mrrth, for obvious reasons. And enjoy the mountainesque quiet of Thera's Hadamarth. With Orlaith and Hestiath, she is like one of the three faces of Fort's new queens and they all complement and contradict each other. They seem to have little conflict between them and can spend days in quiet company. For a brief time when they are the same size she might well get confused with Izara's fiery brown Vusviath, but Birgith will grow more golden and amber — not to mention larger — than her brown friend. Still, those two can get into trouble together if they're in a volcanic mood, together. Bigith did start out as a wildfire, afterall — albeit one that was hard to get started — so for the first while she'll be quite a hellion with wings. We trust you can grow her out of that quickly enough. Use Alysiuth. His stormy weather should be enough to put out Birgith's wilder fire and tempt her out on more suitable adventures and undertakings than random destruction.
Clutchmates:
Imogen and gold Hestiath
Iona and gold Orlaith
Izara and brown Vsuviath
Kyana and green Jianth
O'diah and blue Alysiuth
T'jano and green Mrrth
Thera(Esther)and brown Hadamarth
W'ren and bronze Gnaedath
Into my heart's night
Along a narrow way
I groped; and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day.
-Rubaiyat of Rumi
May Birgith always bring you light, and bring out the light in /you/. Thanks, Taini. It is a great pleasure to play with you.
Credits:
Well, you and your clutchmates came up with the name I think. Th'deus was roped into building a new back-timed egg, though N'tan did a gorgeous job on the Arroyo that we all loved so much as well, and I think Nomi did just about everything else with lots of help from SearchCo and all the non-Searchy people that kept paging her with snippets of things they thought you would like, in a dragon. We hope you like her and enjoy the RP of it all. Thanks for coming out - Fort FourSeasonsSearch, 2008.