Fort Weyr

Squat and low slung, the tones of darkened bronze as seen beneath water cover this fellow from his blunted oblong head to his long paddle-like tail. Pebbling his upper hide, lighter patches of sunlight and oxydized copper break the monotony of the deep, dark hue, stippling between his slanted, ebon ridges with an illusion of armor-plated scales. His neck and haunches are thick supporting his wings — broad and translucent are the shadow of faded light, seen through a thick canopy of deep greens, the veins within them pronounced like creepers on ancient tree branches. All four of his legs are squat and wide spaced at his brawny sides, the forelimbs a little shorter than most. A blur of the same pebbled look lends their outer edges the same armor plating, his talons are short, black, sharp and hooked. His most notable feature though, is the ring of rust around both deep-set eyes, lending the facets an eerie frame.

Egg Name and Description

Murky Bayou Waters Egg
The brown of sludge and mud is what colors the surface of this egg, wetly swathing it in varying shades of darkness underneath all the other colors. Mossy grey-green floats over the surface, an optical illusion of color and depth making it seem almost as though it moves, swirling in glistening textured patterns over much of the visible surface. Then, beneath these readily apparent colors, there's something else. Shadows, mere breaths of some living thing just barely beyond view, even sending just a breath of ripples down one side of the shell as though for an instant, frozen forever, the creature within had broken through its liquid prison.

Hatching Message

Just a quick spasm seems to take the Murky Bayou Waters egg. A ripple of movement across the placid surface. Then it's still once more, leaning slightly off-kilter.

Tap, tap. Little bits of brownish shell flakes free of the Murky Bayou Waters egg, discarded like slough, the flakes sit beside it, silent and still once more. It shudders again, more flakes fall to the sands, then quiet stillness once more decends.

With one final shudder, the surface of the Murky Bayou Waters egg seems to simply flake away like scales being sloughed off. First one squat leg, then another bursts free of the surface, then a nose, and finally the hatchling itself, slithering free of its former home.

Impression Message

The humidity of the hatching sands, the noise, the activity all seems to be getting oppressively hot. Crowding in on your perceptions, it feels for a second as if you might even be about to pass out! Then, a soft splash, a rustle of thick creepers, a creak of an old paddleboat somewhere where amphibians call a perpetual chorus heralds a presence in your mind. Slow at first, then swimming closer and closer to your mind, there's a sensation growing in your heart of two things blending together into one, formidable entity. «I'roc.» A deep, bass whisper states in an impassive tone. Raw instinct takes control of you, a hunger so deep and abiding that it feels as if it might never be satiated. «Yes.» seemingly confirming the knowledge in your mind that was sensed time and again. «I am hungry. Feed me now… I am Tannoth. I also need to be clean.» An entity of few words, even in that ravenous hunger that gnaws your belly, there's a bond, a respect, a patient and wise cunning. «Let's go? They'll show us the way.» There he is, the bronze hatchling at your feet, waiting for you, a creature of few words and a quiet dragon's love.

Personality

GROWING UP:
From the beginning, from his first moments out of the egg, Tannoth has unusual… well, patience isn't quite the word for it, but he will wait until his mind is positively made up before acting. One might call it deliberation with commitment, such as when he sought you out on the sands, with his slow lazy walk and the suddenness of his decision. It will never occur to him to doubt his decisions until after he's already acted, and once his mind is made up he won't pause to consider other alternatives. While he's young, his actions will be based mostly on instinct, and you'll have a hard time curbing his immediate reaction to impulses, and he won't express much chagrin for whatever problems he may cause as a result. « Well, I didn't /know/ that was going to happen. » So of course he ought not be blamed for it.

While still young, he will be quick to alert adults to any fix he's gotten himself into, and expect their help in correcting the situation: « Wiyaneth! I tipped over a barrel, and oil is going everywhere. » Another habit you, and your clutchmates, will have to learn to deal with is a predatory temperament that will display itself at the worst possible moments (only for lack of discipline, something he will swiftly grow out of as he ages), sometimes resulting in conversations like this: « If Omisimth doesn't want her tail bit, she shouldn't wave it around like that. » spoken with an underlying amusement that counters any remorse he might try to express. He's a social hatchling who gravitates towards remaining close with his clutchmates, and certainly to you - though as he ages his own independance and solitary tendencies will assert themselves. He isn't easily fazed, this one. Reprimands and scolding will be absorbed, and he generally won't make that exact same mistake again, no matter how much amusement it afforded him. He won't be much bothered by them either, though. No matter how fierce the berating, it won't affect him for any length of time.

Eating is the greatest pleasure for him - he takes great satisfaction in it, but you will never need to worry about him overeating. Only chewing. That will present the greatest problem for him, for he'll often try to swallow his portions whole, or just holding it in his mouth for extended periods of time to savor the flavor, luxuriating with a hunk of meat in his maw. And this is something that will likely follow him to adulthood - a lack of 'mealtime manners' and a tendency to chew less than he ought. Luckily, he will grow out of his youthful quirk of biting first, and asking questions later. Fast movements may draw a startled snap, and on the opposite end of things, inanimate objects may be gnawed on curiously, or carted about in the mouth until he gets bored of them.

Oiling is another matter altogether. He doesn't mind it; he rather enjoys it really, but he will spend many a joyous hour stretched out in the sun… usually in the mud, dirt, or dust, and usually right after you've spent your precious time oiling his young hide. Sometimes you might think that he's doing it on purpose, and he seems to love being in the water just as much as being out of it and in the sun. « Such a shame, me getting so dirty. Whatever will we do? »

ADOLESCENCE:
As he grows, it will become evident to you, that he's not outgrowing his stunted limbs. He'll always be carrying himself low to the ground. As a result, his movement on land can look very cumbersome and that big paddle tail of his can sometimes end up being a rather nasty club, totally by accident. He's capable of mind-boggling turns of speed though, for one so low-slung to the ground, something that will become evident when you're free to take him to the hunting grounds. Prefering to sit still when hunting captive prey, he will suddenly blindside you by putting on a sprint that would put a gazelle to shame, seizing his prey. And yet again, sitting there and suckling on it. But where he lacks on land, you'll soon find he makes up for in the air /and/ in the water. He is infact, a natural born swimmer, taking greater pleasure in hunting fish or seizing a kill from submerged camouflage than by pouncing from on high. He may even encourage you to take up fishing, to enjoy his passion for the water. Certainly he'll encourage you to come along swimming with him, and in the summertime waters there's plenty of opportunity for wonderful quality time. « Water always flows to the river, » he might quote, but won't deign to explain whence such a morsel of 'wisdom' came. In the skies, he's one of those dragons that naturally makes it look effortless, flying with little in the way of stuntwork, but gliding through the altitudes as if he were a male that's half his size.

These little gems of Tannothian wisdom are something rare however, and they hardly make any sense at all, until you think about them. But he's not really terribly -big- on the thinking. As he reaches adult size, his instinct will be well honed, hopefully tempered by your own words of wisdom, he'll forever be slow to anger, in a peculiarly cold-blooded way. However, there is one time when he is /not/ cold blooded: Mating flights. Picture a feeding frenzy mixed with the texas chainsaw massacre, wholely oblivious to the horror that might produce, coupled with an endurance for the skies that seems to rival any gold that comes along. Greens he's a little slower with. Big juggernauts after all, don't turn on a jack-knife. When there is glow, his loins burn, instinct driving him to acts of frivolity, and actual flattery towards the dame of the day. However, any rival males will be given the cold shoulder and a warning display of an open mouth, and rather blunt orders to stay out of his space, and away from 'his' female. His plan for catching will epitomize his nature - slow and steady, keeping the goal under his watchful gaze, until he deems the time right and strikes forward with a surge of reserve power. And should he win the day and sire clutch, he'll be a very nurturing one. Eggs are incredibly important to him, and he may well wish to share the sands with the Dam, not understanding if she does not permit this. Who after all, is going to bury the eggs? Sit on them? Listen to their voices? The hatchlings that struggle free from them will recieve his utmost attention for the first months of their life, as well. While he won't exactly fawn over them, he will keep them under his watchful gaze, and be quick to offer impromptu swimming lessons in an attempt to enjoy time with the 'pod' he spawned.

ADULTHOOD:
«I just know.» It's something you may hear a lot from your Tannoth in your life together. In all things, he's slow, deliberate, instinct-driven. But with that cold blooded reliance on what he feels to be true and what he knows because of it giving him a laid back attitude, you'll find that for a bronze, he's /amazing/ at search. Instinct is what /drives/ search — the knowledge that this one is right, deep down in the gut. Just as he's able to read your mind before you know what you're about to do at times, so you'll find he does the same for those he studies in that respect. His gut rarely if ever, leads him wrong after all. It led him straight to you, I'roc. Instinct also governs ninetynine percent of his emotional reactions to -your- activities. A lover? He already knows who is good and who isn't, for you, and don't be surprised if he tells you: «Wasn't worth it. Can't trust someone with bad teeth.» Fight? Expect: «What? You wern't afraid. Nothing a bit of meat on your face won't heal.» Frustration? «Relax. You should be doing this….» In essence, only if you or one you care for or he feels protective over is displaying dangerous emotions that he can sense, will he interfere. He's quintessentially chilled out, in a perpetual state of semi-smug zen, that's what it is, the adult state of your Tannoth.

Mindvoice

Sly Brackish Patience
This is a mind that bides its time in all things, always waiting for an ideal moment, never losing patience. Tannoth is peaceful, serene, deceptively still. His thoughts make no more than a ripple on the surface of yours, melding into them and floating along beneath them rather than being an obtrusive presence but it's there, in subtle swirls and abiding sense of knowing. Roughness can sometimes be present, the texture of bark, the sound of whistling wind as though through the branches of trees, the occasional quiet, stealthy splash of water that echoes from the depths - the feeling of soft mud under it all, oozing its presence but those are just the physical impressions, light and subtle as they wrap themselves through your mind. But! Frequently he knows your thoughts before you do, draws them out before you even know that they're there, and with an underlying sense of sly pleasure with his show of clairvoyance. He intertwines through and through, swimming under your consciousness, and those thoughts that he wants to bring out, to help you, to enlighten you, or simply to amuse himself, he will grab hold of unbreakably until he brings them splashing, to the surface. The overall tone of his voice is a deep, bass whisper most days, he's very slow to anger over anything, but when he's annoyed, his mind may rush up close to the surface, a threatening, forbidding predator with a lot of /very/ sharp teeth.

Inspiration

The clutch theme for this clutch was animal habitats or the young of the animal that the egg was based upon. The dragons themselves are based on the totemic animal that their egg represented. Tannoths egg was inspired by a Louisiana bayou, muddy water hemmed in and shadowed by trees, all concealing anything that lies underneath. His description and personality are based on the alligator, that which you can often find in the aforementioned bayou. Traits often associated with the alligator in folklore and animistic society are wisdom, cunning, patience, and even clairvoyance, which are aspects Ive tried to include in his nature. His name, Tannoth, is a derivative of the Creole word Tann, meaning wait, to reflect his sly sense of timing. This is used again in his hatchling name: Pasyan Bankoulou. Roughly translated, this means patient sly fellow. I hope you like him, and of course, feel free to make him yours in any way you see fit. He is after all, your dragon! He comes in all his glory from the minds of Alorye and X'an.

Credits