Desba's Spirit Guide Brown Dyamith
Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
— Robert Fulghum

Clutching Pose

Chayath shudders and stalls, taking a moment to relax. The end is coming, and the next two eggs come much more slowly. The twenty-second arrives in all its tacky-hued glory, and is routinely nudged into its home, before Chayath adds gently a gathering of sand to support its base. The twenty-third — making her clutch size equal to Cadgwith's — arrives after another pause, and Chayath very nearly flops to the ground in exhaustion after it is safely added alongside the other.

Rubic's Puzzle of Doom Cubed Egg

It's a square; no, it's a cube! Wait… I thought it was supposed to be an egg! Maybe not. With red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and white little blobs covering the creased egg from top to bottom, it's hard to tell if it's even real at all. The color's in neatly precise squares (with black lining throughout each one — to make it look cool and kickin') it looks awfully confusing, and even more, like, radical. But, what /is/ the point of this squarely-looking egg, big for its shape, and even more colorful than makes sense? Each color isn't even in a pattern; isn't all white supposed to be touching? Or aren't they supposed to be in order? Can -you- figure it out? (As if!)

Hatching Message

Rubic's Puzzle of Doom Cubed Egg is all jumbled up, its colors lacking any sort of order. Its dark creasing falls into cracks, and the shell's markings start to shift - a red bit to the left, a yellow to the right, a blue here, a white there. A lump of green and orange flakes away - as if prised off by a giant fingernail - and the whole collapses into dozens of brightly-hued pieces.

Spirit Guide Brown Dragonet

Deliberation lurks in streaks of sagebrush, applied like paint against the deep earthen canvas of this rangy brown's hide; it daubs symbols of power about the headknobs crowning his aquiline head, and traces down neckridges as rounded as prairie hillocks. Sage is repeated in the soaring spirals which mark billowing wingsails too large to be handsome, is feathered across his neat, slender hindquarters, and fletched down his short tail to its arrowhead tip. He's large and lean, sturdy and warlike, but without the bulk of heavy muscle that might slow him or ground his matte black talons with excess weight.

Public Impression Pose

Spirit Guide Brown Dragonet is determined indeed. With that slow, gliding, inexorable movement, he drifts closer to the one he's seeking, the one he'll be able to guide through her life in all the ways she could ever need. Passing close to Kalaeya's feet, he hovers… then moves just that little bit further, to stop in front of Desba. His Desba.

Private Impression Message

A distant throb of drumbeats sounds amongst a sudden mental darkness, quickening the blood and sharpening the senses as it builds. Into this new accuity, the scent of sacred smoke drifts, and as the drums reach a crescendo a voice is heard, undertones of rainsticks sussurating beneath it. « Desba. » And then it drifts away, as formless as the smoke. Silence. And darkness still. Are you to be left alone? Found unworthy? The darkness hangs, keeping its own counsel. Then… A sudden, bursting light! Orange campfire flames crackle and shadowy, painted figures whirl in your mind's eye. « Desba. Yes. You have been chosen. I am Dyamith, and together we shall Fly. »


*Desba! Welcome to the wonderful world of dragonriding at High Reaches Weyr. We've enjoyed having you as a Candidate, and we think Desba and Dyamith (the dynamic duo!) will be able to provide some refreshing sanity into what can sometimes be a complete madhouse - on the other hand, you might find that she gets just a bit too assimilated! Either way, we're sure it's going to be fun!*


Egg Inspiration

Rubic's Puzzle of Doom Cubed Egg
How utterly confusing, those things - but, the title's easy enough to figure out. —- Palia

Donis adds that the hatching message for this egg was inspired by the way he'd pull his Rubic's cube apart (starting by prising off the corner piece) in order to put it back together perfectly - because he was useless at solving it. Apparently Wyn and Zai used to do the same thing, too…. Did you?

Theme Inspiration

The theme of the clutch is 'things that normally come in pairs' - in Dyamith's case, a spirit guide always needs someone to guide!

Native American spirit guides take the form of different animals; for Desba, we chose an eagle spirit. Some of the attributes of the eagle include swiftness, strength, courage and wisdom, and these are all attributes that we thought would fit well with Desba's lifemate.
See the following websites for more details:
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/4076/index7.html
http://spirit-bears-tipi.50megs.com/totem01.html
http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle5.html

:"The Eagle flies highest in the sky of all the birds and so he is the nearest to the Creator, and his feather is the most sacred of all. He is the highest of the birds and so belongs to all tribes, to all the peoples. :— Buffalo Jim (Seminole)

Name Inspiration

Dyamith comes from a Native American (Cochiti) word meaning 'eagle', which obviously fits in with his whole theme! 'Dyami hano' means the Eagle clan, and some of their story can be found at
http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/sw/oma/oma07.htm

Mindvoice

As mercurial as the skies he so dearly loves, Dyamith's mindvoice will take a myriad of forms depending on his moods and activities. When he's content and soaring his way through life, his mindvoice will be as breezy as a floating feather, visuals soft and, well, feathering out at the edges like an old photograph. When his well-developed gift of empathy is being exercised, the air of a warm and comforting campfire appears, all orange light, a comforting blanket of warm darkness, and the scents of burning wood. In the heat of Threadfall (or even just in weyrling exercises) he blazes, the full-out heat of the noon sun, concentrated and intense. You may need to work with him on tempering that intensity, or be left feeling dazzled and a little off-balance from the sheer force of it. But not an hour later, when gentleness is called for in cheering you up after a difficult fall, subtle sage smoke will whisper in, cleansing and refreshing. The smoky tones will also appear when he's got his eye on a particular green, who he's decided to impress by showing off his caring, sensitive side. Dyamith is not a dragon easily thrown from his balance, but should his spirits be low, or should he be feeling something sad or depressed from you over your shared link, his mindvoice will lose all nuances of flight, of life, of intensity, and become as flat and dull as scattered earth.

Physicalities

Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky
—Ursula K. LeGuin

Dyamith is solidly-built, though not bulky - he manages to be lean and sturdy at the same time, with those sleek hindquarters, though he'd be deep-chested and wide across the shoulders. He's all the soft curves and gentle hillocks of the prairie, his neckridges being rounded rather than spiked (which can make mounting awkward, but contributes to a comfortable ride).

On the ground, unlike his green clutchmate Celvynath, he's as awkward as most dragons - he tends to flare his wings and shuffle his feet a lot for balance. In the air though, he's probably one of the best fliers - swift, strong and with excellent stamina. He's no good at the aerobatics of the smaller dragons though; he's built for power and endurance: advantages in Threadfall and in mating flights. He's got a noticeably shorter and broader tail than most other dragons; it makes for an excellent rudder when he's scribing slow circles against the sky. He's ever so graceful in flight, and you'll enjoy just watching him swooping above you sometimes, Desba - he can be trusted to fly solo on occasion, although you both prefer to fly together.

He loves to soar, rising so high on the thermals that you'll become dizzy from the thin air, Desba! If you point this out, he'll descend, but reluctantly… and he never remembers that flying quite so high - those long, strong, enormous wings beating hard - is bad for you. Perhaps he just doesn't want to remember.

All dragons take joy in flight - it's their very nature. But Dyamith… well, without flight, there'd be no heart to him. If he ever gets grounded for an injury, you'll have a very depressed dragon on your hands until he's well enough to fly again, Desba. And as a weyrling, you'll have to exert a lot of discipline to stop him flying before the Weyrlingmasters say he's ready. Who can blame him, really, when everything about his build declares him a master in flight?

Dyamith's coloring is all earthy tones; his base color is that of dusty brown soil, and his markings are the brownish grey of sagebrush, tinged with just a hint of sage-green in some lights. The sagebrush tones streak down his sides, spiral across his wingsails, and mark the twin bumps of his headknobs in subtle patterns that will have you staring at them for hours, trying to see some meaning.

Personality

Fortunate, indeed, is the man who takes exactly the right measure of himself and holds a just balance between what he can acquire and what he can use.
— Peter Latham

The primary foundation of Dyamith is balance. The eagle which he is based on is the symbol of balance, and the ability to see the “big picture”. Dyamith does nothing irrationally, and he does nothing without something else to balance it out. He fights Thread with amazing skill and power, but he also takes time out to relax with you on the Starstones, watching the night sky.

Dyamith is a very dignified dragon, to befit his status as the lord of the skies – not to mention lord of your heart. He’s got a solid sense of himself and his abilities. He’s neither self-deprecating nor arrogant, because he’s well enough in tune with himself to know where he truly stands. He is very deliberate in all of his actions, as well. Nothing is done impulsively, but rather reasoned out after weighing all the options and possibilities, and how it will effect the balance he’s carefully crafted in his life. If he fears that some action will put his world out of whack, he’ll simply not do it.

« Tell the Wingleader we cannot have sweeps tonight /and/ tomorrow morning after drills all day today, Desba. It doesn’t leave room for rest and time to refocus. »

And that will be all there is too it. He’s very strong minded about things, and stubborn, and is highly unlikely to change his mind on anything, even if the Wingleader herself comes to tell him he must do the sweeps. The only exception to this is you; you alone can sway his opinion once it is made. If he senses that you feel particularly strongly in one direction or another, he will give in to your wishes. It’s all about balance again, you see. If things are unbalanced between you and Dyamith, it will obviously spread out to unsort everything in your lives. It’s a ripple-effect type of thing, and the relationship between you and he is the rock – things must be good and whole between you two for things to be good anywhere else.

For all that he’s stubborn and unmovable in his opinions, Dyamith is surprisingly empathetic. He’s able to easily sense what other people are feeling, and you will never be able to figure out how he knows it. But he does, and it will lead him to advise you to be less harsh on someone, or ask you to be particularly friendly to A’hoy today because he can tell the bluerider’s a bit down in the dumps. Dyamith understands that you have high expectations for people, but he’s a bit more open-minded. He understands that everyone must make time to be lazy sometimes, so long as they also make time for work. Besides, if Pern were filled with a million little Desbas running around, that would /certainly/ disrupt the balance of the world, so he easily accepts people or dragons that are different from him.

Without a sense of proportion there can be neither good taste nor genuine intelligence, nor perhaps moral integrity.
—Eric Hoffer

As we’ve said, Dyamith’s a skilled Thread-fighter. He’s precise, quick, strong and fearless. But he doesn’t do it out of blood-lust, no, he does it to protect Pern. He’s never afraid during ‘Fall, even from the first time you fly against it. Quite the opposite in fact. He’s likely to risk himself – and perhaps even you – to sear a clump of Thread that might endanger one of his wingmates. This is founded in his strong sense of responsibility. He’s like Isamath in this respect. He’s completely dedicated to you, his wing, the Weyr, and Pern; in that order. He’s willing to risk himself so completely this way because of his wider understanding of the “big picture”. He realizes that his life means little in the grand scheme of things, and it would be better to give it up for an honourable cause and perhaps save someone else, than to save himself and let the others die.

If you ever ask him about his theories on life, or why he’s so dedicated to balance and duty, he’ll give you an earful. Dyamith’s remarkably wise for a dragon, able to talk eloquently on the circle of life, and how death isn’t the end but rather another beginning. He can explain that you and he are just little parts of the whole tapestry of life, and he can discuss the importance of living a balanced life. Maiioth will love him for this, and despite all her unending questions Dyamith will never grow tired of answering them. His intelligence encompasses other topics too, and he can follow the rapid yammering of Esryth, or listen in on a conversation between riders and be able to understand.

Again, Dyamith does nothing irrationally. If he dislikes someone or something, he’ll have a reason to back it up. He may not like R’um because the brownrider doesn’t understand that Pern does not revolve around him. And he’ll like Celvynath because she appreciates the small things in life, and the necessity of both working hard and taking breaks. But even those people and dragons he dislikes he’ll see some value in. They are part of the complex web of life, and without them the entire pattern would be different.

The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life."
— Albert Einstein

The eagle totem also represents an ability to see “hidden spiritual truths”. In Dyamith this manifests itself in his ability to /always/ know when Desba is lying. You’ll never get away with it, though you may try your hardest. His empathy and knowledge of you combine to make it simply impossible. While not quite as skilled as seeing lies in other dragons and people, he’s still got a talent for it and he can generally spot at least the /big/ lies, if not the smaller ones. For this reason he’ll be rather fond of Maiioth. All the other dragons may get tired of hearing her speak so bluntly, but Dyamith will admire it.

Dyamith, for all his focus on responsibility and deliberation, has a decidedly silly side to him as well. He’s got a strange fascination for feathers – they’re rare on Pern, so when he finds one he might sit for hours just staring at it. You may end up with a fairly large collection of them in your weyr, when he decides one is pretty enough to take home. Or he may decide to chase it across the bowl while it blows around in the wind.

He’s also quite insistent that you two have fun more often. Work and then play you see, and if you work hard you then get to play hard. Balance. He’s not as young and carefree as Isamath can be when relaxed, but he’s got his moments of throwing a snowball at you when you aren’t looking. Or using his tail to shove you into the lake when you weren’t expecting it. If you complain about these things, he’ll take you aside to yet again explain the importance of having fun sometimes. It’s a rather long lecture, too, and you may soon learn it’s better to just go along with it than hear the whole thing all over again.

Flights

Dyamith has the speed and endurance and flying skills to do very well in mating flights - he can catch most greens, and probably a gold or two, without much difficulty.

But does he bother to even join the other males blooding in the pens? Well, only if it suits you, Desba. Dyamith is averse to doing anything that might bother you too much, and if you'd rather he didn't chase a particular green (Palia's Veriameth, for example), then he won't. So it's really up to you just how much he chases, and who. It's unlikely that he'd get so carried away that he'd be up after a female without you giving him permission of sorts.

When he does take part in flights though, he takes part in them whole-heartedly! The blood is drained, his huge wings beat fiercely, his mindvoice takes on sultry, almost hallucinogenic tones. And he'll rise to the heights, that’s for sure!


An eagle at the top of a low cedar-bush
On the sage-ash desert
Reflecting the scorch of the sun from his breast;
Eagle, with the sickle dripping darkly above.

Sun-breasted,
Staring two ways at once, to right and left;
Masked-one
Dark-visaged
Sickle-masked
With iron between your two eyes;
You feather-gloved
To the feet;
Foot-fierce;
Erect one;
The god-thrust entering you steadily from below.
You never look at the sun with your two eyes.
Only the inner eye of your scorched broad breast
Looks straight at the sun.

From "Eagle in New Mexico", D. H. Lawrence


So there you have him, Desba - your Dyamith. We hope you like how we've written him, but remember - he's your dragon, and you can play him any way you feel best for Desba! We're looking forward to playing with you both, anyway!

Credits

Name: Tye
Egg Desc: Palia; Sii'kyn tweak
Dragonet Desc: Wyn; Pyrene, Donis, Zai tweaks
Messages: Wyn, Donis; Zai tweak
Puppeteer: Donis
Inspiration:Zai, Donis, Wyn

Clutchmates:
Desba brown Dyamith
Palia green Veriameth
Kalaeya green Maiioth
A'hoy (Atohya) blue Mateyth (NPC)
Rajani (Rajanigandha) green Celvynath
Ryse (Chrysea) blue Paperth (NPC)
Ashli gold Isamath
R'um (Rylum) brown Runnerth (NPC)
X'ian (Axle) bronze Morchainth
D'nik (Dominicke) green Zveitseith
Aislinn blue Esryth

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