Rina’s Manatee Or Mermaid? Green

Melantath!

Blue. Every shade, from dark-laced to incandescent light flickers with a life of its own across the curved surface of this watery-coloured egg. Pale blue, almost white in countenance, melts from the broad base of the ovoid into a slowly deepening shade of indigo. Indigo darkens into the slick night of navy towards the narrow end of the egg, till blue has almost become black. Light fades from one end of the other as colour deepens further into the depths of the abyss.

Abyss Of Watery hosts a play of watery shadows, deep, deep beneath the surface, disturbed by subterranean ripples of internalized force … and then suddenly shattered by a pale talon, monolith rising from the deep as liquid flecks of shell fall away entirely to reveal – or almost reveal - Manatee Or Mermaid? Green Dragonet.

Manatee Or Mermaid? Green Dragonet

Pale malachite crests in slow, arcing waves along the rounded edges of her shoulders to lend a luminous seafoam-streaked quality to the wrinkled folds of her hide. Tiny ribbons of kelp-like green spiral outwards along the briny whip of her tail to camoflage the spaded end beneath a ripple of marine shadow; these same twirls of darker color fleck around each agile, flattened paw, capable of piercing the air with nary a splash of turbulence. Sage affixes itself to draconic features to sculpt flesh and bone into a smooth, graceful countenance from afar - up close, however, barnacle-like crags and breakwater crinkles nearly hide the emerald allure that beckons the eye. Aquatic undulations ebb and flow across her wings, set free in skeins of vivid colors only to frolick from spar to sail and lend a hint of dangerous mischief to this siren's mien.

Manatee Or Mermaid? Green Dragonet advances ever so subtly, perhaps just a figment that she has even moved at all: but she knows what she wants, and she will use whatever means lie at her disposal to get it. And ah! If Carina were beside herself, there'd be two of her, and she'd be in a quandary, for whichever one would she Impress? As it stands ... there is no question, and she nudges the candidate gently.

Carina feels a nudge at her feet as she is watching Alisha and her new lifemate... she turns to look over and sees Melantath in front of her face, staring up at her... She falls to her knees and looks in to her eyes and starts to cry... "Melantath! Oh, Melantath.."

Far from day, far from night Out of time, out of sight In between earth and sea We shall fly: follow me … Only you, only I World farewell, world goodbye To our home ‘neath the sea We shall fly: follow me … --- "Follow Me"

This song is sung by the spirit Nimue in the musical Camelot. She lures the magician Merlyn to a sparkling land beyond the mortal realm … but she also deprives King Arthur of his counsel when it is needed most. Nimue is often the name of the Lady of the Lake, a creature much associated with the waters … and very fitting for a green so closely tied with mermaid legends.

Merfolk (mermaids and mermen) are Water-Folk who live primarily beneath the sea. It is in Hellenic literature that one finds the first literary description of merfolk. Ovid writes that mermaids were born from the burning galleys of the Trojans where the timbers turned into the flesh and blood of the 'green daughters of the sea.'

Name Inspiration

You mentioned an attraction to puns, and specifically, to Xanth. While we were hesitant to name a dragon with a blatant pun – we worried that she might get mixed up with an NPC – we dug into our knowledge of Xanth and its mercreatures, and chose the name Melantath. Mela, or Melantha for long, Merwoman first shows up as a minor character to abduct Prince Dolph for her own. Though thwarted in this, she later returns as a main character in her own right to pursue her husband hunt, and after trial, tribulation and quite a bit of aid from her two companions Ida and Okra, eventually finds a prince of her own in Naldo Naga. Being a mercreature, it is quite logical that she doesn’t a hundred percent understand human conventions …

Physicality

Great strength rests in Melantath’s long and looming form, but it is not an overt strength, prone to overpowering everything in its path: rather, it is the sort that expresses itself in slow, seamless movement, gliding through the seas of life with nary a ripple. For all her size, her presence in the world is gentle, and she handles it with care.

Though most of her bulk rests to the fore, tail and limbs taper to surprisingly broad appendages, rudders for steering her through the skies or the waters. She is not so comfortable on land, and tends to move with gallumphing slowness, more pulling herself along than conventional steps. She tends to conserve herself when groundbound, and will inevitably spend some time sighting the shortest distance between two points.

Those barnacle accents are true to their rough texture, for they itch. From weyrlinghood and onwards, they will constantly need the attention of oil and a good scratching, and she is not at all adverse to rubbing up against whatever is handy to sate that uncomfortable tingling and prickling. Her paws and tail seem immune to this malady, fortunately, but when properly oiled, the sea-grass hues gleam brightly with hints of blue and gold, and the effect quite pleases her sense of the aesthetic. She even has her moments of vanity, though she requires constant reassurance from her rider on that point.

From afar, she appears perfection itself, her silhouette an alluring optical illusion wont to catch sunlight and shimmer, even on the cloudiest days. But by and large, it is only that: an illusion, for while her form is grace and pale purity, her features have a homely roughness, a handcrafted endeavor best appreciated by those who can see her inner beauty.

-- George Santayana

As a weyrling, she may be quite clumsy, and for all her grace, when she trips, she stumbles, she cannot avoid the price of looking entirely ungainly. Some dragons can lose their balance with aplomb; Melantath is not one of them.

The sky and the sea are her bailiwick: though can never be said to be swift in her navigation, her smooth deliberation makes curves and acrobatics deceptively easy underneath the wings. She has a way of shifting position so smoothly that it would take a sharp and attentive eye to even note that she had moved at all, but in this ease very few manuevers are barred to her.

Personality

Soft and tender, Melantath is a creature of mild moods and gentle bearing, rarely prone to wild thoughts or sharp reactions … rather, she ponders things in calm and rational fashion, and when she makes her conclusion, she is as immobile as a monolith. But like a monolith, she also does nothing to provoke assault, and nor does she respond in kind: she simply rests, safe and secure, in the cradle of her own beliefs, and leads by example, calmly trying to bring the rest of the world – or at least, the rest of the Weyrhold – around to her ways.

Selfless, she is always there for those who hurt or fear, with a few quiet words and a presence of quiet reassurance. She has a maternal steadiness that others find instinctively comforting, and like any mother, she has a particular soft spot for wee ones of any species. To her, they can quite simply do no wrong, a thing which sometimes hampers the sense of sternness she tries to project.

You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime. -- Dale Carnegie

The soul is healed by being with children. -- Fyodor Dostoyevski

If not a meddler herself, she sees no reason why Rina should not be: poking and prodding, she will push her lifemate to make things right for people, always with helpful suggestions … whether they are wanted or not. If reprimanded, she is entirely contrite, but those trickling thoughts, those ideas, never quite stop, and they creep in when Rina least expects it, leaking into the corners of her mind. She never forces her way into anything, but she is, in her own fashion, quite persistent: like water itself, she wears away at any resistance moment by moment, inch by gradual inch.

Ever so careful of the feelings of others, her words are always measured, and she is somewhat of a diplomat … but when ire, ever so hard to kindle, finally does arise, she can be curt, blunt and to the point. Those who test her limits and reach them will be the victims of quite the tongue-lashing, though it never is anger for its own sake: she seeks, even in the heat of the moment, to teach, to make right.

What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life. – Mermaid Tavern, John Keats

But even she is no saint, no solemn creature every moment and this becomes evident in her tendency towards subtle and merry mischief: not the sort that one can definitely pin on her, for this undermines her image too much, but she tends to toy with folk now and again, disorienting them, dropping hints of confusion and misinformation just to see how they deal with it. Her wit plays with sly choices of words and clever puns, quite prone to flitting airy from subject to subject. More than one soul will be sent floundering to the rocks in pure confusion. Maybe this is just part of her plan: what doesn’t kill one, makes one stronger, after all, but there are moments when she gets quite carried away, and Rina may have to stifle merry hints of malice. It isn’t that she means to hurt anyone; it just strikes her that this trick, this game, could be oh so much better with a little tweak.

Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. -- Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat

To Rina, she is forever gentle, forever tender, and an entire part of her being, sometimes scolding, sometimes prodding, but never overstepping her bounds. She flows, she ebbs, and wave into wave she flows through.

Mindvoice

Dark, deep and warm, Melantath’s mindvoice has presence: it fills the mind with room to spare, enveloping all other thoughts. Indeed, in its tranquil shadows, it possesses something of the feeling of a womb, cozy and comforting. The colors are muted by warm, amber shadow, sometimes scintillating as if viewed through a prism … other times distorted, marked by gentle ripples that mark the comings and goings of her thoughts.

Her scents are those of the sea near the shore, the soft tang of salt so distinct from the smell of an inbound storm … although moments of more fervent emotion often bring that distant turbulence to her mindvoice as well. She often has a more tactile touch than other dragons: the gritty and yet strangely soothing sensation of wet sand, the clinging tenacity of seaweed.

In moments of excitement, or when she feels particularly strong about something, her thoughts become melodic, a high and sweet soprano contrast set against the dark waves of her usual manner. Intricate and compelling, a feast for the ear, this tapestry of sound is also the one she uses to wheedle or cajole her lifemate.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. -- Aldous Huxley

Flights

When Melantath begins to glow, her nature becomes rather more abrupt and demanding: she knows what she wants, and she pulls no punches in trying to get it. She still plays smart, offering no challenges, desiring to alienate no one … but this means that she uses apart "mistakes" to her tactical advantage, and woe to the male who attempts to rescue this damsel in distress … for those shiney objects her fancy has lit upon, it may take all the forces of heaven and earth to draw apart.

Her color seems to darken when she is proddy, that emerald sheen that formerly only hints in brief flashes then deepening and strengthening its beckoning gleam. Subterrenean shadows seem to lurk, swallowing her usual lightness, adding a darker, more somber character to her appearance. She grows more aloof, for the mere reason that she knows she looks better from afar, a glittering gem on the horizon.

So why wasn’t she married? It wasn’t as if she were choosy. All she wanted was the nicest, handsomest, most manly and intelligent unmarried prince in Xanth, who would be pleased to let her do anything she wanted. – Mela Merwoman’s "modest standards" …

When she flies, her requirements are exacting, the chase as much a test and the green – as far as she is concerned – in complete control of the proceedings. She has one criteria, and one criteria only: she expects the best, and has no care for the fate of inferiors. That smooth grace becomes an optical illusion of a more dangerous sort, for many are the mid-air tangles she can cause with the right twist of her form. However, she prides herself on exact control over her flights, and anger sets in swiftly when the seas of the sky become stormy and unpredictable. It’s there that she falters; there that she finds harbor in sheltering wings.

Credits

Manatee Or Mermaid? Green Hatchling

Egg: Abyss Of Watery Dreams Egg

Egg desc: Fyria

Name: Talmry

Dragon desc: Talmry, Fyria tweak, Aliss ideas

Messages: Talmry

Inspiration: Talmry, Aliss

Puppeteer: Talmry