2024-07-06 - [4.4] Round Robin

At first she didn’t understand the purpose of Jemeer’s songs. This music, which is what Mother had called it, was quite nice to listen to – to watch the sounds dance in little ripples on the beach – but none of it made any sense. They mentioned color, Mother’s color, Father’s color, and other ones. Xijemynth knew that she had a color, too, but… that was about it.

Did her siblings understand what Jemeer meant? Were they supposed to pick one, or else…? Was this something Gwillanth would give them? Tilting her head, Xijemynth padded over to the surf, sighing deeply as she let the cool water wash over her paws.

What do you think of this? She asked the seafoam and her siblings.

Colour is another one of those niggling things - like names, like the reason Pertemarth trains and Mother's constant tides slow and grow choppy with worry - that Knuadth had dismissed at first, but now must scramble to actually pay attention to. The songs only make it all more confusing. If he's singing to Mother, shouldn't it be blue and gold? Details on what lies outside are scarce, but he can be quite sure Pertemarth is blue, which... well, according to the songs, that Means Something. Does it also mean something, for him to be so close to Mother, but for him to never be in Issrodeth's or Yuakajth's thoughts?

And what about Thread? It is important in the songs. Will they all have to fight it?

It all tangles together and seems far too big to unravel. While Knuadth rarely chimes in on open questions until someone else has spoken first, he is glad to know his siblings might be as uncertain.

"I don't know," he says, a hazy murmur laid over Xijemynth's wash of waves. "It doesn't all make sense to me..."

I doubt it will wholly make sense until we are able to see colors with our own eyes, Kanyoth grumbled. It was not the discussion of color that initially attracted his attention so much as the water in the mind of one of his clutchmates. Kanyoth was more a creature of earth, but features of the earth, such as canyons, are carved by water, so with the presence of water she pays attention.

Before we continue, she goes on, your names? There are so many of us, I don't know everyone's names. I'm Kanyoth.

Xijemynth, she says, her mind a brush of salt-tinged breeze. Kanyoth's mind is just as foreign to her, though there is a part of her that understands. Earth is grounding, solid, though she preferred hers to not be as looming as a canyon wall. Sand at least was similar to water, with it's own particular flow.

Back to this color matter. I have... a feeling, she paused, struggling to articulate her thoughts. Like a tide pool teeming with life, the waves washed in and out, churning and ever flowing. I think by the time we can see, it will be too... far? Late?

Was this something they had to think about now, then? Xijemynth snorted, kicking up a spray of sand. She hated being rushed. Thinking back, she picked her way around Jemeer's words. Bronze and Gold. Why had he started there of all places? Why not focus on exciting things like having wings, or flying, or feeling your claws sink into driftwood? She knew that he meant Mother when he mentioned “gold,” but Mother took care of them, so that was natural. Issrodeth led the Weyr, however she did that, and Igith did… something. Either way, it was just the three of them, and Xijemynth knew in her core that she didn’t want to join them. All they did was sit around all day, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near that big or have people tell her what she could or couldn’t do, if her conversations with Father were anything to go off of.

And “bronze” was no better. The little she’d seen of Yuakajth or Valyth she hadn’t liked. They were prideful, and they did things according to Pertemarth, but they just felt… too different to her. No use worrying over them either.

Knuadth is careful to only eddy and swirl pensively as the others add their thoughts, one solidly set and bounded, the other still drifting back and forth on the matter.

"Knuadth," he offers in return, skimming through the gnarled earth of Kanyoth's mind to be polite, but his thoughts are far past introductions. "It does seem too important to let wait. But do we... choose one? Is it a decision to make when we leave?" But that doesn't seem quite right. Had Mother chosen to be Mother? Of course she had chosen to have them all, and there are some complicated undercurrents to that too... Yuakajth is there, for some reason, factoring in even though he is never nearby. The few bronzes that visit the sands all seem very loud about being bronze, so perhaps they did pick and are quite happy with it?

Would he want to sit and have to listen to people, and only dream of the sky? Probably not. Which only leaves brown, blue, and green... all presenting a core problem.

"Are these songs really supposed to help us?" He certainly wasn't finding them helpful.

How so, Xijemynth? asks Kanyoth bluntly - but not judging, just curious. I fail to see how we can really do anything about anything while we are bound like this. As for colors - I'm not sure how much it matters? It's a human singing those songs, and he seems to care about it, but he's a human. Humans don't seem to have these color distinctions like dragons do. It may be that because he's a human, he doesn't quite understand how it works, because it's not something he experiences. Obviously we don't entirely get it because we don't experience it either.

He turns his attention to Knuadth. I don't know how we'd go about choosing a color. And I don't particularly care what color I am. I just want to leave. I don't like being stuck here, unable to really do anything.

As for the songs - I thought they were meant as entertainment for Gwillanth and us. And I find them entertaining.

I believe they are important, Xijemynth answers, letting her focus fall on her sibling’s questions. Otherwise why come by everyday and sing them? They are entertaining, of course, but nothing is that entertaining to hear the same exact thing day in and day out. Apparently they teach all humans these songs, which means we must know them just as well, too. At any rate, I don’t think it’s entirely useless to try and understand them.

Thinking back, Xijemynth considers the remaining colors. Green, Blue, Brown. While she doesn’t have an exact idea of what those mean, she has inklings of feeling associated with each. If she was supposed to choose one to represent herself… then perhaps she had better solidify her opinions soon.

Green and Blue were… interesting. They were close, but clearly apart in her mind, like sand and water. And then there was this ‘greenwill’ that Mother often spoke of. Greens are always clustered together like that – as the many, the numerous. That didn’t seem bad to Xijemynth, at least not on principle, but she didn’t exactly like the idea of being seen as one big mass of dragon. Where would she fit into all of that? Were Greens not their own dragons then? And what did this ‘greenwill’ even do? What is its purpose?

Pertemarth is Blue, and that makes it somewhat more familiar. Xijemynth pours over everything she thought she heard him say about his chosen color. She doesn’t know how much she agrees with him on respecting Bronzes (seems a bit much for them), and really she has a hard time latching on to anything concrete. Blue was apparently a color that escaped sharp notice just as much as Green.

And Brown was disappointingly no different. She can’t recall ever hearing or feeling a Brown before, which made it all the more mysterious. Apparently it was close to Bronze? Or was that Blue?

AGHH! What did any of this mean?!

Why can’t they be more straightforward in these songs? Xijemynth complained. The waters of her mindscape had gone choppy with annoyance, and she flexed her toes into the sand. She just wanted to be her own self, not part of some collective or forgotten on the edges. Like how things were with her siblings – they were all connected, but they each had their own lives, their own thoughts and feelings. Why, if they were supposed to choose one of these colors, did they make it so difficult?

Knuadth is still doubtful whether venturing out is really worth so much trouble and fuss. Of course, he will have to leave eventually, but why rush? It has taken so long just to get a grasp on all the minds of his siblings, and how to not be overwhelmed by them.

"All of the songs mention fighting, flaming... what Pertemarth does, I think." And the bronzes, but they are more distant, less easily used as examples. "I do not know if I would want to fight. Does that mean I should be gold?" But being like Mother... he certainly felt no draw towards the idea. It seemed like so much work and involvement, and she (and Igith, Issrodeth) seems so central in a way he is sure he wouldn't enjoy. Which brings his thoughts back to all the others.

Maybe brown? That colour seems to come up the least. Maybe it is the safest choice, even if it did mean having to fight Thread. But that also makes it a complete unknown....

He dithers, thoughts looping around and around.

If we're supposed to memorize these songs, you would think somebody like Mother would say so, Kanyoth grumbled - not at Xijemynth, but at the idea those outside about the clutch would be so indirect about what they expected and still somehow insistent that this clutch fulfill those expectations. And I didn't mean to suggest it was entirely useless to understand them - I just wanted to reassure you that I don't think you have to worry about it if you don't want to.

Just because all humans might be expected to learn these songs doesn't necessarily mean that these songs are meant to teach things, she hummed - not a musical, instrumental hum so much as the the deep, bassy hum of the living earth. Though if they are meant to teach things, they should be clearer. It would be nice if those outside the clutch were more direct about what they want us to learn here, if anything. If they know we can hear the songs, then they should know they can just talk to us and tell us these things.

Knuadth seemed concerned about fighting and flaming, which wasn't something Kanyoth worried about at all. The idea of fighting didn't scare her. She'd been fighting her confines for so long now. If there was something that needed to be fought and flamed, she was up to the challenge. But she didn't think saying so would be particularly comforting to Knuadth. Besides, that wasn't directly the question he was asking. I think the golds have a different sort of fight to deal with, she observed. They are seen less as themselves and more as central points of the Weyr structure. Which isn't to say one can't possibly be both, but I think it would be better to just be seen as somebody than to just be seen as a role.

While Xijemynth's thoughts were like turbulent water and Knuadth's thoughts were spinning around and around, Kanyoth was currently as calm as the still earth. She did not care about color. Only freedom.

Xijemynth nodded in agreement, her egg rustling companionably in its sand mooring. I think the humans have a hard time understanding us, she added, her mind tinged with a mix of amusement and exasperation. Maybe we should come up with new songs they can learn from instead of these unhelpful ones.

And on the topic of flaming -- I always thought of it like flying. Like hunting. These are all things we don't know how to do yet, but we will learn once we're free. I'm sure someone will teach us, she added for Knuadth's benefit. Why Mother (or anyone else) wasn't teaching them these things now Xijemynth didn't know, and she didn't ask aloud for fear of making Knuadth's worries worse. And though they were there, she wasn't sure if they counted enough towards... whatever it was that made a dragon gold. Would that make you happy? She posed, following up Kanyoth's observation. In her mind, it was always more important to go after what you wanted, rather than run away from what made you afraid.

Sighing softly, Xijemynth settled, the edges of her mind growing sluggish and placid. There would be no answer to their questions of color or role today then, it seemed. Perhaps that would all be answered when they were free, a surprise not only for the Weyr, but for themselves as well.