2024-07-08 - Colors Have Meaning

The Teaching Songs the Harper sings tug at something within Alaphiath. What do the colors mean for dragons, for their humans? They know gold and blue best, gold as Gwillanth and blue as Pertemarth. She loves them best of the minds outside the clutch, but what makes the difference between gold and the green they know much less well? Golds are so few, only Mother, Issrodeth, and Igith among the scattered throng of dragon minds, but there are supposedly many more greens, half the Weyr is the greenwill according to Gwillanth, even if Alaphiath could not have identified a particular one within the greens. Not yet, anyway. She would have to learn more about them, understand them more.

Blue, bronze, and last to come to mind for them, brown. What are they, compared to each other, to gold and green? Blue is sky-color, flying-dream-color, Pertemarth-Father-who-Mother-loves color. Alaphiath likes blue, but blue is so often unmentioned in the songs and when mentioned, often folded with the greens, separated from bronze and gold. Brown seems to have no set place; it seems caught between bronze and blue. Peeks-in-Bronze-Yuakajth thinks of other bronzes, of browns, but not blues or greens. It would seem that brown is closer to gold and bronze, and yet, gold and bronze are not always thought of with brown. Sometimes it is gold and bronze together, then brown, blue, and green together, apart from bronze and gold. Where does the difference lie? If they could find what was different about brown, then she thought the pieces would fit together better.

Frustrated with turning the thoughts over like pebbles, Alaphiath reaches out to another pondering mind.

"Why does brown have two places and none? Why are they sometimes with bronze and gold, sometimes with blue and green?"

The harper's song has them thinking about colors again. About what their place might be in the strangeness of the outside. Some colors are easier, blue is flight dreams, is father who is not sire, is beloved. Gold is mother, the one who is, the one who brings life. Bronze is father, and responsibility.

Greens are more complicated. They are like mother but not. There are many of them, and they know that some of their clutchmates think of themselves as greens already.

They have a fondness for brown, the color that they imagine is closest to them, and so, when they hear a voice reaching out, they cannot help but reply.

They have feelings about brown.

"I think they're the imbetweens." they answer, their voice soft, but passionate. "the ones that change. The ones that can fill any place needed because they aren't locked into place. That's why they're mentioned in two places, but don't have one of their own."

Alaphiath is surprised by their sibling's passion for browns. She shouldn't be surprised though. Even though Alaphiath likes blues best, the color they think fits them best, the idea of browns filling the place between settles her discomfort. She likes it when things have a place, even if they aren't always in that place. The idea of being forced to be on the outside is unsettling. They don't like being the center of attention, but being entirely ignored is uncomfortable too. It is good that browns have a place too.

"It's good to have a place to be."

A feeling of agreement.

"I am not sure that I like this whole rank thing though," they admit. "why shouldn't blues be with bronze, and greens with gold." That, admittedly, still left browns kind of in the middle, but they were okay with that. It wasn't a bad place to be.

"It just feels a bit unnecessary."

"It does. Why should color be such a determiner of rank? Doing the job well should be more important than color."

Alaphiath believed this entirely. It was silly not to let the person who did the job the best do it because their hide was the "wrong" color. Let those who knew how to lead, lead and those who didn't know how learn from them. Even Mother couldn't tell what color dragon was in an egg until it hatched and personalities developed long before that.

"Exactly." It was nice to know that Alaphiath and her had similar feelings towards the whole matter. "It's all just shell color." Unimportant, and without a hint of what was contained inside. Leadership could be taught if one was interested in the position, and she couldn't imagine that there weren't any blues, greens or browns that might want to learn.

"Why do you think they care so much?" They asked, curious about Alaphiath's opinion. "Do you think it's the people more than the dragons?"

"Maybe, but some dragons seem to believe it too. Look at Peeks-in-Bronze-Yuakajth; he never speaks of blues and greens. I think the people might reinforce that kind of thinking in dragons who think that way already or just want to make their partner happy. I like blues; they make me happy." Alaphiath liked the color and thought it was unfair how often they were ignored.

"What do you think?"