2024-07-14 - What It Knows, What It Can't, What It Will

Moss Blankets the World, now Neath, is a small, mostly brown egg, dappled with greens in a natural-looking, appealing pattern reminiscent of, as its name suggests, some species of moss. It sits nestled deep into the sands, and though its position changes from time to time it never shifts far from where its mother rolls it.

Part of this may be due to its round, stout shape. The other part may be because of how its shell is strangely soft, even now as the rest of the clutch has mostly hardened up - it seems almost like the egg of a reptile such as a snake. The shape bulges and shifts often and noticeably as the dragonet inside grows ever larger, which looks bizarre. It seems healthy otherwise, bright and shiny like any other egg - its strange firmness (or lack thereof) is its only truly unusual or concerning feature.

As of the Rifts event, Neath's shell is noticeably misshapen. Whether or not this has had an effect on the hatchling within is yet to be seen, but its mind is as strong and healthy as ever after a brief period of inactivity.

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Neath is, at its core, easygoing: if it were any more laid-back it would just be going backwards. It's easy to describe it as lazy, and it's not an entirely false assessment, but there's more to it than just that: a low, determined sort of affection for those around it. It's not going to stop anybody from making a rash decision or from getting caught up in their emotions, but it's more than happy to be there for the aftermath. This mellow attitude can easily verge into complacency - it takes "you can't control everything" a little too seriously. It has, at least, improved from its earliest days in the egg, developing a moderately more active sense of curiosity even if it's liable to shut off and stop caring as soon as something gets too complicated and discovering a great capacity for determined protectiveness when a situation turns dire.

Its interactions with others can range from relaxing for both parties to extremely frustrating. Neath is the kind of lazy that leads eventually to stubbornness if it's pushed too hard - a dog laying down halfway through a walk and demanding to be carried home. Outside of those moments its general demeanour is that of relaxed contentment. It doesn't like to complain and doesn't like to give others reason to complain either, as long as they aren't asking more of it than it is willing to give. There's a darker underbelly to this relaxed outer face: if it is feeling something particularly strongly, it's more likely to hide it than speak freely of it. Its frustrations, upsets, and joys are all simmered down until they look the same.

This is, of course, not to say that it doesn't feel. It feels deeply, love more than anything else. Neath is a being that will eventually live up to its egg-name, Moss Blankets the World. Grand shows of affection will never be its style, but it will always provide a soft landing and somewhere comfortable to rest for those who need it. Its tolerance for the overly-energetic, the angry, and the cruel will be little, its affection for the world and everything else in it great.

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Neath's mindvoice is low, soothing, and slow - the creep of moss over the forest floor, the patter of the last remains of a rainstorm on the undergrowth, the slow rustle of a large animal making its way through the foliage. It speaks always in an unhurried manner, even when others feel a situation calls for immediate action, and seems to slow further when pressed or pushed. Its presence lingers like a vague feeling of dampness - pleasant to some and utterly offputting to others. Its mindvoice rarely changes very noticeably with its emotions, though the particularly perceptive (and those with a close relationship with it) will notice the minute shifts in temperature, humidity, and texture that correspond to different feelings.