Dust's Delinquents

Sherlock, The Distance of Deduction Wind
Form: Firefly
Speech: Bold#5bbab1

Dust is a Hunter.  As such, he's familiar with the idea of needing nothing and no one but the call of the wilderness and whatever rugged hazards are to be found out there.  Perhaps he's even familiar with disdain for civilization and the trappings that make people...soft.  Vulnerable.  Not that this Wind is necessarily trying to be aloof and abrasive.  Xe just doesn't have the time or the patience to tolerate people xe views as less valuable because they have homes.  They go home at night, they have steady jobs, that means they stay in one place and likely have One Job.  They don't travel, they don't study every topic under the sun...nope, no time to put up with that kind of dead weight, sorry not sorry.

This Wind lives to see the WHOLE world!  Every bit of it, and xe strives to specialize in all knowledge, not just one or two specific topics.  Becoming a specialist in everything isn't necessarily easy, is usually left to the Arcane rank of the Athid species, but a Wind is most widely-traveled and has the most worldly context for all of that knowledge.  This one in particular has an uncanny knack for knowing things in instants that it has no business knowing, stitching deductions together in seconds of viewing what should take hours of study or extensive interrogation to discover the truth of.  Knowing so much takes the mystery out of people, which is another reason xe has so much trouble putting up with them.  They're too simple, not only stagnant but boring.  Dust, at least, is equally traveled and prone to attracting interesting things.  Perhaps he'll have need of a competent deductive analyst too?

About half the size of Dust's palm, this Athid is an oversized mechanical firefly.  Clockwork workings, filligree wings, a big lightbulb screwed in where the abdomen should be.  This lightbulb changes color depending on the Wind's mood, much the way dragon and firelizard eye color does.

Shrike, the Never Again Nightmare

Every Firemane foal spends the time it develops within its mother’s womb telepathically connected to that mother, being educated on matters of speech, history, general knowledge, ambition, morality… with the general expectation that the mother will not immediately try to murder her offspring as soon as it is born.

This Nightmare did not have that luxury.  She is determined never to be a victim again.  Even if she has to throw someone else into the path of an oncoming harbinger of death to save her own skin, she will not be a victim again.  But this is a concept you're not unfamiliar with, isn't it, Dust?  You've been torn apart too, and it's a pretty safe bet you won't let those same people get you twice.  However, having Crow nearby to revive you might do you a great deal of good with this little lady around, because her determination to survive can and likely will see you mauled by anything and everything that first tries to hurt *her*, because she'll have even fewer qualms about scraping attention off of herself and onto you once she figures out you're invincible.

Her deep plum-black pelt is lacerated with wounds from the attack, scars that will never heal.  Her eyes and flames burn a bright and powerful orange.

Asher, The Space Between Is And May Be Geothermal

Asher has seen too much.

There’s more to him than that, of course, a millenia’s knowledge and experience wrapped up in a reedy metal frame, but all he is circles back to that single, incontrovertible truth. Asher has seen too much. Life, love and loss have each left their own indelible marks in his psyche. Life has taught him the value of hard work and resilience. Love has shown him the fragility inherent in existence. Loss... well, loss has come to define him, and it’s become the face he shows the world.

Asher is an irritable and irascible athid, dismissive on the best of days and downright derisive on his worst. Perennially short-tempered, he has no time for pleasantries and even less for those who insist upon them. He’s blunt, infamously so, and expects the same from anyone unfortunate enough to interact with him. Worse yet, he’s physically incapable of considering the feelings of others. In the grand scheme of things a few ruffled feathers are a small price to pay for efficiency, and he prizes economy of effort above almost all else. Above logic comes knowledge, the only thing he will bend to, and oh, what knowledge he pursues! Asher’s a walking, talking library of an athid, full to bursting with knowledge obscure and forbidden. What he knows is chump change compared what he desires to know, and he pursues his thirst for knowledge with a singlemindedness that’s frightening to behold. As little as he cares for others, Asher cares even less for himself, and thinks nothing of sacrificing his own well-being (or that of others) in the pursuit of knowledge.

It’s only fitting that a creature as infamously prickly as Asher would take the form of a wasp. He measures a solid foot from mandibles to stinger, with a wingspan half again as long as his frame. It’s hard to say what he’s made of simply because he’s got a little bit of everything on his frame. Each of his lower legs is made of a long screw bent at the halfway point. Capacitors connect each upper leg to his body. Each of his long, almost elegant wings seems to have been punched out of a sheet of plastic webbing. The majority of Asher’s parts are bare metal and plastic, all save for his right foreleg. That leg is instead apparently crafted from living quicksilver, pulsing in time with Asher’s movements. Stranger still, it doesn’t always seem to be under his direct control.[/b]

Telemachus, the Nobility Unicorn

TBA.

Zavala, the A Courageous Champion who Gives his All Male Honor Gryphon

A noble and respected warrior, there was no call he won't answer, no foe he isn't willing to face down in combat. This Gryphon is in every sense of the word a 'Champion.' He is courteous to both friend and even foe, compassionate to the innocent, and on the battlefield a warrior his enemies would rightly choose to fear. From a young age it almost seemed he was marked for greatness, something everyone around him could see and recognize for what it was, so when he ventured out on a patrol and returned marked by the Ruins, it really came as little surprise. Since that day it has been a mantle he has carried with dignity and a willing heart to protect everything he holds dear and the cause of good.

At heart he is something of a tradionalist, and can have a hard time adapting to new modes of thinking. Not so much in the terms of gender-roles, as all Gryphons of any gender can be any rank and thus take up any role in society, but in that history and the way things have been done are important and should always be adhered to. If it is tradition to bow his head in greeting to the Weyrwoman, then he will always bow his head in greeting no matter what she may say otherwise. If this holiday indicates a day or rest or fasting, he will insist this is done. The hierarchy of many creatures is something that should be respected, and he will chide those who for example make untoward comments to their 'superiors' in rank or speak as if the Queens and Lords are on the same level as the Common and Uncommon creatures. Not to say he will be condescending to anyone, and he understands that sometimes others simply don't see things his way, but if it is a tradition, he cares about it.

One of the 'traditional' mannerisms of his that might prove to be a bit trying to his Bonded is that he views himself as a defender, and thus when it comes to battle is often tries to go it alone. It's not that he can't work with others or understand group strategy - even he knows he can't take down an army single-taloned and is quite well-versed in unit tactics - but the truth is that he simply cares too deeply and intensely about those he loves to bear seeing them in danger or hurt. To this end he will try to keep them from the front lines no matter how skilled they might be, become distant if he has made an enemy he feels will threaten them until that enemy is dealt with, and take blows for his cherished ones no matter how many such blows he has already taken. As with everything in his life this desire is driven by the only thing that can be said to match his courageous spirit, and that's his great heart. Perhaps someday he will realize that he doesn't always have to work alone and in fact will likely be stronger than ever with such allies at his side, but until then his Bonded should expect strong resistance from that quarter.

As Honor Gryphons are the tallest of their kind, so is he one of the taller specimens of the rank, standing easily at the seven feet mark and even able to make himself look taller when he proudly lifts his head and strides forward with all bravery. His fur and feathers are a unified deep blue-gray, with silvery colorations on his shoulders, lower front legs, and flanks like he always wears the finest armor (a thing he would greatly enjoy should his Bonded have some outfitted for him!), and on his chest the blue-silver Mark that all Champions chosen by the Ruins bear. His piercing amber eyes can flash from gentle to fierce at a moment's notice, and every one of his talons is silver.

Dodge, the Athid/Sahrimn Hybrid Female

One of Asher's triplets, descended from a behrserkr sahrimn. Hot-tempered and often destructive, infuriated by the fact she's itty bitty.