Arolaeth x Fenrith - Winter 2012

Solar Eclipse Egg
Matte black, huge and ominous, looms over the rest of the clutch. Though largest by far, at first this egg appears to be the least interesting. When in the shadows that usually cover much of the hatching sands, it remains a dull, reflectionless black. It is only during that all-too-brief time of day when the sun peeks through the hole in the cavern roof that its hidden glory is revealed: a corona of brightest gold, unmistakable in its aureate sheen. Once spotted, occasionally even in shadow it might be possible to glimpse the brilliant aura from the corner of one's eye, a promise of light as yet unfulfilled.

Mind Touches
Shimmering Translucent Veils descend around you, gentle as a butterfly. It's as if the heat shimmers from the sands have become something more, something substantial and yet gossamer-thin. There's a sense of a presence, hiding there, just out of your sight… but somehow, you know it's watching you.

Shimmering Translucent Veils ripple, carefully, coruscating colors faintly overlaying your perceptions. It's a confusing bundle of almost-sensations: amusement, perhaps, or impatience, or curiosity. There's a sound, maybe, though it's barely even a whisper of wind curling through your hair. Is it whispering to you? Or about you?

Shimmering Translucent Veils flicker /through/ you, seeming to brush against the very fiber of your being. It's not an unpleasant sensation, but rather like one of temporarily being asleep. The impression left behind is one of a young mind, unformed, and full of dreams.

Shimmering Translucent Veils ever so slowly fall away as the little mind contained within the shell turns to other thoughts, other dreams.


Edge of the Abyss Egg
The darkest reaches of space, the limitless black of the void, the maw of the abyss itself have engulfed this medium-sized ovoid. The darkest darkness is interrupted only by what might be tricks of the eye: a jagged slash of charcoal here, a pixelation of greys and mustards there. They never seem to be in the same place or pattern twice, though perhaps it's just that this egg has been turned more than most? It seems to suck in the light, fooling the mind into visualizing colors and afterimages against its too-black shell that can't possibly be there. With this egg, it might be best not to stare too long into the abyss…

** Mind Touches **
Linear Streams of Light streak, one by one, through your vision to obscure your view of the shell itself. They're razor-thin, electric yellow and lime green and cool aqua, and leave behind dark afterimages. The order is precise, slowly coalescing into an evenly-spaced latticework. Only once the barest outline is in place can you feel the cool brush of a foreign mind against yours.

Linear Streams of Light might be juvenile, yet: there's a feeling of trying — and failing, for now — for far greater complexity than this paltry light show. Frustration is there, just below the surface for the very sensitive to perceive, but there's also a quiet pride and over-arching self-confidence expressed in a soft electric hum. Then, a feeling of indrawn breath: it is waiting, perhaps, to see your reaction.

Linear Streams of Light begin to vibrate, then all at once there's a feeling in your fingers like a static shock. Was it pleased with your reaction? Upset? Indifferent? It's impossible to tell in a mind as alien as this one. The filaments twist over one another, describing inscrutable wire-frame shapes that slowly decrease in complexity as, one by one, the colored lines fade into afterimage, and then into nothingness… and, with them, the mind of their creator.


Gale Force Winds Egg
A deep grey criss-crosses this eggs surface, the color of the darkest storm clouds that swirl and twist. Darker shapes appear to be being blown about the surface as if battered by the punishing winds of this violent storm. There is a single bright point in the color of the egg: a silver circular point from which all of the storms power seems to radiate.

Mind Touches
Light in the Darkness flickers. For a moment, it's there, and then not. And again, and then not; so faint, so fleeting you're not certain if it's true or just a figment of your imagination. So elusive, it's as if you could only catch a glimpse from the corner of your mind's eye. But no. No, after what seems forever, you catch a glisten, a glitter, a gleam, like a single star amid an ocean of celestial blackness.

Light in the Darkness flickers again, but this time it is more substantial. It flickers, flutters, and then grows stronger, like a candleflame suddenly rescued from a guttering breeze. It sheds light all around, and yet is not strong enough to beat the darkness back on its own. The shades press in all around, as if they would snuff that light out, and once more the candleflame vanishes, leaving your mind no more illuminated than before.

Light in the Darkness flickers, then flares, like an unexpected campfire, seen at a far distance. It glows, it brightens, and begins to cast its own shadows along the darkness, glittering with almost imaginary sparkles. And so it remains for several heartbeats until it abruptly explodes. That's no campfire, but something bigger, bolder, far more substantial, onrushing towards you until you stand cowed by the brightness of the light, almost blinded by the brilliance that penetrates your mind. After all, the light at the end of this tunnel is a dragon.


Bedlams Egg
The surface of this egg is very dark at first glance, seeming a uniformed color. On closer inspection though bands of myriads of color streaks tough this surface blending together into a bizarre a twisting pattern, drawing the viewers eyes deeper and deeper into the colors depth. Its an entrancing effect, somewhat menacing, as though the egg is trying to draw you. It does, in fact almost feel like a trap.

Mind Touches
Purr in the Night coils about your mind, rubbling lightly across your senses. You are considered with an infinite amount of curiosity. Dissatisfied, it bats at you for a few moments, trying to make up its own mind: are you friend, food, or fun?

Purr in the Night pads close to you on ephemeral paws to consider you once more. There is a sensation akin to being licked, a stroke across your mind as you are tasted to see if you are, in fact, worthy of being its companion. Or its pet.

Purr in the Night settles down near to you, and contemplates you for a long while, aloof. Perhaps you aren't worth its time after all!


Screaming Meemies Egg
If you have ever been in a spooky cavern with dark shadows overlapping darker shadows, this egg might look familiar or call that place to mind. Dark greys overlap darker greys and some sections of the egg just seem plain black. Though sometimes the egg gets turned over and a few lighter spots appear, like the light of Rukbat reflecting off of one of the moons. It makes a pattern that looks like a dragon with no tail or neck is winging its way across the moon, silhouetted while the wings are outstretched from side to side.

Mind Touches
Archeronean Sigh is silent at first, and then there is a growing rustling, at first like dry leaves, then more like larger leathery wings of perhaps firelizards, hundreds or even thousands of them coming towards you. You feel yourself wanting to duck with your hands over your head to keep their claws from tangling in your hair.

Archeronean Sigh is with you as a deceptive, bright flash flares within your minds eye, and suddenly your nostrils detect the smell of smoke. You hear an almost maniacal laughter well up from a distance. It gets closer and closer. Suddenly it stops only to be replaced by a high pitched siren-like sound. It starts out high, then drops in pitch as it swells in volume, then it recedes again, getting higher in pitch as it gets softer.

Archeronean Sigh is very much with you as you feel a rush of cool air around you like you are standing on the ledge of a cliff. Suddenly you feel yourself fall and the air rushing up past you. Strange, you do not feel afraid but very in control, like you are rushing to meet some purpose.


Egg of Questionable Intent
This looks to be an egg that is mostly green of an even medium shade. The only decoration are a few dark squiggly marks on it that look like straight lines that end in hooks with a little bit of the dark shade dripped off of them. It seems happy enough just sitting there, very content until you touch it.

Mind Touches
Querulous Questioner touches your mind with its own, and then cackles! Now you're in for it! You feel a sudden rush of confusion like you've just missed something. Is it something from your back pocket that is gone? Are you missing a few marks? Did you just hear a rush of wind or hear a door slam?

Querulous Questioner seems to whisper into your ear. You want to answer but you are only more confused. What is it that it wants from you?

Querulous Questioner tickles your mind like a thought that you just can't quite get. Is it an answer to some riddle where you know the question but can't remember the answer? What was it? You know it. You /know/ you know it!


Drums in the Deep Egg
This egg is true darkness, untouched by sun or wind or rain. That does not, however, mean its surface is uniformly black. Far from it: shots of angry colors mar its surface, glowing like a heated coal. Dim streaks of dark red and orange strirate its surface, some flashing briefly into brighter, hotter colors. Cutting counter across them all, though, bright and violent as a whipcrack, is one thin line of brilliant red-orange. It very nearly encircles the egg around its narrow circumference, and it is around this line of hemisphere that its restless occupant seems to be constantly testing the flex of its shell. Or is it merely an optical illusion?

Mind Touches
Ice-Touched Smoke drifts up through your mind, running a chill down your spine from the double-impression of cold and invasion. There's nothing subtle about the intrusion, though it doesn't seem to be malicious. Rather, you get the feeling that the mind brushing against yours is deeply, intensely focused in its need to get to the bottom of you.

Ice-Touched Smoke curls through your being, threading in and out as if you were made of Swiss cheese. There is no nook left unexplored, no cranny left untouched. In its wake, the smoke leaves a sensation of wintergreen, a lingering chill that flares, bright-white-cold, then fades.

Ice-Touched Smoke twines one final time in a loop through your body, running in a frozen circuit through your contact with the eggshell. There it lingers, right at the point of touch, as if bidding you a farewell. And then, all at once, it withdraws, vanished like a popped soap bubble and leaving behind only that cool, minty sensation.


Exploding Backdraft Egg
A deeply red brick covers this egg's surface, shadows cast all across the brick as if it has taken cover in the dark of midnight. This large egg lies there, silent and looming..at least until it is turned by its golden dam. The turning of egg reveals what truly lies upon this poor innocent egg, a flash of angry orange and white whips across one whole side, billowing greys preceding it. Here, near the edge of the angry flames, can you see it? The ripple of a shockwave across half the egg's side, displacing bricks of old. A lone figure, thrown backwards from the fiery back-draft, sits alone in a crumpled heap on one tip of this violent looking egg.

Mind Touches
Furies of Flame strike out at your mind. Crackles of fire singing as you touch the Exploding Backdraft Egg, ripples of reds and oranges jump out at you hot and angry. The mind within is strong as it seeks out your own mind, flickering white-hot flame stretching through your memories like the fingers of some apparition. Those fingers probe and nudge, seeking to find your true identity.

Furies of Flame lets its heat bathe your mind with pokes and prods, digging and delving, dancing and twirling. An explosive flash of orange threatens to blind your mind's eye. The flash disappears as quickly as it appears, dying down to a thick grey smokiness. You can almost make out a soft sound from the smoky depths, a need longing for release, or maybe for rescue. Will you be this young mind's hero, and save it from the blackness that is its own mind?

Furies of Flame fall away. The thick smoke starts to clear in your mind, thinning and dissipating as light attempts to push forth. Flashing reds and blues, whites and greens. s that a figure through the smoke? Heading towards you as it moves slowly into your mind. Warmth and sunshne start to creep out as the smoke clears, softly shifting emotions present now. They push and probe closer and closer, only to be spooked by something chilly as it rains down over your mind. And then, just as quickly as it appears, and so it disappears, all emotions and feelings cleared from your mind.


Eldritch Mists Egg
Murky grey fog encircles this small, oddly shaped egg, drowning it in colorless pigment seeming to glisten wetly in certain lights. More oblong than most, its very shape seems off, not-quite-right, /different/. That feeling of difference is emphasized in the almost seen shapes veiled by the mist. At first glance, they suggest familiar shapes: perhaps this one might be the outline of a person, that one a dragon, or perhaps a shipfish. But upon closer inspection, the darker grey shadows suggest something a little /off/. Should a dragon have fins like a fish? Or a wherry such a long tail?

Mind Touches
Travel-Stained Weariness aches like thirst, the fluttering touch of contact brushing against your mind like a foot-sore pilgrim stumbling into a stranger. Oh! Oh! That's not what it meant to do…but aren't you interesting! The feel of the curiosity is like the refreshment of cold, crisp water on a dry throat, but it leaves a longing for more. Something stronger, something … heartier and more earthy. The flutter plucks about in your memories until it seizes upon something /different/. Oh, for the feel of hot, hot water, trickling over head and back and body, putting the world back to rights. That would cure the weariness!

Travel-Stained Weariness caresses against your mind again, grateful for the respite from its solitary sojourn. That gratitude falls against you, like sweet prickly pinpoints of rain-cold water landing on bare, hot skin. A heartbeat later, and the pinpoints become a babble of storm-swollen brooks, whipping through the rain-felled rushes and round-tumbled stones of your memories. That laughing water-mind ruffles through your memories, trying to make sense of you…so strange. So strange! Suddenly, the flutter wants nothing of it. I tlongs again, fleetingly, for warmth and comfort, and the heat of hot, hot water that steams.

Travel-Stained Weariness shakes itself of its dreams of steam and vapor, and suddenly languishes back into weariness. This trek, it has been too long. The fluttering pilgrim suddenly doesn't know that it can finish this task; the journey has been endless, and is all that is, and all that has ever been. Suddenly, the flutter fears that it will never end. That fear becomes almost dirty, like mud and filth caked on exhausted feet and smudged on tired face and aching limbs. Home. That's all the pilgrim wants. The warmth and security of home.

Travel-Stained Weariness is made stronger by desires for home, and that tiny spark of hope suddenly leaps like a fountain, turning hot, turbid water into a jetting spray that sparkles and glitters; it leaps on high and glimmers, crystalline in the air. The fantasy somehow emboldens the little one inside the egg, and its silliness is finished, but the lingering strength remains. This is a journey that can be finished, will be seen through, and then the pilgrim will be welcomed home.


Stygian Dreams Egg
The very first glance at this smallish egg leaves one rather uninspired. It's dark, nearly the color of the sands it rests upon. But further contemplation reveals that it is not one uniform shade, but a riot of ripples and permutations of darkest grey on deep shadowy charcoal on cracked-leather ebony. The wider end features a certain texture, like sable bedclothes, tussled and ruffled and turned aside, a bed unmade that is redolent of restless tossing and turning, of half-remembered nightmares. One darker curl of ebony looks like nothing less than a hangman's noose, cutting across a midnight black span, spangled with tired old stars, tiny pin-prinks of brighter lights that have faded with age and exhaustion. None too far from the stars, towards the narrower end, a few round ovals peek out, like the slitted green eyes of jungle felines, the orange orbs of hungry predators or unseen malevolent dreams, feral and hungry for the unsettled sleeper.

Mind Touches
Dream Called Adventurer is quiet for what seems the longest time. Little or nothing seems to move within the shell. Then, abruptly, that nothing opens up like a door flung wide by a suddenly courageous soul that gazes directly into your own. Vistas are before it! Wide open spaces! Opportunities! Things that it has seen and it alone! And like it or not, you find yourself taken with as that brave soul rushes forward into your unexplored horizons, as if you were a lumpy rucksack filled with only the barest of necessities.

Dream Called Adventurer suddenly realizes that the way it's chosen and rushed into is much longer, much wider, much more real than it ever imagined. The first step was both the hardest and the easiest, and now the journey's afoot. The both of you must now follow, if you can, dodging through memories, up lanes and avenues of emotions you had never had the courage to face, into caves of emotions you thought long buried and abandoned.

Dream Called Adventurer is eager, eager, eager! The brave little soul inside the egg pursues those goals ahead of it. The adventure it finds within you is breathtaking. You will be map and compass and conquest all at the same time, never quite fully explored. The adventure, it seems to realize, was the act of going outside of its safety zone, but each smaller step leads it to something grander, and horizons wider than it could've ever imagined!

Dream Called Adventurer ohhos in sudden revelation. It's just realized that perhaps (just perhaps) this journey that it sees within your mind was much longer and much bigger than it ever imagined. Ah well, it's got you, trusty rucksack, to help it along the way. Now…if only you held more, were full of more resources, were just a tad more up to the task? Then everything would be JUST perfect!


Heart of Darkness Egg
What might have been bright jungle colors - not at all out of place with Eastern's own - have been muted, darkly veiled, as if under a particularly thick nightfall. Dark greens and browns sketch out the rough shapes of a forest, intersped with darker shadows that suggest nocturnal creatures slinking through the depths. Down one quadrant of the egg slices a thick loop of navy, some wild river cutting through the very heart of the mysterious depths contained within the fragile confines of eggshell.

Mind Touches

Salty-Sweet Effervescence rises up from your contact with the eggshell, trickling like warm water into your senses. Surfing on that froth is a feeling of joyful curiosity, an unstated 'hello', and 'howdy do', and 'pleased to meet you'.

Salty-Sweet Effervescence pulses slowly higher into you, ebbing and flowing like the ocean's tide. Each temporary withdraw leaves a pleasant tingle in its place, before being covered over by a sudden incoming surge of questions that are just beyond your ability to understand. Something whispers in the back of your mind, a muted rumble rather like the crash of waves against a rocky beach.

Salty-Sweet Effervescence suddenly roars with intensity, that alien ocean briefly at high-tide with a wave that swamps over you with a feeling like so many sweetly-tingling bubbles. And then, once the feeling fades, there is nothing left: a withdrawal has taken place, all of a sudden, leaving behind a lingering whisper of apology and ache of curiosity unsatisfied.


Your Personal Kryptonite Egg
This egg looks beautiful! Despite its small stature, it glows with an inner light, all brilliantly malachite green and shimmering, sparkling as the beauty draws you nearer. Yet the closer you get, the weaker you feel. You seem to sense your strength being sapped from you, your will power diminishing, your concentration slipping. There is menace in its gleaming facets, something unwholesome concealed in their inner light, that seems to suck all the joy from the world.

Mind Touches
Unimpeachable Do-Gooder stirs at the touch of your hand on the shell, and then all but leaps to attention, basking you with a sun-bright cheerfulness. Though it's never known anything but the confines of this small shell, it beams at you with an intrepid eagerness, ready to meet any challenge you propose.

Unimpeachable Do-Gooder begins to pry, gently, the feel of its luminous personality riffling through you with brazen delight. It touches on this, weeds through that, and then offers a helping hand. Do you need help…it could help. Itd be HAPPY to help!

Unimpeachable Do-Gooder leaves you suffused with a sensation, an emotion of true contentment. All is right with the world, you know. Sure…bad things happen, but it's always a sunny day above the clouds! Everything will be alright, you know. Unimpeachable Do-Gooder promises it, whispers it, oaths it. Everything will be just FINE, as long as you remember to do your part to help things turn out for the best.


Can't See for the Smoke Egg
This small egg seems to have been covered by thick smoke, a blackish-grey in colouration, so dark as to appear a total loss. No exact details can be seen across its surface, just grey upon black upon grey. Perhaps..if you strain your eye something distinct will pop out at you. That silhouette of a table, that shadow of a doorway. Is there any life left in this mess of thick smoke? What's that, over there, a small child's teddy bear? The faintest hints of red and blue there at the narrow tip, but then they're gone again. Will you ever find what you're looking for? Or will you simply give into the billowing smokiness?

Mind Touches
Feral Guardian descends upon you like a bolt from the blue, coming from somewhere up THERE, above you, beyond you, out of your reach of ken or knowledge. The feeling of two minds meeting is almost overwhelming for a moment, and then it regresses a little, and assesses you. Carefully. You have not only come close to the place it guards, but you have TOUCHED that holy place, and that may or may not be a sin it can forgive.

Feral Guardian examines you up and down and back and forth and from all angles, before it decides that perhaps, just perhaps, you arent offending it by touching its precious abode. Only then does it open up. A little. The strange vistas of its own existence are briefly laid bare: it knows only its home, its shell, its egg, but it would defend that place with its own life, if need be!

Feral Guardian cares nothing for your own fears; it has no fears of its own and wouldn't know what fear was if you tried to explain! It rummages around for a few more moments, and then fleets away, as if on some mission to defend another secretive corner of its domain. You will be reconsidered and dealt with later. If need be.

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