Medusath/Sudema

Medusath was a green given to me by Giftwrapped over on Peregrine Weyr a while back. Sudema is that same dragon reworked into a human woman, as I can no longer stand playing her rider even though I adore her.

As a human, she is a dark-skinned woman with short/no hair and vitiligo; when possible, I play her as a HAD or some other kind of psychic. As a dragon, well... Gift sums it up well.:

Appearance: Medusath isn’t a pretty dragon. She’s got all the potential in the world to be a pretty dragon – lithe, graceful form, perfectly-shaped head, and proportions that, even as a hatchling, suggest she’s going to be an overwhelming stunner. The problem lies, then, not in her shape but in the details – but that’s where the devil always is, isn’t it?

The most noticeable of Medusath’s deformities is her headknobs – where most dragons have one obvious set, Medusath has…something different. Her headknobs are long, about half-again as long as most dragons’ would be proportionally to her head, and it looks as if there is at least one other vestigial pair branching off from them. It gives her a peculiar, almost antlered appearance, as well as sharply enhancing her telepathic abilities – she is capable of hearing the thoughts of any human within a limited radius. As a hatchling, that radius ranges from ten to fifteen feet. As an adult, it might on good days and with excellent concentration, reach as far as thirty.

In addition, Medusath is piebald – a partial-albino. Most of her hide is a rich grey-green, patterned down the back with a stippled diamond pattern that is overall quite striking and aesthetically pleasing. On her neck, face, and chest, however, she is splashed with white – including a patch that extends from her throat up over one eye. That eye lacks the pigmentation that allows it to reflect light, showing up sharp, translucent grey without fail. While it does not entirely impair her ability to communicate emotion, it is nonetheless…problematic.

Personality: Medusath is an inherently pessimistic dragon. Where many of her clutchsiblings are inclined to look on the lighter, brighter side of life, she tends to darker thoughts. Morbid, with a sense of humour that is often both inappropriate and slightly self-gratifying, Medusath is definitely not always the most pleasant to be around. Most notably, she takes a certain pleasure in upsetting others, particularly by scaring them - not that hard to do when she's odd-looking already.

Unsurprisingly, Medusath is extremely self-conscious about her looks. A bundle of nervousness and the need for validation, she spends much of her time desperately looking for people who will accept her without feeling awkward about her appearance - but unfortunately, that appearance means that not only does she look bizarre, but she's able to hear every single person in the area who thinks so. On average, her ability to hear other humans thinking tends to hone in most frequently on those thinking about her, but she's also capable of hearing other things if she concentrates - though never words. She tends to 'hear' in feelings, rather than anything specific.

If it weren't for that ability, she might be able to convince herself that she was normal - but there's no way for her to block out the fact that other people think she's a freak. She hates listening to humans, often isolating herself from them - or, whe she can't manage that, getting into their heads as best she can to scare off anyone who gets too close. Ideally, whatever they started thinking about her has been replaced by a sense of vague dread by the end. It's a defense mechanism - get them fearing you for something you've done and they don't have time to hate you for the way you look.

Even Corvis isn't spared from this: sometimes when he is least expecting it, there will suddenly be a pair of claws snaking around his ankle, or a mouth full of teeth looming over him in the dark. Medusath prefers to stare her rider awake, and if she can manage to make the logistics work, Corvis might well find himself waking to a piebald dragon in his face every day for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, she loves him more than anything - and would fight to the death to protect him. Medusath loves her folk, be they human or dragon or something else entirely. She is vicious about that defense - and though dragons can't harm humans, she is quite capable of harming another dragon to make a point to them.

The one thing to remember about Medusath is that she is not an inherently bad or evil dragon. That would imply that there is no reasoning behind the way she behaves, or that she does things out of a direct desire to hurt or upset others. This is simply not the case. It's just that there is no other way Medusath can think of to express herself. Underneath the nastiness and defensiveness, there is a dragon who desperately wants to be loved and prove that she's not the freak everyone thinks she is. She just doesn't understand that her behaviour has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.