Madexx always knows.

I had called out Perseus this morning to take him for a walk in a dungeon.  No sooner had I summoned him than I felt the overwhelming urge to go to Uldum.  I hadn't discovered Madexx in the wild for weeks, so there was no logical reason to believe he'd be up.

But he was.

Blue.

And at that moment, I knew that Andromeda was going to be transitioning to her fen strider form through Madexx.  Had he been any other color, this would not have been the case.  It's hard to explain the feelings, unfortunately.  I had thought about putting Drommie in my active stable before queuing for the instance, but didn't.  So I flew back to the stable master in Uldum to get her, then let her do her thing.  Needless to say, Drommie ended up doing the instance with me instead.  I'll have to take Perseus for a walk later.

This wasn't even rare sense.  It was a distinct "you are doing this, so get moving already" sense.

Perseus is definitely turning out to be a very bossy pet.

As for Andromeda, she appears to be thrilled to be on the ground with her mate.  The constant flying of a dragonhawk must have gotten to her.  I got the distinct impression that suddenly having fen strider legs on the beta messed with her perception, so she really wanted to ease into things better on live.

It's all so silly and unpredictable.  I've seen blue Madexx in person before and felt nothing.  But this time was different.  Go figure.

With a name like Jason, how could he not return for a sequel?

Yep, I definitely cursed myself to eat my words when I said that Kalliope's stable was looking more fluid than Kallimon's.  Jason is back.  And how.

Jason's had a bit of a checkered past.  He was with me before in a red hyena skin, though he was mostly my planned hydra.  I was never really sold on the idea of Jason being a hydra anyway, as evidenced by the previous stint in red.

The problems weren't really his, though.  They were mine.  Kalliope couldn't have a purple hyena, but that's my favorite color hyena.  Orange, the second favorite, was too jarring when summoned; I kept expecting to see the purple.  I have a soft spot for hyenas, which made the whole thing worse.

It's a good thing MoP has hyenas set up to be one of the families with the windfury buff.  Knowing this, I took the excuse to look at hyenas again in the name of "filling out stable buffs," which of course was clearly untrue, since I'm completely ignoring other buffs.  Sigh.  Whatever self-deception works, right?  I knew I wanted Jason back, but I didn't know what color to make him.  I figured I'd try orange again, since orange was Linus last time (and Orpheus's brother or not, I just had no bond with him).  So I ported to Uldum to go grab Skarf.  But I decided to check on Madexx first.

You can tell where this is going.

Madexx wasn't up last night (he always knows!), but as I approached the northern spawn point (my favorite), I got that familiar pang as I flew over a yellow hyena.  The this-is-your-pet-go-tame-it pang.  I landed and immediately hit tame.  Then I quickly smashed dismiss, since Leo was still with me.  Whoops.  Then I hit tame again without missing a beat.  The bond was instant.  I completely blame Leo for this; thanks to him, I'm now used to a warm golden pet by my side.  Honorable mention goes to GrilledCheez (Sandwiches's), the first yellow hyena I'd tamed.

So, Jason is home, thank goodness.  Unfortunately, it's not as simple as all that.  He's a color changer.  I never tame color changers because they drive me batty.  If I want a pet in a particular color, then I tame that color.  None of this funny business with swapping.  Jason, however, isn't a fan of this philosophy.  He opts to appear in white more often than not, apparently just to needle me (he's appeared as yellow in clutch, serious business moments during which I didn't have time to chastise him for showing up as the wrong color).  Not only that, but he's showing up on the login screen as orange.  This is driving me crazy.  One of the reasons Perseus changed bodies was because he appeared as a green warp stalker on the login screen instead of blue.  The worst of it is....I can't change him.  I flew out to the Barrens to find a yellow hyena who didn't change colors and even settled down above one, knowing full well that I couldn't do it.  I checked on how those hyenas were color-changing on the beta.  Without character copies activated, I can't confirm that he'll stabilize as yellow, but I did confirm that even if he doesn't, I'll be able to retame the real him.  Still, I'm amused greatly by Jason's color changing antics, even though they drive me crazy.  At least he has personality!

The Madexx Effect

I had no interest in the new scorpid that looked like the Horde guild mount.  The plates of the scorpid's armor looked sharp and uninviting.  Definitely not a fan.  Nope.  I glanced around for Madexx while I was leveling there, but only to visit.  I like the thrill of the hunt.

I spotted him in his black version on the PTR and tamed him for the sake of doing it.  No big deal.  I'd had a similar reaction to taming Sambas earlier in the PTR.  I was far more excited by Deathmaw's new skin, as Hector would finally be getting the look he'd always wanted.  All of the hunting on the PTR gave me wanderlust on live, so I went exploring.  I was hoping Armagedillo was up; he had been fun to see on the PTR.  He wasn't, so I swung by Madexx's spawn area.

Oh.

He was up.

And he was green.

I had been hit by the thunderbolt.  It was absolutely love at first sight.

I tried to deny it.  I had no stable space!  I asked my friend if she wanted him, but she wasn't 84 yet.  I couldn't stand to see him get killed or tamed "outside the family."  My heart spoke to me; I knew which pet wasn't clicking and who wanted to become this green vision.  The trip to Ramkahen and back was short, but felt like an eternity.  Perseus the blue warp stalker gleefully jumped into the green shell, never looking back.  The moment he glowed gold, I knew this had been the right thing.  Percy had never fit by my side before and now there he was, dancing around like he'd never been anywhere else.  I finally had closure from releasing Orpheus the pink scorpid all those years ago.  Percy jumped directly into Tol Barad with me, despite not being 85 yet, and saved my still-undergeared-at-the-time friend's resto shammy from certain doom with a clutch disarm.  That sealed the deal: not only was he a keeper, but he was going to be in the regular rotation.

I realized something, though.  I had already had Icarus (Ol' Beaky) for disarms, but it wasn't the same.  I wrestled with what I knew to be true: I had fallen for Icarus when the first screenshots had been available, but I'm actually not a fan of most flying pets, at least not on Kalliope.  This meant I had a stable slot open.  My thoughts immediately turned to turtles and beetles, as that was the only sort of pet ability I didn't have on Kalliope yet.  Soup (Ghamoo-Ra) suits Kallimon and Raph, my favorite turtle color of the old models (green), is still with Babykalli, so I settled on a beetle.  I knew which skin I was going to end up with, because I'd fallen for it immediately when the scarabs were discovered on the beta.  However, because I had quested past that area, I didn't think I'd have access to them anymore, so I considered every other type, including the upcoming green and purple beetle.  Sigh.  I gave up and looked to the amethyst scarab...and then her name came to me.  Galatea.  That was it for me.  After far too much flailing and moaning, I learned that the scarabs ARE in fact still present in the temple after the quest they spawn for is completed.  Minutes after that, I had my Galatea at my side (a fitting companion for Pygmalion, the former Large Loch Crocolisk) and Icarus had shrunk to mini-pet size, joining Daedelus, my temporary seagull who had also become a mini-pet.

The changes didn't stop there.

I made peace with the knowledge that I am just not a rhino fan, no matter how much I like Orion, so he is now in position to morph to something else.  What that something else will be, I have no idea; he'll let me know when the time is right.

On Nesingwary, Vephriel spotted Spiteflayer up.  Now you have to understand, I had never been attached to Spiteflayer before his appearance change, but ever since I saw him in the wild on my dwarf shaman, I felt a bond with him.  He was HUGE and surprisingly quite a good-looking bird.  I babysat him for a good long while while my hunter buddy came out to tame him.  I later opportunity-tamed him on the PTR myself.  I couldn't pass him up.  So when Veph spotted him on live, I had to look to Kallimon's green carrion bird, Pompano, who had been a royal pain in the butt to tame, at least the way I had done it.  I had loved that skin on Torgos when I first saw it and was thrilled to get to tame it for real.  But I realized something: part of my attachment to that skin was that it had been Torgos's, in addition to being striking (and green!).  Torgos isn't even green anymore; he's turning blue with the patch.  It's a fitting change for him, but ultimately, I think the combination of everything killed my attachment to the color, which was part of the reason Pompano had never really developed a bond with Kallimon.  I took Pompano to the Blasted Lands, hugged him, and let him become the bird he wanted to be.  This is the right thing for him.  It's fitting, since his sister Papillote (Aotona) had also been an unexpected opportunity tame that someone else had spotted and I jumped at the chance, after having admired from afar.

Sometime during all this, my PTR wanderings led to my discovery that Creepthess, like Chatter, is not only massive, but has a pet bunny.  I think Kallimon's Nutria is either getting a new look after the patch, or I'm bringing back Doberge.  I must have the entire Chatter family!  Kalliope has Chatter himself (Orpheus), Kallimon will get Creepthess, and Babykalli has "Chitter," the lone little brown spider in southeast Redridge who I had thought was going to turn out to be Chatter for a few patches while the real one was MIA.  Yes, I am a softie.

All of this rethinking because Madexx decided he wanted me to tame him.  Silly ol' scorpid.