Randy Ram

Male
Age 20
Species - Bighorn Sheep
Skin Black
Fur White
Hair White
Eyes Yellow (dark)
Fingers - hooved/2+

Sponsoring Lin'vel ty Driaten Alamyr

Lance Lizardo

Male
Age 19
Species - Iguana
Skin Emerald Green w/yellow and pale blue
Fur n/a
Hair n/a
Eyes Red
Fingers - 3+

Sponsoring Mor'nen ty Driaten Alamyr

Dale Dogstar

Male
Age 21
Species - Shepherd
Skin n/a
Fur Dark Brown, Tan, Golden, Black
Hair Blond
Eyes Dark Brown
Fingers - 3+

Sponsoring Nuum'etr ty Driaten Alamyr

Steve Birdstrom

Male
Age 18
Species - Parakeet
Skin White
Fur Brilliant Green, Blue, Yellow feathers
Hair Yellow crest
Eyes Blue
Fingers - 3+

Sponsoring Sho'chy ty Driaten Alamyr

Cat d'Rector

Female
Age 21
Species - Domestic Cat
Skin Yellow
Fur Golden Brown
Hair Dark Blond
Eyes Green
Fingers - 3+

Sponsoring Sha'aya ty Driaten Alamyr

Indy Benjamin

Male
Age 20
Species - Horse (Shire)
Skin Dark Tan
Fur Bronze
Hair Medium Brown
Eyes Hazel Green
Fingers - hooved/2+

Sponsoring Fai'lea ty Driaten Alamyr

Mark Rhinoid

Male
Age 19
Species - White Rhino
Skin Light Grey
Fur n/a (sparse black)
Hair n/a
Eyes Dark Brown
Fingers - hooved/3+

Sponsoring May'lie ty Driaten Alamyr

Renee Mouse

Female
Age 19
Species - Mouse
Skin Light Tan
Fur White with Brown Markings
Hair Blond
Eyes Dark Blue
Fingers - 3+

Sponsoring Nae'lan ty Driaten Alamyr

Phil Ape

Male
Age 20
Species - Orangutan
Skin Red-Orange
Fur Red Headed Stepchild Orange-brown
Hair Dark Red
Eyes Brown
Fingers - 4+

Sponsoring Rei'noa ty Driaten Alamyr

Other Sponsorships from Mirus - the ty Yatren Alamyr group, who are performers in their own right!

R'qeusoa
P'shaetyo
F'yuirao
Sh'suylos
M'woiluath
B'soytays

Lineage of the Lemurdragons

Iaa'bis, Sponsored by... The Stage?

The Animal People Playhouse performs over the weekends at the Crescent City Community College, C4, and takes requests for their lineup of acts. Far from being merely a one-show group, they challenge themselves and are more of an improv guild than a Shakespearian type of group. Not that they won't do Will's work - they pick and choose from his plays but they also perform comedy, slapstick, standup, drama, one-person-shows, musicals and more.

While they are an all-furry team, they have chosen to perform mainly 'skin' works, that is to say non-furry scripts. The novelty of this has never quite worn off on the people of Crescent or Talon, they're rather well known in the local area. Some people have accused them of being 'retro' or racist against humans, but anyone who has spoken with them for even a few minutes knows that is not the case. It's why they have chosen to perform Skin-writer works, to throw a wrench into what most humans think are standard, tried and true plays. It's perfectly normal to have a performance of Romeo and Juliet going somewhere in the city. But where else could it be modernized to have a guest-human Juliet playing opposite of Dale Dogstar as Romeo...

Cat serves as their director as well as liason for performances, and while she does perform herself, it's often in background roles so she can watch the others for any needed suggestions. Indy and Dale, while not competitive in the same manner, do often try for the same roles - to extremely different results. Dale is a sharp actor who would fit in on any soap opera show, while Indy is more sedate and subtle in his acting. Steve is very musical, as is Renee, and they are often called upon to play the lead roles when musical numbers are done. Randy often winds up playing villains even though he's a charming, sweetheart of a guy. Lance and Phil are known as the truly physical actors of the group, often doing the stuntwork and acrobatics for more flashy shows. Mark is a well-rounded and very well educated actor who has a terrific projecting voice and a strong operatic background.

While they are the 'resident guild' at the C4 hall, they do occasionally play host to other shows - giving them all a chance to break and relax from their entertaining, and allowing them to keep up their hand in set breakdown, lighting and sound. Whenever another group is in the theater, they are all able to serve as the crew for any number of tasks including painting, soundcheck, changing lightbulbs and even costuming. They also work as ushers. They're just so talented.

All of them are relatively young, fresh out of high school in Steve's case, but all are taking classes at C4. They're not taking full course loads, naturally, and most of their coursework involves acting or stage in some way. They also live together, well, in an apartment complex on campus for students. They take up three two-bedroom units, with Cat, Indy and Lance in one, Steve, Renee and Mark in another, and Phil, Randy and Dale rounding out the bachelor's pad. Their apartment is within walking distance of the campus of course, but also within sight of the theater, and less than a mile away from the big Mall. (Not to mention about two or three miles from the best beaches in southern California! Where Lance and Dale go surfing from time to time!)

***

When the Talon City fire and police departments started using dragons, when the local tv station started running that soap show with a couple more, when Alabaster Production Group opened auditions for their dragon hosted show... The APP knew there was something going on they wanted to be a part of.

It was even true that their highschool was now playing host to dozens of dragons! When did that happen?! Well it wasn't overnight, but they were a bit preoccupied. Now that they've got some distance though, the group has offered to do acting tutorials and seminars at Carramba High - primarily to get up close with some of those dragons. Sneaky kids!

It was at one of those seminars when they finally got the chance to meet up with one of the dragon riding staff members. Hollis and his friends were hanging out watching the play tryouts, and noticed that Cat and the others were always looking up and around, bristling with excitement every time a dragon went overhead. The outdoor Carramba Speakers square was where they were doing a lot of this work, and suddenly it occurred to Hollis just why...

"You know, if you want to get a look at Synesth, he's over there, sleeping as usual," he commented to Cat as their students practiced. "He's a softie, but he's quite large, so be careful. He might roll over on you."

Though Hollis didn't betray his thoughts with any silly facial expressions, his dragon thought to him an amused, I would never intentionally squish a human my friend. And yes I know they are 'furry' but they are still humans to me. They are so curious.

Eventually the troupe and students broke apart for the day, and the actors gathered around Cat. "He said it was okay," she told them. "Let's go... I wanna see him up close... Look at that, he's gigantic!"

Synesth was never offended by that statement, after all he was a Pernese bronze, and if they weren't big he didn't know what should be. He casually looked at them, with his faceted eyes a pale green color. When Cat turned back to Hollis, he knew exactly what the man was going to say to her.

"You should try sponsoring," he said, which did surprise the dragon. "A group of you like this, you're ideal for some dragons."

I thought you were going to tell her that she was Searched! They are all fine material.

Yes, Hollis replied mentally, but they won't be separated and I think they'd be more suited toward dragons who might fly off on their own some day. That way they could continue keeping track of more than just one.

Hm, well, yes, ever since my clutch with Kalareth it has been clear how much easier raising dragons with a number of people is, than merely one. How in the world did you manage to raise me, my one?

"With difficulty, I assure you," Hollis said aloud, causing confusion to the others. Since he hadn't spoken between, and they were still reeling from his first statement, they thought he meant - "Oh - oh, sorry I was talking to Synesth!" Hollis corrected himself. "A group does much better than a single person - Synesth was quite tough to raise, and I was young. But if I can turn out a dragon this good alone, what could you do in a group?"

Nice save, rider mine, the dragon said sarcastically.

"But how? Where?" Cat asked, the troupe still muttering among themselves. This was their dream come true, wasn't it?

"Well there are a number of places, let's go check up the records room shall we?" He led them off to the Magic Studies building, and opened the normal front entrance. The empty building shell used to house cleaning supplies and small vehicles, but since they had more use for it as a dragonry-site nexus, they allowed another portal to be placed within it. Only magic studies students were able to open the building's other door...

The portal made a slight humming sound, and its runes glowed in a kind of hypnotic pattern. Hollis stepped through it, and the others followed shortly. Into the Nexus, actually, to the Healing Den where they were met with a ... room filled with computers...

"This isn't what you'd expect from an arcane portal to a dragon world, right?" Said Phil, "Computers?"

"Of course computers, there are a lot of dragonries out there, and this is the only way to keep them all straight!" Hollis announced with a chuckle. "So sit down and start clicking, it's not that tough."

***

They decided that as a group they wanted to go to Mirus. The place had great - furry - dragons of many descriptions. Breeding programs with unusual results, and allowed sponsorships. Hollis noted that normally groups like this would split up into different dragonries to keep their dragon pool diverse - but they knew perfectly well that if these dragons started breeding there was nothing they could do to stop them anyway - or encourage them to do so if they weren't interested.

So to Mirus they went...

Mirus seemed a bit of a mess... While it was clear that the group was there to find sponsors of one clutch of eggs, there were ... other things going on around them. It made Cat feel a little weirdly out of place. They were finally brought into a chamber to choose their hatchling - it was so very strange to each and every one of them that though these were 'dragons' and called hatchlings (at least, by Hollis they were called that) they were covered in fur and were quite warm-blooded, needed milk and care to grow, and were helpless like other mammals at birth.

The choosing was quick and rather easy for the batch of actors - though the room was fairly dark it was clear by some ... fate... that they pick up certain little bundles of warm mewling fur. None of them balked at choosing - even Lance though he was somewhat weirded out by the fact that they weren't 'egg' born. Each came from the chamber with another youngling, and they went back to their dorm chamber.

"Well ... now what?" Asked Mark while his red and white lemurdragon squawked for attention.

"I think we're supposed to stay here," Renee said, tending her own adorable brown-white dragon with a grin. "They need care, and they need their mother's milk don't they?" It was as if she were asking the dragonet, who was most certainly incapable of responding.

"Won't we be late for the next season's performances?" Asked Dale, while his own dragonet gently accepted a bota-like bottle for milk.

"No, we won't," Indy said, having tucked his own dragonet into a sort of basinet - there would be numerous of these around the large group chamber, "have you noticed that we're here twice? I think there is something else entirely going on here, something kind of strange."

"As though finding a hatching full of little furry dragons wasn't strange enough," Steve said with an oddly smiling beak. His genderless youngling was squirming and pressing into his chest for attention.

Indy chuckled, and then Phil commented, "yeah - I did see ... something. It was weird, like a ghost, or a shadow, but it was us, wasn't it?"

Indy nodded, echoed by Cat. "Some of the locals are saying that there's a temporal rift or fracture or something - whatever that means. But it doesn't matter to us right now," she said and saw Randy scritching his sponsorling's back and listening to him cooing. "What we do now, is raise these little dragons until they're ready to come home with us."

They all vocally agreed, bedded down for a long - long - night.

***

It was a few months - relative time - later, that the lemurdragons were deemed old enough to start learning languages and magic. Dragons - magic. It was stunningly weird to some of the Playhouse but they were adjusted well to the weirdness now. The group of little dragonets played with one another and were quite social, as expected for such creatures.

Were they really 'lemurs'? Or was that just a coincidence that their pattern and physical appearance lent the name? Well it didn't much matter, because they were certainly their own troupe of characters!

May'lie, Mark's charge, was the ring leader of most activities. She and her sister Rei'noa would start carrousing and then the others to whatever extent, would join in. Fai'lea was the one who caused trouble - provoking May'lie when she felt so bold. The curious and sensible ones, Sha'aya, Nae'lan and Lin'vel, would stay clear of the messes their siblings made, while it was Nuum'etr that tried to intervene in any disasters. Only Mor'nen generally remained above this all - but not really by personality of course. More by the fact that he was too busy outside catching some quality sunshine.

The Playhouse and their lemurdragons were getting ready to leave for Crescent City, with Hollis and the other dragons and riders having finally found them again. Hollis explained that yes, they were having trouble tracking just exactly when Mirus was supposed to be doing certain things. "We had to bring in some experts, Nexus travel is usually pretty easy on most of us who've been doing it as long as we have," he said, "but it got me addled and that's saying a lot," he elbowed Indy gently and the steed-morph rolled his eyes.

"Wait, what about..." Phil said, kind of glancing around, "what about that other thing?"

Suddenly Cat's ears perked up, "you're right... I wonder... Maybe we left and came back?"

"But if that were the case why do I get the feeling that we should be ... looking for something?" Steve asked. "Maybe we'll stick around just a little longer," he said to Hollis.

"Suits me fine, we're still trying to figure out what era half our riders wound up in..." Hollis said, glancing at his riders with an uncomfortable grin.

The troupe urged the lemurdragon babies to scamper around nearby, sort of leading them into whatever trouble they sniffed out. So it was no surprise when they spotted something in a hall - a green female dragon, local. She was clearly distressed, and when she saw the group of morphs she brightened up.

"I am so glad to find you, at last..." She said. There were other dragons behind her, all adult and fully grown dragons. Meaning... this wasn't a small hallway. It was an entrance to a dragonry den. "We're quite lost, but now that you've come I just know we can find our way out."

"Lost? We are not lost, merely... inconvienenced by the lack of temporal continuity..." Said another dragon, a male of a much smaller size and rainbow shaded fur.

"Inconvienence!" bellowed a third, a yellow male. He immediately quieted, glancing around to the group of morphs. "We have been lost, probably something that M'woiluath managed to do..."

"It was hardly my fault, all I did was point out that it was occurring," the rainbow in question responded. There were three others, a purple, red and blue, who arrived with curious expressions and their ears pointed forward in hope. "Is it them? Did they find us?" Asked the female purple, while the blue nodded and flexed her wingsails. The male red stepped to the front of the whole bunch.

"I think they are, it's good that you've finally come to us. We've been waiting, it isn't our fault," he cast a glance at the yellow who kind of shrank. "Do you know the way out?"

"Probably," said Dale with a bright smile. "It can't be that hard, we're..." he turned around and noticed that though the corridor was still there, it had other people in it, not their friends who had come to pick them up. It was another group of dragon riders, probably Hollis' lost batch.

"Here! Come on over here!" Yelled the one tall black woman, "it's this hall, this time, we're here, let's go."

"They've found the other dragons," said a white-haired man, and his red-headed friend nodded.

"Time to head back to your school, right?" Asked a younger woman, they were all human, and of them she looked slightly out of place. But they were all happy to see the group and very shortly everyone was wondering what to do about the other dragons.

The lemurdragons immediately considered the other Mirus group to be a playground of sorts... Why not! They were furry and easily climbed - especially by Rei'noa. "Maybe we should take you ourselves," said the smallest, the red male.

"That'd suit me fine," said the redheaded man whose hair dropped to the floor and would clearly rather not have a little lemurdragon trying to climb him.

So the group of Mirus dragons gathered each of the nine Playhouse folk and their sponsorling dragonets, and followed the teleporters into the Nexus. It wasn't hard - three of the Mirus dragons were quite large, huge in fact, so they could each sit two. Everyone made it back into the bright sunny Crescent City daylight with no trouble.

Well, Hollis and them took another few days to arrive - they had to find a substitute for his dragonry class. He was flustered at the thought that a single place could be broken in time, it wasn't like the Healing Den which was in every time, but at least you could safely arrive there around when you were needed. This place? What was wrong with it, was something way beyond even his advanced comprehension.

The Playhouse was still as they'd left it, the group had arrived only a day or so after they'd left. Maybe, Mark said, that was why everything was so weird... No one was coming and going at a normal pace. Everything had to be muddled.

The rainbow male Mirus dragon complained that it wasn't all that hard - but his companions also reminded him that he was unable to fix the problem and unable to find their way through it... But he responded with a tirade about how they'd found their right place now, hadn't they...

Lance and Mor'nen got along very well with the red, Sh'suylos, they all loved being in the sunlight if not the spotlight. Renee and her little charge Nae'lan took the time to aquaint themselves with the purple female P'shaetyo, she seemed so in need of human attention. They loved to groom, those lemur dragons, so she was rather pleased with the results of having several small dragonets running their little hands through her silky fur...

R'qeusoa discovered that the playhouse was visited frequently by other local dragons, at least 'local' by the standard that their riders and bonds lived in the area. She soon fell in with a small group of unbonded others, ones attending Carramba High, though she didn't go to the school - she was an adult after all, not a youngling, and she didn't really need more education.

The biggest of the bunch, green female F'yuirao, while she was a bit nervous at first, began to enjoy hawking the shows that would come to the Playhouse. A nervous den mother at worst, a quick-thinking multitasker at best. She helped out a lot, in fact, when their shows started out, because she managed to get everyone more organized more quickly.

Sneaky B'soytays, the yellow male, was keen on bringing talent to the shows, and keeping things beneficial to everyone... Well, beneficial to himself, really, but he did make a good 'salesman'. He and Randy and Dale would go out looking for talent, and they'd more often than not find it.

It really was the rainbow male M'woiluath's time to shine when things would go wrong on stage. He'd simply scratch time and remix it - allowing a little bubble of a few seconds here, half a minute there, to get the accident off stage or get lines re-read. It wasn't seamless, but it was fun.

As the group went into their next season they were planning on taking on new challenging roles. Those roles would require a bigger stage... Because they involved actually bringing some of the dragons into the whole thing...

After a while, the dragonets were old enough to move on ... they didn't. It wasn't a big surprise that they had chosen to remain with the Playhouse, and it was also no surprise that they had developed their own whole play!

Lin'vel had realized that human (furry or otherwise) playwrights had a system. Once he learned that system, he reasoned, he'd be able to put together an ideal performance for them! Unfortunately, it hadn't worked as well as anyone would have liked. It was flat, dry... in a word, a bit boring.

It was oddly enough the bewilderingly neuter and borderline dullard Sho'chy that came up with a looser way of interpreting the first script. Lin'vel was furious but after a while, he too realized that no script goes up without some revisions. Once Lin had gotten that part of the 'plan' into his head, he took the script around to others to see what could be done. Sho'chy followed him around, giggling.

The reclusive Sha'aya was coersed into trying out for the lead female role, and certainly wouldn't have put up a big argument had any of the others forced their way into it. But she did well, even though she rarely practiced with the group. Still so silent that it was a surprise even to Cat that she successfully pulled off a role at all, let alone one which required her to ham it up as a handmaid.

Fai'lea had some trouble memorizing lines, and all but gave up for her part. But with the support of her disreputable friends outside the Playhouse (they wanted to see their friend's name in lights, of course - having a real celebrity among them would totally boost their whole little selfish world) she worked out a way of reading her lines at a distance and blurting them out. Not the greatest performer...

The fiery May'lie instantly wanted the role of 'the bad guy' and got it. She figured, she got to antagonize Sha'aya and any chance to do that and rib Nuum'etr at the same time? She jumped at it. Her performance was hardly forced, therefore, and she even 'got' a death scene to overact!

Nae'lan enjoyed playing the role of the King's Advisor - sadly one who is killed off shortly before the big confrontation scenes. He's perfectly okay with that, his quiet demeanor and observant nature might have even lent itself to him being a real advisor to some real king...

Nuum'etr practiced diligently for the lead role, of course he was given the lead, what could you expect from any dragon sponsored by Dale? After they'd worked out the kinks in the script, he played a regal type with a strong bearing - a little stiff, but that was expected, at least for their first performance and play!

Rei'noa the endless acrobat was quick to pounce (literally) on the role of the court's jester, essentially the narrator of the whole play. She managed to do this while moving around the entire gigantic dragon-sized stage and playhouse area, surprising people in the audience when she'd teleport in and speak about the action on the stage. Her voice carries well, it is a role she hopes to reprise.

Mor'nen helped out by becoming a bit of a living spotlight, while they performed no one really needed to work the lights on stage - everyone who needed the spotlight got it, bathed in a magical light colored to suit the speech they were making, or the mood of the piece. He was a bit too forgetful to memorize lines, but as a walk-on in several minor roles, he had fun being part of the action too.

Even the other sponsors, those who were all mature when they were brought from Mirus, got into the play act. Though they are not really considered part of the Playhouse itself, they all tried out for bit parts and support roles, and enjoyed their nightly performances. To their delight, all their friends, draconic and otherwise, came to their performances. Particularly F'yuirao, energetic and huge, she managed to advertise to an entire stadium at once by bursting out her light magic the title of their play... "Winged Court of Intrigue".

Perhaps they would be interested in going back to Mirus and giving a performance or two!

** 10.24.21 **

The Stage knocked, and the groups of furries responded swiftly. Hardly anyone even noticed when they moved between dimensions, until they looked up and around to notice that it was no longer Crescent City's large-scale park. It was under water, in a dome, and on another dimension's Earth. With a checkerboard black and white theme they knew this party was going to be a fantastic bash.

Other dragons like they'd never seen before were there, and connections were made. Not just social ones, but some genetics... They had a little time to figure out a new show for the attendees. Lovely voices that sang, lights and effects danced with the large ballroom floor dotted with humans and furries and dragons alike.