Something weird stalked the halls of the Healing Den. Weirder than the Xenos, and much weirder than the people who bonded them.
Something... that Clucked.
It scratched around on the solid floor of a store room, then all but vanished into thin air when someone looked up from their desk. Later, it was heard to peck at a bit of food from the top of a flitter enclosure. Leaving only a few feathers behind.
"Feathers?" Asked Baeris, mostly to the air. Dulath heard her, but was too busy watching reruns of I Love Lucy to care what was up. Baeris turned around in that way she did when she was concentrating on finding a culprit or exposing a weakness. She stalked about, and sure enough located a few more feathers here and there. They were a mixture of bright and dark, how could something with such bright plumage hide from her?
"gobblegobble!"
Baeris spun, but nothing was there. She was positive she'd heard it, somewhere over by the big storage bins.
"gobblegobble!"
It happened again, and Baeris attempted to follow. Thinking about it, she closed her eyes. She knew her way around this place, so long as there was nothing abruptly in the way or having been moved...
"gobblegobble!"
It wasn't too long before Baeris snapped her eyes open and saw something, a shadow perhaps, swiftly vanishing down a long blue-tinted hallway. She followed, growling to herself that it was bad enough that half the staff felt like taking the last few days off and stuffing themselves silly with food, but now? She was the only one who would pursue some invader to their home?
"gobblegobble!"
"All right, I know you're there, if you're going to be here it's on my terms, is that clear?" She said, loudly. Though a few people in the rooms scattered off this hall looked up, none of them dared look out to the hall - it was Baeris after all, and if she was acting weird or angry, one's best course was to stay well clear of her.
"Bwa kawk," said the turkey-dragon standing in the hall. Where had he come from?
And more, why was he here?
"Look, I.... don't know quite what you are," Baeris said looking over the small dragon-creature. "But as long as you're here, you're going to be civil. Introduce yourself if you can. I think you can understand me, can't you?"
Baeris got a stream of noisesome images from the dragon. He was not lost, he was glad to be here, looking for something to eat, and he wouldn't mind remaining on even if she yelled at him. It was, after all, pretty fun to be able to hide in plain sight, even when you're a six-foot tall turkey-dragon.
His tail plumage was actually quite attractive, Baeris thought. He was some kind of ... hybrid? Or, just... well, whatever. "Have you a name then?" She asked. Dulath had woken up at the mental noise, but waited it out. All kinds of newcomers barged in on her bond's mind, why not another.
He was rather small, ... and she was rather small...
The dragon gave Baeris several images, which she interpreted as 'Scratches in leaves and leaves no trace'. "No Trace, I suppose, will do for a name, right?"
"Gobble!"
"Good. Good... don't steal the flitter food, it's too high-sugar for the likes of you... Come and get some of what we feed the gryphs..."
Name: Scratches in leaves and leaves no trace (AKA No Trace)
Height: 6'1" at the shoulder
Powers: Camoflauge +10 (Able to, absurdly, "blend in" anywhere), Telepathic picture-speech (more coherent than firelizards in AM's books, pictures that act almost like sign language), Verbal Clucking, Power-Stare
It was more than half a year later, a year of exploration and lots of running around at the Healing Den. When all of a sudden a small note appeared in No Trace's nesting box. He'd found an office room that was empty, save for a water cooler (which didn't seem to ever empty itself no matter how much drinking was done at it) and a paper shredder - and that came in very handy indeed for nesting materials! So No Trace had an office, and now he had a note.
It wasn't really clear whether he could read or not, simply put he was still a turkey-dragon with a turkey-dragon sized brain... But he knew that this note was something important, something different than he'd scrabbled up for himself. So he grasped it in his beak, and took it to Baeris.
Startling her was a very fun game, for No Trace. He'd become expert at it, even when she was alone and on the prowl looking for such things. So No Trace let loose a loud "GOBBLE!" behind her, spilling two empty jars of sand all over the floor and making her hair stand up comedically for just a split second. The note came tumbling down, and she picked it up.
She'd gotten that 'silent because if I start talking I'll only start screaming' thing down. Reading the letter however, her expression softened. "Oh how terrible!" She said.
"Come along, No Trace, we've got a rescue to do. Dulath can teleport both of us... I don't think you know where we're headed." No Trace nodded and gave a little gobble.
They arrived at Lantessama as per the request, and Trix was there waiting. Next to her was Cyan, who had of all things a fairly decent sized dragonet hatchling clinging to her shirt. Blue and green, pastel, and with wide, scared eyes. "Knock knock," Baeris said, and the pair waved her into the area. "I see you have a little refugee," Baeris said.
"Her name is Azradesh," Cyan said, "and she's been accosted by bunnies. Killer bunnies."
Baeris blinked, twice, "that would explain the note then," she muttered. Normally any kind of communique to the Healing Den would come directly to her. But on special occasions when someone in particular would be best suited to take care of a problem, it came to them. This one, having gone directly to No Trace, was evidently important to him. "This is Scratches in Leaves and Leaves No Trace, we call him No Trace for short," Baeris announced. "He'll be taking care of you, Azradesh. If that's all right."
The little blue-green hatchling looked up and peeped a little. "That sounds okay," she said. She hopped from Cyan who looked relieved to finally be rid of the weight and clingy hatchling.
***
"How's it going with Azradesh?" Asked Baeris, after a few weeks. She got a stream of quick turkey-dragonthought, that Azradesh was adjusting well to life in the Healing Den, especially since she could nest with a fellow dragontype. She liked, apparently, being able to snuffle around in the offices and find spare shreds of things to nest with.
"You don't think... you're going to... nest with her, do you?" Baeris asked, and received a noncommittal cluck from the turkey dragon. It didn't assuage the creeping fear that soon the Den would be filled to the brim with clucking, vanishing, nesting fowl-dragons...
Azradesh is from the Lantessama Easter 2006 nest!