Lucas has been aided in his search for his soul, by Iris - now his paladin - and her story can be found HERE.
Lumiere and Iris seemed to have conspired with each other, to bring Lucas news of the Avengaen bonding ceremony. It was something that he'd heard of, faintly in the past - perhaps when they had a bit more contact with other worlds.
But Avengaea wasn't Earth, and it wasn't another dimension. It was another planet, somewhere far away. It could be reached by portals - but from what his daughter said, they were difficult to use and unreliable at best.
It was his best chance, Iris told him.
Her beautiful dragoness Mistylia offered to take the risk of opening their portal. Supplying power to him wasn't going to be the problem, he'd said. It was keeping it open and locating a way back, once the portal closed...
Lucas packed up a few scant things, those he often traveled with. But noticably he left books, items, and a number of personal things that he'd acquired during his stay at House Domina. That meant - his room was still his, he would be back to it someday.
Hopefully soon. Zora and the other instructors, as well as the students who had been learning from him (he'd been teaching shapeshifting techniques, to those who could learn) came out and bid him farewell.
The portal opened - wavering. And there was a smile on the man's face as he looked over his shoulder. So many people who hoped he'd be back? That was a switch for him, and it lightened his heart considerably.
***
When he moved through the portal, there was a feeling - a pop in the fabric of the universe. It alerted someone, sitting half-asleep on a nice couch in a nice room, surrounded by terrible things. The man looked around, wondering what that feeling was, why he'd awakened so suddenly.
His dragon, Morkilanth, gave a grumbling sound from outside.
That was familiar, somehow, he spoke through Julian's mind. The well-dressed and casually cruel man stood up and moved around the tools he'd been working on for the later party he'd be hosting.
"Yes, yes it was. But not 'our' boy, no... Not ours. Where's he gone... Let us find out. Shall we?" Julian tossed his head and waited for the dragon to rise. They would go out and find some companionship for their troubles. Then, he thought, they'd find every one of the worlds that still had a Sanger on it and destroy them.
***
Avengaea had waited for a long time to accept people from other worlds, apparently, into their dragon-bonding program. And it was worth the wait, to Lucas.
These dragons - shapeshifters by birth, and some of them better at it than others - walked the same paths as their human companions. They studied, they worked, they had lives and jobs. It was a fine place. Their library was huge, well stocked with things that Lucas would have loved to learn about.
Had he not been busy already, working out the details of standing as a candidate in their bonding program. Normally somewhat forceful if he knew what he wanted, Lucas was hesitant to bother the people in charge. He stood carefully at the edges of gatherings, worried. But the whole time, there were dragons willing to talk with him, their own bonds happily discussing daily events here.
So it went for more than a month, as they waited for the called hatchlings to arrive. They were young dragons, but they weren't fresh from the shell. That struck Lucas as odd, since all the other dragons he'd researched for bonding were usually impressed upon their lifemate at their hatching.
But these? They had the choice of looking over their potential friends long before they needed to make their decisions. And it was a voluntary one - they were not forced to do anything. If they did not wish to bond, they would not have to choose. They would become loners or just plain old members of their society if they did not join up.
Lucas liked it there, quite a bit. His restful gaze across Sanctuary was interrupted by the tolling of a bell. It was dinner time, it was going to be an interesting celebration.
Tonight was the night that the candidates were to meet the young dragons for the first time.
Pulling in a deep breath, Lucas moved himself to the dining hall, and endured a lengthy session with the younger bonders, listening to the details of what they were and were not allowed to do during this meeting... Well, it was interesting enough. But Lucas got the impression that if the dragonets were interested, they'd be able to do whatever they felt was appropriate. Short of just bonding then and there of course.
The scrolls would be doing that job, later. This worried Lucas a little, these scrolls were the embument of the bonding, since the local dragonets did not have the innate magic for it. But, that was irrelevant. When they had eaten and they were led into the meeting rooms, Lucas was drawn toward a grouping of Fire dragons. One was just surly, he clearly did not want to be there at all. The other male largely ignored Lucas.
The female seemed to gaze at him with large, open eyes. Many of the others who had arrived - including a very pregnant woman from a place called Vella Crean (who stared at Lucas so intently that he wondered what was wrong with him now? what had he done?) - milled about. The eventuality was that each person got the chance to talk to a number of the dragonets, if they so wished. Learning about each other, their worlds, their passions...
But Lucas was stuck at this little red-colored Fire female. Quietly, she asked him, "where do you wander? Is it a place that I could go too?"
"It is," he answered. "But it will take some time to explain where. I've wandered quite a lot."
"We like to wander, or so I've been told," the fire gave a grin. "But there is more to you. I can just see something about you."
"Ah-" Lucas said, with a grin. "I'm human enough, but I also take a dragon's shape. My world's magic users can sometimes do this." He extended his arm which grew scaled skin and long nails upon the tip of his clawed hand. "I fly with dragons. Even though it's somewhat dangerous where I'm from."
That seemed to surprise the little Fire. "Why would it be? Are there Demons? We will fight them, if we have to. Right?"
"There... are demons everywhere," Lucas said, with a faintly haunted frown. "But enough about those things. My friends brought me here, I ... hope to find someone to help me."
"Well, that might just be in order. And you know that some dragons can shapeshift!" The female seemed quite proud of herself for knowing this. Lucas wondered just exactly how old this hatchling was, if not fresh out of the egg. She seemed to carry herself with a kind of maturity that experience could give. But she was indeed the same size as some of the others present - and they were probably less than a few years old at best. They couldn't be newly hatched.
Could they?
"What is your name, little Fire girl?" Lucas asked her, still entranced. Her tail flicked, and she pressed her hand onto it so it wouldn't keep embarrassing her.
"Audeo Rufaincul," she said. "I am pleased to meet you."
"Lucas," he said, holding his hand out. She took it - she was warm, furry. It was almost enough to make him laugh - her furry fingers tickled.
"It's time to go," she announced when the rest of the humans and bonders had begun to leave. "I will see you again, Lucas. In three days."
"Good," Lucas said, as he too left the meeting chambers, "and I'm looking forward to it."
***
The speech that Naio gave was... long. Almost interminably so. He apparently liked to speak, at length. Lucas half tuned him out, since there were other more interesting conversations within his sensitive ears' reach. Something had happened with the scruffy looking Fire dragonet, trying to leave or escape. Why would he want to do that? Oh - perhaps it was that he wasn't there really of his own volition. His mother sent him.
What went through Lucas' mind then wasn't a fearful reliving of his own captivity. It was a pang of jealousy that the dragon had a mother to send him anywhere. How odd.
Eventually, after maybe a lengthy 10 or 15 minute speech, when most of the younger bonders were just about ready to fall asleep, the dragonets were led into the chambers. There at the head of the room was a dais built for them to stand upon and do their choosing from. Several dragonets moved almost immediately, right to their chosen. But it would be several minutes later when another batch had finally gone out to their bonds, that the fire female came into view.
She picked up a scroll from the basket, the scroll which had the spell that would bond she and her choice together. Eagerly she went through the milling candidates, until she did something that no other dragonet had done.
She glowed brightly red, and as she walked, her shape changed from a four-footed dragonet into a red-skinned biped - still holding on to the scroll. There was a collective gasp - mostly from the humans and their humanoid-shaped bonds. This was so unusual, for a dragonet this young!
Such talent - and that talent could not be wasted. She was wearing clothing, and Lucas wondered absently whether she'd had to buy them, or get someone to make them, and if they'd stick with her without her bipedal form. She was young, a child of no more than 9 in human form, but that meant merely that she was not set in her ways. She could do whatever she wished, with this power. She sensed Lucas could help her learn more about it, herself, and ... there was something else she felt too, when she looked at the man.
She came right up to Lucas, who was smiling but a bit surprised too. She held out her hand with the scroll in it - he was meant only to touch it and the bond would be made.
"Hello Audeo," he said, quietly with a smile. "I didn't know you could do that."
"I know," she giggled, and waggled the scroll slightly. Lucas took it as it shone brightly. Their bond was made. It was done.
They were to help each other. Audeo got a bit more serious, when she felt the deep wounds of Lucas' scarred soul. But they both walked up to the line of bonded pairs, when their names were called at the end of the night. They accepted the applause and praise, and made sure that the paperwork was right - it had their names, the time and date, and the location. It was a clever scroll, that spell. Not only did it seal them together officially, but it made sure that mundane tasks like records keeping were taken care of too.
They made their way back to Lucas' dorm, silently. It was a happy silence, not a sullen one. A mood that Lucas hoped he could keep with him forever.
***
"It is not so hard, come along and come in with me! Spread your wings if you have to!" Audeo called out. Behind her, Lucas was flying as his dark dragon shape. But she was flying over the lake. He balked, and skirted it deftly.
"Not... just yet," Lucas said, his dragon voice loud but subdued.
Audeo's ears flattened, and she sped ahead. Her strong wings would carry her anywhere. And Lucas' could do that too. Only, he was afraid of so many things! So. That wouldn't do at all! Audeo swept down over the lake again, and let her head dunk into the water, the wingtips splashing into the surface. She came back up, refreshed.
"It's chill but it's so fresh! Come on, my friend, you've got to do it some time." She called. "I'm sure you can swim if you try."
"I have tried," Lucas said dismally, "and I float like a stone!" He switched his wing gait, backwinged a little and headed down to the side of the lake. The shore was pebbly and slick, but with his dragon-feet he could walk easily.
Audeo had grown, her dragon shape was strongly muscled. Her half-human form was pleasantly pre-teenaged, her mane of orange-fire hair would have made any humanoid look twice. Many did. Especially when the two of them were in the library or attending some function socially. Audeo was a knockout.
What was she doing with such an old man, that was the main question.
"You can float if you concentrate on it," she said, bringing Lucas' wandering mind back to things at hand. "The water here isn't deep. I will never let you drown. Nor would the other dragons," she nodded at the elves and the dark-skinned one's water dragon lept from the lake again. The smaller light-skinned elfess dove from an outcropped stone, into the deeper part of the lake. She shot up again, screaming that the water was frigid. Yet - she went right back in again.
"What's wrong with that girl?" Lucas muttered.
"There is nothing wrong with her," Audeo nudged Lucas toward the water, "the water is not that cold, and you can float just fine."
Lucas put one clawed foot into the inches of water nearest him.
"I - am - not - going - swimming - in - this." He said, abruptly turning human and realizing just how frigid the water was. Apogee was right... How could she stand it though?
"Ah -" Lucas said, as he watched her. "She's never in the water more than a few moments at a time. That's how she can stand it, Audeo," he tried to beg out of it, but the large fire dragoness would have nothing more. She pushed her head against his back, and he had no choice but to stride toward the water again.
"I - but - I don't!" He protested, and finally fell on his butt into the water. With a gigantic splash, Audeo followed him. Her furry skin would be soaked, heavy, but she felt like she could still handle it all. She swished around in the shallow, and finally Lucas waded out to greet her.
"If you ignore the chill, it's ... kind of fun," he said. "But I still have to say, I might never sire another child again what with the ice in the water..."
