Without knowing their real father, R & R were raised by a very strong-willed woman, Rae. As a teen in high school with twins, Rae could hardly afford to take a break. It turns out that she was visited numerous times by other genrehoppers, travelers from other realities. Babysitting the twins while she was at school, a very kind thing to do.

Her hard work paid off, and the twins were raised with a decent income, if a little less time paid to them by Rae. The kids quickly developed into music lovers, hard working in their own elementary and middle school classes.

While both kids are smart, they're not super-geniuses. Raul is lousy at Chemistry, he just can't get any experiment to work right and often manages to blow something up. (A Sanger trait - if less than half the lab is gone when the smoke clears, it's a success!) Rowena's bad habit of doing her Biology homework in later classes has made her Math much harder.

But of course they both excel at other things. Following in the footsteps of his father (in almost any universe) Raul is going to be a track star, and his Team benefits greatly from his presence. Rowena's Electronic Music class loves her take on remixing old tunes into punk classics.

***

Raul is standing at Cy Dragonstake

Rowena is standing at Darkling Dawn

***

Rowena paced around in her room at Darkling Dawn, wondering what she should write about. She had to do something for her Tech Writing class, but there was no specific subject they were to finish. She knew perfectly well that if she didn't feel like doing it now, it'd wait until she got home with her dragon, if she bonded one, because of the way they could travel through time and space.

Heck, she could just visit a dimension where she'd already finished it, and copy it down... Bring it back... Nah! She'd rather do the work.

"HOCKEY!" She yelled suddenly, startling the people just outside her dorm. Immediately she got down to writing a concise work about the crafting of hockey pucks, sticks, nets and the ice rink itself. That should do it. In fact, she ran off a second copy of it for her hockey class.

And right when she was finishing up, nearly midnight, a crooning of dragon voices brought attention to the sands. Summoned quickly out to the sands, Rowena and the rest of the group of candidates (some of whom were so sleepy they could hardly keep their eyes open) (and who could sleep at a hatching!? it was so exciting Rowena was wide awake!) gathered and waited.

The eggs were already breaking open, the first hatched and was seriously in need of some PMS medicine... But then two more hatched, and an undead (... Rowena wasn't sure why she knew it was, but it was) female with beautiful wings and a scaley body came to her.

Rowena? My name is Suezu. She said. Rowena could feel the kind of coolness that came from undeath eminating from her mind. Hey, if you were already dead, you couldn't be killed, right?

That was neat. Rowena helped the dragoness pick out some small pieces of meat. "How come you eat?"

Because I am hungry, why would anyone eat? Answered the dragoness. Smirking, Rowena made mental notes to jot down later... This would be great!

***

Rowena and Suezu made a good team. They progressed back to Carramba High and started attending classes again. Adding the dragon's mind to her own, Rowena could often get better grades just by closing her eyes and thinking hard.

To her dragon, who could seek out answers for her. No one stopped them - not even when they found out. In fact, the instructors seemed to encourage her to do this! After all, they lived in a world where people could jack into the internet, talk to gods, and use magic spells to do the same thing. Talking to a dragon was the least of the professors' worries!

***

Meanwhile, at Cy, Raul progressed down through tunnels and dark passages with an annoying guy named Tenken. How this dude had gotten stuck with duties parading around in the dungeon, Raul could only guess. First one turn and then the next, all the guy did was complain! While Raul thought about doing something nasty to him while his back was turned, Tenken eventually did lead him to a couple interesting locations within the dungeon.

"You can't be serious," Tenken said, when Raul picked up a slimy little slug. It wasn't little, actually, it was quite large - but he liked it. It would probably make a great addition to any interrogation lab.

For good measure, he took another when Tenken wasn't looking. Besides, he had access to another dimension if he just waved his hand, he could store the things in a nice wet environment like they were used to.

Further along in the tunnels, though, there was a moment of terror - squeaking and leathery wings rattling everywhere. But then eggs, below a glowering bat's eyes...

He liked this one a lot - it hatched shortly after they left the dungeon. Naming it Cammi, she would cling to Raul's dredlocks and spook anyone who came too close.

"Oh I gotta have a couple of these," Raul said of the truly bizarre mushroom flits - or Fungiflits as Tenken refered to them. "Rowena will flip for this one... It's got a little hat!"

   ..

Since he liked the blue one best, it had so much personality, he named it Lutan. Rowena would later name her pink hat-wearing shroom Lumbo, though it seemed like a girl.

Eventually, Raul would find himself on the sands at Cy. Would he bond? Only time would tell...

***

And very shortly after arriving to Cy Dragonstake, that question was answered! The guy tending the sands didn't look very happy to be there - gee, just like that Tenken guy, where was he anyway? He'd been muttering and grumbling about having to attend the hatchings as some kind of viscious punishment, but now he wasn't here.

What was here, however, were a group of trembling eggs! One of them busted open and a blue dragon staggered to his feet. He was bipedal, that was always cool. It was his markings that attracted Raul to watch him closely. It was a good thing he did too.

The dragon examined the candidates, there weren't very many of them. When he spotted his chosen one, he gave a squeak of joy and bounded over. He landed in front of Raul, eyes excitedly surveying the various critters he had arrayed around him.

Maybe we can head back to the dungeon again so I can get some critters! They look really neat!

“Yeah, I'm sure that Tenken will love taking me through again,” laughed Raul. “But I'll make sure that he is nice for you, ok, Letyrin?"

Letyrin gave a satisfied nod. Sounds like a plan to me! And so does getting some food...

“Then, let's go!” said Raul, leading the hatchling from the sands. He was a very happy camper. He'd be able to head back to Carramba with a batch of pets and a spiff dragon to boot!

***

Rowena arrived back at Carramba with the bright-winged green barely able to walk. Suezu and she had done a little ... wandering. Raul noticed his sister and his eyebrow shot up.

"Where have you been?" He hissed at her while she stumbled up the stairs at the speakers' plaza.

"Oh, here and there," Rowena said. But her brother could tell that she'd been 'hopping. "I went off to see our home, and..."

"And you got lost."

It was not her fault, Suezu commented tiredly from the warm steps. Several students had gathered around her to fawn attention at her, which she duly enjoyed. I got us lost. Perhaps if you had come along, we would not have.

Letyrin grumbled, We probably would - my rider is about as able to genrehop accurately as yours. They are very distractable.

The pair of dragons hung out and basked, while their riders made it to fourth period classes just in time. Crazy Doc Sanger welcomed Raul back to class with a knowing smile, while DJ Zeets hardly noticed when anyone came or went from her loud classroom anyway and Rowena slipped in just under the gun.