Try harder.

Gala grimaced and held her breath. "I still don't... Oh. Is that it? That red glimmer?"

That is it. Do you think you can make it from here?

Gala smirked. She'd been tossed around different universes already, so she knew her boundaries. What little there were of them. She nodded to her invisible partner, and bid him farewell.

"Thank you..." she said, "I'll... Well I'll probably never hear from you again, so it was fun while it lasted."

Was it? Or are you just lying to me to keep me happy?

"Why should I care if you're happy? You're some disembodied voice in my head, Etan... Forget it. I'm off."

That disembodied voice leaned back in his cushy study, isolated on a world that no one else visited, and smiled at himself. Gala was a quick study, a good learner. She would survive, probably longer than most.

Of course she would. He'd trained her, hadn't he?

Gala could have sworn she felt a gloating chuckle come from Etan's general area. She shrugged and plugged herself into the universe.

It was populated by people, mostly human people she noticed. That was always good. When she wound up in a universe where humans hadn't evolved the same way, or a place where robots took over or where Earth never existed at all, those were never good places. She usually got chased away or imprisoned or worse.

She hated drifting around in space. She prefered to travel on foot, or at least by conventional means like a cart or a horse or a Lamboughini. Chuckling to herself, she'd only been in one of those, and that car was capable of traveling the same way she did... Sideways through time and space.

Gala focused herself. Her head gear was humming, and she flipped down the small HUD over her left eye to get a view of where she'd got to. There were hills, old ones from volcanic activity, lake, snow... Caverns and artificial structures.

She blinked and switched the view over to warm-bodies, finding a huge array of life. Smallest to largest there were tons of little creatures she had to guess were either mice or something similar, rabbits, chickens and birds, goats, on up to horses and people wandering around... And then the really big heat signatures caught her eye.

Really big. Quite large -- the smallest among them were bigger than a horse, the largest grew to the size of an earthly city bus! With...

"Are those wings?" She breathed to herself, a plume of air visible since she'd landed on the peak of one near by mountain, "Those are wings... on dragons? Wow!" She jumped up and down -- halfway because she was happy to see these things, and partially because her silken outfit was way too chilly for this climate. She started making her way down the side of the hill, and used her staff to steady herself.

Good thing she had it. Halfway down she almost slipped into a sharp crevasse, she saw rocks tumbling down and impacting jagged crystal stones. She'd been close to death before, but this time she realized that if she didn't make contact with the people here, she might not survive. She needed something to eat, and a warm fire.

With the staff to balance her, she stumbled in to Vella Crean's hall. She was tired, but not so exhausted that she couldn't look around in awe. "Beautiful place..." she whispered, thinking, 'big! for the dragons, I suppose!'

Curious people gathered around her, though they were human they looked her over and decided that she was normal enough to remain. And obviously not a threat -- one of them called out in a strange language.

"I hope you're calling for a warm blanket and some hot cocoa," Gala muttered, while she tapped her head gear and started assimilating language comparison information. Within minutes, with all the muttering and gossiping going on around her, Gala shortly began to listen and understand their strange speech.

She tried saying, "hi my name is Gala," but what she apparently said was "it would welcome a celebration to call it". Shrugging, she accepted the profered blanket -- and giggled madly when someone else brought her a mug of gently steaming liquid.

"I think I'm having pronoun troubles..." She muttered, as the people around her seemed to speak of her inability to communicate properly. "I'm not stupid you know... I escaped from a mad tyrant's television empire and stole his own technology to use it against him... Stupid people don't do that kind of thing..."

But people didn't much understand what came out of her mouth. Pronoun trouble indeed. Someone else came up to her, a friendly if experienced looking woman. She said, "please come with me," and Gala nodded.

"See, I understand you but you lot don't get what I'm saying... I wish that Etan could give me that bennie some day..." She shuddered, remembering that the ghostly presence of the telepathic man would just as easily slip inside her mind and force her to open gateways for him -- he'd done so, and would probably do it again, so the less she allowed herself to think of him the better. He was useful, but he was also pretty unkind sometimes.

Gala followed this woman into a smaller room which had a nice fire going and a desk, with cabinets filled with ledgers and tapestries on the walls depicting the dragons in flight.

"They're so pretty," Gala said, sitting in the comfortable leather-covered chair the woman offered. "Are they tame or are they pets? Or fierce?" She noticed some images of the dragons showed them breathing fire at things, in one tapestry it was a silvery curl coming from a large red blot, in another, a field of plants and big bugs, in others, darker creatures with too many heads and in others, humans themselves.

"I think you are asking about the dragons?" The woman announced, her tone indicated that she was still being confused by whatever Gala had said aloud. "They are not servants or entertainment. They are partners to us. We bond to them to provide defense, or transport."

"I'm good at transportation," Gala said, trying to make her brain tell her mouth to say the right thing. It came out, 'cargo belongings it starts', and the woman furrowed her eyebrows. Gala sighed. "This isn't working very well. I wonder if this gadget is broken?" She tapped her head unit, which was attached to her skull and buried deep into her brain. It had been installed by that mad tyrant, she was supposed to be a kind of seeker-hunter unit but she'd managed to escape before her 'reprogramming' had occurred. Perhaps that programming would have helped.

"Would you like to see the dragons? I am bonded, and my dragon would like to see you." The woman stood, after tilting her head oddly and making like she was speaking to an invisible friend. It wasn't odd to Gala, after all she'd just spent more than three years talking to a completely invisible Etan.

Gala kept it as simple as possible -- saying, "yes?" which apparently did come out as 'yes' this time. Pleased, she followed the woman and they went into the mountainside. Gala liked this place, it was dark-walled but lit nicely with torches and glowing things. She wondered if she started using her own fireworks if they'd kick her out or make her stand as a roadsign?

When the woman indicated that Gala walk through a particularly wide and tall doorway, her feet almost faltered. It was quite warm in this new room, stunningly so. It must be from the volcanic vent below, there was no danger of course, the lava was moving slowly and far away. But the warm air in the fissures above it circulated and then came up to this large cavern...

Where dragons rested. There were three, and then Gala saw a small collection of what looked to be eggs. When she was about to say something, another dragon dropped down onto the sand, and nuzzled one of the beautiful golden colored ones. There were two gold, and two bluish ones. Apparently, mates.

"Aneko and Illi'ack," the woman waved her hand at two, with a more turquoisey-blue to the pair, "and Sasiath and Dzurth," she said of the more traditionally-blue-blue. Their golden companions raised their heads, and one of them greeted the woman with a pleasurable kind of trumpet.

Gala's head gear suddenly sparked. Her head spun, and she cried out -- but she collapsed before the woman could help her, and her staff had fallen to the ground already.

***

Several hours later, Gala woke up in an infirmary of sorts, surrounded by warmth and some concerned faces. One of them had a kind of magnifying glass in his hands, while others were busy ticking their tongues and saying something about the metal thing embedded in Gala's head.

"Ohhhg," Gala groaned, trying to sit up and being prevented by the medic's strong hand. "I ... what was that?"

"Ah, you're speaking proper now," said one doc. "Your head started making a strange noise. We do not have technology like that here, so we did not know what to do."

The woman who'd introduced the dragons came up, with a frown on her face. "My dragon attempted to communicate with you, but your device prevented her. Can you turn it off?"

"Turn... turn it off?" Gala said, reaching her hand to the warm and familiar presence of the box which allowed her to move through universes... "Um... no, I can't. I don't think --" she felt a ping in it, something strange had happened to her. The device had never done that before. It kept her safe, gave her protection.

But that was not an attack, she reminded herself. It was a dragon trying to communicate. Perhaps... she might turn it off for a little bit? Just to hear what the dragon might have to say?

"I would, but I don't ... I don't know how. I would like to, I guess. But it keeps me from getting hurt." Gala glanced up at the doubtful expressions around her, "well, most of the time. And it's what lets me speak to you in your own language. I didn't know it until now... I didn't seem to know it well enough to speak at least. But now I do... I don't know if I'd stop speaking right, or if I'd know what you are saying..." She started getting a little agitated. The doctor put a steady hand on her shoulder again, and Gala settled back again. "I can try asking the device what to do. But... I'm kind of used to it. I don't know if I want it off, and I certainly don't know if I can turn it back on after. So... Maybe there will be something to do..."

Internal consultation -- active. State request?
Diagnostic query, shutdown and reactivate at later time?
Processing... >> ... >> Affirimative.
Diagnostic query, shutdown external only, internal active?
Affirmative, warning: external safety systems deactivation allows external force and/or ambush possibility, unrecommended.
...

Gala sighed. It was possible, all internal. How nice. She'd never even thought about it before, because the system kept her body aware of what her eyes could not see. Her own ability to move through the universe and tear at the fabric of it would not be compromised, she decided. That ability was actually only directed by the device, she'd always known she would flit through space and time on her own. At least this device gave her some input as to which direction she went -- not flitting around like a butterfly on cosmic winds.

"I can do that," she announced finally. "I will, for a while. I don't know why, but I want to. I want to see what your dragon's voice is like," she said to the woman, who smiled.

"You'll like it," she said, "and perhaps there will be another voice you will hear, if you stay near the eggs. Sasitath tells me that you would indeed be a good choice for one of the eggs upon our sands. There are many to choose from, and we still require more to stand. I do not like the idea of too many of our eggs bonding to only one another. It will be interesting to see who chooses you, Celebration."

"Gala," Gala said, "my name is Gala."

When the eggs began to rock and break open Gala was concerned that someone might get hurt by the sharp shards of them. But it didn't seem to matter, there were healers present and she relaxed. A beautiful white female hatched first, then a rich black, and his bronze brother. Another white, and another black hatched about the same time.

The third white of the hatching came out, bonded, and left the sands before another pair broke their shells. A blue and a black. Then a black, white and aqua colored dragon group hatched all at once. They bonded and then a little red dragon came out. Another four eggs broke open, and Gala's head began to tingle more strongly.

The bronze which came out bonded to someone, and then a trio of blue-shaded ones headed out. Echo, someone Gala knew had to be another traveler like herself, bonded to one of them. But none came to Gala herself. Then the three of the last four eggs broke open after the other blues bonded.

A white came out, then a bright blue. And then a pretty pale dusty-blue one approached Gala. She looked at Gala, and then started singing in a rather annoyingly high voice, "We are family! Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah! What's so funny?" She looked at Gala.

There was a moment when, perhaps, Gala could have prevented herself from bursting out laughing. The little dragoness was so cute, and singing something that surely not one of the people here -- except maybe Echo -- had ever heard! "My name is Calebracionth!" The blue announced, and Gala nodded.

"Good, I'm Gala, and you're Cale, and now people won't mistake my name for yours." Gala said, grinning. She hummed the song a little more, and as they went off to find the hatchling's first meal, both broke out singing loudly.

It's glorious to fly, don't you think?

"I agree - but you'll have to learn how to do it with me on your back, sometime soon, dear Cale." Gala smiled softly at the royal blue half-grown dragoness.

They spent a while researching how best to ride - with Gala's legs tight or loose, or with a harness, or with her learning to stand and balance?

It turned out that her legs alone were more than strong enough to hold her to the dragon's shoulders, in front of the steadily beating wings. But it would be a while before the blue was able to lift both herself and her rider!

"I know, Cale, I know." Gala looked around her, at Vella Crean. She'd made some interesting friends here. She'd learned a new language. Maybe two.

She'd bonded Calebrationth. What more could be said?

Now they needed to be on their way, and Cale knew that it would be hard on the dimension traveller. She waited patiently while Gala ran around finding people she knew and made some tearful farewell statements.

"Where are we headed, Cale?" Gala finally asked, but the bluish dragoness shrugged her head.

I do not know. Places. I only know that. And there is a weird dusty feeling in my head.

"Really..." Gala wondered, had E'tan really managed to find her? Odd. Maybe he knew all along. He didn't know *everything* did he?

Well there was nothing for it but, "head to that feeling. Focus on it. I'm going to turn my head unit back on, so I can get back to the right coordinates again. But don't worry. You will still be able to talk to me. I just don't want everything else in my head too..."

Filters on>
Protective Shield? -- Extend, cover dragon as well. Affirmative>

Then they rolled out - or rather flew, into the huge darkness of the Nexus once more...