Originally on lethe-dragon htm pages, fully collected here for story - also includes Drew and Nik story bits here and there

Note that originally it was still called Falas Weyr, not Isla, so if my search and replace didn't find them all, tough titties. Also Bhav is a very different dragon today than he was just a while ago given his heritage and actual coloration needs... see below. (2024)

Oh yeah: There may be adult content on this site. It's because I'm not gonna hide or lie about my motivations or history

Prelude - Drew and Lethe at work

***

It came as a bit of a shock to me, that the whole thing was 'real'. It was actually still way more unreal in my mind. Dragons DID exist. Really. And thus, I could assume that a whole walloping batch of other things did too.

For that reason alone, I set about putting myself into shape for dragon bonding. Impressing. Whatever. I would have to find out what they called it at the place I was headed. I'd heard of it. More than that, I knew in a sort of way the 'owner' of it. Would she be there? Would everyone be there? Would I recognize them?

They'd have to recognize me, because I'd be the 'geezer' of the batch. And I was the only one who claimed to have a batch of tattoos on me. Absently I tried to remember the name of the girl who wanted one of my dragons on her skin - came up with a blank.

Everything was blank - because we were between worlds. The rider told me to relax before hand, but frankly I knew what to expect. I wanted the chill to the bone, as the stories went. I also wanted my mind to be opened up. To feel the dead - to sense the remnants of everything else that passed through this null and void space.

But I felt nothing - just nothing - but cold. My mind never stopped working, even if my teeth chattered in my jaw. It was fucking cold. And I was if anything, "not" a cold-type person.

Born and raised in the Southern California sun and sea, among the eucalyptis trees imported generations before... I was used to the weather being close to 70 (that's F not C of course... and I'm lousy with calculations - so leave it at "warm") all the time. Including winter. And I would rather roast in a hot summer than freeze in a chilly winter.

Not like my mother. Who was born in Chicago and didn't seem to have the sense of when to use the heat and when to turn it off. Nor when to just leave me the hell alone... And it was partially to get away from her that I chose to go with the search rider. Even though it would leave my cats with her for the duration, I knew that she would just have to bear it and keep feeding them. They were too adorable to just kick out.

Weren't they? I really wanted to take one with me. But then I also didn't want my cat to become dragon food. Wher food, whatever.

With a strange shudder we came out from between over a fantastically beautiful island. One which I thought seemed more familiar, because in "my" version of this universe, the Kshau Protectorate had left this isle in a Pass on Pern just before the current time line started. Isla Weyr was built on the same isle that I lovingly detailed in some page or other - one which was probably going to get deleted by Geocities and their idiotic rules...

We were very high up. The wind wasn't nearly as cold here in the clouds as it was between, though the wind stung my eyes and threatened to whip my glasses off my face. I couldn't afford that - there was ocean below us, and my eyes weren't all that hot to begin with. I was glad I'd taken the belongings that meant something to me, which happened to include the little screwdriver and magnifying glass that I could screw in that annoying left-lens screw that always came loose.

I got back to my senses shortly - because we were really high up. I clutched the dragon's back with my knees, but I didn't feel unsafe. I'd long passed that fear of heights stage when I realized that I wasn't hallucinating and there really was a dragon standing there and his rider was telling me to grab my stuff.

The heights thing would just have to be put into perspective, in the back of my mind. Where it would fester, and give me nightmares, but it wouldn't prevent me from actually working on a dragon.

A dragon.

My heart lept again, and I passed my hand along the beautiful blue's hide. Not scales, hide. That was both a blessing and a curse, I thought. With a snake, its shed skin smelled something awful, and it could get parasites in places that wouldn't be nice to clean on a limbed creature. But hide, though it'd have to be thick, was more supple and could be cared for easier.

Yet they weren't mammals... Whatever. Weirdness that I'd just have to ignore. If things went like in the books - or the online stories for that matter - I'd be needing to take some classes on maintenance and whatnot.

Gads I hated school. And, likely, I'd be the oldest one there because most places just wouldn't allow anyone over twenty five or so, to impress.

That was innane, I thought. Why take a child who hasn't even figured out what they want or can do with themselves, and mold them into something like an army toy? I was told that no, even though they were taking me to Pern, we wouldn't be expected to fly up against Thread. That was good - because while I was good at video games of such things, I would probably suck at it in reality.

Why didn't they take older folks? Because they're geezers set in their way... Maybe? I laughed a little to myself as we circled downward toward the islands.

Glimmering green and white, forest surrounded by sands... Azure ocean, and I realized that I was compensating for the odd color of the sun here. Maybe what "blue" meant here was really different? But the dragon was blue standing on the street, and it was still blue here. How about that.

Or maybe, I was completely insane.

But if that were true, I was enjoying every single breath of it.

***

The orientation meeting was too brief for my taste. There were a batch of people - women mostly but a few men, and I thought to myself, "why didn't I think of asking someone to come along? Nakia would make a great rider." And Nakia, Nick, or as we loved to call him at work, Nabib, probably would have jumped at the chance too. I needed to suggest it to someone. But I didn't know where he lived, and I didn't think they had the internet here on Isla. I couldn't contact him now. Drew said something about it too, and he'd managed to get himself a little flitter! Bastard!

I thought more about Nakia, maybe I could get him here later. That would rock. If I impressed, I'd come back there and really wreak havoc. Heh.

I thought about what was said at the orientation though. We were all expected to do the chores and get physically fit enough to ride and manage a dragon. And they weren't "small". When I first stood next to the blue, he was about the size of a tall horse at the shoulder joint, higher with the wing joint, and his head was about the length of my arm. And blues were among the smaller of the dragons.

I don't know that I wanted to take care of anything larger than a blue, but ... I think also the lot of us just stood numbly and watched as we saw our first Gold. A queen, beautiful. Her wings were pale like sunlight, and ... wow. I was just floored. Because there are no earthly animals that have four legs and wings too, it was weird watching how they "really" moved, how they flew.

I sat down right there on the ledge, dragged out my digital camera and snapped a couple pictures. The batteries would keep and I had two sets of spares. The charger plug fit into the electrical outlet in my dorm, but I didn't much trust the charger itself not to die. It'd done so before. Batteries and cameras aside, once they were dead, I didn't know if I was planning on using the drawing pads I brought. I drew from my mind, not from life - but here there were dragons to draw from.

We'd have to get scrolls and books out - passing them among one another and learning about the anatomy and such. But ... we're all artists. Earthly artists anyway, and so much of that stuff was old hat to us! We would have to go over the names of the wing spars, muscles and the internal organs that not many really thought much of.

And rank. Something I'd always hated because I was just 'not' military. Here was a wing leader with his particular loop of cord around his shoulder. Here was a second, there was the kitchen head and this was the steward... Words to me. I'd have to figure out rank by experience, then.

That first night, spent in a dorm with two others... Was weird. It was lonely for all of us, even though we were now in the same place together - where we'd been spread out all over the world before. I laughed about how the internet was a marvelous thing.

And we all groaned because our email accounts were TOTALLY going to fill up while we were gone!

I missed my cats. Keeping me warm, demanding to be fed in the morning, waking me up by their antics in my room. I woke on my standard three hour intervals - a lousy sleeper anyway, and in a foreign bed. I would have to get used to this crap. But I never... NEVER just fall to sleep. It's so hard for me to even sleep when I'm exhausted physically, so this was monumentally difficult.

And I missed more than anything, having my computer to write out my dreams that next morning. A ritual done for more than fifteen years - longer than some of my new friends had been alive. Every morning. Someone suggested I write, and I suggested they screw themselves, because there was a reason I didn't write - my hands were halfway ruined by carpal tunnel syndrome - brought on by too much typing of course. But also my hands and arms would sieze up if I wrote too much or even really used a pen for too long at all. That made inking my artwork really hard - but now I might hardly have time to draw anyway. Others had brought their computers or laptops - but I didn't have a little computer. A big monitor, heavy case... No. It would keep.

Then came breakfast. I prayed to the god I didn't believe in, that they had something other than wheat grains here, something beyond the cow's milk that I couldn't digest either. Damn digestive disorders... But though I was worried at first, the breakfast cakes and the klah - no substitute for coffee - were quite good. Cane sugar was all but unknown, but there was something sweet like honey in the drink, and to pour on the cakes... My first offworld meal. I'd been told to eat before, because they didn't know when everyone would arrive. That made a certain kind of sense. But still... Dinner would be an adventure in meat. Fun!

We got right to studies. The days were suddenly more regimented than I could have imagined. And free time? What was that? At least it was warm - well, warmer in the caverns and toward the inner areas of this big supposedly-extinct volcano. Down at the beaches, yeah, it was nice and warm, with a stiff breeze off the shore that blew sand into my eyes and made me shivver. This was another world... I looked into the sky and knew that it was different. The Red Star was there- huge, but not so close that it was a danger just yet.

"Wow," I said.

When I got back up to the dorms, weyrs, whatever, the others were going through their stuff to see what all they each thought was important to bring.

I myself packed lighter than I expected to. Clothing, yes, but that too was going to be provided after a while. (And presumably, I'd be earning some kind of money along the way that could be spent if there was a gather. whooo - a gather!) I took my camera and some memory chips, the batteries. But also a number of half used and one completely blank drawing pad, giving me what I estimated about two hundred blank pages. My drawing style meant that I only ever used one side of the page, and usually large images. Because it was a simple style, it used a lot of space. I'd have to get over that, and start drawing small.

Also I brought some graph paper and blank typing paper - ostensibly for inking artwork but it could be used for just about anything. I brought my dice, because I would never live in a world that didn't have dice. If we were ever bored, we could play my Zekiran game, which I'd also brought (along with the many blank character sheets - hell, I could playtest this thing here! finally!). I took along the Harry Potter books but I didn't have book five, and four was monsterous enough and took up so much space, I wondered whether I had lost my mind or what. I took a batch of stomach medicines with me, because if I was gonna eat anything bad, I'd want to be able to fix myself.

And I took my towel. Not the shitty bathtowels that I had, there were towels here. My plush purple and brown "Unicorns Running" towel I had since I was in junior high school, the one that I proclaimed would help me leave the doomed Earth when the Vogons came to blow it up. Hitch hiking across the galaxy.

Which was, suddenly, a real possibility. I brought Bat, my little stuffed Beanie, but left Cat, the white beanie cat, because one stuffed animal would be enough. I thought about taking Brad the Drunken Frat Dragon with me, but that would have been altogether too silly. I did take the small Cthulhu doll that someone had asked about in the group - but I didn't offhand know if they'd be here, either. I could give it to them, if they showed up and maybe mentioned it. Right. That'd happen.

The fact that I always had a Grand Moff Tarkin toy in my back pack should say volumes about many aspects of my life. I took the repainted and remixed Sanger version and put him in a soft eyeglass case, taped shut. An assortment of color photos, printouts and such - mostly of people I'd never met, like Hugo Weaving as Smith, and Alan Rickman as Snape. And that guy from Deviant Art who looked exactly like Sanger. I wanted that guy with me. But then he lived in Belgium and Belgium was a swear word in the Hitch Hiker's guide.

I lauged myself to sleep and remembered that I also brought enough birth control to last three months. After that, I'd be on my own.

***

"I need a tattoo," I muttered as I swept the floor of a brown weyrling's home. Someone else muttered that I needed another tattoo like I needed a hole in my head, or threadscore.

"There's a thought," I said with a grin. "I don't mind scarification either, I've never done that."

"You are a sick sick woman," Sunny replied. "Thread's supposed to be really painful."

"Yeah, but only for a while. Once the skin is burnt the nerves are gone." I indicated my arm, "this was eleven hours," she gave off a gasp, "not all at once...sheesh."

I did want a new tattoo. Of course, I hadn't had the one finished, either, because my artist had taken a bit more of a vacation than everyone expected after her boyfriend passed away. Talk about unfinished business. The cheetah gryphon on my chest was blank, everything else was in full flying colors. Maybe I'd try to get someone here to finish it... Or how about not.

The extent of that craft was 'rubbing charcoal in wounds' and didn't do much for me, really. Maybe I could make my own tattoo gun. They could do it in prison, I could certainly do it here... Shee-yeah right, I thought. How about I wait...

I'd need the right design too. I already had dragons aplenty. And it was odd, because some of the riders here actually seemed to recoginze them - as real dragons. Because of course, all of the images that I put on myself, were ones I'd written up... For others. But I stopped writing on Pern a ways before. Alskyr was out there somewhere, and the Healing Den. And as soon as I could, if I impressed, I'd be seeking them out.

And some Sangers I knew needed a bit of a boost.

The slop of weyrling shit had stopped turning my stomach a while back. I had six cats using two litter boxes in one small bathroom at home. I could handle a breezy weyrling den. And it was good hard work. My back needed help desperately, though, and I didn't know for sure if their healer could do chiropractic adjustments. I was used to those... Maybe I could just get one of the healthy and handsome riders to work it out of me, later.

Thinking about starting a relationship here made me suddenly twinge. I really was still in love with Ilya after all. He was my life - but even at home, he was three thousand miles away.

Three thousand miles I could travel in a blink of an eye, on a dragon.

And he wouldn't mind if I played around - he'd done it while he was in Japan and I approved of it then, even though I wasn't sure about him and protection and trust. The girl was a riot - so cute. And he went to her wedding later on anyway. That's why I loved him. We were so comfortable together... No one else had ever made me feel that way. And no one had *ever* given me the kind of sweet sweet lovin that he could.

I guessed that I didn't feel so bad about being out here, alone, with people who had been bizarrely close yet so far apart in the "real world" - because I didn't honestly think that I'd never go back. If they came to earth to get me, logically I could do the same.

Then came the memory tests... The endless star charts. I'd been fond of playing with astronomy when I was a kid - and the problem became that I wasn't at all familiar with their stars here. The constellations I knew kept coming up into my mind. So I tried harder. If my life depended on me landing somewhere at a particular time and place, then dammit, I would have to learn.

I hated school - but this was something else. It wasn't like my old schools, of course. It was more like a military academy or a specialty school.

Once the initial rush of classes had drained down a bit, leaving us with a bit more time as whatever eggs on the sands hardened, I started taking notes about the people living here. I knew them - or of them - by the websites. I faintly recognized this rider or that infamous dragon by their strutting walk or the way that they demanded the other dragons leave.

I wished more than anything, that the "old school" of weyrwomen would come. Just to this hatching. Because I knew them all by heart. And suddenly tears came to my eyes when I thought that there were so many that were dead and gone - whether they were real or imagined, there were weyrwomen and leaders that had been documented, and I made the leap of faith to believe they had been real.

I started using the graph paper to write notes, who was on watch, what books needed to be brought to whom. Because I'd been managing a store, I knew the process of ordering and making sure that people got what they liked to buy - and that came in handy when it came time to assign duties, when a gather was going to be held.

This person was great with numbers - get her on the ordering duties and organizing the logistics. Get him on setting up the stalls, he's got a good strong back as well as a loud voice and commanding air. I offered to help the headwoman, because it seemed like she needed the help - and appreciated it.

The responsibility was great - fresh, and new. Hard work, and lots of it. And for some reason, I really didn't care that my hands were rough or my back ached once in a while. The sun was shining down on the gather grounds, there were faires of flitters darting through the tents.

I flashed back to a story I'd written about The Endings, when some event would come through - called Occasion. Did this mean that my other riders - Kitty and Feng - were real enough too?

I wasn't sure. The possibilities were staggering, and I was distracted. I had to get back to work.

***

I wasn't sure how to contain my excitement, when the time came to view a hatching. There weren't many eggs on the sands, true, but the candidates standing for them were wide eyed and amazed. We earthers weren't for this clutch - ours was waiting.

"Wouldn't it be silly if one of us impressed from the stands?" I asked, and someone laughed and agreed about how completely trite that would turn out to be. Heck what if we all impressed from the stands? We could all just sit up there and let the damn dragons come to us.

Hardly! Mostly because the eggs that we were going to be bonding to were down in the Hold, waiting in their special hightech containers. They'd hatch normally, or one would guess they would, but it would be a bit different than here. But we still all had to have the training, and our eggs were still hardening. We'd have to move down to the hold properly before getting all of our training.

When the first of these other eggs hatched it was a fantastic moment for all of us. The thrilling sound of all the dragons making that humming noise for one thing. I lived under a military flight path - I knew noise. This was music. I took pictures. Some day I might even be able to print them out for these kids.

"Yup," I said, "those are Isla dragons all right," when they paraded by.

When would our turn come? I didn't know. But once it did... Life would get a lot more interesting...

***

It was after a while that I fell into a routine. I tried to help out with the duties of the headwoman as much as possible, and I enjoyed working with the mad science guys even more. I asked if any of them had encountered one of My Sangers - but fortunately for them, I supposed, they had not. Not here. Sunny claimed that she would love to have one of My Sangers to play with.

But only after Her Shy had one too. We had a good laugh about that. Our collective mad scientists were real. And some time, they'd have to come meet us. Or we'd track them down. And then, we'd make them make out for us. But that was just a silly fantasy...

It was one I certainly dwelled upon for a while. With a big big grin on my face.

The days weren't quite as hot as one might want, it was 'winter' though the island was still about as nice as San Diego. I found myself wandering to the flitter incubation room. I'd been there a couple times before, Drew had shown me where it was. His accidental flit, Nightwind, fit him perfectly. Now if only I could find one that was more my speed? I missed my cats immensely. I needed something to take care of, another responsibility? Sure why not.

Unlike Drew, I managed to fill out some forms. I went in with the knowledge that there would be some surprises or disappointments, depending on whether I really expected something or if I just wanted a flit.

I found myself an egg. It was warm, wobbly, and the room - it was stifling hot to some people but frankly if I could have stayed in there all the time? I would have. It was sweet warm.

My egg was about to break, so I found a little scrap of day old meat, and waited. When I saw the nose poking out I was confused. It was mottled, colorful. I wasn't sure if there were bits of yolk or something...

Nope. The flit, upon breaking his shell up in my hand, was blue with golden speckles all over his skin and wings. Beautiful!

He? I supposed it was, because it was more blue than gold, and if it'd been the other way around I would have thought it was a she.

"Of course I am a he!" He said, and I nearly squished him in surprise.

"You - you - you're a talking flit!" I exclaimed breathlessly. I bounced a bit, vibrating with excitement. "I got a talker!"

"Yes, and apparently I got one too," the little flitter said.

"Don't be mean," I said. "I get enough of that shit at home. Oh, the cats will just love you..."

"Not for dinner, I hope - mmm, dinner!" The flit dug into the meal I'd found, and soon his red eyes swirled to a beautiful teal.

"I need to show you off to my friends," I said.

"As though I have a choice in the matter?" He replied and I thought about what to call this guy.

"Whiplash," I muttered.

"What?"

"Whiplash. It's short," I said with a grin and an evil squint, "for Snidely Whiplash - because man you're snide."

The cartoon reference of course went right over the flit's head. That was good. I don't know how I'd have reacted to a flitter who talked AND knew old cartoon characters...

*** This would be page lethe-dragon2 ***

When the parties started, I was pretty happy, but remained apart for one fairly important reason: I was twice the age of the average Earth candidate.

I tended to hang with Drew and Nik (the guy Nik, who the searchriders had somehow located) more than anything. But still, Sunny in the room was great fun. Giggling madly about Sanger and Shy took up many a long evening. Though I have to say we were exhausted by the whole learning thing. I hadn't been at school for years, so this was annoyingly like a flashback. However, one big bonus?

I weighed less, had more muscle, and was more fit than I ever had been in school. And with the lifting we'd do, though I had to stop more often because of my back, my arms and legs both grew stronger. Happy me.

Eventually, though, there came the calling to the sands. Of course, this came at some ungodly hour of the night, when most of us were just getting down to bed. There were a lot of us, just plain people, standing on the warm sands, grumbling about how weary we were and how bad off we'd be come morning.

"Maybe they'll just let us all sleep in," Drew suggested, and I laughed a little. He was really hoping - he and the sun didn't get along very well.

A batch of eggs hatched, and Drew's was among the first. A beautiful night-bronze, but female! How cool was that?

Not long after, a number of other eggs had shattered. A sextet of beautiful dragonets all split up to find their friends. A brown nuzzled up to one girl, then the other found his. A green knocked one girl down and then...

The blue that had been somewhat hesitant to join his fellows now strode toward me and Nik with some confidence. He was wobbly, but proudly opened his wings. Nearly falling to one side, though, he steadily came toward ... Me.

Everything in the world dissolved. Like the first time a dragon had bespoken me, it felt like a familiar voice but so much louder than any imagined sound, in my head. I knew a word had come into my mind, when his rolling orange-blue eyes met mine. It was a foreign word, but a beautiful sounding one. One which I knew the meaning to - not just that it was his name.

You know my name, and you know I have an itch. That egg was so cramped! He said.

"Bhavaiyath," I said to him, scrubbing with my stubby nails at that itch on his neck. It soon turned into a warm embrace, just ... just to make sure he was real. His skin folded under my arms, I could feel his pulse, he was warm and ... covered in sand and icky egg crap...

"Let's... get you clean. And you're hungry, Bhav, so ... yeah. Food." I grinned at Nik, who just after me had bonded another night-bronze, a male I think, and we went back to the feeding rooms.

***

"Well that was an unmitigated disaster," I muttered, pulling straw and leaves from my hair. Bhavaiyath moved his nose into my cupped hands and muttered something into my mind.

"What was that?" I asked, still distracted from our little first-flight-and-first-fall.

I am sorry I failed you. I will do better next time, won't I?

"It's not you, Bhav," I reminded him. "You're the dragon. You've got it in your blood. I'm a writer. I like flying - in those big machines I told you about."

The ones that your friend does not like?

"Yeah, that'd be them." I chuckled. Of course Drew had that dragoness that could do no wrong - Mahtarth was the envy of our little circle. They'd flown back over the gulley with the 'advanced fliers' before I'd gotten the chance to even walk out of the darn thing. At least it was a soft landing, bales of hay and piles of late summer leaves.

It was my fear of heights that distracted Bhav, I was certain. Not just because he started out so well and ended so badly but it was when I looked directly down below us that the vertigo started. We'd cleared the ground at least, not like one or two whose dragons simply balked at the edge. They'd be back later, we would all fly this day or so said the weyrlingmaster.

"Don't look down," I told myself. I heard others saying the same thing. Most of us had never really been up high like in a balloon or outside on a building's high observatory. I'd been inside some high places and I hated it. But... I would do this. I would.

In fact in time? I'd get to like it. Because there was nothing more perfect than the feeling of a dragon's warm body under my legs, and a mind beside mine that knew he'd save me if I fell.

***

I didn't hesitate to learn how to help send Bhav between. Teleporting was something, unlike flight, that I felt absolutely comfortable with.

My imagination, after all, was something to be reckoned with. I knew where I wanted to go. I had to remember not to go there just yet. Not while everyone was still busy memorizing star charts and crap like that. I couldn't remember more than Orion's position during winter - that did me no good.

But what did, was that I had a feel for where I'd wind up. I did have to learn to adjust for Bhav's height off the ground! Whiplash chittered at me with his nose in my ear, "that was close."

"You don't have to remind me," I whispered back. The ground could have swallowed up Bhavaiyath, me and Whiplash entirely if I wasn't careful.

Though chided for certain moments that I'd rather not go into ('the talk' with the girl candidates and their young dragons, that was a riot. Me? not a virgin, not on a female dragon. Drew on the other hand, was meant to sit in on that talk too - only... where was he?) I tried to behave myself at the weyr.

It was, however, still a weyr filled with people whose destinies it was to fight Thread. And that, I had realized the moment I got there, was not my destiny. Not at all.

While a bunch of dragon pairs were out patrolling, I slipped out with Bhav and the riding gear, Whiplash nestled around my neck. "We're going to find someone, I need to see them."

Who?

"Sanger, one of them anyway. Kalkin I guess." I said, putting myself into the riding harness and making sure everything was snug. I could, even now that the feelings weren't as new and fresh, feel the pull of my own body, on my dragon's neck. It was weird. Supremely weird.

"Down by the kitchen entrance, where the drudges throw the slop," I said quietly, "fly that direction while I get a good idea of where we're going. And be prepared, Bhav, this is going to be a long and cold ride."

Feeling his nod was enough. My eyes were closed, and I held on to him with the images in my mind moving around. Where to find Kalkin where he'd be best receptive to my interruption? Knowing who I was?

At the Den of course, where time moved differently. I'd never been there yet I knew every cranny. Sixth, his tiny teeny blue dragon (only about a third the size of Bhavaiyath!) was flying over the parking lot when we teleported. The trip wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be.

Tired though, Bhav dropped to the ground and lifted his paw up when he noticed the asphalt was warm. Why is it ... it feels like there is sunlight upon it...

"That's the Den all right..." I sighed. I got off his back, and looked at the Den's entranceway. It read 42, which would be fine for me to recall. Being a Hitch Hiker's Guide freak and all... I started walking toward the entrance, and heard Sixth chittering aloud. Maybe... Kalkin was nearby.

I almost started crying right off, when I saw him. My throat tightened and my gut heaved. Suddenly this was a reality: we were on my world, with my creation looking at me. I was dizzy. But... as the vertigo of flight would fall away and leave me elated, this too changed my outlook. My head cleared and I wiped away the tears that had welled up in my eyes.

His were that stunning blue that I'd made them be.

Behind him, Baeris stood with her own shade of Sanger Blue - Kshau blue. Crap - I thought I could get away with talking to Kalkin but... Baeris I had invented to be one of the biggest bitches with a heartbeat.

She'd better appreciate it then.

"Hi," I said simply. "I'm Lethe, your creator."

"Yes," Kalkin said. "You are. We've been expecting you for a while. I am honestly surprised you hadn't come earlier."

"I would have," I said flippantly while Bhav nestled onto the nice warm asphalt, "but there were classes to ditch and thread to avoid fighting."

***

We spoke at length, in one of the Den's plush offices. This was before I designed the Ambassador suites into the place, so we just found a couch and sat down on it. Baeris chewed me out for being so mean to the Sangers. Then she glomped me and giggled about how it was nice having a perfect figure and being immortal and all. Kalkin was what I'd call reserved, speaking to me. After all, he did know that without me he wouldn't have existed. Without me, his life would not have been as painful and bitter either.

"Call it a draw," I said. "You're enjoying yourself now aren't you?"

"Tremendously," he said with that beautiful thin-lipped smirk. "Thank you for the Naughty clutch."

"You're very welcome, I only finished your story..." I laughed. I sighed a moment later. "I've never wanted two ... disparate things so much in my life."

He leaned into the couch, tilting his head. "Those would be?"

"I want to fuck you so bad it hurts," I said first. He rolled his eyes and smiled again. "I want to be you so much it hurts too. And I know I can't have that - it's the one thing I don't get to have." I sighed. "I can only invent another world and another me, and make her happy."

"You are hardly unhappy," Kalkin reminded me. "You are after all completely mobile now. Where will you go next?"

"Another world, another of you. Probably." I wasn't honestly sure, now that I'd found this one. I knew they met frequently here, so it was a matter of time before they'd present themselves to me anyway. "And I want to see some Shard too. He was my first boy-mind, you know."

"Not true," Kalkin said. "Your first, I believe, was Saxxon."

"But I didn't want to be him. I wanted him."

"You still do."

"I'm not going to fight Kira for him, no matter how cool he'd be about it." I laughed.

I really did have to go, though. Something in me wanted to just bolt and explore everything I could. I wanted to see the Grid where I put the Solos. I wanted to see House Domina.

I wanted to visit Zekira. My worlds.

All in good time.

I put in a last appearance to the guys, and got them going too. I know I probably should have waited and let them play with Thread or something. But screw that. Too many lives lost to that crap. I wouldn't be walking into threadfall if I could possibly help it. Maybe they'd think I disappeared between - let them think that. I had no intention of throwing my life away for the sake of a planet I hated. Whose creator didn't know it really existed - whose creator hated me anyway. It was a personal thing, with Pern. Not with Isla on Pern, no, that place kicked ass.

We left. I ... went on.

--- SEE BELOW PLZ

*** This would be lethe-dragon3 ***

Bhavaiyath and I moved around the Nexus for a bit, he had to rest a little more often than I thought he would, but then again I wasn't the one doing the teleporting and hard work! Whiplash continually reminded me that all I did was boss-boss-boss.

I pinched his tail, "who's got the thumbs, buster?" To which he bit my ear, so we were even.

Eventually though, after meeting a dozen more Sangers, a couplefew Shards, Daverin, a handful of Engells (woo. now, I outdid myself with that fan-girlish remake of a real person!), and even Eton... We were getting a little tired. I wanted to write, get my cats, and settle down into a ... well, what?

A career? How? With a dragon, I couldn't go back to my real home - not for any length of time.

"Time!" I blurted out, "that's it... that's... it." I paced around, Whiplash enjoying the ride on my shoulder. I'd gotten so used to him being there, I didn't even realize that he'd trained himself up to my pacing rants.

"Time is what?" He asked. His voice was high, nasal - not quite like a parrot's tone, because he didn't have a large muzzle or beak to amplify the sound.

"Time is the key to me being able to find a place to live, and get my cats, and collect my stuff."

"I thought you didn't need your 'stuff' any more?" Whiplash asked, and I felt Bhav echoing the sentiment.

"Well," I said, sitting down on a nearby stone, we were out somewhere on Zekira enjoying the singing beetles. I quoted, "it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done. I'd rather go get it, and gripe to myself that there's a crapload of it, later. It's not tying me to anything now, I'll work out how to get someone else to feed the cats if we have to leave."

I knew I'd probably be welcome in the Healing Den for any length of time, but frankly I liked the feel of sunlight on my face too much, the sense of wind and air - even though I'd invented the Den and its asteroid and everything, it was a bit too confining for me. Baeris and them, they didn't much mind because they'd spent the early parts of all their lives on Pern or something similar, in cavern homes which it emulated nicely. So I wanted to find some place...

I could just make one.

***

Was it that I was a God on this world? Or was it just that I happened to choose a place which would accept what happened in it, unconditionally? I landed with a handful of stuff, on the soft grass. Bhavaiyath set down the big crate of boxes, we'd have to do this again at least two more times, before everything I owned was in the house. He was big, but he was no bronze - I couldn't just move wholesale into a new place with everything I owned on his back!

I had chosen to go back in time, to the day that I was Searched, after having left. Mom was thankfully asleep - after such a 'rough' day arguing with me (three years ago my time) she had crashed and wouldn't be up and about until morning.

I would not be back.

It panged me enough to leave my bank account stuff for her, but then I just began piling things into boxes. The cats were freaking out, of course but they'd come last. I wasn't leaving them with Her.

So it was, and then the next day I went to my storage rooms and gathered stuff out of there. I didn't even have to pull my truck in, of course - we just teleported into the alley street and didn't worry about anyone noticing. The place was always pretty well dead. The only folks there were a pair of Mexican gardners putting their grass-covered (mmm, I love that smell of cut grass) lawn equipment into their storage room. They gave Bhav a weird look, crossed themselves, and left.

You have so many things, where will you put them all? Asked Bhav.

"The house's big enough. Trust me." I chuckled. Yes I did seem to have a ton of crap, but honestly boxes take up so much more room than just books! By the time we'd set everything up in the house, all the shelves and such, I had a big pile of cut-down boxes and lots of room on the floors.

My house... MY house... I just kind of dreamed it up. It became fact that on this world, near the edge of a nice planned community below, was a hill that had a largish Victorian era home (whether this world had a Victorian era or not!) and a big yard - acres - behind it and down the hillside. It wasn't one of those 'don't go there it's haunted' houses, it was almost freshly built. But the floor plan was great, with built in shelves and a gigantic kitchen, a two-story tall library room that would still freak me out because I'd never quite conquered that fear of heights. It was Istvan's house, mostly, but not as creepy.

It had room in the back area, behind where the hill hid it from the community, for not just Bhavaiyath. It was quite expansive, it would remain entirely untamed. I had no intention of ruining the little stream or brambles with buildings or cement. There was a fence, and it would have to be reinforced. After all, I intended there to be cheetahs on this ranch. And they're not the normal kind... I knew where I could get my hands on a whole bunch of blue-eyed half-shapeshifter cheetahs.

***

Bhavaiyath moved his wings silently, and blew wind at the little creatures. I giggled, "don't blow them away, Bhav!"

He tilted his head, and snorted - causing a lot of the aviary's foliage to shake. That was not so hard! Look at them, they can fly already, I am merely ... helping them learn!

"Glad I missed that part," Whiplash grunted from my shoulder. He appraised the hatchlings, and sure enough they were already able to flutter up into the air - with or without Bhav's assistance. Whiplash looked rather smug. They were his offspring anyway, he had good reason.

Most of them appeared to be of the normal non-intelligent variety, but there were a couple gems in there. A big clutch, he'd managed to convince Drew's flit Nightwish that they should do the naughty... Or maybe she convinced him. Drew and Nik visited a few times a month, it was really neat watching the whole community down there come out and stand on their rooftops while the dragons came in to land. Heh.

It was even better when the flits who remained (some up and flew off, some teleported away to wherever their little brain could imagine but three stayed) decided to breed as well... I was about to have a plethora of multicolored, talking flitters... But there was a school down there and kids who would love to have a pet. Apartments too small for a dog? No problem... No cats allowed? Well if someone has a bird, they're not going to be able to refuse you one of these.

A few of the parents wanted to pay me for them, one insisted I take this little devil-spawn back (I gave it to the kid's neighbor, a wizened old dude who used to be a surfer and grew pot in his garage... yeah, just the sort of guy to have living next door...) so he wouldn't be left out. I think the intelligence of the pets grew as they went on, because that one got the idea that as long as the parents weren't around, he could hang out with his first true bond, the boy named Kirk.

I managed to fund an aviary, yes, improvements to the fencing, a strip of high fence to keep people out and cats in. No one asked how. I mean hey, I was there because I wanted to live there. I could have abused that fact to no end. But really, it was all I wanted, to have just this place and the creatures around me. Nik was happy to see all the critters too, he had continued his vet training and could now say he was a dragon healer! That was superb, I thought. And Drew... Well, sometimes when Drew visited me he was Melora, which was ultra cool...

***

Then one day I got this weird package... I had to sign a bunch of things to get it, it was stuck at the post office and they wouldn't just put it in a truck and drive it to me. Apparently they wanted to see what was in it, because it was post-marked "giant flitter mail" and had been delivered to them via a FLOCK of flitters...

"Well, here we go, what's this?" I said, trying to read the card. Deliver to Shard. Well, okay they found one of me, apparently the flits knew who I was in my off time... (Which I still had the internet, but I'd long ago determined that this world was not my home world, so how could I have the same friends or ... never mind. Just, never mind, don't think about that.)

I busied myself taking the brown paper and box parts apart. A piece of pink became visible.

"Pink?" I said, "oh, this can't lead anywhere good, can it?"

It looked plastic. I wasn't really sure whether it was or not. It was strangely warm to the touch... But it was a cool lawn ornament. It'd fit right in. After all, I had a flock of flitters acting like little gargoyles on my porch and rooftop. I thanked the post office folks, noticed that two of the workers had managed to get their own flitters to help them sort mail.

I planted the flamingo-dragon on the soft grass just up from the long driveway. I didn't have a car, of course. I wouldn't want to drive it up that hill anyway. It'd just slide right down...

It was shortly after I got the flamingo when more dragons started coming into my life. Bhav might have found them, he went out frequently to fly over the town or to the Nexus. Whichever, he came home one day and... this... was following him.

And I felt a very strange lump in my throat. Because she was me.

Canny, three headed, and entirely too talkative. Well I suppose that without the heads, she was still me. She had almost glowing wings with the distinctive Matrix markings (had she started there? or just got them modified there?) and that whole chimeric head thing was pretty cool once I got used to it.

"I think you should do more art," said the cat head. She tapped her forehoof, and the goat head agreed. "Or more writing, stories are always good. You know that you didn't quite create us, yet you are still our self."

"Never mind the mysterious horny one," the dragon said, with a grin. She flicked her poison tipped tail, "you ought to create more worlds again. We cannot do it alone, you know."

"We are rather like Aslan," the cat-head asserted with a hissing laugh. "Only not so allegorical."

"Especially with a beast like you connected," said the goat to the dragon. The dragon bit at that head but the horns kept her at bay.

Wouldn't this be entertaining...

***

Chimera-me - who for some reason loved being called by all three of her names - Sara was the cat, Letha was the goat, and Katrina was the dragon - managed to get it into her heads that she should chase off visitors. One day, I was chatting with the librarian in the school, and she handed off this piece of 'fan art' to me.

"I think they're a bit scared of the ... other dragon..."

"I bet, I think I'm a little scared of her. Oh my gawd," I said, looking at the picture. "The only thing wrong is there's only one cat."

"No there's two, look, behind your aching butt," she pointed out the shadowed feline. "Oh wait, here's another one, I think they were trying to get into the yard. Your cats, you know..."

"My cats, the cheetahs? Ooookay," I took the next, and it was apparently a running gag that I'd yelled 'get off my lawn' more than once in jest. Maybe they didn't realize I was kidding?

"I'll have a talk with her, because this," I waved the paper in the air, "is hardly how I want to be remembered..."

I determined that the fencing on the cheetah run needed a couple larger signs. Or maybe I should just let one or two of the cats eat some kids... oh, wait, I didn't say that out loud did I?

Would I live my life out here? On a hill surrounded by cats and dragons?

*** Part of lethe-dragon4 goes now to the Flitters portion of this page, while the rest of that page is reproduced here ***

Meanwhile, out back, as long as Bhavaiyath let her, Sara Letha Katrina hung out and talked at him for hours. My god, could she talk. Like me, I suppose... But she also had several email accounts and forum presence on places I habited myself, so it got kind of confusing when people figured out we had the same IP address and name, but were clearly not the same person.

One such moment of confusion led to a particularly weird encounter. I hadn't thought there were dragons here, in this world where I'd settled. But perhaps like the other places I'd invented, there was much more to it than I originally thought. I didn't design it to have them, but there they were. Maybe on their way from other planets or universes, but either way there was one guy on a forum who just wouldn't shut up.

He was so angry all the time. SLK and I would type replies quickly in his threads, asking him to back up his reasoning and to show examples of why every single thing involved with ... well, whatever, because he was everywhere, was gloom and doom for the whole Intarweb.

He never did, of course. He just came back with yet another thread slightly mis-spelled, about the current doomcon of the forum.

And at one point, SLK and I talked (through the back window and my laptop balanced on the windowsill) about what this guy had wrong with him and what we'd do if we could just talk to him face to face.

Well it turned out he 'heard' us. He was a dragon after all. And somehow, they just know. And especially if you're a forum troll, you just know when people are talking about you behind your back. Well - even when people aren't, they think so.

He showed up in the back yard one morning, yawning and growling because he hadn't had any coffee yet, but chatting it up with Sara while Letha tried sleeping and Katrina was looking up at me with those angry green eyes of hers.

Sara called up to me, "Can we keep him? He's got a wireless!"

I tapped my fingers on the doorframe, and shrugged. "Do we have a choice?"

Bhav muttered into my mind, obviously not, he's already moved his stuff into the back end of the yard.

"Well then, ... um, I'd say welcome but not really. Have fun. Don't break anything. And I swear if you try eating any of the cats I'll kill you myself." I sternly warned him, but he didn't really care. Forum troll or no, when faced with actual true doom - it was easily ignored.

Maybe he cried wolf to himself one too many times, eh?

*** from lethe-dragon5 ***

After the initial rush of morning cheetah- and cat-feedings and controlling the flitter population on my rooftop (there were now probably three dozen more regular flits, plus a handful of flamingoflits, and half of the others talked), I got the chance to sit down and rest. My night had been a bit troubled. Nightmares were never as bad for me as they seemed for other friends I've known, and I even enjoyed them if they were the right 'type'.

But this night wasn't quite a nightmare, it was merely... troubling. One of those things, like where you wake up realizing that if what you had just imagined were right in front of you, you might not be able to handle it without crying, screaming or throwing up.

In this case, I think, it was crying. Why, I don't remember. Whatever it was, and normally I recalled my dreams very clearly, had left me with the vague unease and sadness that came with a terrible event, like a death or a tremendous loss. But I couldn't for the life of me remember what that event was.

I tried listening to some music while I typed out these frustrated thoughts in my dream journal, maybe that might help. Sometimes I swore that my Itunes random shuffle knew me better than I did. Something sad and yet upbeat came on from Delerium, a remix of an older, much more persuasively desperate song. I sang along with it, as best I could considering I can't sing worth a damn.

Still, I couldn't quite get anything more on the page than

don't rem. something was bugging me, it was dark and kind of claustrophobic, but I knew where i was, I think. Maybe there was crying, something was hurt? but I don't know whether I was there to comfort it or put it out of its misery, whatever 'it' was.

And that was about it. I closed the journal and sat back to sing some more. About the third stanza was when Bhav interrupted my mind with his own.

I think you should see this, it is probably important. She is making the other You weep.

"... What?" I said, yanking off the headphones and stomping downstairs. Out back, with a half dozen cheetahs clumped up next to the porch and the other dragon, Dooooom, even standing away from the middle of the clearing. But SLK was holding her matrix-encoded wing over something protectively, while two of her heads were giving off a crooning sound.

I stepped out and tried to get closer, but Letha the goat-head of Chimera-me gave a sharp stuttering back-off noise.

"It's just me," I said, and slid to the other side. There, Sara the cat head was gently nuzzling a blue colored mass which seemed to have glowing bits... "What is that? What'd you find?" I asked.

Katrina the dragon head answered, "she is Tanda, she is of the dark Hades dragons. We do not know how she came here."

When Tanda lifted her blind, seven-eyed head to me and looked at me, I recalled very suddenly what my dream had been about. It was her, calling to me - or variations on me - and I was the one crying.

"Tanda," I said, then noticed her ears were sewn shut. I tisked, wiping away the gathered tears that had welled to my eyes. There were broken pieces of a mirror of some kind laying on the ground before her. But... they were hers, they gently floated slightly above the dirt, and oriented themselves at me.

There are some things you just don't care to see, and the mirrors showed me a bunch more than that. I shook my head, and tried to avoid looking directly at them. I used the mental speech that Bhav and I had shared for years, Tanda, did you need to be in the shade? I think you will be more comfortable inside.

In response she stood, her ... wings? If they were wings they were limp and almost lifeless, except that they had those bright glowie bits and almost seemed to seek out a 'water level' around her... Tanda followed me into the house. She wasn't very large, bigger than the cheetahs but hardly more than that.

I knew she was blind, but I also knew she could see perfectly well what I saw. I knew the house would suit her, but where would she settle in it? Hopefully not in the basement - and hopefully not in the bedroom because those glowies would keep me awake...

*** lethe-dragon6 ***

It could hardly come as any kind of surprise that after I'd helped Search another couple kids to the second All Earth clutch at Isla, that there was yet another addition to my draconic crew at home.

His name was Hashofir, according to the others, and he was amazingly cute. Furry, feathery, undeniably draconic. At the time I got back, he was romping with a couple of the cheetahs, just a little larger than them. But when he saw me, his ears perked up and as he ran toward me (full speed, I was used to that kind of thing from the cats, so I braced myself) he stopped just shy of the back porch - and he was huge... Well, he wasn't cheetah sized any more! I wondered how he looked like he was barrelling up that fast, it was a trick of perspective.

He tilted his head, I will love it it here, everyone already likes me. Except Dooooom. He doesn't like anyone.

"I - well that's true!" I laughed, "Hashofir, okay, well... is there anything else you'd like to say? I mean, where you're from or anything?"

Don't know, here is my home, my home is here. Unless you'd like me to move somewhere else. He popped away, teleporting quietly and as fast as a flitter a hundreth his size. He came back right beside where he'd been, then popped up to the roof, back a-ways by the trees, and finally sat down on his haunches before me, small-sized again.

"I think you'll do just fine right here, Hashofir." I scratched his neck - it was slightly velvety, not furry, but not hide alone. That would make cleaning him much easier. That and the fact that he could sizeshift...

*** lethe-dragon7 ***

You just wouldn't believe it...It was Sara Letha Katrina that suggested it. She even wanted to do it herself... but couldn't as it was a bit against practice.

Dragons tattooing themselves for other dragons to live in, I mean.

Bhav thought it would be great fun to have another mind somewhere lurking, as though the voices in my head weren't plentiful enough. It was a raucous place, my mind. But it would be fun to try something new. Something that I had some experience with, anyway. Tattoos were nothing new to me, I had a lot of them. (Some of the subjects of those tattoos were a bit surprised when I showed them off - it wasn't often you could proclaim to the world that you were a creator, and have your creations gawking at themselves at the same time.)

So I went off to Clan Akelara, where this odd half-tattoo dragon clutch was held. It wasn't on the full tattoo-dragon's world, for whatever reason. But half or full, it meant there was a dragon in need of a home. And where better than on a person whose very life meant dragons?

***

"So that's what will go on you if you wish it," said Lesara, "the inks will form their own coloration after time."

"Well of course I wish it," I chuckled. I extended my left arm, "right there, where I can keep track of it. I hate getting stuff done on my back, I can't ever enjoy the art."

It took some time to get the design down, but like any typical tattoo, it felt slower than it actually was. A nice clean design, and the dark weirdly tingly ink settled into my skin with more than a little mental energy. Even Bhav felt it. The new life, a new dragon, right there.

Only... not yet. *from hatching*

I was sitting around in the lounge, I guess it was a lounge, it was nicer than just an antiroom and it wasn't past the secretive doors where some other labs were, and other folks getting this process done to them were also present. A somewhat odd human male was there, wincing but bravely putting up with the pain of his own dragon-housing tattoo. And then...

The door to the lab started to quiver slightly, then crept slowly open. The candidates who were waiting to be tattooed (and those who had already been so, and who were sitting at the table, where an array of finger foods had been placed for those who wished it) leaned over, curious as to what was going on.

Slowly, so very slowly, one of the door flaps was pushed open, a crystalline muzzle peeking through the widening crack. Clear enough to see through, like the finest diamond imaginable, yet faintly tinted with an opaline wash, the crystalline muzzle caught and reflected the light of the antechamber, as the hatchling pushed further through the door. Large, brilliant fire-opal eyes were revealed next, followed by the faintest hint of a crest reminiscent of a Myrsilkain’s crest.

“Papa?” the hatchling’s voice was soft, sweet. “Papa… I’m hungry…”

Tirval carefully put the finishing touches on Brand’s tattoo, then straightened. “Go back inside, little one. Remember what I told you?”

“O-oh… sorry…” The hatchling looked abashed, ducking her head, “Sorry Papa.”

Setting his tools down, Tirval glanced over the candidates, then shook his head. “No harm done, I suppose. I’m coming.”

With that, he strode across the antechamber and pulled the door open, his body blocking the candidates’ view of the rest of the hatchling as he waited for it to back up and head back into the lab. Casting a final glance over his shoulder, Tirval retreated to his lab, closing the door quietly behind him.

Lesara sighed, gesturing for the next candidate to come forward to be tattooed. “Don’t mind him. He’s caught up in a new project. Nothing to be babbling about across the Nexiian worlds.”

I thought to myself, psssh yeah, right that'll stay here!

If I knew my Bhav he was already blabbering about it to half the others back at home. Such a gossip those things. Better than a chatroom really.

Eventually I headed out and back to the big house. The cheetahs were happy, the dragons were happy, and I had a new tattoo. Nothing could really be better than that. Until about a month later...

It was then, that the tattoo had changed color (it took quite a while, and settled on a nice medium blue color, I was almost thinking it should have blossomed into many different colors - but that honor was reserved for...) and it started to tingle strongly.

Not itch, like they all did - this one never itched once. It healed flawlessly, within a couple days time like they usually did on me, but never even pinged to be scratched. That was good, I guess, because if it'd been damaged by serious scratching action I don't know what would have happened to the hatchling inside!

Inside!

It wasn't just a little dragonet. It was a very, very interesting little dragonet. She had three heads, that was something I noticed right off, and Sara Letha Katrina gave a hooting cheer for her. She wasn't quite big enough to fly yet, but her wings were long and elegant looking, and she had little glowie bits on the head and tail!

"Awesome," I said, panting for some reason, it was like an effort for her to escape from her personal place inside me. We were on the back porch, there were plenty of others to keep her company and assist her in learning how to best stalk her prey (there were rabbits popping around now, I think they were rabbits, not sure. Might have been more half-breed flitters for all I knew...) and it didn't take too many tries for her to catch something. Her first 'meal' and shared among three heads... Only SLK could help with that. It was pretty obvious that the middle head was the most observant of the three, but they all had roughly the same ideas.

Crazy ideas, at that. Like learning to fly by leaping out of my 2nd story den window... Like helping to 'clean up' the neighborhood of trash - by batting it around between her paws like a gigantic kitten...

But she was mine and I was hers, and the others could actually share a little of their wisdom with her even while she was in her private Paradise. Everyone wins.

*** New 2022 ***

After Lasii's arrival, things settled into a pattern, and I... got a new job. The area I'd plopped down in all those years ago moved very slowly from one dimension to another - it hadn't 'left' the neighborhood - it took that whole hillside community with it. And became part of Crescent City, which I'd also created years before. On Twoarth, which also wasn't quite the same as it was when I was a kid creating anthros. Anearth, where no one was Human, and Twoarth, where world was joined on the Pacific ocean and furries lived on the opposite globe, were still separate but now distinct places. Versions of me already came from Twoarth or other spots, but I actually ... don't reside on Anerth. Odd, I guess.

Crescent City, however, has undergone a radical transformation in the time I'd been there. Not just because Carramba High School is in it! Wait yes, just because of that. So many kids coming from multiple Earths, or not-earth, or wherever my mind drifted. It needed to be more 'real', and now... now it is.

For a good while, over 20 years in fact, I taught a bunch of classes there. I still do, but different ones. See, in this dimension I'm successful... Not that I put much effort into this mind you but being its creator I discovered something pretty interesting. I can... swipe stuff that's actually been done by me, in other dimensions. Copy it over as it were, I do tweak it and I also offer trades, we all kinda swap things if needed. That way we can be alternately super-duper lazy, and ultra mad creative! We just always seem to do it at different times, which works out for me.

Us.

Whatever.

SO the upshot of this is that I've been working at Carramba High as their Role Playing instructor, which is super fun and we often do combined work with the Dungeon Crawl (as Ashigaru is still one of my close friends even if this world's version of him is furry and he participates in that class too).

I'd been doing publishing and illustration work and the thing is, Droppin the Fork is an imprint here that I'm quite proud of. I only wish I could have it elsewhere, my old home, but that's not to be. Plus I've worked out something with WALLOFTEXT as a book store, filling its shelves with fun graphic novels and art books, getting kids interested in both reading and writing, artwork and design. That place is hopping!

Fiction Writing seminars in addition to my 6th period class happen once a month at WALLOFTEXT, tours of publishing facilities every quarter, and meet-and-greets nearly every other weekend depending on how busy everyone is!

The class that I've picked up on since all the flitters and flamingos and flappycats have taken over my whole yard, is "Flitter Management and Training". This was something that originally I think Baeris and Moraga were doing, but they only specialize in training one critter at a time (what a luxury that!). This is for those kids (and sometimes adults) who find themselves inundated by flitters or other creatures. If they can be trained, we'll get it done! In fact I'm sponsoring the flitter team demonstration at that fancy-dancy Checkerboard Ball... *oh no, that means I have to find a tux, woe is me I look fucking fantastic in a tux by the way; but I also look fantastic in a snug tango dress, what to wear, what to wear*

So now I sit back and watch the chaos with a bunch of dragons, from my balcony on the hill overlooking the entire city. Life is good, did you need a flappycat? I have like six litters. It's a good thing that Bhav has not really shown much interest in hitting mating flights, I just definitely don't feel like 'entertaining' that kind of attention on me as a rider.

** 2024 **

"Didn't you used to be smaller?" I asked, and Bhavaiyath tilted his elegant now-horned head and grunted.

"I did, but I got better."

".... Didn't you used to not talk?"

"I talk quite a lot, but not as much as some around here," we both heard the mock-outrage from Sara Letha Katrina and Dooom.

He had gotten a lot more colorful, too. "I like it," I commented. "It suits you, and me. Got any other surprises?"

Now, it was fair that his huge size change attracted attention. Because he went from being able to curl up in a normal two-car garage with a little planning, to being able to look over the roof of my fucking house without even trying. That's a three story house. With peaked roofs. Well okay he did have to sort of hup himself up to see over the entire roof, but still, almost twenty feet at the shoulder I estimated, by how his body looked from the 2nd story windows. It had actually been a slower change than just "showing up huge", too. His colors were the first thing I'd noticed a while ago, they had gone from that dusty dull blue-grey shade into a more vibrant and varied shine. His wings in particular, they were so much more colorful! like she sheen of oil with light hitting it, only on a blizzard of ice blue instead of black.

And his eyes... those almost weirded me out by the time I realized he had greenish colored eyes with pupils. Had he grown the headknobs before they sprouted those short horns? (and when I say 'short' those things are literally as big as I am, so there's that) He did definitely arrive this bigger size all at once, but those other things had made me do double takes over the last year or two.

It was when he then changed into a humanoid that I about dropped my damn fork. I learned how he could shapeshift though it did cost him a lot of effort, and he claimed to vastly prefer being on four feet.

Dragon - note changes in image and breed, because reasons. Also note that just because I'm changing this dragon (and probably his brother on other pages) doesn't mean that every dragon from this clutch should be considered as such. This is my personal preference.

Name: Bhavaiyath
Gender: Male note that for whatever reason, this dragon was listed on the main database as female - he is not now nor has he ever been female so I'm not sure why that was there
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium 8's / 35' l / 58' ws (as Pernese); huge 19' s / 95' l / 142' ws (as Eienic-shifted); 6'5" head bipedal form
Colors: appearance in Eienic-Flurry base* vibrant rich blue body having shimmering metallic appearance; wingsails, tail spade, and darker ridges of high-shine blizzard-clouded metallic blue with shiny bits of white, violet, and sky blue; eyes hazelish green pupiled in this form
*formerly dark blue with strong dark tones, wingsails brighter denim blue, eyes shift faceted in Pernese form
Features: 2023 - look, it's incredibly stupid to have an Eienic dragon offspring that has neither markings nor powers. As Bhav has matured and nexus things have happened, he decided to explore his true flurry base and realized just what he'd been missing out on. Overall his features are similar, with four clawed feet and two large leathery wings, he has 3-fingered wings with short wrist claws (covered); head is narrow and angular with strong eye ridge, long headknobs ending in short pointed horns, pupiled eyes; body is very strong with long legs, tail has spade at end
Pernese and fierce, spaded tail version - this is not a pernese dragon either. This is an Eienic / Flurry dragon with basically no markings or powers ... YET.
Powers: typical Pernese but with very strong Nexus teleport / Genrehopping **changed 2024
- Winged Flight, Bhav is quite good at flight on his own terms, with or without a rider. And now that he has flexed a little and explored his lineage, he's even more of a powerful force in the air. He loves flying at dusk and dawn, and equally seems at home in very cold weather
- Teleportation (local, nexus, time, genrehop), locally he can blip between 25 and 100 miles if he can see it from the air, and if he knows the location even if it's much farther away he'll go there without pause. He can travel almost too easily between Nexus worlds, and this is directly connected to his ability to Genrehop properly. If he knows when to go, he'll head to a moment in time, but that wears him out enough that he doesn't do it unless fully prepared
- Verbal Speech, Telepathy; while for nearly 20 years he spoke only into minds, after a bit he learned how to speak, with a massive booming voice or a hissing whisper, when he wants to talk you'll know
- Shapeshift; this power is certainly present and accounted for, but because he's rather unpracticed at it Bhav usually remains in a four-footed shape. He won't try doing other forms, and actually tends to shift between his smaller size (but with colors and additional features present) and the big big version more than anything else. (for that reason I don't have an image of his humanoid shape, sorry)
- Firebreath, eh, never bothered. It's 'assisted' anyway, and he has no intention of chewing anything, ew
- Illusion Magic, it's possible that over the years he'd been hiding his changed appearance to unveil it slowly and with reasonable wariness to its reception. But now that he's embraced it, he can help other people with their issues of appearance. Mainly, he can cast a kind of glamour over a person, creature, dragon, or item - from one small flitter up to an entire house and everyone in it - though the single, small items or people have this change in appearance much longer than a big house party. Usually that house party would be 'the stoner guy renting his weed-growing house to a C4 frat party' and shhhhh when the cops show up there's absolutely nothing wrong here... But that only lasts as long as you can see the red-and-blue lights. After that point it's noisy and party hardy once more. Maybe someone else needs to just invite the neighbors instead of getting them angry.
Parentage: Below
Origin: Isla All-Earth Clutch (1); IMPRESSION
Other Info: Yes, he did meet Bhavyatath over at Dragonhope Weyr. Could probably ride him. They got a chuckle about their similar names.

Dragon

Name: Sara Letha Katrina
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: not small, not huge, will still kill you if she crawls onto your lap, and will definitely eat all the fries from your lunch
Colors: grey, black, matrix greens
Features: chimera dragon, cat, dragon, goat headed, with stinger tail and hoof/paw feet
Powers: lethal glare, wisdom, and electric powers - talks a lot. Smiles a lot, and sometimes you don't want that smile anywhere near you
Parentage: none known
Origin: Kless November exchange 2005; SPONSORSHIP
Other Info:

(from page - request ~ABOUT YOUR SELF-CRITTER~ (again, NOT your current avatar!)
Colour(s): grey, black, with tattoos and images prominent
Features: multiple heads? always sticking my nose in different subjects (I like soooo many different things), multiple limbs, a quick smile for friends, ray of doom glare for flame wars, perhaps wrist braces for carpal tunnel, and glasses for my bad eyes... ((perfect teeth though lol))
Species: sphynx, gryphon, winged something-or-other - possibly flightless as I'm terrified of heights
Element(s): electricity? computer/digital, maybe?
Theme: 'in everything' ((nooo, noo geezers lol! leave that for april fools lol!!))
Gender: ..... female? It *is* me after all.
-And response
Your image is based off of a chimera..it's not quite one, but pretty close. The dragon head is 'smiling' and for a dragon, has nice teeth. The goat head has a lethal glare. The cat head is a lioness, the wisest head and the one who wears glasses. The rainbow-ness is suppose to represent tattoos (I don't do those well). The white light around the tail is electricity. I thought matrix patterned wings would be appropriate though I wish I could have made the code move somehow. Hope you like. )

Dragon

Name: DOOOOOM
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium 9' s /
Colors: Body: black, but a smurchy kind of dark like you get when you just know something bad's gonna happen but it hasn't happened yet. Wings: brilliant red, you know, the kind like blood when it's spilled - go ahead, cut it open, let the flaming begin!
Features: four winged Draygon; Big finned fluke tail, big fins dorsal spine, big muscular typing paws; big horns; it's possible that he has
Powers: Internet connectivity
Winged Flight, Teleportation
Can Hear You Talking About Him Behind His Back
Parentage: None known
Origin: by Rachael/Shadhavar of DouPas 2006; SPONSORSHIP
Other Info: we've been teaching him to chill before posting. And in the mumble-mutter number of years since he's been hanging out with us, DOOOOOM has actually reduced himself to merely DOOM. He still absolutely goes off at the drop of a nerd hat, though.

Dragon

Name: Tanda
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: about 3'8" tall at shoulder
Colors: shattered undersea blue-black-aqua
Features: Disabilities: blind (in eyes only), deaf (from ears only), mute (except in dreams)
Powers: dream walking, memory tampering, hypnotism, emotion sway, Mirrors - show fractured memories and fears
Parentage: Unknown
Origin: hades river dragon from Mindspace/DNS; SPONSORSHIP
Other Info: Lethe. the river of forgetfulness. Among the smallest. Maybe innocent. Sybolism in the image- those mirrors face you. They have many eyes, but they're almost always blind (they see some things, sometimes.), their ears are sewn shut.

Dragon

Name: Hashofir
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: two variations, small 4'6" s / 17' l / 32' ws and large 17' s / 70' l / 100' ws
Colors: bright yellow body with buff belly and large black cheetah markings; ear fluff, mane, tail fluff, and leg ruffs matrix-black-green; backs of wing feathers vibrant blue-screen-of-death blue; eyes and glyph marks bright pink
Features: velvet skinned with fluff mane from head to tail and behind elbows/ankles; four pawed feet with retractable claws; two leathery wings with 4 visible fingers and large wrist thumb, backs of wings covered in feathers; head has large external ears
Powers: Winged Flight, strong in the air but usually only while small
Teleportation, doesn't matter what size he is, he is faster than virtually any creature with this power, as long as he has the space to move and land, and can size shift himself to suit the area if needed
Telepathic link, a permanent link between Lethe and the other dragons, can communicate with other non-linked but weaker
Size Shifting: Pick a comfortable 'large' mode and 'small' mode (cheetah / house)
Breath weapon, an oddly scented mist that appears to have either calming or hallucinogenic properties, and this is based on whether the person or creature is bonded to a dragon - if not, they become calm regardless of their intentions or agitation, and if they are bonded they may 'hear their dragon' speaking; basically this power can pause or distract depending on the circumstances of its victim
Telekinesis, this pretty much comes in handy when he's running or flying at full speed - allowing him to filter the air from bugs and detritus that might be kicked up or knocked around - you'll never know he was there, even if he's burst through a bush or along a sandy path, as everything settles just the way it was when he's gone by
Parentage: none known, only 2 exist and they're both males?
Origin: Mintlilly / Dasmalenra gift 5/2006; VOLUNTARY MULTIBOND
http://www.nexusofdragons.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1109 I was literally the only person beyond their creator who GOT one of these, even though a bunch of requests went out? This was the form for mine, and it only just now in 2022 occurred to me why his name is Hashofir.

Gender you get along better with: male
Favorite color (hex # okay): blue! (bright, peacock blue.... bluescreen of death blue actually lol)
Second-favorite color: green! (matrix glowy-bit dark-neon green)
Least favorite color (yes, I may use this...): pink (I have no least favorite, really)
Favorite animal coloration: cheetah
Favorite quote or similarly relevant yet trivial bit of info: Han Shot First! (either that or "we come into this world naked, screaming and covered in blood. and if you play your cards right, that sort of thing doesn't have to end there." ... lol)

Dragon

Name: Lasii
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium 9' s / 38' l / 64' ws
Colors: Silvery-Blue body with Gold markings; wing feathers white with pale lavender; head and tail glowbobs teal-green; eyes green
Features: Half Tattoo dragon, half Multi-headed Jaguar dragon; heavily furry skin with feathered wings; three feline heads, center head has a pair of glowing nubs behind ears; wings are reasonably short and rounded, good for short flights; tail ends in glowbob
Powers: Winged Flight, strong but short flights are her specialty, though 'short' for a dragon her size is still pretty good; she is still able to carry quite a lot on any given flight, and since she has thumbs on her forepaws she can carry things
Telepathy and Verbal Speech, her voice is low, rumbling, and faintly snarky; her mental voice considerably brighter and sharper, by virtue of thinking rather quickly and jumping from subject to subject haphazardly; can connect with Lethe at any distance, and think to other telepathic creatures around 10 miles at most; and with non-telepaths around 100 meters
Paradise (though following the rules of the halfbreed Paradise), the tattoo on Lethe's arm becomes 'heavier' when she enters her Paradise, which she does infrequently as an adult, but can heal herself there and uses Lethe's energy to do so. Others cannot enter this Paradise, it's limited to this one dragon
Partial Shapeshifting (into anthro form of themselves), she very rarely does this, as her anthropomorphic version also has three heads and that does tend to get very, very scary to people; while she does like to startle, she prefers people to still come around and let her 'help'
Illusions, where she truly shines, is her ability to create visual illusions, which over time she's learned to use at very long distances or with incredible detail closer to herself. Because Lethe eventually requires time to work at Carramba
Parentage: father is Cazador
Mother is Uas: http://www.freewebs.com/feralpersonas/saiuas.htm (site no longer up and not archived)
Origin: Starfyre / Akelara; TATTOO BOND (voluntary multibond)
Other Info/Personality: sarcastic, helpful, crazy