The sun beat down and made Sara wince, and made Todd hold his hand over his eyes while looking over their surroundings.

"There are all kinds of dragons, and you can hear them?" He asked again, and Sara nodded again, though she was still in a bit of a panic not able to contact the others.

"It's all right," Todd said, "It's fine. We've just ... come a long way. Isn't that right?" He looked to the woman with the red cloak, who nodded.

"A very long way, indeed." She said, mysteriously.

"Well can't you bring us back?" Sara said, worried.

We do not wish to do that just yet, Said one of the dragons nearby. The blue, ridden by the equally blue man. Shard, she is frantic. Make her stop.

The tall blue guy tilted his head and said, at a distance, "I think I won't be of much help there, she's obviously not used to seeing people like me anyway. Like most folks..."

"You're nothing," Sara said, "you're okay. You've got the right number of hands and feet, right?"

Raising an eyebrow, Shard nodded. "Your purpose here is to hopefully bond to a dragon. Like them," he indicated a sharp-winged pair of dragons in the cavern beyond.

"Cool!" Todd exclaimed, and bounded over to one of the nearby riders and their dragon. He was at ease almost immediately, while Sara took a bit longer to adjust. She would never drink beer again - it made her head fuzzy and she couldn't think of what to say when people asked her things.

"You're how old?" One asked, with a pen and paper in his hands. Another came by and asked about her family tree, another about what she thought she'd want to eat.

"I don't really care... I'm just tired and lost, and I want to rest, okay? This is... even more overwhelming than being on trial with Vocorr..." She sighed, and Todd escorted her into the pleasant dim interior of the keep.

"This guy told me there are Dodrians available." Todd said.

"What's a Dodrian?" Sara moaned. "I mean, come on, is it a drink or a bed or a hotel or something?"

"It's an animal, like a little dog-dragon..." Todd said, with his head low and his eyes puppydogging. Sara finally cracked a smile and they wandered around in the Warren until they located a room which had the small horned, winged dog-like Dodrians.

Egg upon egg sat in a nook in the wall, and a golden creature instructed them to take an egg and feed it, when it hatched.

"This too, is so weird..." Sara said. She picked up an egg, it was heavy and warm, and wiggling. "It's hatching!" She cried. Todd's was also doing so, and they both watched their own choice of egg burst open.

Sara's hatched first, revealing a beautiful burgandy-marroon colored female. Its horn was small, but it had helped get out of that thick egg shell. Todd's broke up and nearly fell off his hands onto the ground, but it was a black with a strong set of wings to him.

"This is Burgandy," Sara announced, "look at her color! Isn't it beautiful?"

"And this is Ebon," Todd said, smiling. "They're a matched pair."

"Like us," Sara grinned, emulating her friend.

"You should make yourselves at home, for a while," Mystic said, as the pair snuggled with their new Dodrians. "It'll be a while before everyone is present, and the Rave is going on soon too. You might want to perform..."

With a glance at one another, Sara and Todd cheerfully agreed that they would perform for whoever they could, since their instruments seemed to be powered by will alone...

There was hardly time for the dodrians to grow even a little, before Todd and Sara noticed the mood of the Warren had gone from tense to excited. Sara waved her hand at one of the other candidates, though they were far from normal. She'd gotten used to the idea of aliens and were-creatures and the like, in the time she'd spent with the pirate musicians.

The whole place was lit with energy. When everything started to come together, the huge scaffold and stage and lights, it really looked to both the musicians that a concert was going to happen.

"You're going to be playing for us," commented Mystic, as she breezed by one day. Then, just two days later, the announcement went out and locals were dispatched to get the candidates. Standing under the spotlight was great for the pair of rock musicians. They relished it, in fact... it seemed to be what was missing from their 'gigs' in space.

There were many beautiful eggs on the sands, glimmering in the lights. It took a while for the hatching to start, but everything seemed in order when it did. A beautiful orange-red hatchling came from her shell, followed by two more differently colored ones. They went off to bond, as another trio of shells cracked. While one of them bonded, there was a blue-orange hatchling who hadn't yet turned his attentions on the candidates at all. Instead, he headed back toward the eggs and as he walked, an egg tumbled right over him, and broke open!

A red-violet female came from the shell, unaware of the laughter in the stands because of their antics. Though everyone else looked up when Sabre (one of those odd, multi-personality-persons) bonded to a black, Todd and Sara were for some reason intent on the pair of hatchlings who were intent then, on one another.

Cheeping and sing-song noises came from both of the hatchlings, and then the pair of them were met by the running forms of Sara and Todd. There was nothing separating their minds. Sara laughed loudly and picked up the red-violet, calling, "she says her name is Searaun!"

Todd was about to say what he thought of this, when his orange and blue dragon bond began to sing beautifully wordless notes. Together they harmonized and Todd said, "Tagarok, you can sing."

As if to show that fact off, the pair joined their new bonds on the stage above everything, once the hatching was over. The Solos were together in more ways than one!

While the pair of lovely dragons grew a bit, their slightly older and much smaller counterparts the dodrians grew at a rapid clip. Ebon and Burgandy ate every spare scrap of meat that their hathian companions didn't, and in that way got a bit overweight.

"Look at you," Sara said to Ebon, "Todd feeds you way too much!" She pushed her finger at the black dodrian, and then giggled as Todd harrumpfed about her own chubby Burgandy.

"Well we will get a little exersize for them," Sara commented later, as Tag and Sear were getting ready to fly for the first time. "They will have to keep up if they want to come home with us."

"Good idea," Todd laughed, and was echoed by Tagarok. The orange-blue and the red-violet sprang into the air and actually remained there, their strong forelimbs spreading out and lifting them into the air. The now-adult dodrians rapidly gained altitude over their larger companions, but they were quickly overtaken by the large winged creatures.

***

When the dragons had learned to fly, and had basically gotten to their adult size, it was decided that the Solos and their deep-space worthy dragons would go back to the big space arena to help the Solos.

They bid the Warren a fond farewell, and left a small calling card that would alert the Solos if they needed musical assistance in the future.

Then, the pair packed up their things, carefully instructed their dodrian companions to stay close, and mentally guided Tagarok and Searaun back to the Grid.

"It's been so quiet without you guys," the other Sara said, "welcome home."

It had only been two months for the other Solos - Todd and Sara learned to cheat time. They hardly could resist, when their last impression of the place was a certain kind of drunken haze... they returned to it excited, nervous and pleased about their newfound dragons. The others were thrilled to death.

"How totally cool is this!" Jenny squealed when she met the dragons. "They're just beautiful!"

And we like you too, one of them said, making the musician's eyes wide.

"Wow..." She said, "he talked to me."

"They do that," Todd laughed.

Eventually, the group got back on its feet and started broadcasting together again. Solo or Together, there was always something coming from the Grid, through the big tear in space. But now it would be another live broadcast and they'd been gearing up for it on several Vocorr worlds.

Now, of course, the Solos had two big dragons that could aid them in defending their territory, should someone ever really be able to breach it. It was unlikely, but still possible after all, that another ship or someone else's dragons could reach them.

Instead, it turned out the other way around. The Solos decided they could risk touring. One day not long after their big return to the airwaves, the Vocorr lost its hold on a high-tech planet near the center of the galactic commerce core.

And from there, they began to lose more and more ground. So the Solos started their tour.

On the way, they met up with some odd people - but that's another story!