Sun, Moon and Star, a tale of ....

No, that wasn't right. She started writing again, and yet again the words failed her. She knew what they should be, that she and her companions would be swept away from their mundane lives at school and boring old meetings and hard gritty dusty work... They would go to far off places, they would meet people they could hardly imagine.

But the words weren't coming, and that depressed the girl who named herself Star. Normally she was quite good at flavor text, putting clever phrases into conversation and dialog, she was the kind of person who could with but a few words utterly creep out or confuse the cheerleading squad. "You're weird" was something she heard quite a lot, and was rather proud of. Of course it helped that her eyes were that peculiar shade of red-brown, on a good bright day they were eerie as all getout. Star didn't mind that she often was alienated by people her age. She had her own more precious friends.

Sun and Moon - they hardly went by their given names any more, at least to each other. Though the trio were as physically opposite as you could really get, Star being quite pale with mousey brown hair and glasses she had to wear to see three feet in front of her face; Sun was muscular and tanned, bright blond hair and equally bright blue eyes always intent on something; and Moon... dark skinned and with a more fierce look in his brown eyes than he really ever meant to have.

They lived in the Mid-West America, on the outskirts of larger cities but never quite close enough to consider their homes to be a suburb of any. It was a little town that tried to act like it was where all the hip kids lived. They didn't. They did go to school here, there were several good private schools that settled here because it was away from the hustle bustle cities. The public school where Sun, Moon and Star went was of a reasonably high quality too - a low drop-out rate and even lower failures among the students.

The town had ranches and large farms to the west, where Sun lived and worked part time in the summer. Industry to the north, big roads into the big towns to the east, and to the south was a lazy moving river that split the area into low and high grounds. The trio were familiar with all these spots, more interested in the ranch than the city, definitely more interested in the river than the big factories.

They were sixteen years old, just out of 10th grade and waiting out the summer. The summer was going by altogether too quickly. Sun had work to do on his family house plot as well as the ranch nearby, where he hefted hay bales and helped mend fences or chase chickens. Moon worked in a local book store, it was where Star spent most of her spare time, as she didn't have a job just yet. Her parents were supportive of her artistic habits, not yet insisting she have to support herself.

But today, the words just weren't making it on to the page. They just sat there, tumbling and turning into mere letters, useless.

"I can't seem to write today," she sighed, and put her journal away. Moon looked up from his book, there was only one customer in the store besides them, and he was intent on not looking like he was buying a romance novel.

"It's not for the game is it? I can come up with something if you can't." Moon suggested, but Star shook her head and pushed her glasses along her nose.

"No, I already have tonight's adventure ready. Next week it's your turn, we'll be done with this one by tonight."

They had a weekly dungeons and dragons game meeting, started during the school year with the very few others in the school who had any interest in fantasy rpg's. It was actually Sun, Moon, Star and only two others from the Chess club who described themselves as 'gamer curious' and would certainly try any game once. They were enjoyable guys, but were more rules-lawyers than gamers in Star's opinion. Whenever it was their turn to game-master everyone had to be on their toes about the rules of whatever they were playing.

Star concentrated more on descriptive events, sweeping tales, rescues and change. Moon's technique was more or less 'hack and slash' but he always had some clever trick or hidden idea that was best puzzled out in the down times between games. Sun's games were always entertaining and funny, he did the best voices for the characters he played.

"No, this is something I've been trying to write for days now," Star said, sighing and leaning into the beat up leather chair in the corner of the room. The cash-wrap desk was just to her left, the store wasn't large but it was hardly a hole in the wall. It was brightly lit, mostly with sun from the wide windows farther left of the pair. Star fiddled with her pen and stuck it into the holder on the side of her journal. "It's ... it's nothing. I'll get it when I get it."

"I know, and you'll never show me because you always hate it when I read your private stuff," Moon grinned. He only smiled for the group, never for strangers - except with this bizarrely polite 'smile' he put on for customers and his boss. It was like a shark smiling, or like one of the Chess guys had said, a gremlin's smile. Something else was going on in that smile...

"This is different," Star said. "It's ... okay, it's about us, but not."

"Our characters?" Moon asked, ringing up the romance-novel-buyer and packing the book he bought into a paper bag. Once they were alone, Moon leaned against the cash wrap and tilted his head.

"No, I've already written them up a million times... I mean, us, you and me and Sun. But not. It's... hard to explain. I haven't even gotten very far with it, so ... I need to do something else instead, it'll just chew on me if I don't."

"How about you go get me a coffee and a bagel," Moon suggested with a grin, "you know the kind I like, with the onions and no milk."

Star stood up, put her book bag onto the chair, and held out her hand, "well, fine, if you don't like milky bagels, and onions in your coffee that's just weird..." She trotted out, somehow avoiding the trio of teenagers that strutted down the street toward her, she could see them as big lumpy colorful blobs: "darnit I forgot my glasses," she grumbled, and kept walking. It wasn't that the group didn't recognize her, they just didn't care to interrupt their important conversation about jeans and skirts and shoes to talk about the geek. However, they weren't headed to a clothing store, they were going into the bookstore.

Moon noticed that Star's things were still right where people would be apt to sit on or steal them, so he nudged himself away from the counter, picked up the bag, and put it behind the counter. The girls didn't stop talking once, in their search for whatever hot-topic it was they needed to read.

"And there was this lion, like 'rawr!' and stuff," said one to the others, "and they said in line that it was like, based on a book or something, so like, I wanted to see it."

The girls flitted around the shop, having apparently no grasp on either the alphabetical nature of filing, or the subject-matter signs that were placed on every rack. They did this until Moon thought they would give up, but one finally approached him.

"There's this book," she said, and Moon almost blurted out, no shit sherlock, you're in a book store looking for a book... "and it's got some lion in it, and it was a movie. What is it?"

With far more patience than he'd ever be able to pull during school (he was being paid, after all, to be here selling books - if he didn't sell the books, he didn't get paid, so he plastered on a smile), Moon nodded. "It's called the Chronicles of Narnia, it's over there - it's a seven book series. Allegory."

"Alley cats? Gory cats? What?" The girl said, and this time Moon almost had to bite his tongue physically.

"Allegory - it means the Lion in the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe is a symbol for the Christian God," he heard one of the others exclaim in the back, that's what it was! The weardrobes!

He nodded again, at the stack where those books stood, "it's in the L section... C.S. Lewis," he urged.

"Seven books?" One of them finally caught up to that, "who writes that much? I mean, sheesh really," she walked around the store, disinterested in anything other than the hotties on the Romance novels.

"Actually they're quite short books," Moon said, the girls had actually found 'book one' and brought it to the counter. About this time, Star came back with his coffee and bagel, but held back by the door while he rang them up. "They're supposedly children's books, but they're more violent than a lot of parents like today."

"There was this awesome freaking battle!" the one girl cried, swinging her arms around like she carried a sword. "So like, that's in this book?"

"It is," Moon said, again biting his tongue about the fact that it was the first in the series, but not chronological - it'd take them a week to figure out what that meant...

And true to their nature, once the girls had left the shop (continuing their conversation almost exactly as it'd been left outside, on the color of skirts this fall and the right shoes to wear with them) Moon glanced at Star.

"If they get halfway through that book I'll call it a good day," she said. No, she had no clue which one they'd bought, she guessed it was fantasy, either the Hobbit or Narnia, if it was a movie. "Come to think of it," she let her mind wander a little, "they were at that showing, you didn't come to the ten o'clock. Everyone else was there, we even tried saving you a seat."

"Had to work, we did inventory that weekend," Moon sighed. If he was in the slightest perturbed to find that Star knew what they'd been buying even if she hadn't been here, it didn't show - most likely he hadn't bothered himself with that kind of thing since she always did it anyway. Moon's observation of Star was that she was far more intelligent than the rest, probably even more so than the Chess club guys. But she didn't use her mind like a trap, she used it more like a beautiful decorational art box.

Likewise, Star thought very highly of Moon. He was not so purely physical as Sun was, but he could put up a good fight when they wrestled (and they did, for fun - and probably to impress Star, because they both knew she liked them when they got physical). He was sly, in that way that some guys could be. Not rudely so, not the way that the quarterback or the baseball team's guys could get. They were just stuck on anything that had boobs in it. Moon, while he was apt to stare at pretty girls or boobs - was the kind of guy who kept his opinion to himself until it absolutely had to come out, and he always chose the best words to do it.

They both loved Sun for the way he was open and friendly, smiling and cheerful.

They both literally loved him, it was one of those things they didn't talk about in public much, and rarely so in private. That they were a trio was obvious to the adults around, some of whom were a bit put off by them. One of them even called them 'deviants' when they were on a school trip and had wound up in a room together (while the other students were all off getting drunk, they chose to remain in the dark quiet room - tickling one another on the big bed until they could hardly breathe). If anyone in the school ever accused either Sun or Moon of being gay, they'd get a quick response in both words and probably a swift fist to the gut if they were close enough. If anyone bothered to think about it, Sun loved Star as much as Moon...

Moon drank his coffee and nudged at Star's book bag. "You left this there, you probably should try giving it to me when you come in. You've lost it a couple times."

"I know, I know..." Star muttered, digging around in the bag for her glasses and her notebook. "I think I'm gonna head home and write, I thought of some things on the way to the coffee shop."

"Don't write and walk!" Moon called out while she was doing just that. "Girl's gonna get run over some day..."

***

That night, Sun had come to the bookstore early, after calling it a day and showering. They used the store after-hours for their game, which was okay with the owners, since they also carried a few 'gamer' products like books and dice. As long as they bought their supplies from that shop, everything was fine.

The other guys arrived shortly before Sun did, they were setting up while she knocked on the door and walked in. "Sorry I'm late, I was caught up writing."

Moon nodded and smiled, whatever her story would be, she'd eventually pass it to them to read and they'd all enjoy it. Even if she never liked most of her own pieces of prose, they were clear, easily read and fun things. Like her games would be - tonight as promised she wrapped up their adventure, but not before throwing a curve at them: one of their encounters was with a human that actually turned out to be a shapeshifted dragon!

"I have to admit," Gregory of the Chess club said, pushing his glasses higher, "I didn't see that one coming, but I should have. You gave us all the clues, didn't you?"

Sun nodded, grinning. "Yup. That was actually almost the whole reason I did it, I came up with him months ago and I was just dying to put him in something. I'm glad you liked it."

"Hey, I leveled," Darren, the other of the pair said. "Anything that gets me some new hit dice is good!"

When they'd gone, the trio sat in the quiet shop, talking about the adventure. Sun laughed and emulated how he thought the dragon-man would have talked, making both the others burst out laughing.

"He's supposed to be a young guy, right?" Sun said, affecting a tall, long-necked type and straightened a tie he didn't have (but the dragon man did). "But he's soooo uptight!" He added a nasal whine and sent Moon into a silent chuffle into the couch's pillow. Sun went on for another ten minutes, until neither of his friends could properly breathe, and they waved ineffectually for him to stop with their faces red and sides aching.

While they packed up and cleaned up any evidence that they'd been in the store - the shop owner insisted on that too - Moon asked, "so Star, you get that story you were working on done?"

"Oh it's nowhere near done," she said, stacking up their folding chairs into the closet. "But I did get a start. I know where it's going now."

Sun said nothing but he assumed Star knew their friend would have told him about it, Moon didn't like keeping secrets between the three of them. They walked Star home first, then Moon split away from his friend, and Sun got home near midnight.

***

Elsewhere in the multiverse, a darkly-blue-colored dragon settled down on what looked to be a fairly wide road, late at night. There were lights that dotted the street, and several cross roads nearby: this was a neighborhood, not an isolated village. The dragon walked carefully, quietly, and nothing seemed to worry it was there. Things were quiet, it was almost midnight here as well - and the dragon was nearly that same shade. He would call himself Storm colored, of course.

But things did seem slightly odd. Here and there a startled bird or animal lept from a nest or porch. And at least three of those animals looked very much like flitters. They could have been bats - but the first thing that J'kem thought was of his two fire lizards Honey and Flyer. They had that long-tail long-neck and the segmented wingsails, they clearly were not birds. Illuminated by the weird yellow-white light of a street lamp, as they sat in a nervous clump watching the dragon and rider walk by, the trio of flitters chirruped at each other, and then flew off again.

A big house on a nearby hill was clearly the dragon's destination, though why he hadn't just landed on the wide front lawn or dirt lot J'kem didn't understand.

Then he saw something weird. He was pretty sure it was a statue, standing on one leg. Long pinkish neck turned gracefully away. But when he looked again it had switched legs and was frozen in a weird preening stance. And it had two more legs it was standing on, the next time he saw it. In fact, it looked like it had four legs and wings...

The storm's rider muttered, "what is up with you, Keemnth? This isn't ... this is not the Earth I was wanting to go to. Where is this place?"

This is not the earth you wanted, but it is the earth we needed to go to. Explained Keemnth carefully. He stopped near the gate to this large homestead, and gazed up at the three-story house. We are here.

"Oh well that's just great, what am I supposed to find here? It's already way out of my league, I'm not sure why you didn't get shrunk down and hidden when we got here in the first place. Am I meant to just walk right... up... to..." his words drifted off to a low stammer, "what the flying shards is that?!"

Three strange sinister looking heads were gazing down at him from the corner of the building. Eyes, one set yellow, another green, the last red. It then lept from the rooftop down to the ground as silent as a cat. It looked from the young man to his dragon, and then all three heads nodded at once.

"Welcome, come in, you're expected," they said, not quite at the same time, so their sentance was completed by each other.

J'kem glanced at his dragon, "you... know this, this thing?"

"That thing is waiting for you to come inside," said the goat head with red eyes. "People don't much mind the dragons on the street, but sometimes cars come," added the green-eyed dragon's head, "so you should come up behind the house too, mind the cheetahs." Finished the yellow-eyed cat head.

Keemnth lept once and spread his wings expertly, and J'kem heard the distinct sound of another couple dragons making their greeting sounds at him. He felt 'safe', he wasn't getting any bad feelings or discomfort from the dragon, so ... J'kem went up to the house's door. He'd rarely seen anything like this, houses were still rather rare on Pern. He did know that he was meant to knock, so he did.

The door opened presently, and a tall woman with a mottled and clearly Falasian flitter on her shoulder nodded. "Hey, come on in. Movie's almost over, but I've still got popcorn."

She indicated the couch, a semi-dark room with a big screen tv that was playing the last bits of a Star Wars movie that didn't exist anywhere but this universe. A big metal bowl with popcorn kernels had been placed on the floor near the couch, and Lethe plopped herself down onto the cushions and waved her hand at the rider. "Come on, you might learn something," she said.

"Le...learn something? From what?" He said carefully moving around the edge of the seat and wondering what in the world was going on. The screen had moving pictures, it was almost like magic, but he'd been briefed a bit on Earth culture and devices. This was a 'tele-vision' and she'd already said it was a 'movie' that she was watching. Fiction? Reality? Well it couldn't be real, there were people waving swords that glowed and crafts that swung around between .... stars...

By the time the movie ended, J'kem was slack jawed and wide-eyed, munching on the last of the popcorn. "That was great! How they went in at the last second and they pulled a move we've done in the sky with Thread! Those drone things weren't even paying attention! It's just like clumps of the stuff, we can char it and it doesn't fight back but if you get in its way you're gonna get hurt..."

"Exactly," Lethe said, "now... J'kem is your name? Bhav told me, I don't think you'd impressed when I was at Falas."

"You were at Falas?" J'kem said, but then he realized, none of this would make sense if she hadn't been there.

"Of course, I didn't stay long though, once Bhavaiyath could teleport ... I pretty much left for good. I'm no thread fighter." She admitted, shrugging. "I'm a writer, creator. I created this place," she waved her hands. "I didn't create you."

J'kem was a bit groggy, not sure about the popcorn's effects on his gut. ".... I'll just ask then, why did we come here? Keemnth seems to think we're here for a reason, and I think it's not just to watch movies or hang out in your back yard."

"I've heard there's another clutch your weyr intends to send out to Earth kids," she said, "and I was just curious about it. I've been having dreams and images come up, even Tanda isn't sad about it, she's usually rather emo."

She nodded toward a dark creature which had come out from the basement, gently glowing parts... But before she got too close, Lethe stepped between her and the creature. "Let's not, and say we did, okay?" She said to Tanda, who turned and sulked her way back to the dark cool room below. "I'd just like to accompany you, ... as a search rider?"

"Well, why didn't you just say so?" J'kem said, rolling his eyes.

He spent the night in a comfortable guest bed, and in the morning woke to the scent of what wasn't quite klah brewing in the kitchen. The dragons outside were far more numerous than he'd expected. He had learned of Bhavaiyath her blue dragon from the last Earth clutch, but there was Sara Letha Katrina, the three-headed Chimera dragon, Tanda the odd mirror-spirit in the basement, and a red-and-black male who wasn't given much room near the porch by the rest. And there were cats. Plenty of cats. Flitters by the dozen flew overhead, chasing and dive bombing the spotted cheetahs below. "What a zoo," he muttered.

"It certainly is," Lethe said with a laugh. She'd dressed for the occasion, t-shirt and comfortable slacks, apparently quite at home with the idea that the Nexus was blisteringly cold. She claimed that she pwnd the Nexus, it was cold but it was a refreshing cold. "Besides," she explained, "I'll fit in a lot better than your riding gear will, eh?"

J'kem had little to say about that, except that he was now ready to actually go on search - and this time they'd be headed to the right Earth.

***

Sun had invited everyone to the ranch where he worked, because they were having a bit of a show there over the weekend. Local Quarter Horse associations were converging on their town as they usually did this time of year, and he was always fascinated by their quick moves and deft riders.

"Watch how they switch, look at that," he said as one sprinted around barrels, "just amazing."

"Why don't you ride?" Moon asked, he'd asked before but never quite got the reply he was looking for.

And this time was no exception. Sun waved his hand, "meh, it's easier back behind the scenes, than on a horse... You've ridden but not like that."

Both Star and Moon suspected that Sun had fallen or been hurt, before they met, but they decided to leave it at that. He'd have to have been quite young, because they had known one another since the middle of elementary school. Moon had indeed ridden, too, everyone in this town had a friend or relative with a horse if they didn't have on themselves. If you didn't know how to ride, it was an oddity. Many of the girls that came to the private schools from elsewhere learned their proper English saddle techniques on the weekends, they'd never show up to an event like this one. Too much dust and tumble.

"Well you know I'd suck at it," Star laughed, "I can hardly see where I'm walking, put me on a horse and I can't even see the ground!"

"If you'd get contact lenses," Moon said, and Sun finished for him, "or Laser surgery..."

She waved them off yet again, claiming that her folks didn't have that much cash and she didn't like the thought of stuffing plastic on her eyeballs every morning... Then she turned her head oddly, like she'd seen something in the corner of her blurry vision. The guys looked too, but when they scanned the crowd they only saw yet more visitors on their way in, and people vying for space by the corrals to look over the horses.

They shrugged it off, but Star was apt to look over her shoulder again, even when they were headed back to her house for dinner and movies.

Fortunately, her parents were the kind of people who gave their daughter free rein - within reason, they would stay overnight and have late night snacks, play out fantasy games and not get into trouble. In fact they were the only parents (or other adults, like teachers) who referred to the trio as Sun, Moon and Star. They thought it was all rather clever, and they hoped it would some day get their daughter a spot of honor at a convention or sci fi show.

This night, they battled it out with Nerf swords and spears, until they were exhausted and finally crashed as a lumpy group on the couch in front of a marathon Lord of the Rings show.

When Star got up to relieve herself, she noticed her mother standing in the hallway, watching. She quietly snuck over, and tilted her head.

"So.... you ... um," Her mother started to say, glancing over her daughter's shoulder over to the sleeping pair of guys. "You - have you had sex with them?"

Stunned, Star let out a little giggle, and whispered, "no, mom, we're ... not at that part yet. But we know the rules. We'll be safe... We're just... not there yet."

Looking relieved that she'd even been able to ask it, and that her daughter was good enough to not blow a gasket about answering, her mother went to bed and Star went to the bathroom.

She heard something odd, outside, with the window open there were distant traffic sounds and the endless night calls of bugs. But this was something different. Some other sounds came to her ears, cows? At this time of night, why would they be making any noise? Unless there were some college kids seeing if they could 'tip' one, that would explain it. Usually didn't set off so many of them, but it was nothing to worry about - the cows were more than half a mile away, anyway. It sure had sounded like something brushing up against the window, though, if briefly.

Star didn't see well enough in the darkness to detect anything untoward, if it was anything, it was probably just a bat or a night bird, lost in the trees nearby. She went back to the couch, draped herself over her friends laps, and went to sleep.

***

"I knew there was someone down there," J'kem said, "I'm glad your Bhavaiyath was able to confirm it." He picked at his food. "This stuff is so ... greasy..."

"Just be glad I can pay for it, mister 'stomach grumbles every ten minutes'..." Lethe laughed. "Anyway, there seem to be all three of them, hell I'd say the girl's parents are good too but whole families going missing isn't all that cool."

"But what do we tell them? I know how to search on Pern, and other worlds with dragons but there are none here. What if they don't understand?"

"What's not to understand? You're chosen for impressing a dragon, you know, like on that fictional world in the books you read," the woman said. She slugged back her ice water, and chewed on the ice.

"I suppose it wouldn't be nearly as hard with these as it would be for some stuffy Holder's child," J'kem admitted.

"I think they can understand it perfectly well, they will anyway," Lethe said, and J'kem nodded.

"You said that my world's fictional, .... what's that mean, anyway?" He asked, but Lethe shrugged him off and they went back to the hotel near the all-night Denny's to wait out the evening. They'd do the Search in the morning, when it was busy enough at that rodeo grounds that they would blend in far better.

Though they were both a bit groggy, the day began early for everyone, so they knew they'd be able to find the kids sooner than later. Lethe grumbled about not having her camera, these horses were all gorgeous and she could have used them for reference pictures for her art. J'kem kept a look out, and sure enough there they were, a group of rumpled teens with broadly grinning faces. One of Sun's family horses was competing today, he cheered the rider and horse on loudly, it was easy to see he loved the sport as well as the animals.

"I wonder why he's not riding," Lethe said, obviously not having been personally privy to their conversation of the prior day. "At least they won't have far to go learning how to ride a dragon, then."

"True, any experience is better than none. Well, once they take a break, you want to talk to them?"

"You're the search rider," Lethe chuckled.

They both carried packs, and both had hidden secrets within: though J'kem's held a more precious one, since his whole dragon was using the charm to reduce his size - Lethe's talking flitter Whiplash was in hers, and he was more used to this kind of thing when they went on trips. Of course, he had to remain quiet, which was hard for the talkative flitter.

The pair had flown over the dark town, drawn to it like moths to a flame with their dragons noses doing most of the hard work. Neither J'kem nor Lethe were remarkably telepathic, so they relied on the dragons to sweep around for a while, to narrow down the possible candidates. They'd seen this trio yesterday, having narrowly avoided detection in the early morning by those setting up the rodeo. Then, they kept tabs enough to realize that yes, it would be this group and no others. The town was otherwise bereft of suitable candidates.

That incident with the cows... Well, Keemnth decided he'd had enough with being tiny - Lethe's dragon was used to laying low, so he found himself a nice isolated spot over the hills nearby, past the river, and kept hidden since he had no special magical collar to shrink down. Keemnth had to be warned not to eat anything, they couldn't replace a cow, how could they? They had numbers on them, tags for identification, they were valuable commodities, not just wild wherry.

At last, they found a break in the action. Sun's family went to collect their horse and congratulate the rider, job well done. The kids were heading over to the fruit stand, when they saw two odd looking people staring at them.

".... That's.... weird," Moon said, blinking at them. He wasn't mistrustful for some reason, just kind of strange that people would look at them. Well, him, because he was one of the few black people at this event, but 'them' as a group, they were used to being ignored.

"Hey, that's... that is the person I saw yesterday," Star said, looking at Lethe. "The tattoos, I thought they were part of her shirt."

It was true, Lethe had a short-sleeved shirt in a lightish green color, and both her tattoo sleeves were quite ripe with green. If you didn't know it was a tattoo, it might look like lace, or a pattern. She knew this, of course, that was why she'd chosen the shirt.

She waved a little, a c'mere nod toward the kids. "Stay where people see us," she recommended to J'kem, "if someone sees kids running off with strangers they might raise an alert." Sun, Moon and Star approached, carefully, and Lethe smiled even more broadly. "Hi," she said.

"Hello, ... um, nice tattoos," Moon said, examining the artwork. "Haven't seen you two around here, that's kind of odd."

"Even the other ranchers come around this time of year, we all know them," Sun said, a little more defensively. "You're not a rancher, but you've got a nice jacket there." He indicated J'kem's riding leathers, and J'kem turned briefly to Lethe with that gloating smile.

"Told you they'd like it," he said.

"Who are you?" Star asked.

With a deep breath for inspiration and support, J'kem said, "I'm J'kem rider of storm Keemnth, and this is Lethe, rider of blue Bhavaiyath, and we're here to see about Searching for Candidates. There is a clutch ready on the Falas sands, and we'd like you to be there."

Far from getting the weirdly bewildered looks that some folks might have given, this group looked at one another with more introspective gazes.

"Rider of... rider offfff..." Star said, "that's... from something."

Lethe grinned. "It's not fictional, where he comes from. Dragons can teleport. Anywhere, with some effort..."

It was Sun who made the connection, his eyebrow shooting up under his mop of blond hair. "... You're talking about that ... Pern? You're talking about dragon riding?"

"I am," J'kem said. "Our dragons have pointed you out," he struggled briefly with his satchel, and a very dark blue nose poked out from it. It sniffed at the air, while Lethe stifled a loud snorting laugh.

"Is that a fire lizard, then?" Moon asked, "can we see it?"

"Actually his isn't a flitter at all," Lethe said, gently unhooking a clasp on her back pack. "Mine's a flitter, but he'd better not go flying off."

The gold and blue colored flit stretched casually like a cat, out of his confinement, and moved onto her shoulder. "Yup, those are them, I think they'll do the trick," he said. Startling the trio, it would have been easy to convince anyone that it was just a puppet or a stuffed toy, until it spoke.

"Then ... what.... um, I mean, how..." Star said, "we've..."

"You want to tell your parents," Lethe said, "I think you should - but I don't know about either of yours," she looked to the two young men. "Do you think they'd be best told something like, I dunno, you're being chosen for a camp?"

"It'd be good enough for mine," Sun said, "they've been wanting me to go off to some church thing ever since I started playing D and D..." That left Moon, who had to decide how best to cover not being here.

"College search," he said suddenly, "There were recruiters on campus earlier in the year. I'll say it's for that."

"And... then what?" Said Star, "what would we do, then? I can't ... I mean, I can hardly see, how could your dragon think I'm worthy?"

"Dragons find many things worthy, in people that don't expect it," J'kem said. "It's your mind they look at, your temperment, not your vision. And besides, there are plenty of mages who could probably fix it."

"Really?" Asked Moon, then glanced at Star. "No excuses now," he turned back to the search riders, "I think she just wants to keep the glasses, because she's afraid of what she looks like without them. You know you can't even see yourself without them, we keep telling you -"

"You look gorgeous without them, too," Sun interjected with a laugh. Then he sobered up, and carefully turned to his partners. "You know.... I know I keep ignoring your questions... but... yeah I was thrown by a horse when I was a kid, but it wasn't that. My other uncle was also thrown, and he got kicked in the head, and he died. That's why I work out here, trying to make it more safe for the riders... I wouldn't get back on a horse for years, because of that."

"We didn't know..." Moon said, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder.

A small chirrup came from the backpack-dragon, and J'kem asserted, "you're all just perfect for this. Once you impress, you'll be able to train and work with whatever you need, you will be trained, and expected to work for your keep," he glanced at Lethe, who rolled her eyes and shrugged it off. "Threadfall is dangerous, but many of the last Earth clutch folks didn't stay on eit--"

"There was another? What Earth clutch? When?" Asked Star, excited now.

"I impressed my blue there," Lethe said, "and I was from here - I don't live here any more though, not with a dragon. ... Like I said, dragons can go anywhere, if you have it in your mind strongly enough."

"Woah, multiverse?" Moon said, "that's like, comic book stuff!"

"It is," Lethe said, "and did you know how many universes there are where those comics aren't fiction?" She grinned. "Let's just say, plenty."

"So we deal with this world when we deal with it," Sun said.

"Let's go back to my house," Star said, "I want them to know everything, then ... you guys can go with them to their folks," she nodded at the riders. "It would probably look best if there was an adult at least pretending to go along with this..."

Lethe snapped her fingers, and startled Whiplash her flitter. "I'll be back. Crap. Where's Bhav." She looked around, mentall sent for him to come somehow closer to where she could find him. "I'll be right back, we know where to find your house, don't go to your other folks until I get back, okay?"

She sprang off, suddenly eager and giddy, while the kids took J'kem back to Star's house.

***

"This is all really, really incredible," Star's father said. It was a legal holiday - hence having the rodeo over that weekend, people would be off - and both her parents were home. "I don't think I'd believe it unless you hadn't ... you know..."

Keemnth wasn't all that huge, so he fit in the sheltered tree-surrounded yard that Star's family owned. He still lay low, wings pressed in gently and laying on the ground instead of standing. Even so, he was still big enough that he'd be able to fit at least one rider beyond J'kem, and hold packs of clothing. Bhavaiyath was slightly larger, but thinner.

J'kem assumed that Lethe had gone to summon her other dragons, because there would be no way they'd want to do two trips, for the trio and their stuff. While Star's parents chatted it up and congratulated the kids, and assured them that their secret would be safe with them - someone had to know the truth, it might as well be them. Shortly, Lethe came knocking at the door still panting from having jogged from the nearby field.

"Bhav is good at hiding, don't worry," she said. "Look, I made you this, and I did one for myself too." She handed J'kem what looked to be a pamphlet and ID. He couldn't read it, of course, but she explained that his name was now J. Kemper, and he represented the House of the Almighty Summer Camp and Retreat. An organization she pulled from her other-worldly internet, and printed out their brochure. "Just go along with whatever they ask, and Sun - Seamus, you read up on this, and do the talking. Moon," she turned to him, "I'll be presenting this," she showed off another similar packet of information. "A college-tour of three very fine east-coast establishments, all well accredited and all that jazz."

He noticed that she'd put on a long sleeved shirt, and vest, for the occasion, which made him relax a little. It would hardly do to invite some tattooed chick into his house, and claim she was a college scout!

It actually all went off without any big hitch. Though there were questions (why would he have to pack and leave right now? why haven't we heard of these places? are they small?) there were plenty of answers (Sun just met Kemper at the rodeo, and he figured it was high time he put some investment into his spiritual advancement - they couldn't argue with that one; there are colleges opening all the time, yes, they're small but you want your son going to a place that has real classes and not just on the internet, right?).

With a collective sigh of relief, then in the late afternoon while people were winding down and heading home from the rodeo, the group packed up and hauled off. It was actually Star's parent's car that Lethe drove to pick up both boys - since they rarely saw this vehicle even though their children were close, they didn't recognize it immediately anyway. They picked up Star's parents who would see them off, and then went down to the river where Bhav and Keemnth waited.

Lethe sent off Whiplash to summon at least one other dragon, it would have to be Dooooom, since Sara Letha Katrina was a bit... too weird to bring even for the cool factor. Dooooom wasn't all that pleased but at least he got out of the house, and got moving in the air when Lethe commanded him to.

In the dusky skies over their little home town, three dragons whisked away three carefully chosen Candidates... off for an adventure of their lifetimes!