He had faint memories of a bright white landscape, of his feet being quite cold, and of teeth and brilliant gold eyes. Those memories were supposed to be washed away by time or his mother, but Haad still sometimes wondered what they were about. As a child he was rarely afforded much more than the basic education that the other Budak received, but as he grew older and would start exploring his surroundings... his punishments, while not physically painful, were certainly harsher in ways than the normal folk that R'ly kept around in the facility. Though he'd been born up in Bok, where the snow was an almost constant presence, and where that first zoo was built, he spent a lot of time watching from the observation areas over the Astel facility. He had watched as a dozen of his peers, Budak bred for rich folks to have as servants in their own warm and well-appointed homes, had been auctioned off and replaced by others from the labs.

His mother's facilities were clean but also a bit scary to him. He'd been in one other, belonging to another Peridian that his mother envied. The clacking of hooves and extended claws on the slick wooden floor of that strange facility weren't present in the Gerr breeding house; they'd installed textured padding on most of the hallway floors just so that R'ly and her father might move around silently on their hooved feet...

Haad remembered the weirdly-limb-heavy striped breeder they'd visited with a little twinge of R'ly's power warning him away from such things. Liintaelavaan was a 'real' animal master, with the Pelatih designation that followed from his education - or, as R'ly asserted, from his parentage lumping dozens of features onto him. R'ly's demeanor around that specific breeder-animal master was oddly changed that one day, when Liin had started 'looking too closely' at Haad.

What he would certainly have found, and what Haad's own four-footed sire certainly did when he was two up in Bok that one faintly-recalled day, was the level of psionic potential in his genes. That was something that R'ly didn't wish to deal with just yet. She'd explained once or twice, whenever Haad asked, really, why she was doing this. Because she needed him as a servant, as a Budak he was there to 'keep the peace' with the wolves at the door. If he wandered too far away from the zoos, those wolves might destroy everything she'd built there.

And as a child, he was fine with that. It made him feel somewhat more important than he might have otherwise. She certainly didn't dote on him, he'd been truly mothered by one of the middle aged Budak whose duties it was to be a wet-nurse as well as a helpful trainer for young servants. But R'ly had always made it eminently clear that Haad was 'very important to her'. So Haad lived reasonably well, if a little under-active. R'ly had done all the research necessary and managed to pay off at least one other Peridian who viewed Haad's genes in a lab - under a different name of course, but that breeder knew full well who his parents were. They kept secrets between each other, R'ly and this other breeder, and when he died all those secrets went with him.

Haad began to develop powers, when he was around 10 years old, and that worried his mother to a strange degree. So she encouraged him to use only a couple of them, not even those which were quite strong and very, very apparent to anyone with the ability to examine DNA with a power. She'd taken him on just enough trips around the world that he was impressed with certain places, and used those places to 'daydream' - literally dreaming, projecting into minds of the children and less-resistant others around him. Even R'ly could feel those dreams, but she was careful to never let them overtake her own mind. But entertaining the Budak? Oh that was perfect, that was just the right job, wasn't it? So he was put to the task of distracting her Budak before they were 'readied up' for sales, and when things were slow around the facility.

He put them in mind of a lush, warm beachside resort, where sand between their toes wasn't gritty but felt like silk, where the sun was the only thing beating down on their skin - and not his mother's power forcing their limbs straighter, their skin smoother and shiny. It saved a lot, she said, on anesthetics, to keep them psionically distracted instead of wasting valuable resources on Budak that would hardly remember it anyway.

Haad knew they did remember, but he could still put a more pleasant spin on their experience. He was always actually looking to be helpful; when they went to visit the Zoos he would join in the cleanup and watch the feedings with a bucket of scraps, or water down the walkways after a party. He would sniff at the air and get so many wild scents... Including those that were faintly familiar, always lurking around the north-eastern edge of the Bok facility. He was forbidden to go into the tunnel system in that Zoo, except if R'ly was with him. And she always held his hooved hand tightly when they were there. He caught glimpses of the blue and grey wolves, and the green and white ones, and those who had arms in addition to four legs. Haad wondered whether he would really want to run with them, or if he was content to be here, among the servants.

It was when, one day, he was at the edge of the Zoo's middle ring, near the 'winter woodland' enclosure, that he too-idly thought about those wolves. There were pictures, photos and paintings both, on the enclosure observation deck's walls - how the Ice Wolf had evolved and been made to evolve a bit more recently. What about seeing them up close? They hardly ever came close enough for anyone to view them, that was something he'd heard frequently enough from visitors. Maybe he could change that? He did. He tried, anyway. As a thirteen-year-old blossoming into his strongest powers, he sent out a call to those wolves. Come to me, let me see you!

And they answered.

A group of four long-furred wolves, all slightly more colorful than the paintings and photos showed, virtually ran into the area from their hiding spot below the hillside. And while this absolutely delighted the visitors, it positively mortified his mother. He could tell that for some reason, even though many of the visitors to the park were thrilled and would gush about it to their friends - to bring them here, it was pricey but worthwhile they said - that R'ly was terrified of this.

She punished him, not physically. She made sure that when he imagined using that power, the wolves would turn on him in his eyes. They were fierce, dangerous, deadly. And while he knew in his mind, he knew very deeply, that they were kin to him, he also believed her lies, the illusion was so strong. Or more aptly put: he was still too inexpert at trying to resist her influence, he believed the forced emotion of fear was his own.

Over time, this would happen with other abilities as they surfaced. He tried his hand one time, at shaping one of the Bayaran kids that were around the breeding house. He changed that boy's hand to resemble a flipper - and it wasn't even painful, it wasn't because he was aiming an illusion of a beach or a pleasant night sky at him, it was because he was also actively preventing the child from being in pain. While the boy was delighted that he had a flipper for a hand, all of a day later he realized that this was also a very bad thing when someone wanted him to bring a delicate serving tray to their lunch. That time, Haad was punished far more firmly - with both a stunning terror of using this power on anyone, as well as a backhanded hoof to the skull. R'ly was beyond furious. He dared not do this again, until and unless she alone willed it.

That time, he did fear on his own. He still in some way loved his mother, but R'ly was more scary now that he was growing up. Not 'ooh oh no the rich lady will sell me off' like he'd heard some other Budak say about her. But she will punish me ... by not allowing him even a little of his own power. He resented this, surely. But he kept it to himself. For many years.

As he became a young man, he occasionally tried nudging her toward allowing him to leave the Breeding House or the Zoo grounds on his own - if he was allowed to wear something, he could put that Budak pin that was requried also on it, right? He knew enough that the Budak and Bayaran leaving the auction house had to wear them at all times if they were out and about, but he didn't have any place to put it? R'ly had always told him he had fur, he didn't need clothing.

But she had fur too, and she--

It didn't matter. She taught him, whether she intended to or not, that certain people were to be avoided at all costs, and that others were 'safe'. See those three men with their blue and purple diamond-patterned sashes? They are bad. They will take you away. See those two women with the eagerly searching eyes, how they consult each other and look at datapads and point? They are bad. They will drag you into a lab and part us forever.

But he knew why the Zone officials wanted to see him. They knew why the Peridian had their "breeder's eye" on him. He did know he was special. Haad was still young, though, even a teenager wanted more to feel like he belonged than to fear exile or lonliness. As a Budak he was never really 'alone'. He... did sort of want a little time to himself, but he knew objectively that wasn't possible. He was too important to his mother's needs, and she was too paranoid about letting him out, for him to ever really get a bit of down time for himself.

Haad did some research on the sly, when he could, though. He could hear tourists talk about people, about places. And though he couldn't really see or feel their memories, he got the gist quite well. How big parties with lots of fancy dress outfits felt. How scary it was to go through that 'dungeon crawl' over in the north-west of Astel's cliff system. If he ever left evidence that he'd been snooping around the library, he might get punished, but in the end he could hardly read the advanced subjects of most of their contents. The Peridian guides? They were well above his education level, of course. No Budak 'should' be allowed to know those secrets of the lab. Maybe hold the book for their Lady or Lord, but not read it.

He'd noticed his mother acting a little odd while they were at the Bok estate. Not just the wolf-nervousness she always carried with her there, but something else. She'd gotten a call from someone claiming to be an official and it was something that Could Not Wait. He smelled her before she arrived - she smelled of clear water and wolf fur, she smelled familiar. He knew he'd never actually met this stunning upright wolf woman, but she was very much kinfolk to him.

Lheevdho arrived with a stack of papers and an angry look. Haad didn't think much of it, he was distracted as always by his mother's insistence that he be doing 'something else' whenever visitors were around. But - something was wrong. Something was bad, he felt her panic and the other woman's angry response to whatever she'd done.

Oh. Mother had tried to shoo her away? It didn't work? That was odd. That was scary in and of itself, really, and though he felt deeply sickened by his own impulse, Haad raced over to where the women were squaring off.

He had seen, down on the exhibit grasslands, how antelope would lower their head, how a predator would turn such a way to protect their own neck to ready themselves for an attack. This blue-furred wolf woman wasn't merely circling, however. She ... she did something incredible, he watched as her shape changed not only from a two-footed woman into a four-footed wolf, but into water. The smell of that waterfall of hair she had, it was literally water, falling. She was amazing, but she was attacking R'ly and he could not allow this. Protective, not even because his mother had bid him to act but because she was his only real family.

He sprang between them, and with all his might wished that they were at that pleasant beach, that sun-drenched resort.

And they went there.

** R'ly Gerr ** ** Lheevdho ** Story of their arrival **

***

Pale Gold   Saiyoth Female  67'4" L     11'5" s Haad ahlGer   (Shard)

(from hatching - Seeing the golds picking themselves up, the amber bristled. Those would certainly draw attention from her, and she couldn't have that ! 

Snaking towards the still-wet pair, the amber seemed like she would snap at the tail of the more serious looking gold --- up until a white robed figure abruptly got in the way!  Or, more accurately, a white robed back.  The candidate took the amber's claws valiantly, emitting only a muffled gasp as the duller of the two golds raced around to defend her bonded.   I am Saiyoth, and you will LEAVE US BE! She demanded, bolstered by the arrival of her sister, Kaiyoth.

Hissing at being thwarted, the amber backed up enough to allow Haad alGer to stand, blood streaking his white robes, as Saiyoth bristled and hissed in return at the amber. Kaiyoth took it a step further, darting towards the amber to run her off, causing her to careen into another egg.

**

I will be all right, he sent to this beautiful pale light. She glimmered, but then again his eyes were watering and perhaps a bit bloodied. They left these sands, but Saiyoth would not leave her bond's side - not even when his mother, or her dragon, approached again later.

He wasn't certain but the general mood of all the locals were more shocked because he was male and had impressed a female, (a Gold!) more than 'he was injured at the claws of that annoying amber dragoness on the sands'. But, eventually, he'd figure it all out. They would learn how to live, and more importantly, R'ly would have to learn how to live without him.

Their training was harder than expected for all three. While it was clear that the women were struggling a lot more with the physical - and the lack of the social - work, there came a time when Haad needed to finally assert his own freedom from his mother's whim. Maybe it was that his dragoness was half grown, learning to fly and doing a good job of it. The champagne shaded dragon shone in the sun, while Haad wached carefully for signs of the amber. His own dragon had grown quite large, much larger than most, not quite as... neck-y if one could call it that, of his 'aunt's' twilight shaded love. The amber Neyareth put up a big front, but frankly she was not-quite-half the size of violet Jassirth when they had a growh spurt, and it was likely she'd never even be the size of some of the typical Greens around this place.

He was stalling. When he found his mother nearby in a supply nook, she asked him, as she always did, "are you ready to return us home?"

"I won't be, until you free me. I will direct us home, our dragons can do that you know," he said, while he watched the woman stand stiff as a pole, and her hoofed fingers clenched together into fists. "But I will not go unless I return there as a... a -" He faltered, because it had been too long, what had he ever wanted to even be? Beyond a slave?

"A what?" R'ly finally spat, angry. She played on his sudden loss of words. "A pitiful Bayaran? Because you owe me."

"I owe you nothing," Haad said, quietly. Somehow he maintained his calm, but he could definitely feel the buffeting that his mother's mind truly wanted to give him. He knew Mara was watching, from wherever it was she could view things - beyond his ken, beyond the stone walls of the Weyr. She saw. "You brought me into the world, but I've more than paid for my way, and I still don't even know why. Lheevdho says-"

"I do not care what she says," R'ly turned and took one hard foot foward. She had been messing with leather straps, the kind they'd need to keep in good shape for dragon riding. Her hands - like his own - were ill suited to this task. She did however carefully turn to look around: was there anyone else listening? She knew Mara that dragon would ruin her if anyone did see, but. But she was furious. "You are mine," R'ly hissed, barely above a whisper but she knew her son - her slave - could hear it. His furry ears did quirk backwards but unlike in any other situation they remained mostly relaxed. He should be afraid of her, they should have been pinned back in obedience.

Haad looked away, down at the ground, but not in deference or fear. He closed his eyes, drew in a long breath, and started again. "I will not guide us until you agree to raise me to at least Tuantana, with my own portion of the lands I have helped you shape and defend."

"You expect to inherit from me?" She squeaked, more surprised than anything else. She was about to go off on a tirade, he was sure. It wasn't Mara that interrupted, however.

It was Haad himself. His heart had broken, finally, enough that he couldn't bear this woman's nonsense any further. "Mother, I want you to understand ... that I can take myself and Lheevdho home." He paused, very significantly. "Without you."

Even the dragon lounging on the ledge woke to that sound that Neyareth screeched in response. The mood that R'ly had been suppressing was not going to hold back much longer, and the amber dragon had never been good at hiding her ire, even if it was her rider's filtered through her own mouth. But that dragon, while she'd taken to the sky - she wasn't as good at flight as some even at a year old. She fluttered like a moth, tried to land where Saiyoth sat, and was literally batted away by the much bigger dragon's deft wingsail. She recovered before actually falling down the cliffside, gripped the nearest stone ledge, and screamed almost as angrily as a queen in competition for nesting rights.

It wasn't completely uncommon, for dragons to fight. Particularly not females, growing ones, their riders going through emotional outbursts as the dragons grew mature enough to breed. As well, young men butted heads, their brown and bronze dragons hissing and spitting at one another to arrange their dominance. But those were dragons and riders that would then go on to learn discipline, to fight against Thread and to possibly die in it. They had to know their place. They had to get it sorted.

R'ly knew that her place was above this mutt's, and her dragon screamed about it at her clutch sister, incoherent rage boiling between rider and dragon. The thought that he could leave her here, without knowing how to get home... No, wait - "I can still use this power," she said, sharply.

"Not well enough to trust it," Haad replied, correctly. He was still calm, chilly. When she noticed he was looking back at her, she shut her mouth abruptly. He reminded her of Harrek, but only before he struck prey. "Also," he said carefully, "there's the matter of which Zekira we will return to."

That did it. It put a chink in that armor, a dent in the mood that she'd worked herself into. Even if she was terrified of being left here, even if she was furious at the thought that her own Budak was now standing here demanding a cut of her property... And even if her dragon would not stop bellowing down below, a subconsciously projected anger... She was still curious, still wondered what he meant by it. R'ly had never bothered 'daydreaming' much, she'd been too afraid to act on those distant visions. And then she cursed herself for having told him to train up with that stupid power, oh how she was a fool for that.

"Mother, there are dragons on this other one," he said.

By this time Lheevdho had come up; because obviously if that amber and this creamy gold were butting heads it was a sure bet that their riders were also. Maybe she'd come up just to watch them physically fight. She'd absently watched the goats down in their pens on numerous occasions as they squared off, would this mother try attacking her son? But when she got there it was clear that whatever Haad was going for had worked - he stood calmly, not entirely sure of himself but with far more poise and confidence than he had when they'd first met. And R'ly was casting her gaze around, looking like she was tossing around ideas in her head, and not really liking, or perhaps undersanding, what she found.

Lheevdho couldn't help by listen to their powerful minds, separated from each other, but not from her. R'ly had forgotten to put up any walls this time, and there were thoughts scattering through her mind that Lheevdho was sure might be mistaken for madness. Had they not been here on a world with dragons. That ended the moment she realized that the other woman was here.

"You, you put those thoughts into his mind," R'ly tried bringing back her anger at the idea of losing this Budak. But then she furrowed her brows, under those long, curved horns. She drew breath with a slow count in her mind. "I... know you did not," the Peridian whispered. "I know he did this himself. But perhaps you know what he means."

Lheevdho glanced with only her eyes at the young man, and shrugged. "I - wasn't here? Oh." He had aimed a particularly intriguing idea at her. While they had all been able to read up or listen to the harpers stories, the reality of their dragons being able to move between worlds was something that this Weyr knew. They had the Waypoint, but they didn't - or at least she didn't think they did - know how to use it going outward.

"There are other worlds, there are even other Perns," Haad said. "And I am positive that the thing I have seen, when I sleep and dream, it's not the same Zekira that we come from. It is, but it's not."

"But we'd be just as foreign there as we are here, wouldn't we?" R'ly asked, "I don't know how else to - to word it."

Oddly though, Haad still remained quite calm when he said, "we would be there, but also back where we were. Maybe ... the ones in the dragon ... version, maybe they go where we had once been."

"Why aren't we the ones from that world?" Lheevdho asked, and Haad gave a shrug and tossed his hands into the air.

"I don't know, but I just - get this feeling, and I trust it."

Lheevdho glanced at the ledge outside, communing with her dragon, who appeared to explain what they all thought. She returned her gaze to the violet furry man. "They seem to think you will bring them to the right place, anyway."

"And the right time," Haad said. "I... asked about that, when the instructors were not busy."

Those instructors knew this trio would be trouble, and apparently the sooner they were let loose on whatever world they needed to return to the better. Thus they had conferred with one another and answered Haad's queries as fully and truthfully as they could - dragons could go where ever, when ever, provided they could 'see' where they were going. And if Haad's visions could be clarified to include the stars as well as the 'mood', so much the better. They would find themselves at that place, in that time. Probably exhausted, maybe damaged.

They went to Haad's weyr, greeted by the lovely Saiyoth and the still-growling but now-subdued Neyareth. Jassirth might join them but she complained there wouldn't be enough room. And she wasn't wrong. This weyrling's nook wasn't going to last long for the queen-sized queens. That would also be a boon to the locals: if they left for whatever world they came from, they'd be able to house other, less ... aggressively annoying dragons in their weyrs.

So with more or less level heads, and only a couple - fully expected - outbursts from R'ly, the trio sat and they spoke. They talked about what might happen. What could go wrong. But Haad, somehow, continued to look at this as an opportunity, not a disaster waiting to happen. He then casually mentioned that he had spoken with Mara about it, too.

While Lheevdho wasn't angry exactly, more concerned because anything that brought the silver dragoness into things was going to get dicey... R'ly nearly had a panic attack.

"She wants us gone as much as the weyrlingmasters do," R'ly finally said, spent. "I... will Raise you, if we get to this 'other' Zekira properly. If there are dragons there, that is what we will arrange."

She didn't need to continue regarding if they weren't. R'ly carefully and quietly added, "I have come to realize... how important this bond is," she interrupted herself with a chuckle at the term. "This connection between dragon and rider. We need space, space between our dragons," she significantly looked at Lheevdho who obviously agreed. "If this other world has that space, much the better. I just... I just worry that there will be problems with who we aren't. What if we aren't who-"

"We will be there, only once, not overlapping." Haad didn't clearly understand this himself, perhaps it was something that he heard Mara or one of the offworld search riders say. "It will be fine, as long as you trust me. And you need to remember that... I can bring us there the day we left."

That - both of the women sat straighter and looked between him and each other.

"I know the night sky, I... spent time looking at it a lot when I could. The moons, two would be near full, the other too hard to tell, as always. In a wobbly line, they'd come up just after sunset."

"I didn't realize you spent so much of your idle time staring at the sky," R'ly said, but it was less chiding and more mocking herself for the attempt at chiding him about it.

"Well I mean, I've also spent time," he tapped his temple, gently, with his hoofed finger. "Watching. And since we've been training here, they concentrate on knowing these things! They have to be precise. And so will I, I promise that."

**

They let their dragons grow a little bit more, strengthening their wings, learning the quick short teleport techinques as well as the rare formation training. By the time they declared to Mara that they would be leaving, even Neyareth was as big as she was going to get. Certainly as blustery as ever, as picky, and they wanted to get her out of there before she went and tried to find a mate.

Though... R'ly actually pondered it. A successful flight, moving between worlds before gravid with eggs?

But finally she decided no, no it would not be practical, and they didn't know what all to expect the dragons would actually require once they returned home. Three females, though, maybe whatever 'locals' were there might do the trick?

Haad took one last tour of the beaches, the fishery in particular, and Saiyoth dropped a fish larger than two men onto the dock for them to cheer over. He was after all the only one of the three who had made friends with anyone here... And he wanted to properly thank them for welcoming him at least.

When they did mount up - using temporary harnesses, it was unclear whether they'd really be riding much and would definitely want to have more custom work made by 'proper' people back home - Haad and his aunt both heard the wing leaders talking about losing what could have been a very fine wing leader. 'But for the fact that his dragon's a queen' and all. Lheevdho had made sure to keep records of this all, written accounts of everything from their hatching to their first flight, and local stories of brave Threadfighting and tragic love. Her paperwork with the water rights was still intact, and would still need to be settled, if - when they got there - the place was still hogging the resources as she thought.

What if it wasn't? What if this other world wasn't quite as ecologically unsound?

Well it turned out it was sound - just... unsafe, because what Haad had either not known or not told them, was that there were alien invaders regularly pummeling cities and power plants, the landscape was riddled with both ruins and quickly erected defenses. And the dragons... they were definitely not like these three.

But they would work it out, because they were not the first to travel from one 'version' of their world to this 'other', with Pernese dragons - not by a very, very wide margin in fact.

  Base by Samalamb-bases on Deviantart (llama, donkey, shep, arctic fox mashup) with horns found online