** note that this takes place just before and then during the Budak's egg story **

S'bhu swore up and down that she hadn't been "elsewhere" - where else was there to be?

She smelled of foreign places, to her friends and particularly to Noy who could smell altogether too keenly. "Where is it you picked up that ... smoke?"

With a bit of a guilty look on her face, S'bhu said, "Well, there was a group in one room and it smelled so good, it made me feel happy."

"And now?" Noy asked, ever the physician. Even though he hardly practiced normal medicine, he was trained like all Peridian to deal with standard easily diagnosed illnesses and injuries, after all, the Breeders like him had to deal with premature birth, accidents before birth, all manner of natal care issues. Noy however was more concerned that his friend had gotten into something she didn't quite understand.

"Now, what?" S'bhu shrugged. "I'm fine, I slept a little oddly, but it was a party, I always toss and turn when I've had a long day."

Noy nodded and allowed that to be the end of that. Noy considered his good friend to be a little naive for how smart she seemed. She never seemed to feel the faint intrusion that he snuck in, his ability to either absorb or force onto someone else, information. It was as though he could be there, after the fact, so he could read her memories and understand.

The party she'd gone to was ... not on this world, definitely. He consulted with Ojyr and she agreed immediately, having a far stronger grip on her own ability to move through dimensions.

"But I wonder quite where it was," she said, purring a little as Noy scratched her behind the ear. "They seemed friendly, and it looked like a fun party. We should go there!"

Noy blinked and then blinked again.

"We should ask her to take us to that place." Ojyr giggled. "She won't know it's offworld, as far as she knows everything is here and now."

"It bothers me a bit that you'd treat her inability in this manner," Noy said. He then smirked, "but I like the idea."

So a few days later, after some of their dragon eggs had been examined by interested parties off their island, it was decided to head off again to some other party. Life on Zekira for the priveleged rich was a long string of parties and events, after all. They were focused on creating dragons and helping rid their world of the alien threat to it, but they were hopelessly rich also, and it was just the thing you did. You couldn't just sulk around all day, or work work work!

S'bhu thought it was marvelous that they wanted to see her party friends with her, and was still blissfully unaware - or perhaps her mind forced the issue - of how 'far' they had traveled. The place was certainly not Zekira, with its rows of neat little houses and crafted lawns. It looked like Zekiran cities, some of them anyway, but Noy and Ojyr knew of none that had a totally homogenous population like this obviously did.

They went up a longish, paved road, into a house which overlooked a small part of the township, where there was music already playing and where plenty of people had already begun to dance and drink. The night was bright with the single, large moon hovering in the sky illuminating the paved blocks below.

The single, large moon - Ojyr didn't point that out to S'bhu because she thought it might make her think it was all an illusion - after all, Zekira had three smaller, dimmer and farther distant moons. None of the sparkling stars in this night sky looked like any of the constellations visible from Zekiran soil.

Tonight was a kind of festival night, they could tell. Not just in the party house, but down below. Clusters of families with small children, and teens in their own groups, went from house to house. Apparently they were trading for something: Noy guessed it was sweets by the smell he was picking up on the breeze. How would he survive in this house... he was used to the clean tropical environment of their Isle, but like always he tucked his nose away as best he could - as a shapeshifter he could always consciously work that on himself to prevent his overactive sense of smell from overwhelming him.

"Oh look at that! What a great costume!" One of the party attendants said over the din of music and laughter. There was a pause in the festivities as everyone looked at the trio, and saw very clearly, S'bhu... Four legged S'bhu.

Over the course of the evening, S'bhu traveled through the house. She had been there once before and been recognized by one or two of the people here: didn't she have the greatest outfit? And the blue skin was just a cool touch! When she wasn't seen, she moved into another shape and vanished into the crowd again, this time as a handsome male with two legs.

She noticed Noy was sprouting wings again, which was adorable. Herself, she didn't much care for flight, she'd tried it once and almost killed herself falling from the sky in practice to soar.

"That is the hottest wig," one drunken party patron said to her, of her mop of green hair.

And once more, S'bhu enjoyed the attention far too much to let this go. Outside, there was a large pool - the kind you swim in if you're brave (and most Zekirans were not so brave). So she headed downstairs and while no one was watching again... became more appropriate to the water.

The water had candles on clever floating devices on its surface, and she played with the flame a moment before someone noticed her new outfit. This was all kinds of fun. Even if all the people here had the same kind of dullish brown color scheme, they were often wearing their own interesting costumery. The whole idea of this party apparently was to look like something or someone you were not!

After a while she got tired of listening to the couple in the hot-tub making out, and headed back inside. The night was dry, she hardly had to avail herself of the towels in the dressing room next to the pool. And when she emerged again, she was far more close to the local's appearance.

"How sexy is THAT!" Cried someone wearing artificial fangs and too much glitter for anyone's taste (it kept falling into drinks).

Eventually the night had worn thin. The others were enjoying themselves, tiredly taking themselves from one room to another. S'bhu observed that sometimes when the chime at the door rang there was a chorus of children's voices yelling "trick or treat!" - when S'bhu came to the door to answer it (she was there! why not?) she was greeted with masks and silly coverings: a sheet with eye holes; a girl with a false cat nose and whiskers, ears and a tail; a boy who had a wide brimmed hat and hunting equipment (she had no concept of 'cowboy'); and a boy dressed all in black with most of his face covered, and two fake plastic swords at his back. All attended by two tired and harried looking parents, who seemed far more interested in S'bhu's appearance than the kids were.

"You all look so wonderful!" S'bhu said, and as she'd observed others doing, she took a few pieces of treats from the large (and nearly empty) bowl beside the door and granted each a couple of them. So this was a Halloween night festival, S'bhu thought it was grand fun, why hadn't she ever seen this kind of thing on the mainland before?

As their party ended, S'bhu was as tired as Noy and Ojyr. This time it was Ojyr who flipped them back to Zekira, imperceptably, where they came to rest back at home on their Isle.

The next few nights drew them to ask why they had nightmares, why they were left restless and sleepless, deprived if not annoyed at their sleep. It turned out to be their Budak children's doing, but that's another story...

***

It wasn't long after some of the other mysterious eggs that the Budak children had found started hatching, when S'bhu noticed something odd in the corners of her chamber. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought someone was attempting to hide in the shadows!

"Come on out, I don't know how you got in here but..." She started to chastise the 'shadow' thinking it was either one of the children or another of the servants, but it certainly was neither of those. Two dark shapes, one sooty blue, the other a deep ember red became slowly visible.

"We will accompany you," the reddish one said, her voice somewhat feminine.

"We can protect you, and take you where you need to be." Said the other, which was clearly her male twin.

Unlike the slaves' new little... creatures, these two didn't give off the frightful emotions; they didn't look like they wanted to squabble, they were quite handy with being unseen. Over the next few hours, S'bhu grew very attached to them both. For over the next few hours, an Alien invasion almost made it to their own Isle!

The female stood near S'bhu and the others, her dark back plates having grown wider, more shell-like. Her long tail swept slowly back and forth, with the wisps of shadow forming an almost solid shield. Her brother lept into the air and vanished, reappeared here and there across the area making sure that no Alien came near his chosen caretaker.

Because of their actions, they gained the names of Shield and Watcher, Perisai and Menjaga.

As time went by, the pair and S'bhu were almost inseperable. They were small creatures, nowhere near as big as some dragons could get, but they were still almost the height of some Steeds, and were very long indeed. They were a bit ... testy, toward others including the nearby dragons. Those little pests that filled one's mind with dread or fear or hatred were nothing like these two. Whil they were not exactly friendly to S'bhu, they were extremely protective. They knew their own minds about things, though - and skies forbid S'bhu try and stop them if they decided to go on a tear.

But that was fine. They knew the rules: don't you dare injure any humans, and don't you dare kill any of the dragons, no matter whose they are or aren't. Since the Zekiran dragons were the stock in trade which made the trio their money, losing any one of them was not even in question. That wasn't saying they couldn't spar with things... Which they did. A lot.

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