** Note this page is redoing a lot of really bad old info re: character stats and such in 2023, since Threen is the daughter of two incredibly smart, capable, and physically fit people it will follow that some things will be completely wrong in the story below... Original written in like 2005 or something, and I'll definitely be putting her in charge of more than merely a steed riding academy.**

Story ** ORIGINALLY WRITTEN LONG AGO **

10347

Threen stood with her back to the wall of the building, and panted. Her narrow chest heaved, and her lower arms twitched with pain. The fire would spread, surely. But at the moment, there were still people inside the building. Threen didn't bother to glance at her hands, she knew they'd been blistered by the metal doors when she tried to open them.

Her Lady would be frantic - that much she knew already from the way everyone was acting. Rachael always adopted the dominant sort of mood around her, and this would be a disaster. The fact that Threen had come forward during an important meeting in the ranch house, something that a Budak ought not to ever do, might have saved them all.

The ranch house was already burnt to the ground. The sharp and half-melted glass edges and the steaming metal beams which supported the main hallway's arching doors was all that was left, but it was hard to see with the glowing embers all around it and the dark sky brightened by the fire on the ground.

The steeds inside the breeding dorm were screaming, and so was Rachael. Threen finally decided that this perhaps would be the last straw. Rachael was more important than the steeds. She would be able to breed more of them. If Threen lost Rachael... who knew what might happen to her. A Budak without her Lady? That never went well.

So Threen stepped around the corner of the steed building and saw her Lady pounding with all four of her own slender two-colored arms on the fused doors. Threen ran up, with her injured hands pulling at Rachael's clothing and her upper arms grasping at the Atasan-Pelatih's own arms, Threen aimed a careful thought toward her owner.

*It is gone. There is nothing to do but save ourselves... Please!* Threen sent, knowing that while neither of them were openly telepathic, Rachael would be able to feel the intensity and the gist of the thought. Rachael paused in her screaming, and then turned her grime and tear stained face down to her Budak.

Her daughter. Pulling on her arms begging her to leave this place - Rachael's heart skipped a beat and then they ran away from the doomed metal building.

***

The meteor was not the first, and it would not be the last, to hit Zekiran soil. But they were often burnt up by the time they hit the ground, and very small. Or over the wide oceans. This one... This one was something far worse. As the reports began coming in, Rachael and Threen were tended by the local Sehatan for their blisters and burns, smoke inhalation and bruises. The other ranch hands, mostly Bayaran or Kaumburuh hired by Rachael to tend the grounds and steeds, sat around in the Sehatan's office or paced, or lay groaning on what few padded couches were available.

This miserable lot was all that was left of Rachael's prized breeding facility. Everyone knew that she was going to have a hard time rebuilding - but there was the Zone protection, losses like these weren't always merely the responsibility of those who held the land. No one could say that this was anything more than an accident, there had been several witnesses out in the town nearby who saw the streaking of the meteor overhead, and then Threen's account...

Her slight precognition was enough to have saved every Zekiran life. It was a shame of course that it hadn't come just a little earlier so they might have scattered the steeds, but ... but the people survived, and they would have to come to terms with everything. Eventually. For now, they watched the viewer and saw the news vehicles and the fire bombers dumping tons of water over the now-deserted ruins.

"Decades of work..." Whispered Rachael. She was overtaken by the desperation of those around her, but Threen wanted it another way.

She stood up. Threen cleared her throat and attracted the attention of those in the waiting room with them. "Our Lady's ranch has been ... destroyed. But we are here. And we all have our hands and our backs to support ourselves." She turned to her Lady, her mother, her greatest worry. "It will be hard, but we can rebuild anywhere. The scouts always have good reviews of nearby lands, and the talent agents you have are always complaining about how you never visit the stud farms they like so much. Now is the time for you to do that, Atasenne Pelatih, Lady Rachael. And we will help you."

Stirred by her words, and the bravery of the little barely-teen girl, the others in the room, Kaumburuh, Bayaran, Budak and the rest, chimed in with their pledges to help. One or two remained silent, grudgingly sneering at the girl and her Lady - they were in this mess because they were Bonded - gambling debts they needed to pay off (ironic since they'd lost bets against Rachael's Steeds), not because they wanted to help out. To the sea with them, Threen thought. The mood cleared into a more positive one, and Rachael as predicted went with it.

"I cannot thank you enough, Threen," Rachael said, cuddling the Budak near her. "This has been a hellish night. But... you're right, we'll get through it. Everyone came out okay. I can't say what the Zone people will do, but I know they'll cover for those that need it. You were all so very brave." She announced to the room, and got some coughing and shy thank yous.

Threen spent the rest of the night curled by her Lady's side, oblivious to her own value to the violet and yellow shaded woman.

**

10354

Seven years later, Rachael had only just put down roots again in a new locale. Going back to the old place hurt her immensely, but Threen convinced her Lady that keeping the land was still a good idea.

"Perhaps some day we should build something else there?" Threen had asked, as Rachael mulled over a set of maps of the area. The Atasenne had predictably buried herself in a pile of paperwork, but at Threen's suggestion she knew that by holding on to the ravaged LandHold it would indeed regrow. That had been only one year after the meteor struck.

Now, they were looking at opening a park for teaching Steed riding to young children. Rachael thought it was a wonderful thing, but couldn't bring herself to do the teaching. Instead, she allowed Threen to begin choosing the young folks who would get the chance to ride for the first time.

Several years into this venture, was when the aliens attacked. Several important people learned how to defeat - or at least how to defend against - them, but that still left a lot of stress in the world. Rachael was affected even by distant groups of nervous people who glanced up to the sky wondering and worried - when would the next attack come?

And it had been three years later, when Threen was twenty six, in '360, that her precognition power was suddenly superceeded by another one.

She'd become Dragon Tuned. Her mind was open, not only to the dragons, but to many animals. Rachael seemed inordinately pleased about this - her daughter had such talents! It was ... well, it was a shame that her eyesight was as poor as it was.

Rachael Raised her daughter openly, at a Steed race, while her father was there up somewhere in the stands with Mirage and her people - so he could see her too. He'd be very proud, any Peridian was proud when their creation did well.

Now, what to do with her talents? Threen wanted desperately to continue working with the steeds, with Rachael (who had not yet told her of their true relationship), to work with the children. Threen was sterile, unable to breed except perhaps by her father's genetic engineering devices. She loved seeing the looks on their faces as the kids got their first taste of the speed and grace...

"I could breed them, couldn't I?" Threen asked Rachael, watching the small nest of Swamp dragon eggs hatching. "Dragons, I mean?"

Rachael nodded. "You might, there are other ways of helping our efforts. Those riders are so very brave. But so are you."

Threen blushed, her orange-shaded skin turning a brilliant saffron. "Thank you my Lady..." Her habit of calling Rachael by the title she'd grown up with had never gone away, and Rachael loved her even more for it.

"There are other, other ways of helping too," said someone from behind them.

The Dragon Breeder of the hatchery they visited nodded toward a foreign dragon - one which had hatched on another world.

"Ryslen weyr has a very good record with our people. Bonding is an important matter - and they take it quite seriously." He was a black skinned man with white hair and short faintly-green colored curved horns, she felt like she'd seen him among the folks that Mirage would gather.

"Ryslen?" Threen asked, and suddenly felt the mind of a dragon touch her own. It wasn't the same as their own Zekiran dragons, it was a totally sentient being.

We need people like you, and dragons from Ryslen as I am could stand a few... Partners. Our kind would flourish here. If given the chance.

The dragon was a beautiful brown shade, one of two who stood on the edge of the watery Dragon Breeding farm. Threen detected his name of Wimkukith, his twin brown brother Wavkokuth. Threen nodded to them, and felt thrilled. She had never felt such a mind, and wanted more.

"Where is it?" Threen asked, knowing that her words would either be heard, or felt, by the dragons.

Our home is beyond the stars we see here. You ... would need a new way of locating yourself in time and space. We orient on the star patterns, but you would be able to do it another way. Your bonds to your family are quite strong. They would become your anchors.

Threen tilted her head, but the dragon did not elaborate. Instead, one of the riders arrived, those Dragon Masters who rode the big-crested Ryslen browns. He bowed to Threen, careful with his long horns. On his way up, he noticed her new Status pin (he had forgotten his own, more as a matter of course, than of forgetfulness). "You're welcome to come with us, we're going to head back there soon. There are several beautiful nests full of eggs." He was dark, but had the same green tint to his long horns as the other man though his skin was as white as the other's was dark, and his hair slightly greeny-grey in shade. They were very much brothers, though... Like their dragons!

"Like your dragons?" Threen asked, happily, "I'll go!" She - still on old impulses since she was only Raised less than a year before - turned to her mother/Lady Rachael for approval. Even though Rachael was no longer her Lady, she offered a nod which made Threen blissful.

Gathering her gear and getting off Zekira took only another day. Osh and Haesh helped the slender woman onto the back of one twin dragon. "You'll be cold for a bit, so make sure your flight jacket is snug." Haesh said, as his brother and Wimkukith took to the air. Wavkokuth pushed his own wings open, and Threen laughed because apparently Haesh didn't know that she was used to riding Steeds, even with her poor eyes. The animals knew where to fly, obviously.

But dragons are not animals! Cried the dragon, and Threen laughed even more.

**

It was a fantastic day at Ryslen. The candidates had been shuffled around in their classes, and Threen had excelled in all but those which required strong eyesight. However, her bond with animals and dragons made her quite popular when the time came to find a flitter egg or a lost colt.

The groups of eggs on the sands were laid by several different mothers, and Threen kept track of an egg which had been calling to her in particular for a while. But then, others began to shake and split open. The first laid were now hatching!

Everyone came down, many viewers were quite tired since it was early in the morning. Many beautiful dragons hatched, but none of them came to Threen as a bond. But she wasn't disappointed. In fact, she was somewhat relieved, because the egg she considered 'hers' had not come open yet.

While everyone was prepairing for the feasting which should accompany the hatching, the second batch of eggs began to tremble. The thirteenth such hatching at the Ryslen sands, and some locals muttered something about unlucky numbers.

However the odd Ainchis (everyone added a -th to her name, but that wasn't what she thought it really sounded like) called everyone down to the sands again and her eggs were hatching. A single egg hatched, showing of a lovely purple dragonet with sunset colored wings, and she bonded to the solo dragon who was waiting with the other candidates. A duo-winged green came next, and the excitement of the area was overpowering. Another green hatched, and danced away to her bond.

Threen wished that Rachael could have been there, all these beautiful dragons...

Another purple - this time a duo wing, hatched and bonded. A sunset brown dragon found his bond among the candidates, and then a duo-winged blue got pounced upon by an over-eager candidate. A light-green hatched, and bonded.

Then the egg which Threen had been watching for weeks started to tremble, and opened to reveal a cream colored duo-wing. She looked over everyone, just to be sure, and then came to Threen with confidence. The four-winged dragon sat before her four-armed bond and thought, some things are meant to be.

"Niylkezth," she said, and hugged the dragoness. Had he been there to see this bonding, Kalkin - Vanya, whatever he was called these days and on this world - would have been so very proud.

Threen and Niylkezth left the sands comfortable with one another, the small dragoness guiding her bond with better eyesight, and Threen answering any questions that the young dragon had for her.

**

Threen pushed herself to excel, and her cream went right along with that plan.

I will fly higher than any steed! She cried, and rocketed into the air with all four of her wings pumping. She was a quick study, but it seemed that the two-winged dragons were a bit put off because these four-winged upstarts didn't behave the same ways they did.

After all, they were... well, they were mutants to say the least. Four wings. Threen grinned broadly at the normal human people around her every time it seemed they noticed that she had four arms. Her coloration allowed her to blend in otherwise, and she felt rather at home in the weyr. But for her arms, and perhaps her upbringing as a Budak, she was quite typical.

Niylkezth didn't think of herself as typical in the slightest, however. I am fine. I am more than fine, I am perfect. Not a gold could be as perfect as I am!!

"You're a perfect pain!" Threen yelled to her dragon as she flew circles around the other weyrlings.

**

At the turn of the season, when most of the other young weyrlings had passed their exams and some had gone on to their homes, Threen and Niylkezth were still mulling some things over.

If I must fight, I will fight hard and make you proud...

"But you don't want to fight, you want to fly. I can understand that," Threen said.

You are not disappointed in me? I learned to fly quickly, and I do know all the drills for flights.

"But it's okay not to want to go out there and ... well," Threen imagined the attackers and their big shiny metal ships. "I don't want you getting shot down."

Then she realized why.

"Ah," Threen said, hugging her cream colored dragon's neck. "You don't want to fly if I'm not with you, and I don't want you getting hurt without me up there with you. Let's just go home and see where we're best off. I think we will be fine doing whatever Atasenne Rachael and the others have in mind for us."

You are going to be a Dragon Mistress?

"Yes."

Should I call you mistress? The cream nudged her rider playfully.

"Only when you really want something I don't want you to have..." Threen laughed. She bid her friends at Ryslen and this part of the Nexus farewell, and found Osh and Haesh to bring her back to Zekira.

***

10387

With the slow aging of both dragons and Zekirans, Threen and her beautiful cream set themselves up with land granted by their Area and Zone, not so nearby the Steed farms and other such places, because scaring the Steeds is definitely not what they wanted to do. But as time passed, word tended to get around via these odd off-world dragons that things needed doing. Dragons - or draks - needed aid and company.

And it was thus that she realized she too wanted some particular company. As technically she was a dragon, not a drak, she looked for, technically, a dragon... Not quite a drak. And she'd found one among the lovely Ryslen ranks - with features similar to her own. She selected a place, and a mate, and they went off to Dun Keiba, on a world known as Icarus. (And oddly it seemed like Heliozmaj didn't even remember this event, something might have happened to the smaller purple dragon, on his own travels through the Nexus.)

They had a short flight, the little guy wasn't really used to the energy that Niyl showed! But still, four lovely draks... well, duowing dragons, came from those eggs. Of course it was also after a rather snippy drak's clutch had hatched. And... before a third female brought her offspring to the mix!

(from the hatching) * indicates a drak that is currently reclaimed

While Yachari and her mate were busy instructing their offspring as well as the knights paired with them, on what they expected and how appropriate they thought the pairs were, a cream colored nose peeked out from behind a shaded and secluded nook of the cavern.

Ahem, said a mental voice. I believe that my offspring would like to be seen now, Niylkezt announced. She did not speak verbally, like her mate Heliozmaj did - she'd been raised at Ryslen and trained on the windy plains of Zekira. Mental communication was the best way any dragon there could instantly convey information to their rider. Her particular rider, the exotic four-armed Threen, stood by and hugged herself with a pair of her arms in excitement.

Heliozmaj stood by, too, puffed up and proud as could be. If there was ever a dragon who wanted to be known for something like siring fine children, he was it. But no one knew how proud they should be - when a violet and blue colored male drak- or was it a duowing? - came out from the darkness.

He did not hesitate. Instead, he moved directly toward Aya*, and broadly communicated with his strong mind, I am Iiaztaj, and I am yours. Whatever is in your past, is past. Now we will be together.

Aya stood numbly, her whole life had been a series of incidents of violence, punctuated by memory loss. She had absently thought that perhaps a mind-pair with a drak would loosen up her memories. But this? She realized that Iiaztaj - and everyone else in her life - didn't care where she was from or what had been done.

What she was wondering, was, "What... what color are you?"

I am a Storm drak, he told her and all present. Is that wrong?

Almiron laughed and was elbowed by his sister. "It's not wrong, it's just very very unusual." He said loudly. For those who hadn't somehow heard, he repeated the color and acted like it was his own drak's clutch hatched.

Next from the dark hatching cavern, came an equally dark male. As deeply shaded as his father, but in a kind of shiny black color on both wings and body! This Obsidian beauty walked up to Rocar*.

"Do you think we will impress her now?" Asked the drak. Rocar was wide-eyed, and couldn't answer. "Well, maybe if I do the talking. I'm Aayztaj, by the way."

"T...thank you, hello," Rocar said. They went off to share the food provided.

A pretty light-colored female, whose color looked surprisingly like Almiron's Lauvakil, pranced out and promptly nosedived into a sand hill. She shook her head off, got right back up, and trotted toward Threen.

"I want to go to your world, with you, Threen." She said.

"But... Aren't you supposed to look at the Aspirants? I'm paired with your mother!"

"I do not care, you are a Dragon Master after all, right?" The Opal tilted her head and everyone laughed. Threen hugged her with her upper arms, tightly.

"Well Khiduajzt, I suppose that we've got to start somewhere, in my job..."

The last of Niylkezt's hatchlings approached from the darkness. Not quite as deeply shaded as her brother the Obsidian, this violet-clouded female walked before the last batch of Aspirants.

But then she looked right at Nycaridu and gave a purring cry. The ore drak beside Ichafore nodded, and the female turned back to Ocusa.

You are hearing me, aren't you? She sent through the mental air. Ocusa obviously heard - her dark eyes widened.

I am... Ocusa thought back as she'd been taught. Nothing could have taught her how this would feel.

I am glad you feel that way, my one. Now it is time to show off to your maker's Master. I have chosen you as my pair forever. I am Cyarajzt.

"Cyarajzt," Ocusa announced, "she is a Dark Prism." Ocusa looked at her maker Ichafori and began to smile widely. So was he, by the looks of it. He'd done it... Made an android so alive that she paired a drak!

With a sigh, Dominica looked at High Knight Dunstan and his training partner High Knight Aylene, "looks like we have a number of extras this time around. If you want to start the training you should-"

Dominica was cut off by a sharp gasp by about half the people present. She turned, a bit angry from being interrupted. But nothing at all could have prepared her for the sight she got when she looked toward the entrance to the caverns. At the castle there were many passages and rooms that draks were just small enough to fit into. Of course the deep caverns and the halls leading away from them were among those.

A familiar pale blue and white nose had found its way into the deep cavern, and shortly the talkative Wind Cephari came into view.

Along with a line of marching drak hatchlings.

Dominica tried to reach Almiron to grab his elbow and ask him what in the world was going on, but instead she found Istvan standing where her brother had been. How did they do that? They didn't teleport themselves... Ah, Almiron was over talking to the ninja refugee Aya. Of course. Between her and the other women showing up for hatchings, it was a wonder their family tree hadn't grown a whole new canopy...

"What-is-she-doing?" Said Dominica with gritted teeth, to the dark eyed Istvan.

With a smirk, he replied, "I believe it is called 'parading herself around the whole castle', and she is quite good at it. She's been bringing them around, looking for you lot."

"Looking for us?" Dominica said sharply, "but where has she been? Are those hers?"

"Of course they are, why else would she be showing them off to us?" Istvan glanced around and shortly found his consipirators - Alex and Rey, his best friends, his lovers, his saviors. "Though it's possible that she had two partners - they were going at it pretty much the same way we did," he told Dominica. Uncharicteristically, she blushed a vivid crimson thinking about the trio and their habits.

"Stop talking right now, Istvan, there are still children present." She chided. "But it won't matter much, if both her partners are siblings - aren't they?"

"They are," Istvan confirmed. "Khymelyn and Gwaelyn. So the hatchlings names will be correct, and their genetics will be similar anyway. There are quite a few of them, though..."

It was true. Through the main hall corridor - followed by a host of curious onlookers gathered by Cephari on her journey around the Castle - came a septet of small draks. Colorful, but none could match the exotic nature of the 'middle' clutch's results.

"Where exactly did she hide these eggs of hers?" Asked Almiron when he was finished talking to the women he fancied.

"You don't even want to know that," Istvan said. "It wasn't here. We've spent all day just bringing the eggs to the Castle, between the three of us it was some work."

But it was work much needed. For just about the time that the last in line came through the hall archway, the first of Cephari's brood ran up to Rhean.

"You you you!" The little Wind cried. "I am Umynri!"

Laughing, the girl helped find Umynri her food.

Not to be out done of course, a Mud male walked sedately up to Phiol. "Thossse two will need to be watched," said the drak. "We can do it, I am Zoriyn."

"Thanks, I think we'll need to start soon..." Phiol announced.

A much more calm and collected Water female approached Vayari*. "Will you ssshow me where thessse other draksss are?"

"Of course I will Modynri. They're pretty far away right now, though..."

Flapping her wings, a female Day drak pranced across the sands toward the single entirely non-human aspirant. "Marek! I want to ssshow you sssomething!" She called brightly.

The somber flame colored male shook his head sharply - had he heard correctly? There really was a drak on these nesting dunes for him?

"Of courssse there isss! Come! Sssee!" She stood near a little rise of sand, and when the black and red male came near enough to touch it, the Day drak rolled over onto her back and flapped as hard as she could - tossing up a cloud of warm sand which got all over her new friend's face. "Sssand! Isssn't it great?"

Marek could hardly even think of what to say. "Her name isss Aykynri," was what he chose. Perhaps he would lighten up later. For now there was food to be provided.

A pair of males, one Plant and one Desert, rose from their spots in line and walked toward Threen.

"We will go with you, Dragon Missstresss," said the plant. "I am Durriyn. This is Malriyn, we too want to sssee your world."

Stunned, Threen looked toward her cream Ryslen bond, who looked about as proud as could be. Not only had she brought a wonderful nest of hatchlings into the world, she'd be going home with one too!

|

***

10400

"Some Time Later"

Threen would take to the skies, boldly, whenever the strange urge hit her. It was her power, and she trusted it. She trusted her dragon, her draks, and her entire collection of Dragon Masters to help her out. Among the ranks were people who were paying debts to society - like those sad bedraggled Bayaran from her earliest memories - but they would have so much more going for them once their debts were absolved. For they rode their dragons, Sky dragons mainly, into active battle. Threen did not command them, no - she left that to the tacticians and fighters.

But her role, and the role of the group with her now as grown as they would become, was to announce to any nearby folk that it was time to get inside, time to stop gawking at the sights or going about their expected duties: aliens were arriving, and fighting would be nearby.

Khiduajzt was often ridden by one of the light weight Budak kids - her sleek form slipped through the air and she broadcast her warnings at quite a distance.

|

Durriyn and his brother Malriyn flew more often than not side by side, and split up when they reached the Zone's border, looking for strays or folk that might not have heard the warnings above a city. Collecting some rather abruptly had sometimes wound up with lawsuits threatened - and very shortly after seeing the terrifying destruction of their hunting cabin, those rescued plied compliments on them instead!

At some point, it became obvious that a number of draks needed duties, those who had returned from distant and dusty ruined castles to Dun Keiba. Since she'd been well received during her visits, the draks themselves decided that this would be far better than sitting around waiting for entertainment at their hatching site. A lovely but slightly sad Wind female was among them, Novaduar her name, and she refused to talk about what happened to her in her early life.

Along with her, a long-lost sister of the pair of males, Water Modynri, arrived. Still at ease but also a touch sad, her mood kept rescue groups calm when the Aliens were endangering city Zones. Since they can Portal, they have learned the locations most needed for patrols, and do so without riders since they will be responsible for relocating endangered people and need the shoulder space.