Seeker

Dragon: purple male Seaki'Virh (Virah'Care and Rhuah'Kyil)

Dragon: dark blue female Seizh'Jach ( Jauah'Kyil and Chuah'Kyil )

Minor Levitation

Major All senses including genetic, dream, electric, lifesense

Special Complete reshape body and genetics; Personality Stealing (enjoys being other people at times); Natural Immortality

Dragon: green male Seneo'Mybl (Myrah'Care and Blackoreth)

Dragon: orange female Serur'Thvi (Thnai'Irkr and Viull'Ryxa)

Minor Sound Creation; Adopt Animal Scent/Aura

Major Shapeshift (bigger wings, little else)

Special Convert Sentient Mind to another body (can move someone into someone else); Natural Immortality

They were born on Neres when no one was watching. And for their childhood years, they remained only with their mother Shire. While she explored the great continent, scaring the natives and hunting the wildlife. They knew the land well by the time she left for more civilized parts of the world. And it isn't as though they didn't miss her when she left. They loved their mother deeply - but it was only Charade who lives on with them, he who they inherited their immortality from.

This pair of bizarre shapeshifters were quite at home already when their little four-footed neice came to live with them near Tresis' huge tower. They taught her to fly, Victory Chanay Sengihr, perhaps their favorite relative.

They assisted their half sister Sidharna Chantiir across Neres, securing for her a big chunk of the north-west coastline and civilizing it by frightening off the locals. What they love doing most. Under every branch, behind every stone, there are shadows to spring from, eerie sounds to make.

"Watch this," Secret said, her voice a scratchy hush. She looked at a Neresian, one of the few left on the planet by this time, and caused the wind to produce a sound - wailing, like a child. The native man spun around, his oafish form tripping on a root below, almost knocking him senseless hitting a stone. The wailing continued, as Secret wove her psionics, and the Neresian man scrambled to his feet trying helplessly to find the source of the crying.

"A brilliant cruelty," Seeker said. "Let me try it out."

"Careful," Secret said. "Last time you entered one of those things it almost lost you."

He nodded, his single long horn brushing the leaves above. His eyes unfocused, turning from their normal hazel green shade to a kind of appley green. A faint smile crept across what would move on his mouth - a beak wasn't that easy to manipulate when you were concentrating on something else.

Secret threw herself into the role of performer. The child's wail continued, first on one side then the other, confusing the man. Seeker sensed these things through his power, though he did have to pull back a bit when the man began to run toward the 'sound'. Seeker felt his own muscles start to move, and if he hadn't woken from his little trance, he'd have duplicated everything that the creature was doing.

"Go on, give him a scare," Seeker said, laughing quietly. Secret took that as her cue, and she delivered the wailing 'child sound' a horrific scream - something was eating the child! Where was it! The man creature spun again, and then stopped in his tracks, his eyes coming onto the pair of 'taur shaped Rainbow People.

Instead of running away, he rushed toward them and threw himself at their feet - into the forest litter his face went, his palms up in the air, and he whimpered. He was crying, sobbing, frantic - and both siblings knew what he was thinking.

Secret glanced sideways at her brother. "Do you think I should keep this up?"

"I think he's had enough, look at him." He replied.

Secret knelt, bringing her torso down toward the supplicant man. She touched him with one taloned finger, and he flinched, pressing his face even deeper into the leaves. "It's all right," she said in a soothingly warm voice. Her voice could be angelic, demonic, everything in between. Now, she wanted to assure him things were fine.

He grunted, lifted his wet and messy face up. Secret produced a tiny mimic of the wailing sound, lifting her fingers over her other palm, as though the sound were physical. Then she played out a shriek - a quiet one - and watched while this Neresian caught on to the joke being played on him.

He wasn't happy about it. He made some noise, what equated to a curse upon them, and scrambled backward away from them. They let him bolt back to his village. It wasn't far away, and doubtless he would tell the rest of the people there that the twin terror Rainbow taurs were there in the woods playing tricks.

So they took to the air. Before he even reached the village at a full tilt run, the twins had flown overhead and scared the living crap out of whoever had seen their shadows. When the male arrived, he was pointing and yelling, and of course the couple others who had seen them backed him up.

"They'll be grabbing spears now," Seeker said.

"Let them." His sister said calmly. "When have they ever even scored one hit on us?"

"I don't know," Seeker replied, looking down at this village. They circled overhead, flying close to one another as their wings would allow. "These look a little more ... proficient."

His feeling on the matter was brought to a brilliant edge, when a spear came flying very quickly up to them. It pierced the edge of his ragged feathers, knocking off a few spare spars. "Hey! See? I told you!"

"They have slings," Secret said, "look, they're using technology!"

"That's very nice, sister dear," said Seeker hurriedly, "what now? Scare them into the stone age again?"

"No - no, I want to see how they progress. Let's leave them be, and come back later."

They agreed to do so, and swept through the air away from the village. Secret could hear them yelling and cheering that they'd vanquished the demons.

***

Two hundred years later, Seeker remembered their little village. He nudged his sister awake, and suggested they do a fly-over. They hadn't been in that area of the woods for quite some time, so they didn't know if the group had died off, been conquered, or what.

It turned out they were thriving. For the first time in Neresian history, natives who hadn't any contact other than the little bit here and there with the twins were developing technology. They had brick adobe homes, a kiln and oven - the smell of baking bread came to the hawk-beaks as they flew over.

"Well color me impressed," Secret said, "I never thought I'd see this."

They watched from a quiet perch some ways off - their eyes dramatically stronger than normal people's - as this village toiled. Their women stood taller, carried fewer babies, but their work load was less. They had slaves, obviously, from another tribe doing most of the hard work. That was something that, as Zekirans, the twins simply understood. Why do the work yourself?

"I wonder what they've been eating?" Asked Seeker. "They seem to have fish - are they getting it from the lake? That's miles away."

"Maybe they are, look." Secret said, and just as they were watching, a group of young men came back into view carrying two large baskets. "They're fishing with catch baskets. Very smart. And I bet they do it only this time of year, when there are a lot of fish to be had. Why waste energy?"

"And fish is brain food," Seeker said with a toothy beak grin. "Wonder where their territory ends."

"Let's check it out." Secret suggested, and they flew away. They found one marker easily enough, near the lake. This was their lake all right, some six miles away over hilly and difficult terrain. It was worth their travel this time of year, though, since the narrow freshwater lake was teeming with fish. The far side of the lake had little worth seeing, so they crossed around to the other side, where the next territory marker stood. An enemy skull, spit onto a spear, decorated in dark red and black ochre with beads.

They found another dozen of these, much farther away than either thought possible. The territory of this pocket of civilized life was nearly forty miles across, unheard of decades before.

"I vote we leave them," Seeker said.

"I want to see what they do when they see us," Secret said. "Whether they run, or fight."

"I don't want to fight them," Seeker said.

"I know you just like to watch," Secret said.

But then the third option neither of them realized was happening until it was too late, came upon them. A large, heavy net landed over their backs, pinning their wings down and tangling in their horns and feathers. Their hooves and claws poked through the stiff wiry plant fibers but did not saw through or break them.

Seeker gave off a crooning yell, but Secret had other plans. She let loose a horrifying bellow at a tremendous volume, causing birds nearby to fly from the treetops and most of the Neresians to put their hands over their ears. But it did little else - and a group of burly hairy men descended upon them with forged metal chains and barbs.

***

"I suppose you will still have victory," said the elderly man, "you will outlive us all."

Secret grunted, and her brother nodded. They were both still shackled to the large stone outcrop in the center of the shaman's village, as they had been for the last forty years. They got neither food nor water, at least not while the shaman or his guards were looking, and they were not sheltered when the elements crashed down on the place.

Seeker supposed many times over that era that he could have shapeshifted his way out of the bonds, and freed his sister with their combined strength. But ... they talked it over early on, and several times again, and realized that there had never been any reason for them to fear. They were immortal, they would heal from the wounds that repeatedly were brought on them. They would never starve to death. Nor catch diseases.

"You are right, we've already outlived all but you," Seeker said, "And you're old."

"You did not give us the immortality that the shaman claimed you could," he said. "You filthy demons have only brought us some fun now and then."

"We gave you language," Secret pointed out.

"You gave us your arcane symbols and words, we had language before you came."

"You didn't before our ancestors arrived here on this world, old man," Secret said. "You'd never have even left this continent."

"You cannot know that," the elderly man said, he was the last of the hunters who had captured them, the last proud warrior of the shaman's guard, the last bitter remnant of the untouched Neresians. Everyone who had been born in their tribe during Seeker and Secret's stay learned Zekiran language and writing, and when the shaman would leave on journeys with his guards the children would come and listen to stories of wild adventure and hunting.

And here was a tired, old worn out hunter, beaten at last because he knew that no matter how long these two were kept, they would always be free. The shaman that led him had died twenty years before, his own children watched him grow elderly.

While the siblings remained the same. They lost a little luster, their feathers would fall out and their fur didn't gleam so well, but when it rained and they got some water back into their bodies they shone.

The old man sighed, and asked them, "do you miss your freedom?"

"The thing I miss most," Seeker said, almost brightly, "is hunting. We'd be so tired from even just walking around, if we got out now, but I'd love to go hunting again. Sink my claws into something and celebrate with its warm blood in my mouth."

"You would sink your beak into our children," the man muttered.

"We would not," Secret said, dully. "You've caught us. You mastered us, we weren't paying attention and you surprised us. We respect that, at least. We wouldn't kill your children."

"Your tribe is the only one we can even respect. You see how your slaves are slow in the head," Seeker reminded him. They had a lucrative slave trade, actually, and with their continual advances in weapons and metal they could defend their trade well.

But would it last? That was the question...

***

Three hundred more years, spent not chained to the rocks but mingling among the Neresian villagers. In that time, the village developed their own methods of hunting, writing, keeping time, and conquering their neighbors. But there came the time when the neighbors weren't there any more. They'd all either died off or moved too far away to be convenient.

While the pair of siblings could shapeshift moderately, neither of them could reduce themselves to the two-legged, two armed, no winged shapes that the ape-like Neresians had. They were more like steeds, more like mounts or guard beasts compared to the humanoid people.

As they played the last of their tricks on the nearby wanderers, Seeker and Secret realized that their tribe too was growing old. Few children were being born, and they were living longer lives but perhaps... There was a lesson learned here. Zekirans lived the same way so many millennia ago on their home planet - warlike and beastial, but with the sense in their heads to try for more.

Would the Neresians get more?

No.

For within another half century, more and more Zekiran hunters and intrepid explorers came through their lands. Looking more for the big dangerous animals that hunted everything else, or the challenge of 'taming' a Neresian...

Seeker and Secret hid along side the young group of Neresians that they'd taken exploring, as a hovercraft came by. The Zekirans could hear from within the distinct sounds of high-class discussion about this being some kind of valley inhabited long before, but abandoned... Some junk about the people already having left.

They quietly translated for the six children, who sat in awe of the machine. They'd never seen such things. There was no need for them here, unless 'here' was merely a day-long destination to be abandoned at the end of the camping trip.

"I do not want them to hunt us," said the youngest girl. "They are not like you, even though you told us they are your people. You're nothing like them."

"I want to believe that," Seeker said, "we used to be though. Hunting without caring."

"We won't let them hurt you," Secret added. "But ... what do you want to do? Your parents won't let you leave this place, even though there might be better hunting or safer places elsewhere."

"I have heard those ... your... the Zekirans," a boy said, "have a town somewhere outside our territory."

"A big town," another added. "Can we see it?"

Seeker and Secret traded a look, worried. "Well, we should check it out first," Seeker said wisely.

Within a couple days, then, the pair informed the elders that the kids would be on a field trip - only after they returned with their own recon knowledge. They wouldn't take them if it wasn't safe. Still worried, but in agreement that anything was better than sitting waiting for their tribe to just die out, the elders agreed.

***

"Do you think it was worth it?" Asked Treason, as he sat crouched on his ledge at their new home on Planet Twenty. "I mean, I do know what happened next, do you think it was worth it?"

"They provided the only half-breed Zekiran-natives, and lived rich lives," Seeker replied, shrugging. "I think so."

Secret was silent, looking at Treason oddly. "You don't think so do you?"

"No," he admitted. "But there's nothing to be done about it now, eh?" He stood and stretched, looked toward the ship's bright shape above, and turned in for the night.

Story night at Zekira - the city on Planet Twenty, not the planet of old - had left a few people sad and a number more of them better informed than they had been before. Seeker and Secret had tales that none had heard on their long journey - they kept to themselves mostly, even while on other planets.

Their story was old, more than two million years old, in fact. But they had committed it to memory, because that was what they wanted to do for the tribe. Since they couldn't make more children out of infertile parents, and no Zekiran genetic engineer could or would try it, the last children of the tribe had lived out their lives with Zekiran companions. They did have one child - one last kid who was pure blooded. But even among the Immortals on their ship - were several who had Neresian blood too.

"It was too," Secret whispered.

***

Seeker and Secret have been invited to attend the Geperna Hatching on the Healing Den, probably brought by one of the Vanya's.

It was hardly a surprise that there were so many people watching this hatching. The emotional vibes coming from everyone at the Healing Den for this long-awaited hatching of old-blooded Geperna dragons were all fine and strong.

Early on in the hatching, a green male went his way around legs and people and found a person with more legs than usual. The Zekiran immortal, Secret, standing with her wings poised and her beaky head looking curiously at the little hatchling.

“I want food,” said the male. “I am Seneo’Mybl.”

“Then we’ll get you fed!” Secret cheered, and her brother Seeker smiled with his own beak. (… yeah, that’s a feat.)

A bit later, when everyone was growing even more excited about the whole thing - there were so many high-rankers coming from Myrah'Care's clutch - another couple eggs broke open.

The purple male and green female from Virah’s nest had found their own choices among the crowd. The purple, Seaki’Virh, chose the centaur-flier Zekiran, Seeker, while the green gently slid up to the elfin girl nearby.

Seeker was very proud, and found his sister with the food already.

However, that wasn't it for the pair.

It was a bit of a surprise to the Zekiran Seeker that he felt a second mind near his. As a powerful psionic he knew that the blue would want to remain with him and his other bond, and he relayed that she was named Seizh’Jach.  The purple and blue looked very good together.

As it seemed to be a day of twins and dragons, an orange female from Thnai’s clutch approached Secret, the Zekiran. With a wave of her wings, the orange tried to fly up to greet her new chosen. But she was just a hatchling, it was highly unlikely that she’d be able to prevent herself from falling over backwards, let alone lift into the air. So Secret picked up the new hatchling and announced, “she is Serur’Thvi! She’ll be coming back to Planet Twenty with us!”