When Aevan started making the moves on Mirage, both his sires agreed it was for the best. Alchemy is the result. He works with geneticists and lawyers, making certain that things don’t go awry for the subjects when they are wary of the Breeder. He’'s making enemies, and he loves it. He thrives in the high-tension environment of Breeding Courts, is an extraordinarily eloquent speaker, and is pretty good at his natural power of gene selection and alteration himself. He rarely actually does Breeding work. All of his senses are at 3x power, including his dream sense, empathy and gene sense. Naturally, he'’s both hypersensitive to psionics, and hyperfertile -- he can sense a hyperfertile female from a mile away. Of course, given his genetic makeup, they'’re mostly related to him already. He has a tiny office in Fi’'ir, a slightly larger tiny office on H’'lap Island, a moderately sized apartment-office in Hisai, part of the Behat enclave, a nice dark-stone homestead in F’ra, and a sizable law office in Lendau.
He carries the looks of all three lines of his ancestry: Aern's spines and two-tone hair, the Sengihr nails and sensitivity, and the Marad sleek design. What he doesn't have that Aevan does is that sad lack of control when it comes to money and servants. Alchemy can actually control his urges to spend like there is no tomorrow, and for that reason he's been able to keep up his several Holdings.
We find Alchemy during a "session", or as he should call it, a local Breeding Law Review.
His client was a Breeder who apparently couldn't make an infertile man sire a child. What a surprise. Alchemy glanced at the LandHolder, and waved his long fingered hand. "Sit down, Holder. You're not doing yourself any favors either."
"That offer is rediculous! It's less than a third of what I put up for this sham!" The black-haired and dark-red skinned man was certainly angry, Alchemy thought. "I want it all back! Not some of it, one-hundred-per-cent!" He punctuated the air with his stubby finger.
Alchemy wondered what in the world would have compelled his client to even accept a proposal to help this ... thing... breed. The fewer of his type in the world, the better.
"We've discussed this, Holder Afnai," Alchemy stated, "your payments were put to the best use that my client could possibly give you. You're just infertile, and that's all there is to say about it. The machinery and time, efforts on Breeder Wilwo's part, supplies and communication/transportation costs have all been duly documented."
"I don't give a bleeding hern's hindparts about documentation! My money wasn't thrown at this bozo for him to just put it all into his fancy house! I want it back!"
Alchemy detected just a moment too late that the man had grown far beyond any socially acceptable level of anger -- but did have the reflexes in him to duck when the thick crimson-colored fist came waving at him. Alchemy raised his head back up, as the rest of the assembled law givers gasped in horror. Some even backed up on their expensive chairs and looked to be about to dive below the table.
"Now now, Holder Afnai, if you keep that up you'll be in Bond for damages incurred here. And I would be willing to bet that you'd lose any appeals for your money then." Alchemy said, quietly and calm, but with an edge in his vibrant violet colored eyes. They were already narrow, barely slits, but even that was enough to see the glint in them. From across the table, Afnai's lawyer lamely attempted to get his client to calm down.
When it seemed half likely that Afnai was going to explode, something else attracted Alchemy's attention. Something horridly ill-timed. A sort of popping boom-sound, followed by the low hiss of jet engines.
"Oh, not now," Alchemy whispered. He could hear this happening from who knew how far away, but the alien ships had come overhead. Lendau was a huge strategic target, everyone knew it. Everyone who worked or Held land there knew that it could be in grave danger from the alien attackers. But no one knew quite when or where they would land to attack.
When Alchemy was distracted, his eyes searching the skyline through the large window on the far side of the room, he didn't have the care to devote his concentration on Afnai. The disgruntled land holder took a second swing at Alchemy, striking him so hard he almost spun out of his chair.
Amid the gasps and shouts of the legal crew, someone else finally heard the jets overhead. The sound of sure doom without their protection: the dragon masters.
"That was entirely off base, Land Holder," Alchemy said, returning his caustic gaze to the fuming man. Alchemy rubbed his cheek where the man's fist had impacted, there was a fracture through his bone -- but the same ability which allowed Alchemy to detect such a thing, also allowed him to almost automatically regenerate the damage. While the others were reeling in shock from the Holder's attack, the rest were clamoring to the large window.
"They're coming," one hissed, desperation in his voice. His partner was silent, she stood with what Alchemy detected was great sadness.
How the aliens affected everyone so differently, Alchemy thought. If they had only come with the idea to settle and blend in... But no, they had to come and take what they believed was theirs. The world wasn't theirs, at all. It in a way would belong only to the brutish natives who had been forced back to their small continent of Neres... A group of xenophobic, dangerous and short-lived hairy creatures unfit to even call a society.
Alchemy stood, while the others were distracted, and aimed a blast of clouding at Afnai. The man would come out of this knowing only that he'd been shown out, sued for damages, and put into Bond by the next week.
The rest of the room's inhabitants, including Afnai's lawyer, still stood in awe and fear looking at the black-winged jet fighters which swarmed about the clouds. Their jets were slow to adjust to the atmosphere, apparently their arrival through space took a moment to orient from.
"Hmn." Alchemy said, "rather like dragon teleportation..." He left the room and later remembered that he ought to make sure that his office workers cleared out the legal teams when night fell. Most likely they'd all be standing there for hours, watching the firefights in the sky.
Of course, any travel in and out of Lendau at this point, during an attack, was out of the question. He slunk out of the office and into the lot under the complex where his carriage waited. The Steeds were nervous, and well they should be. Loud noises overhead rarely did anything good for them. The poor beasts were out of Alchemy's telepathic range, unlike most of the Kshau line. The wingless steed was nervous but the driver settled him before they left for Alchemy's home.
The Lendau office was only a third the size of his homestead here, though land rates were at a premium in a huge city like this his place was still something to behold. But it held little interest for the breed-lawyer. Something deeper in his gut told him that only one thing really mattered today.
And that was the dragons above, driving the aliens away. He sat on the patio of his suburban homestead, watching the sky. His eyes were so sharp that they could detect the smoke coming from the jets as the dragons pursuing them blasted flames. He could see the dragons blood being spilled, as the aliens' dangerous projectile guns spat their ammunition out in obscene waves at them.
Their tactics were evolving, Alchemy noticed. The aliens had long realized that the dragons in the air were mostly immune to fire. But they still had flesh to damage. Their insides could be gutted, he'd seen a squadron of alien ships armed only with razor-edged wings on their jets... Fortunately for everyone the dragons on the scene that survived managed to kill every last one of them -- they couldn't bear a successful raiding party knowing a tactic like that!
Six jets, two dragons. The dragons continued to burn their flames, brave Masters on the ground or floating on the water-bound support crafts far out to sea, commanding them to press in. One of the alien ships managed to strafe Lendau's industrial section, Alchemy learned by listening to his neighbor's loudly-tuned video. Though half a klik away, he could hear it clearly enough. The reporter was frantic, as she described the damage.
But it was nothing like the damage that would happen if the aliens weren't stopped.
"Perhaps it's time they were stopped entirely," Alchemy said to himself. His slave Merona knew better than to think she was being spoken to, as she offered her Lord a tray of food. Alchemy absently took a bite of a pastry, but thought harder on his revelation.
The aliens could be stopped, but only if they were followed. And their dragons, even their Zekiran technology, wasn't up to that. They had attempted to retro-engineer the jets, but the fuels the aliens used were in poor supply on Zekira.
There were a number of individuals Alchemy knew of, his great-uncle Juvon being one of them, who could actually teleport across spaces. But he knew not one of them could transport themselves across the whole distance from Zekira to the next planet out in their system. It was just too far.
But... Alchemy knew that there were other worlds with dragons. Of late, his friends among the Kshaus had been speaking of their genre-hopping ability, and there was poor Simon who couldn't get far enough away from his mother -- he'd gone through different worlds, and found himself a beautiful white dragon.
"But do I have the resolve needed to actually master a dragon?" Alchemy again muttered to himself. Then he shook his head. "No, no, not master... This requires a far better bond than a mere impression at birth..." He put the rest of the dinner the slave had prepared back onto the tray, took his drink with him, into his den.
Though he had not shown any animal Tunings, nor any dragon ones either, Alchemy knew better than to think he could wait for a dragon nest to show up on the Breeder Net. Though he was powerful enough in breeding law circles, he didn't think he had the sway on the Dragon Masters to get into that without at least some kind of power.
But that wasn't his only option. He knew that others in his line had gone from Zekira and offworld, his grandsire and sort-of other gransire too, both Sengihr and Kshau were known as riders in their own ways. And of course his mother had given birth to, well, a lot of people who wound up riders one way or another. Alchemy intended to add himself to that list.
It was late in the evening when he found the reference he was looking for. His older sister Alchemy had been whisked away to a place called Ryslen weyr. It was between worlds, catering to needs such as this. And their need was great. In Amaranth's time, only about a hundred years before now, the Aliens had barely begun to scratch at the defenses of the world. But Zekira was still their prize today, and they would send larger numbers in.
He knew Amaranth came back a rider, but beyond that, they were not remarkably close. This was so long before he was born, too, that he wasn't sure what was happening with her today. But ... He also knew that dragons could go through time as well as space.
And if he could get to that hatching where Amaranth resided, he'd be able to possibly get in on something much more important than his pale half-sister knew. They'd be able to strike the aliens at their source.
They would be able to follow the aliens, to their own world. Strike terror into them on their home ground.
"See how they like it." He said, calm. Jaw set, Alchemy found old records of who to contact and discovered that they were in fact still around. Older riders, with battle scarred dragons. If Zekirans didn't live so bloody long, he would never have gotten the chance to get to Ryslen. But they did. And luckily for him, the Chanay brothers had a mutation running through their blood which let them live even longer than normal.
It would only be a matter of time, then. Before Alchemy had a determined, heart-bonded dragon by his side. He was completely confident in himself. Knowing nothing whatsoever about ranks of dragons, types he might find elsewhere, or even what he was going to do with his law practice if he did come back with a dragon, Alchemy packed up. O'sh Chanay, father of Shire and Moshai, flew him on dragonback to the one place he wanted to be more than anything.
Ryslen Weyr.
And on getting there, he...