Daverin and Askabeth

Daverin is an inventor, rider and general pest to people. Askabeth tries to keep her rider a bit more calm, but in the long run this green is ideally suited to her flirtatious and headstrong rider.

Brianna and Byrnth

Adopted at Dark Moon, Brianna knows that this darkly blue dragon is just the right pair for her. She's a bold firecracker of a woman, and Byrnth keeps up with her every step of the way. He barely remembers being abandoned by someone else, but knows that Brianna will never leave him.

"It sounds like you need another hug," Brianna purred, and put her strong arms around Daverin's shoulders.

"I do need a hug, preferably a long, naked one..." Daverin said. "But there's time for that later. I can't believe this guy." Daverin held up a photo of a guy that they had been tailing. Since moving to Alskyr, many of the Protectorate riders had taken up interesting new hobbies apart from their older riding duties. Since Byrnth and Askabeth were quite close dragons, and had paired off for one small - wild - clutch at Alabaster, they knew that flying against some threat or other was no longer their only option. When their dragons didn't squawk that there were no candidates for the three smallish eggs, when two of the eggs revealed colors of dragons that neither parent could have delivered on the Old world... When those hatchlings didn't need human companions - the girls knew that they didn't need to follow old world rules either.

Since leaving the Old World they had become bounty hunters.

It was a profession that both of them enjoyed - but for very different reasons. Brianna was an artist at heart, but she needed to support her artistic habits with very expensive tools and pigments from far and wide parts of Alskyr. To keep her hobby up, she got a new one. One which paid pretty well.

Daverin on the other hand had a thrill a minute just in the chase and capture. She really seemed to relish the hunt, locating someone based on their movements. She was a detective and wanted the thrill of something a little more challenging than a hundred-year-dead mystery or a simple crime-and-capture.

Their dragons of course supported this vocally, happy that their riders were in tune with the new world, as they had become.

Brianna drew her arms away from Daverin, and peered at the photo again. "I don't like his look. What do you think he's up to now?"

"I know he's in Palast, on that little island they have, but I think he's not alone." Daverin said, almost glum, but still excited to think that after three months on this criminal's tail they were about to capture him at last.

"Then we should call up the guys and get him," Brianna suggested. This seemed to churn in Daverin's gut before settling down.

"I don't want to involve anyone else, it's been enough work that I think we'll be able to bring him in without a fuss. Unless his friends decide that we're worth fighting off." Daverin leaned back in her chair, unhappy. "I don't know if they do - he hasn't done anything but get into trouble since he killed that Lord's kid."

"As though someone like him knows how to do anything other than get into trouble? Hmn?" Brianna giggled. "Come on, Dav. It's getting to be noon - let's get something to eat and figure out what to do on Palast later. It'll keep. He'll be there for a while."

Brianna was always the voice of reason. Daverin wondered why in the world a girl like Brianna would have fallen for a chick like herself - and counted herself lucky. She knew that Brianna's last attempt at romance didn't end well at all, and she was glad that the young woman that had almost destroyed Brianna's will to paint was still on the Old World and hadn't come to Alskyr with them.

Will you come outside and sun yourselves or are you going to eat? Asked Byrnth from outside. He had a tang of desire in his voice, which Brianna caught.

"What's up, Byrnth?" She said aloud, still half a field away from their dragons but knowing that the blue would know her inner thoughts anyway.

Just find out for yourselves - your favorite crazy doctor is wandering around. The blue seemed to jump a bit in excitement. He liked Sixth - they got into trouble all the time together. He was the single other male dragon that Byrnth would share Askabeth with, too.

"Oohkay," Brianna said, and pulled Daverin by the elbow away from the lunch rooms.

"Hey - I was gonna eat!" Daverin said, whining, "and you know I need food! I'm all skinny..."

"He likes you that way," Brianna muttered with a grin.

They heard footsteps walking along the marble-floored hallway, and shortly caught up with the one man who could truly occupy either of the women.

***

Read about that already on Kalkin's page! Or, maybe start with Engell's.

***

Engell watched the pair of young women with half a grin. They grinned right back. If they timed their flight right, they could all be back from Lantessama practically before they left Alskyr. They could certainly enjoy themselves for a while.

Daverin tried not to think too hard about how they would flip between nexus sites and not lose any time unless they really wanted to. How could that work? A manner of convienence altering reality?

Brianna soothed Daverin's intensity with a quick grin and a tilt of her head. "Don't make your head explode, Daverin," she said to the skinny young woman. "If you think about it too hard, you won't make it back with us."

Grudgingly, Daverin agreed and as they mounted up.

"Never thought you'd be guiding us around a nexus-pub-crawl," Daverin laughed at Engell. The white-rider looked a bit overworked - Kalkin always was doing something that involved either looking hot or being angry so he could use a drink too. Daverin and Brianna could drink themselves silly wandering through the Nexus.

Daverin recited some old naughty poetry that she learned from Shard - he and his old friends had gone on their share of drinking-and-flying binges, so she knew it was okay to do this.

"Flying and drinking are very bad to do together," Brianna reminded them all, "so we'll go home when we're sober. Not before. Okay?"

The two men and Daverin nodded in agreement, only half worried that she'd read their minds to get their worries out in the open. She painted that way too, seeing what truth lay below the surface. Engell had several of her paintings in his private halls. So did Kalkin - and Daverin's walls were needless to say covered with interesting sketches of people from around Alabaster.

They waited for Tehndarinth to rise off the turf, and then followed him quickly into the air. Kalkin as usual looked like he was about to lose his lunch as they went up. But Daverin loved heights, loved to fly; and Brianna let her heart soar with her blue every time they took to the air. Engell learned to fly much later in life, like Kalkin had, but he'd gotten very good at it.

Into the nexus they went, and on to Lantessama Isle...with any luck.

***

So what in the world could a foursome of oddly mismatched couples hope to do with themselves while out on a road trip? Well first off they got lost. It wasn't Tehn's fault of course, it was Sixth "suggesting" they take a slightly different route through the Nexus. That route led them past several old, abandoned weyrs that for some reason ran chills up everyone's skin and made them hope that Lantessama wasn't abandoned too.

Brianna gently moved her hand over Byrnth's neck - he'd been abandoned, and his deepest fears were that perhaps he would lose Brianna too. That would never happen.

They finally landed at a friendly green-ridden weyr on the Old world. Why they'd managed to get there, they weren't sure - but when the locals got a glimpse of Engell's silvered white dragon they were nearly run out of town on a rail. It had felt friendly because of the number of fertile greens. That was something that none of the four had expected to encounter - and they didn't really want to find out the reason that many greens were still able to rise.

Next, they flipped to their proper destination - Lantessama Isle. At long last, they soared over the oddly flat world, circled the tall peaks, and then dropped to the soft grass of the Isle's main landing area. Greeting them were several riders and what looked to be a host of hula dancers.

"This is more like it," Kalkin said, grinning like an idiot and accepting flower necklaces by the handful.

"It certainly is," Brianna agreed, while staring unabashedly at the local women's ample cleavage.

Meanwhile Daverin and Engell had hooked up arms and were striding through to reach the drinks table beyond the greeting party. Their dragons all had taken off again, circling around and playing with the local groups. The two blues and their white companion found themselves looking over the females there - to Askabeth's open distress.

"Hey -" Daverin said, smacking Kalkin on the back of the shoulder (because she knew he liked it and it would get his attention away from the half-flirting girls with the flower lei's) "tell your dragons to apologize to Askabeth! She's not going to put up with them all chasing those locals..."

"Aww," Brianna said, reaching her lover and softly kissing her cheek, "can't they even look around? Sample the wildlife?"

Just about then one of the glowing dragons hatched at Lantessama isle flew by - and Daverin's opinion changed along with Askabeth's. "I guess so - but they still have to apologize."

"Are you here for the hatching too? It's a good thing people keep arriving. I don't know what we'd do with all these preparations if we don't have more participants!" Said a gleeful local. He guided the foursome around the colorful festive walls nearby and into a glade which had decorations - a waterfall with a pond, floating candles lit and bobbing around in the water; bright flags of every color, banners and streamers, and a general party air carried by them - and escorted them to a table.

They were offered this drink and then that one, and finally realized that they were being played. "Did someone say that we're here for a hatching?" Engell said, slurry.

Of course! That is the idea! I knew you were lonely - there is a hatching. Our flitters will agree, this will be just what you needed! Tehndarinth bespoke, happily breaking in on the human's conversation.

"Great... Jus' great..." Engell said. He sipped at a piña colada, while Kalkin was busy with some visciously bright blue vodka concoction. The crazy doc already had two tall glasses empty - and they thought Engell was the alcoholic... (of course, he'd quit when they moved to Alskyr - who needed to drink when there was a dragon to tend?) Daverin played with a deeply red fruity drink that had a little paper umbrella on it, and Brianna knocked back a small shot of something and then drank at a beer more slowly.

And in general, they got ready for whatever was to come.

What was that you say? Why it was a DRINK FESTIVAL!