When the group of dragons and men came out of the Nexus, it was to a brilliantly sunlit world. There were sharp mountian peaks cutting right up next to the sea shore, penning in the tightly packed city below. There were spires of gold and white and blue, white stucco walls and marble towers, it was a beautiful city. Perhaps from above, it was more so than standing on the streets, for there was a bit of haze from not only the ocean, but from ironworks and who knew what else.

The port was open, with but one true sheltered area where the peak dropped a tendril of stone down into the ocean. A light house stood on an isolated rock some half-mile from the shoreline, but the rest of the ocen floor was dark, sharply angled down from the port's area. There would be no shipwrecks because of hidden rocks, here.

As one, the riders lurched with a fear. They'd materialized over the water - and not one of them was yet fond of deep ocean. They liked being clean as much as the next guy - maybe more so. But not like this... Ishioth spread his talon-tipped wings and took the ocean breeze under his sails. The other dragons did so, and for a moment the men had to just let their bonds fly free. The only one who didn't panic when they arrived was Lucas, he was a flier in his own right, and a little thing like drowning wouldn't get him down. He'd been to Hell. How bad could deep water be?

Sixth gave a chittering song, and Kalkin yelled out, "where are we to find him?"

Cynonix had the information they needed, and he consulted the overhead map printout. He pointed at a high shelf on the cliff above the city, back away from it and sheltered. There was a long hard to see trail that led from some of the outlaying bits of the city, up to what looked to be a monastery built into the side of the mountain.

Because their eyes were all so sensitive, Van and the others exchanged a glance. A monastery? One of them?

Cynonix, who did have a decent mental bond with Ishioth, asked the brown dragon to relay some information to the others, via Sixth when needed. "This place is a fur-society, like me. There might be some resistance to all-human folks. The magic of the place might prevent some interactions, that's what the historical guide said."

"It's a good thing we have you along, then," Kalkin said and Cynonix's ears twitched in response.

Soon enough they could get close to the cliff wall, where indeed there were small farms set up on the terraces near the city, but higher up the rock wall was almost vertical and clearly could not support such activities. The people that these sharp-eyed men could spot were uniformly colorful and sported fur, tails, ears and oddly inhuman features. Several of the farmers (and doubtless the guards in their city-wall towers) took note of the group of dragons that flew overhead, pointing or waving at them.

Were dragons an odd occurance here? Or were they people too? Lucas wondered and Audeo giggled. Her bond was being silly, but really, he was right. Perhaps all non-human life was sacred here.

The craggy rock face would easily support the dragons, so they each took turns depositing their rider onto the wide ledge where their targeted building lay. Then they flew up a bit to land on the jutting boulders above. They made an impressive line up. Notably, though, Audeo came with Lucas as a half-dragon, and when they came in for their landing, both retained their inhuman features to blend in best.

There were half a dozen people outside the building, two of them carrying large sacks with food stuffs in them, another pair with a large tub of water supported between them on a pole, and the other two appeared to be guards. Those two, one was a black bullish looking male, whose strangely shaped face and arms bore a telltale sign: he wasn't a pure blooded morph, he was mixed with something else, in this case, a falcon or large predatory raptor. There were wing feathers sprouted from his heavy arms, and his muzzle wasn't rounded with a snout, it was a sharp beak. He had short dark hair, like a crew cut, between his horns and down the back of his neck. He looked rather impressive, that was certain. His companion was a smaller but no less impressive female, felinoid with dark fur and long pointed ears, very short grey-black horns jutting out from her dark reddish brown curled hair, but her feet were hooved somewhat like a goat's, her hands had claws.

Both these guards wore dark green grey leather armor, trimmed with silver bits. They had a small bracer on one arm, which showed a taloned paw as a symbol.

"Hold," the male said, pushing down the long spear that he held to block any passage. "What... are you?"

"We come to find someone," said Lucas, as Cynonix was a bit taken aback by the feline female. She wasn't granting any more passage than the bull was, but they were both cats none the less. "We come in peace."

"There have not been dragons here," said the woman, "for centuries. Are they awakened now?"

"It's not the ending times," said a deep voice from behind and between the guards. Instantly recognizable as the one they were looking for, and immediately the most bizarre that they could have expected.

He walked slowly, carefully, but with a pride that carried his step. His head looked small under the long golden twisted horns, perhaps those of a kind of ibex or large antelope, that came tall out from his forehead. Between them was a plume of feathers in the colors of a peacock. He had smallish ears, rounded with the distinctive circle markings of a cheetah. He wore no clothing, like the others did, others had simple cloth and perhaps leather items in wraps or skirts - their inequitable anatomy making it obviously difficult to make one piece of clothing that anyone could wear. Everyone else the group would see this afternoon wore such simple smocks, skirts and wraps. This tall lord however displayed a furred pouch similar to Cynonix's, though the cheetah morph had to admit that whatever it concealed was far more impressive than his own - probably far more impressive than any of their own, given that he was part antelope...

The four others finished their duties and stood watching this all from nearby, muttering to one another quietly until their tall dark lord came upon the scene.

They stopped talking, and stood mute as they watched him surveying the group of riders.

"He doesn't look like he needs any rescuing," Van said with a glance at the others.

"... Rescuing?" Asked the tall furry man. "I did, years ago. Many years ago. But as you can see I've found whatever I need already. It was granted to me by the other gods." Though his tone was still dark, he gave a brief grin, the way that Cynonix would have. He had long black-violet hair in addition to the fur, it was almost lost on the gloss of his fur, and his dark clawed hands were poised. On his arms, a spread of colorful feathers. On his back, large darkly colored leather wings - rather like those of a dragon's, but more batlike - stood stiffly and without moving. They wrapped themselves around his body in a moment, as he appeared to make himself more comfortable.

His nearly-sepia colored fur had the signs of spots on it, his legs were hooved with the same color of horn as his head had. And his tail, long and spotted like Cynonix's, also had a peacock-fan of feathers off it. He was a beautiful creature, but none could say what exactly he was meant to be.

"I am Vaun, the hand of the gods, and the leader of this batch of idiots." He waved his hand at the guards and others, who rolled their heads in a bemused disgust. "Lately, I've been wondering what to fill my time with. Now I think I know." He paused, turned, and began to walk back into the building. "Come, and tell your dragons to come around the back. There is another ledge, they might be more interested in."

***

Two older women served tea, which was sweet smelling and rich. There were flatbreads, cheeses and fruits available, but the group of Sangers almost felt guilty in taking them. The people here seemed somewhat bedraggled, hardly what they'd call wealthy looking. They got the impression that this group could use all the help it could get.

"Please take the offerings," Vaun said kindly, "I know it doesn't look like we have much to give, but we do. We give everything, freely, that's the point here."

"How do you keep knowing what we're thinking?" Asked Doc Sanger, a bit sharply.

"Because I am a god," Vaun said quietly. He sipped at his own tea, his finger hooked delicately around the cup's handle. His peacock-blue eyes watched the reactions of everyone, but there was more to it than just that. "Because I can. And because it is my function, to know these things. If I did not know them, I would hardly make a good judge for the other gods, now would I?"

Izzy nodded, looking at Doc Sanger. "He's right, I understand where he is coming from. You might think it's a bit weird, but with a dragon you'd feel otherwise. We all know things that you don't, before hand, because dragons and draks are the most insufferably gossipy creatures in any world. Telepathic, and so we know what they know."

"But you said," Van added, "you're a god?" His eyebrows fought for space on his forehead. "Really?"

"Indeed," Vaun said, "chosen because of that which I'd become." He paused, looked around, and nodded toward one of the nearby women.

She was somewhere between a porcupine and a ferret, with a richly sable color to her tail and a strange silvery cast to her quills. When she realized that she was being watched by Vaun, she leaned her head to the side and laughed, posed for a moment, and then scampered away.

"If you notice, we are all different breeds," Vaun announced. "This is ... not a natural condition."

Cynonix and Lucas both seemed to jolt a little. Audeo put her red hand on Lucas' brown fingers, and squeezed them gently.

"We are created only through dark magicks," Vaun continued. "Such magick is forbidden in most places, and has been for many generations." He glanced back at another person, a young male whose fur might have been white if only it wasn't so ... dark. He had short flight feathers coming off his furry arms, some kind of small bird that had been mixed with a canine of equally small stature. "Some are still created out of love, parents of different breeds that wish to seal their love with a permanent bond like a child. Instead of adopting another couple's cast off orphan, they choose to create one with their own blood and essence."

The boy knew that this was his story, looked on proudly. He got back to work, but he smiled the whole time.

Vaun continued, in a quieter voice. "But even though those children are created with the idea of love, the magicks that are used are still taboo. And the children produced in that manner are rarely accepted by anyone but their parents in the end."

"That's why you've taken him in?" Asked Audeo, who surprised the men by speaking at all.

"Him and all the others," Vaun admitted. "Our mark is not only the mix of our features we carry," he extended his arm, "I used to be like you," he looked at Cynonix, "I was born a cheetah. This nemesis of ours, he used his powers to imbue me with the blood and spirit of a sable antelope first. They're quite large, you see, and he wanted something with better offensive capabilities than a mere feline." Vaun met Cynonix's eyes and they nodded to one another. "Then the peacock, to see if he could mix a bit more color in." There was bitterness in his voice, but it was old, distant, not fresh at all. "With each infusion, our fur and feathers, our coloration, becomes blackened by the magick. That is our mark more than anything else. Of course his attempt was only faintly successful. And I have brightened myself with my own power over the darkness. You, perhaps, do not see it."

"I do," Audeo said, again attracting attention to herself. "But I am an innately magical person myself." She grinned, and Lucas echoed it pleasantly.

"Where did you get the wings, then?" Asked Doc Sanger, "they're pretty impressive."

"I gave those to myself," Vaun said. "It allows me to move more easily from place to place, as I am sure a group of dragonriders would know."

"But... how?" Asked Cynonix.

"I refused to die, refused to be judged as a creature of dark Magick, and because of that, the gods took some measure of pity on me. They first charged me with the task of eliminating the rest of the dark mages, which I did... mostly."

A little flash of eyebrow, on each and every one of the Sangers who had eyebrows to raise, and Vaun continued.

"There are still some mages who practice these arts purely out of the goodness that this boy was created," he again indicated the dog-bird. "Those I insisted be left to practice, and eventually I hope that they will become accepted."

"You ... refused to die?" Asked Kalkin. "That's not a new one on us, but... you've got gods here. You defied them?"

"I did," Vaun said, with a smile and as he lowered his head the crest of feathers mixed with his dark human-like hair. "One or more of them petitioned the others to allow me to further their cause, and they offered me a position akin to an Avatar. Their causes became my own, and the rest as my followers would say, is history."

"You're so full of yourself," called out one of the tougher looking women. She held a sword in one hand, sheathed, and a bucket of something in her other, and swaggered into the large airy room where Vaun was entertaining his guests. "We caught the spy at Road's End, my lord, and he told us where to find his master. We're going to be on our way tomorrow, but tonight we need some rest."

"Of course," Vaun replied. The curious looks on the Sangers faces made him smile again. "While I still represent the judge and hand of the gods, I do have my own interests to maintain, just like the rest. Our position here in the mountain lets us look over the city where my life ended. This port is very busy, and there are many people who would try and ... dissuade others from acting kindly. We've been invaded, what," he looked at the woman who was sipping fresh water and filling the bucket at her side from the well nearby. "Five times?"

"In the last decade, yes sir." She was somewhere between a falcon and a horse, with a more soft muzzle than the bull outside had had. "They come regularly, speaking 'treason' and 'unnatural' at us."

"As though you're to blame for being made into yourselves?" Izzy demanded. The woman nodded.

"We're a travesty in this world. We cannot bring our own life into being, the only way that we can breed is to use the very same magicks as created some of us. Or," she grinned, "adopt the strays as they come to us."

"Rather like you are doing, yourselves," Vaun said. "I should like to commend you on your task, and I do not think it's going to be an easy one. For any of you." He glanced at Izzy and Cynonix, then at Audeo. "I would like to see you again, as well. If you need me, I will be here. I am at the call of my followers and my superiors, both, so just leaving is sadly out of the question."

"That's too bad," Lucas said, "we could use a god on our side."

"I'm just a minor one," Vaun said, mock humbly. "I will never be accepted by the masses, because my whole point is to accept the castaways. Cross breeds, dark created, thieves, wanderers, repentant criminals. Any who can pull their weight here and give something to those who help them, are welcome."

"That's a greatly admirable task," Kalkin admitted. "It is a shame you can't come along with us. But maybe we could arrange something else..."

He turned and looked at Van, and their blue dragons outside chittered with glee.

Van stood, as the others did as well. Vaun rose and towered over them all, his great horns adding to the feel. The group weren't used to being 'short' next to anyone - even Vanya of Zekira would say that this one of them towered properly over him, had he been there.

"We would like to offer you something, we'll have to go and do a bit of research of course." Kalkin said. "Your guard outside mentioned that dragons had not been seen here for ages. Well, what if we could offer you a breeding pair?"

Vaun's muzzled face grew wide in a brilliant happy smile. "That would be a beautiful gift, and it would certainly make some of my people a bit happier than they are," he indicated the woman who'd finished her drink and had snugged her sword to her back again. "Travel time is always a factor, and I cannot always be there to transport my paladins."

Lucas gave a little snort at that word, and Vaun looked oddly at him. "Why do you laugh?"

"Paladins... Thieves and ex cons?" Lucas asked.

"Yes, they make the best kind of warrior - one who has been accepted by their deity for whatever their worth can give them?" Vaun said sagely. "And the most loyal kind of paladin. They do my bidding, and I do them whatever I can in return. Lending them transportation would be the least thing I could expect they would want."

"We have only a few mounts, you see," said the woman. "And I'd take you up on it, I'd take them up on it, my lord," she glanced from Audeo and Lucas to her strange deity.

"I am taking them up on it, my dear Shylanea," Vaun said. She almost giggled with joy at that.

"Now, we should get back and figure out where to head next," Doc Sanger announced. "We will be back, though."

"Maybe by then you'll have your own bond?" Asked Kalkin, and Doc Sanger chuckled.

"I think maybe I'll sit that one out. Some of us have to rely on our own two legs right?"

"They're really handy," Cynonix said.

"They make life so much more interesting," added Izzy.

"Well maybe, maybe not." Doc Sanger said. They were shown to the ledge, where the softer side of the great mountain wandered down to the other side of the land. Away from the sea, the hilly landscape was broken by batholyths and crevasses, but it was more arable than the port side. There was ample landing space for any dragon, here.

"We'll send word or something more," said Kalkin. "It's good to know that you're all right."

They of course had assumed that he had defeated his own nemesis, and were told as much during their afternoon. He was after all one of the first dark wizards that Vaun had been sent to destroy by the gods.

They all mounted up, waved and were given happy good-byes by the locals, and at last they went back to the Nexus.