Five months of varied joys and tortures later saw Deborah actually studying at night, rather than clubbing, but she did end up sleeping through most of the morning, anyway. That was one of the tortures: her wildness, and much of her freedom, had disappeared ever since Purpura arrived. With that came the torture of celibacy-- or mostly celibacy; she found that she simply couldn't last more than a couple months without finding someone for a one night stand-- for she didn't want to expose Purpura's young mind to that sort of thing. Especially since she knew that he would probably tease her mercilessly, after the initial reaction of "ew, gross". Besides, she didn't really want him turning into the kind of male she found for those brief, hurried affairs.

Because, as she had come to realize over the past months, he wasn't that kind of male. He wasn't gay, like most half-way decent men she'd come across were, but he also wasn't shallow, he wasn't dirty-minded, and he wasn't even all that sensual. She fervently hoped that he wouldn't grow out of it. As he was, he was just about perfect, with a quick wit, a cheerfully wicked love of putting people off-balance, and a stable, amiable personality. The thought of losing that to adolescence and adulthood made her want to postpone that time as long as possible, even though his swiftly growing height and even more rapidly growing intellect proved that she simply had no say in the matter. All she could do was try to shelter him from the more "dangerous" aspects of growing up, and even then that wouldn't do for long.

At least her father was pleased. While Purpura and the other two Avengaean dragons had classes-- or skipped classes to do something else, as the case may be any given day-- Deborah was taking classes of her own, at long last, just to give herself something to do. Pur' liked those classes better than his own, with the exception of his magic studies with Aedelian which he actually seemed to enjoy, though her politics class bored him. More to the point in Minister Falken's book, though, she was no longer clubbing and no longer gone all night. Even her temporary flings-- which she had protected Pur' from as best as she could-- had been just that: temporary. He might have known about them, but since she was no longer bedding two or three or more people a night during a sexual dancing spree, he didn't bother to complain about one person every couple months.

So, with nothing else to do-- and still mainly nocturnal, for whatever that meant in a space station with no discernable night or day-- Deborah took a few night classes, mostly online, and spent her nights studying. Pur' read over her shoulder, watched television, teased Copper, or sometimes dragged her away for something more interesting. He would convince her to watch him fly in the flight deck, visit a sun spa, track down a new plant to add to their ever-growing collection, or anything else he happened to want to do that she liked the idea of more than studying. Those times were among the joys, as were visits with a few of her actual friends-- not the primping, flirting girls of the clubs, but real people with real thoughts in their heads instead of fluff and fashion-- including, at times, Elsie and Mariette and their bonds. Mariette and Demulcei had gotten them into some amusing adventures, already, and Elsie-- when he was around, and not visiting his homeworld-- was always fun to gang up on with Aduri, his dragoness, and tease.

Right now was one of those evening-shifts when Deborah, though she'd much rather be doing something else, actually had to sit down and focus on her schoolwork. Or, more specifically, on a paper for her comparative religions class, which she had chosen to write on the Avengaean religion, since she had so many informants on the subject easily at hand. It made things a bit trickier that some of them-- Aedelian being one-- was very certain that the deities existed, and Aedelian himself had even professed to meeting one of the lesser gods, a Dragon Lord named Makeni, once in his long lifetime. Deb wasn't entirely sure if he was playing with her, delusional, or somehow telling the truth; to be honest, she didn't want to think about it, and she knew her professor wouldn't, so she was planning on leaving that little tidbit out of the paper.

Purpura was tending to one of his plants; the new apartment her father had purchased them was turning into something of a greenhouse over the past couple months, as the Earth dragon simply craved the presence of plant life and dirt around him. Since so much of his magic was centered around the two things-- and stone, but that was harder to come by-- Deb could understand. Even the name of his breed, Earth, brought to mind images of mountains, forests, and green, growing things. And, of course, his tail seemed decidedly plant-like....

Deborah yelped in surprise, as the tip of said plant-like tail suddenly twined around her ankle. Pur' snickered and butted his pebbly head against her hip. "You're working too hard."

"You're being distracting, or I might be done by now," she countered, glaring. At his disbelieving snort, she gave one of his ears a light tug, unable to stay annoyed.

"Why can't you just-- not write that stupid thing?" the dragon grumbled, resting his chin on her lap like a very, very large dog: he'd grown in the past months at least a foot and a half, shooting up like the proverbial weed. Whenever he reached his full growth, Deborah expected him to rival the largest of the native mutt-dragons.

"Because I do want to pass this class," she answered. "And besides, I'm already on the last section." Pur' sighed heavily and moved away again, prompting her to glance his way with a little concern. "Why don't you go find Mariette and Demy?" she suggested.

"They're doing some new vid-adventure that's only got a two-player setting," the dragon answered. "And there's nothing more boring than sitting there doing nothing while they laugh or scream or whatever with their VR goggles on."

"Oh... Elsie and-- no, wait, they're off-world again, aren't they?"

"Yeah." And Pur' didn't really like any of Deborah's friends, not by himself, anyway, which meant... no wonder he was bored. "I kinda miss Avengaea," he said, a little wistfully. "Well, my friends there, anyway."

"And Father won't let us go. Oh, Pur', I'm sorry."

"Eh." The Earth shrugged, rustling his wings and pacing to one of the creeping ivy plants they'd just purchased a few weeks ago; already it was flourishing, despite the general lack of light, due to Purpura's oddly affectionate care. "It's okay, it's not your fault."

But it was. She'd brought him here, and she hadn't managed to convince her father to let them go off the station to visit Avengaea yet. He hadn't seen his friends or his family for the past five months, though he had found ways to send letters to his family, at least. "I still wish there was something I could do."

Purpura shrugged again, and focused on his plants again. Deb looked between the computer screen with her nearly-finished paper, and her bond, biting her lip. She was saved making the decision between responsibilities, for the moment anyway, by the ring of the telephone. Sighing, she reached over to the panel beside her desk and pressed the button to activate the speaker-phone-- why bother with old-fashioned receivers? "Hello?"

"Debbie!"

"Elsie-kins! You're home!" Her savior! Elsie and Aduri could keep Purpura company while she wrote the last few pagers!

"You'll never guess what happened, oh, it's so cool! It's amazing! You'll never guess!"

"Elsie, Elsie, slow down!" Deb laughed. Purpura meandered over, peering at the speaker box Elsie's voice was coming from. "What happened?"

"I found a pack! Well, I found some chyriths from a pack! And they came back with me! They're so great, Debbie, you've gotta meet 'em! I already called Mariette, but she didn't answer the phone." There was a definite pout, there.

"A pack?" She could just imagine a whole troupe of chyriths taking the station by storm, and grinned. Catching the thought, Pur' snickered.

"Uh-huh! And all six of 'em came back with me--" Aww. The amusing mental image popped. Only six? "--but they're all coming with me and Aduri back to Avengaea! They're gonna bond dragons, too! Or they're gonna try, anyway. And, well, three of 'em are going someplace else, but three of 'em are going to Avengaea!"

"You're kidding. You're going back to Avengaea?"

"Yup! In two weeks! The next bonding's in three, didn't you know?"

"We've been a little out of touch," Deb admitted wryly, absently petting Pur's ears as he lay his head in her lap again.

"Well, we're going, and--"

"Hey, Elsie-kins?"

"--yeah, Debbie?"

"Can we come, too?"

"Huh?"

"Huh?" Pur' echoed, blinking up at her, and she grinned at him, an idea forming that would certainly solve her problems with trying to keep Purpura company all the time-- and maybe follow up on another thought of her own!

"I said, can we come, too."

"Uh, sure, I suppose so."

"Thanks."

"So are you gonna come meet 'em, or not?"

"I've gotta finish a paper, Elsie-kins, but maybe later, okay?"

"... Okay. I'll call you!"

"I'll call you when I'm done, how's that?"

"Okay! Bye, Debbie!"

"Bye, Elsie-kins."

There was a click as Elsie hung up, and Purpura blinked up at her again. "We're going back?"

"Mmmhmm," Deborah answered. "We're going back, and we're going to see who wants to come back with us. I'm sure you can think of somebody you'd like to invite."

Pur gave the biggest, toothiest dragon-grin she'd seen on him yet, and said simply, "Yeah. I think I can."