Keren was feeling comfortably worn out. She'd been on duty for a half-shift of six hours, then spent a good two hours after that in one of the Ministry's gyms, the one with a few dragon-sized machines and obstacles included, to keep Nekeress busy, as well. Igess had cavorted around between them, not understanding the desire to keep fit, probably because it had so much energy that it never had to worry about such things. It didn't really understand exercises in general and kept trying to get her to get up and play with it, which once or twice she gave into briefly, just for a respite. Nekeress just chased it away irritably, which it seemed to think was just as much of a game as anything else.

A brief shower, a cursory towelling off, and a quick change into clean sweats, Keren was ready for the leisurely walk home; she didn't often use the closest or most convenient lifts, just because she liked walking, or sometimes riding Nekeress, if the xenodragon felt like carrying her. Somehow or another, neither Nekeress nor Igess ever got into trouble on the way home from the precinct. Keren didn't know why, but as long as things stayed that way, she didn't really care why.

Igess zoomed out the large, dragon-sized swinging doors first, chirping and hissing excitably, and Keren laughed after it. :That thing is disgustingly annoying, you know that, don't you?: Nekeress grumbled, coming up behind her and glaring after Igess. It was more habit now than actual dislike; growth had mellowed the xenodragon-- a little, anyway. When it came to her housemates.

"You just say that cuz yer jealous," Keren shot back playfully. "He's cute and you're not."

:I wouldn't want to be cute, if it meant looking like that.:

Keren chuckled and started to reply, but Igess' energy suddenly turned into guard-dog-like aggression, and she threw herself into a run to catch up to it. As she'd been afraid of, there it was, growling threateningly at a young woman who it had backed against the wall just outside the gym. "Igess, Igess, hey, cut it out!"

"Whoah, easy, boy-- girl-- whatever you are," the girl was saying, obviously trying to look non-threatening. "I'm not doing anything!"

"It," Keren corrected, finally reaching them, skidding to a stop, and hauling back on Ingess' elbow. The xenodragon gave a surprised little yip and fell back, then sat down, jaw gaping in that idiotically pleased way it had, tail thrashing around in a very dog-like manner. It looked as if it was expecting praise for cornering the stranger, and looked quite surprised when Keren swatted it on the nose.

"Rotten bugger, I oughta send you straight home. I thought we'd trained you better than that! Bad Igess." It was so hard not to treat it like a big dog, sometimes... especially when it ducked its head and whined like that. Keren sighed and turned to the poor girl. "Sorry about that, usually he's just a big puppy-dog, can't imagine what got into him."

"It's all right," the girl assured her, after an understandable snicker at Igess' posture. "He, er, it probably just smelled something he didn't recognize. I get the feeling that's going to happen a lot."

"Eh, I suppose xenodragons're supposed to be unpredictable," Keren sighed, giving Igess a pat on the muzzle to reassure it she wasn't too angry with it. It nuzzled her hand, leaving behind its usual xenodrool which Keren hardly noticed anymore. Nekeress slipped out of the gym, catching up with them, and the girl gave both xenos a long look. She must have been new, not to have seen any yet.

"No harm done," she said, looking back with a smirk, "though I really wasn't expecting to be charged by anything today. Sorry if I interrupted anything, um, ma'am."

"Naw, we were on our way out, actually," Keren answered, brows up. "How'd you guess?"

:Maybe she can smell you,: Nekeress suggested with a mental snicker. :I sure can.: If the dragon had been close enough, Keren would have kicked her; as it was, she sent a casual mental prod that made her shake her head vigorously and rumble in her chest.

"Oh, heh, so I guess I'm not alone in thinking you were a guy at first." Sheepishly, the girl rubbed the back of her head. "In all honesty, if was your voice that gave it away." Keren gave a little "huh!" and the girl continued. "To most people it might sound masculine, but if one's hearing is good enough, there's till a rather strong feminine undertone. Just hard to pick up."

"Well, Royals take me," Keren chuckled. "You must have mighty good hearing; yes, most people assume I'm a man. Gets kinda irksome, sometimes. I'm Keren Tenat." She started to offer her hand, realized it had xenodrool on it, then rubbed it dry on the towel thrown over her shoulder before offering it again. "You've gotta be new to the force, or Igess'd know you."

The girl had a small hand, but she shook well. "Lani Ay'Raiasha, though you'll hear varying versions of that. Rather annoying, really." She smirked and shook her head gently before answering the implied question: "Pretty new, yes... just signed up after the Mayonaka hatching, I figured I could be of some service. --Though I suppose it might've helped if I'd known what a xenodragon had looked like."

Keren chuckled again, giving Lani a pat on the back. "There ain't that many out there, and most of 'em are in the force. 'Sides, all those new ones look pretty different right now, 'specially the burster ones, they're all snakey. Or the hydra ones! Gods and Royals, Rumi, one of the other cops? She got one of those multi-headed, hydra ones. It's so damn strange."

"Hydras aren't really anything new to me, unfortunately," Lani said grimly, and Keren raised a brow; bad experiences? "Though the father, I managed to get a good look at him, isn't a full-blooded hydra. Full-bloodeds have a lot more heads. If you stay around here any longer while connected to the Nexus, too, you're going to see a lot more."

"Huh," Keren said. "How d'ya mean? They expansionistic, or somethin'?" Curious. Something to do, maybe.

"Well, not too long ago there were hardly any hydragons at all," Lani mumbled to herself, then she launched into apparently the history of all hydra-dragon pairings. "First it was Diamis that went to the healing Den and participated in the Halloween Frenzy there, like six or so hatched out of that clutch. Then for a while, no one heard anything about them, then the half-Hydra Dohosh mated with the bipedal dragoness Birana and made about sixteen more called Bipedras. Then there was the Azon dark clutch, which hatched out around the same number though likely more; then of course we came up to the Bipedra which hatched out way too many. Now they're just... everywhere."

:And I thought you were chatty,: Nekeress commented while Lani shuddered.

"Well, hey, maybe they're not all gonna be too bad, ya know?" Keren suggested, trying to be encouraging. "I mean, really, Rumi's doesn't seem so bad, just as quiet and withdrawn as Rumi is, actually."

"Well, not all are too bad," Lani answered, giving Nekeress a somewhat wary look; the dragoness bared her teeth in a wide, xenodragon grin in return, stalking a few steps closer. "It's kind of a rare thing, though."

"Yeah," Keren agreed, "kinda like how not all xenos're too bad, but that's kinda a rare thing, too." Said while giving Nekeress an elbow in the ribs as she tried to sit down beside her, looming over Lani with her toothy smile. The dragoness squawked in a most undignified manner, ruining the dignified and threatening look she'd been going for. Keren pretended not to notice her eyeless glare, instead grabbing Igess' head and noogieing the elongated cranium enthusiastically.

"Well, generally you can tell by the bonds of the dragons," Lani pointed out, "but not always. Dragons tend to choose someone like-minded."

"So what's it say about me that I've got a loveable moron on one end," she gave Igess's neck a hug, and it cheerfully drooled against her chest, "and an arrogant warrior on the other?" Nekeress gave a heavy sigh, rustling her wings and turning her muzzle snobbishly away from the group. "Though I've gotta share the loveable moron," she admitted. "He bonded Gavin Vance, too, silly thing."

"The Minister of Security?" Lani lofted a brow at her, and Keren grinned.

"Weird, I know," she agreed. The young woman shrugged.

"Well, dragons don't necessarily match their bonds," she mused. "They can be your worst side or your best side--" a nod to each dragon in turn-- "Or, they can be visibly nothing like you at all."

:Who said anything about being your worst side!: Nekeress sent with a hiss, whipping her head around to bare her teeth at Lani, bristling and nearly rising from her seat. Keren swatted the threatening muzzle, making her snap at the fingers-- as if she'd ever actually bite-- but subside with a growl.

"Cut it out, or go home without me," she said firmly. To Lani, she grinned, "She's offended that you thought she'd be my worst side."

"I didn't really mean it like that," Lani protested with a chuckle and an apologetic smile at Nekeress, who made a sound much like a human's disdainful sniff, but at least she didn't growl again. "Besides, it's very rare that someone has an actual worst side, but it really depends on the person."

"You sure know a lot of people-dragon stuff," Keren commented, idly scratching Igess' carapice. "Where're you from?"

:You owe me some of that, later,: Nekeress said sullenly, attention on Igess' ecstatic thrumming and thrashing tail.

:When we get home,: Keren promised absently, certain that Nekeress wouldn't lower herself to ask for petting in public.

"You're the first one to ask that, to be honest," Lani said with a smile, "other than the people that ran my background check, of course. I suppose you'd want to know where I was before here--"

:Since that's what you asked,: Nekeress commented acidly. Keren didn't deign to respond.

"--Well, before I came here, I... was a rider for the Ring of Fire."

"Huh. Never heard of it. What's it like?"

"Fairly big place," Lani began, rubbing the back of her neck and looking around, almost as if the subject made her uncomfortable. Come to think of it, she'd seemed kind of uncomfortable saying she was even from there. "Though not really too extraordinary, from the outside, at least. There's electricity and everything, it was put in when the place was built. Most of the riders are magic-users, though."

"Sounds kinda like here," Keren commented. "Tech and magic, right together. Hell, it sounds kinda like where I'm from! Only minus the dragons, an' all." Something was familiar, something about the riders all having magic, but she couldn't quite place it. "What kinds of magic-users? Just curious, magic works so differently, different places, ya know?"

Lani nodded and quite willingly explained, "Ours is really a combination of psionics and magic, in my world it's mostly the same thing really. Different elements that it can take the forms of. I myself am a fire mage, though a lot of the others do things like ice, healing, there's even a few necromancers."

For a moment, Keren grinned fiercely-- a fellow Fire mage!-- but her last comment clicked in her memory, and the grin disappeared into surprise. "Wait, I have heard of Ring of Fire before!" she exclaimed. "There's a group of folks from there, right now! Gavin told me about one of 'em who got into some trouble a few days after the xeno-hatching. You said necromancer, s'what reminded me, cuz all he said was the guy was a necromancer."

To Keren's surprise, Lani's face twisted into a pained expression. "Let me guess, Hemlock Bleedingheart? I can't believe Jasien sent him here, he's unstable!" While Keren stared, Lani shook her head in disbelief. "And now they're on the station. I was hoping to get peace for a while and let Jasien settle into his job. Guess I'll just have to keep out of sight," she concluded with a sigh and a wave of her hand.

"Uh. You were more than just a 'rider', weren't you?" Keren guessed, eying Lani with interest.

Apparently she'd hit the nail right on the head, for Lani suddenly blushed, looking down at her clasped hands. "Yes, actually," she admitted with a self-conscious clearing of her throat. "I was the Firelancer before Jasien, I'd planned to stay a few more years, but... fate intervened, I suppose you would say."

Though she had no idea what a Firelancer was, Keren shrugged it off as some foreign title or another. Obviously one that went with a great deal of authority. "Well, hey, maybe it was his time to shine, ya know? And don't worry about the necromancer fella; that's all been taken care of and straightened out and stuff." Igess butted her arm with a little whine, as she'd lapsed in her scratching; she started up again with a vengeance. "If you're a Firelancer-whatsis, how come you're startin' off as a green recruit?" she asked curiously.

That earned a snicker, and Keren flushed a little. "Just because I'm a leader somewhere else, why should I automatically be moved up in the force?" Lani asked, a rhetorical question. "Even if someone leads something else, you can't be sure what kind of person they are, or how they do their job. Wise of them to start everyone off the same."

Keren shrugged. "I dunno, was just curious. I never led anything bigger than a squadron, at home, so I figured it was smart to start me at the bottom and see where I ended up. Didn't know what they'd do with someone who was used to command. None of the commanders I know would make very good 'green recruits'."

"Well, you don't really know what they were like before they earned their rank," Lani pointed out, a little more gently. "I never asked to be in command, anyway. Just kind of popular opinion, I suppose."

"But, you see, that's the thing." Keren hadn't really thought all that clearly about rank and file and things of that nature; she knew she wasn't material for a higher-up, and that was fine with her. But even if she hadn't thought about it, she still knew how she felt on the matter. "This isn't before you got your rank-- and whether you asked for it or not, it's made you who you are. Even I could tell, you've got that whole responsibility thing goin' on. Once you've got rank, you're used to it, and you act like it. You know?"

"Oh, you mean the habits about blurting random things out and worrying about responsibilities?" Lani said with a smirk. "Heh, I suppose you're right. I assure you, though, I was once as green as right now I'm filling the role as."

"Well, of course," Keren acceded. "But, I mean-- you can't go back, can you? Once you've led people, you can't be green again, no matter how much you try. That kinda thing sticks with you. I'd think it would, anyway."

Then she shook her head and laughed a bit. "Gods and Royals, this is too deep for me, especially after a whole day of work and working out."

:It was just getting interesting!: Nekeress protested, and Keren was surprised to find that the xenodragon had actually been paying acute attention to the conversation. Whether it was the depth, the subject matter, or the general philosophical principle, something about it had piqued her bond's interest.

:What, you like to think? I thought you liked to slam people into walls without bothering to think about it.:

: .... This is different.:

And from the huffy sniff, Keren knew she wasn't going to get any more out of her. Right now, anyway.

"Well," Lani said with a snicker, "if you want to continue to talk, I suppose we could go someplace other than standing around here. It must look odd for two women standing in the middle of the hallway accompanied by xenos."

"Aah, but to the casual observer it would be a woman and a man standing in a hall, which is perfectly normal." Keren winked, teasing. "Though by now, everybody knows Nekeress would never deign to show herself with anybody but me, so then they'd just think I was batting for the wrong team. You wanna get some drinks? I know some great places around here."

"Hmm, I don't really drink, myself," Lani responded, and Keren tried not to look too disappointed. What was it with women on the force that made them all crave to be completely sober all the time? "Though if they have non-alcoholic drinks, I wouldn't mind having a drink with you. If they don't, though, I wouldn't mind coming just to talk."

"Sure, Arnie'll make you a virgin anything," she shrugged, then grinned. "But you're missing out on the fire-wines, I'm tellin' ya. Come on, he won't be surprised to see me in sweats," she said, starting down the hallway with Igess trailing obediently behind her and Nekeress looking sourly after them before stalking after her bond irritably.

"I've never been able to hold my liquor very well, to be honest," Lani admitted, falling into step beside her. "I might look human, but I'm not. Physically I'm quite a bit more frail, actually."

"Bah, that's what they all say," Keren grumbled, and decided that, sometime, somehow, she would get this "Lani" drunk, no matter what it took-- if just to prove it could be done!

Chapter Seven

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