Keren Tenat's Story

::You won't believe what I found out.::

"Yeah? I bet you'll believe what I found out."

::What's that?::

"Nothing."

::Yep. I believe it.::

Keren Tenat had been looking into her xenodragon's attacker off and on for the past couple months, while Nekeress gradually grew larger, healed up, and finally, amidst many complaints, growls, and irritable grumblings, was relocated to the fifth hatching bay-- which had, ironically perhaps, been the one both other xenodragon hatchings had been in. It hadn't even been Nekeress' choice; it was just the only one that was open at the time. She, the clutch's father Zegress, and whatever of the bursters in the apartment which she could bully into helping out were working on restoring it to its previous resinous glory, though the station's janitors-- or whatever was in charge of such things; Tenat had never bothered to investigate-- had done a good job of cleaning it up after the last xenodragon clutch-mother had filled it with that hard, black goo.

"So what did you find out?"

Tenat had been given permission to spend the day's work investigating every rumor she'd gathered so far about any silver xenodragons on the station-- and there were a few. She'd turned up nothing, however, as if the creature was a ghost, only rarely sighted and quite capable of disappearing at will. It was, to say the least, frustrating. She'd come "home"-- currently the rider apartment in the hatching bay-- in a foul mood, for she'd gotten as caught up in finding the nameless attacker as Nekeress had been before she'd clutched.

Ever since, though, Nekeress had demanded her presence in the bay with her whenever she wasn't working, much to Igess and Kalaia's dismay. Tenat even thought the Minister might be missing her a little-- though not her dragon-- but then, she could just be imagining things. At least the whole troupe visited often, and the usual apartment's chaos was transposed into the hatching bay, so that it almost felt like home.

Now, though, the only creatures in the bay were Nekeress, Zegress-- on the opposite side of the bay from his mate-- the six dark, fleshy "eggs", and, now, Keren Tenat. She stopped halfway across the bay to regard her dragon.

::You won't believe it. I hardly believe it.::

"Well? You'll never know until you tell me, so out with it."

::We found out who the silver xenodragon is,:: Zegresss interjected. Nekeress hissed at him.

"You did?"

::Malysuss,:: Nekeress growled.

"How'd you find that out?" Not that a name would be a lot of help-- but perhaps a little.

::Because of his bond-- and his bond's... history.::

::With us,:: Nekeress added to her temporary mate's somewhat more tentative comment.

"I don't remember any silver xenodragons...."

::They weren't bonded when we met them. When we met him. Do you remember my hatching?::

"Of course I do. What does that have to do with--"

::We fought a convict who'd come to bond. A weakling. I killed him easily.::

Tenat was getting impatient. "Yes, yes, I remember. He's dead, what about him?"

::He didn't stay dead. That necromancer friend of yours--::

Her mouth fell open. "Shoel? I wouldn't exactly call her a friend...."

::Whatever. She found his ghost in the bay after the Mayonaka hatching, bound him up, and took him away to that same hatching she bonded at. And he wound up free, marginally stronger, and bonded to Malysuss.::

Pride warred with hatred in Nekeress' mind-voice-- pride that she'd found all this out without her human bond's help; and hatred for the weak, cowardly dead thing which dared fight her through such underhanded, backwards, indirect means. Tenat just stared.

::Well? Say something!::

"You're kidding," she finally said. "That xenodragon is bonded to a ghost, from the Ring of Fire which is in another universe--and it attacked you, why?"

::Stupid. Because I killed its bond.::

It did make a strange kind of sense, though Tenat wasn't usually one to think about life beyond death, or anything that metaphysical.

::So? What are you going to do about it?:: Nekeress demanded.

"What, do you think this Malysuss will attack again?"

::I'm not dead yet, am I? You're not dead yet.::

"What am I supposed to do about it?"

::Hunt it down! Kill it! Route the thing before it gets at my eggs!::

That was an old one. "Nothing is going to get at your eggs, Nekeress."

::How do you know? It's as much a half-breed as anything else on this station-- maybe it will take revenge on my offspring as well as myself!::

Tenat sighed, passing a hand over her eyes a little wearily. "I'll see what I can do, Nekeress."

::See that you do,:: the dragoness sniffed. ::I want my children to be born undisturbed and in safety.::

Tenat finished crossing the hatching bay, ready to bury herself in her small, empty little apartment with a beer and maybe a book. She couldn't do anything about what remained of Skelemis-sul-Eldrilnys or his xenodragon bond until the morning, anyway. If having a name and history, as unbelievable as it was, even made tracking him down any easier....