After a noisy, banquet-like meal, he meeting for the second bonding of the Fur and Feathers Frenzy, in the bonding complex on Atu, finally began. Standing more or less by himself, though still close enough to be obviously a candidate, Lant'ien Ruvuah was dressed in his finest white and gold, contrasting brightly with his dark gray skin. For those who knew him-- which was, at this meeting, no one but his bodyguard and guardian Rumi Beotoli-- he was showing inordinate amounts of emotion: primarily anxiety. Not far from him was said guardian, back enough to hopefully not be intimidating but close enough to be reassuring. After the loss of his first guardian, the youth didn't like to be left alone-- and it generally wasn't a good idea to leave him alone, either.

And yet, he was alone in some ways, anyway: he'd sat on the very end of the farthest table, with Rumi and the massive, double-headed xenodragon Brullera between him and the rest of the room, one on either side. Now that the bonding was starting, however, they had to stand: Rumi couldn't stand with him, and Brullera had left the room, so she wouldn't frighten any children. It was more likely, however, just because she didn't like children. So now he stood, alone at the edge of the candidate group, a group containing such varied creatures as dragons-- one double-headed, like Brullera-- xenomorphs, bipedal dragonoids, elves, and himself-- whatever that was. The names his own people gave themselves seemed obsolete, here and now.

There was a dragon at the podium, ready to introduce the meeting and her charges. Lant'ien remembered her name: Demulcei Jariane, Avengaean, half Fire and half Light. She was pretty, in her iridescent white and muted red, but prettier still was the mixture of magic that made up her form, beneath the fur and skin. Fire twined with formless light, constantly moving, like a beacon on the slightly raised stand. He focused briefly on her, taking in the sense of her, and looked away when he felt a tendril of emptiness reach towards her in an attempt to draw from her power that would never fill it-- but which it wanted, anyway.

"Now I know that many of you are eager to meet the dragonets," she announced, her voice reaching out across the large court to the gathered candidates, to the tables that were still being cleared, to the section of the meeting grounds that were occupied by a veritable horde of various eggs, probably even out into the hallway beyond, full of more dragons, younger and with less experienced lives and magics. Lant'ien's nothingness could sense the buzz of their inner power, as well, all muted and mixed together like a wash of multicolored water. The emptiness inside him wanted that, too, but he did his best to ignore what it wanted and distract it.

"And I know that many of you already know the rules," Demulcei Jariane was saying. "For those of you that don't, it runs fairly simply! When the dragonets come out--" She paused just in time for the group to hear a faint squealing from the wings of the courtyard; a little head even peered around the stone archway, before a hissing voice urged it back into place. The hostess continued: "Either they will come to you, and you can go to them; mingle, get to know one another for the evening! There will be two more evenings in which you can come to a decision about who bonds-- or goes with-- who." She paused, then, opening the floor to the candidates, asked, "Are their any questions?"

He had no questions-- and wouldn't ask them, even if he did. His face just kept twitching this way and that, looking around spasmodically. His attention, only partly on the speaker, jumped from power source to power source in the room, from individual to individual, to spell of light to spell of amplification: if he kept it moving, the tentacles of emptiness couldn't fix on any one thing and start pulling from it.

He wasn't the only one there, though, and apparently someone else did have a question. It wasn't a serious one. For as long as it took for Argon the xenomorph to raise one claw-fingered hand and speak, Lant'ien focused on him. "Yeah, what are you doing tonight, baby?" His exoskeleton gleamed, a rainbow of deep blues and greens shining over the pitch black; there was a powerful life in him, and though there was no magic, the strength of that life was quite enough pull for Lant'ien to quickly avert his eyes.

Coughing slightly, casting the xenomorph a rather amused look, Demulcei replied, "Certainly not what you're thinking of, I'm sure." Directing her attention back to the rest of the candidates, she announced, "If that is all, then let the meeting begin!"

Almost before she finished speaking, a swarm of dragonets poured out through the arch in the wall, some of them proceeding with haste, as if they were racing, others moving more haughtily, more sure of themselves for having made it through a previous meeting. A few others lingered back, most of those being the the ones who weren't too certain about bonding in the first place. And, over top of this din, the mental presence of the egg-bound dragonets loomed over the group of candidates.

Lant'ien took a deep breath, focused at last, and everything jumped into painful clarity. He went very still, instead of twitching his gaze restlessly around or trembling, as he'd been doing before, as if he'd completely drawn his nervous energy into himself. In fact, actually, that's exactly what he'd done: pulled the strands of nothing-magic back inside him and hardened them into a core that, hopefully, would not come unfrozen until he let it. Which he did not intend to do, tonight.

At first, no one came in Lant'ien's direction, considering that his body-guard was doing an excellent job of looking menacing. It was a little disappointing, though Lant would never suggest that Rumi leave; she was, he could tell, trying not to seem threatening, but she was in the habit of looking stoic and brooding, and couldn't seem to shake the habit. For perhaps the first half of the meeting, Lant'ien stood alone, breathing slowly and carefully, watching the flood of life and magic all around him, but watching the frozen lack of both inside him with more care. Rumi, several feet behind him, shifted restlessly. He almost expected her to come up to him, herself, if just to pass the time.

Eventually, however, before Rumi took more than a half-step towards him, an iridescent, black-haired kit took a few hesitant steps towards him and, following him, a dark blue, serpentine figure trailed. Both of them had their eyes on him, though they probably couldn't tell that he watched them, in turn, thinking. Two. That would probably be good; even if his power started to unfreeze, with two there, it would have to choose-- he would have to choose-- which to draw from, giving him a moment more to stop it before it did. He watched them silently. Both were male, both eventually came to a stop nearby Lant'ien at the same time.

"Mm, hi?" the iridescent kit said, while his blue, gem-dotted friend stared with huge, child-like eyes.

Lant'ien smiled a bit, in response, nervous but knowing he actually had to speak, or else nothing would go right, at all. "Hello. Who, hmm, are you two?"

The iridescent kit took the lead after glancing at his friend. "I'm Questoji, Questoji Jariane." The fur at the end of his half-bent tail floofed a bit, his pride evident; he was the son of the hostess. "This' Zentiel."

::HI!:: the blue said loudly, then, rearing up to his hind feet, looking rather like a snake, he slapped one paw over his muzzle. ::Sorry,:: he added. ::"Indoor voices".:: Questoji cackled at him, and even Lant'ien couldn't help but grin, despite the way that "voice" had made his head ring. The very thought of the telepathic dragon putting a paw over his mouth for his "indoor voice" was amusing.

"It's all right," he assured him. "You're just excited."

"Are you a shifter?" the Questoji asked.

"Uh, a shifter?" he repeated with a blank blink. "No, not that I know of."

"Oh," Questoji looked a little crestfallen. "it's just that you have weird skin and I thought that maybe you were like mom or Frada or someone, seeing's how they get weird looking when they turn human!"

::You still look pretty though,:: Zentiel added, his kit-voice toned down quite a bit. ::I like grey.::

Pretty? Lant'ien had never been called "pretty" before. It was rather odd-- certainly not insulting, but not expected! "I like gray, too," he agreed. "But no, I don't shape-shift. I'm not all human, see, none of my people are. We don't really know what else is in us, but it's apparently something with black or gray skin." He brushed a stark white curl back from his ears to reveal the slight point. "And pointed ears. It might be interesting to shift, though... be something else for a while. Do either of you shift?" Since, after all, Questoji's mother apparently did.

Questoji gained a pained expression. "I don't know!" he said. "I keep trying, but I can't get it, yet!" It was as if, the kit thought, he strained hard enough, he'd suddenly find himself in human form.

::Nope!:: Zentiel answered at the same time, somehow making himself clear despite speaking over his friend's voice. ::I make staaaaaatic.:: As if to emphasize his point, his tail-tip twitched around and zapped Questoji in the behind.

"OW!"

::Hee hee!:: Zentiel ducked for cover when the iridescent kit made a swipe for him, inadvertently putting Lant'ien between the two of them.

Inside him, the power unfroze, just a little, at the sudden use of magic. One tiny thread of nothingness quested out towards the kits. He could feel the magic in them both, now: one fizzy and cheery, the other ordered and sparkling. The not-magic in him wanted them, both of them. For a moment, he nearly panicked. "Hey, hey, don't fight!" he protested, torn between anxiety and involuntary, if nervous, laughter. "Especially not around me!"

They both backed off easily, not taking offense. With another deep breath, he pulled the tendril back into himself and froze it again. Safe once more, he held out his hands, one at each of the kits as if to ward them off, smiling. "I'm sure you'll get shifting eventually, Questoji, if you really want it. You're still awfully young. What else can you two do?"

::That's it!:: Zentiel said, backing off easily. He hadn't meant to do anything more then play, anyways. ::I think all my parents' magic cancelled out in me!:: He didn't sound exactly sad, at least.

"Cancelled out, huh?" Lant'ien repeated, smile a bit ironic and a bit sad. That's too bad, I was starting to like him... a bond without magic won't do me much good, except maybe as a friend. That was Rumi's idea, after all: magic bonded to him, the way magic had once bound him, to help him keep control. He didn't know if it would work, but it made sense.

"Magic isn't all it's cracked up to be, anyway," he continued. "I certainly wouldn't mind living without mine."

"Um...." Questoji, now, was thinking. "I do magic, mostly... order-y stuff." He seemed as if he wasn't sure how to explain it. He didn't need to: Lant'ien remembered what his power had almost touched. It was as if putting order into the world, through magic, was his specialty.

That seemed a little more promising... it seemed more like Bausalu's magic... had been.... He blinked back the all-too-recent grief.

"I can do light shows, too," Questoji added, giggling, distracting him.

"Is there something funny about light shows?" he asked.

"Oh, see, we put on this light show last week for Aedelian's magic class," Questoji began with a grin, momentary confusion forgotten, "and it got a little bit out of hand...."

That story-- which, Lant'ien had to admit, was funny enough to elicit giggles-- took the rest of the evening, since there hadn't been that much left, when the kits first got up the nerve to speak to him. Lant'ien, though he refused to touch them in farewell, waved after them as they were ushered off to bed. Rumi came up behind him.

"All right, then?" she asked, voice low. He shrugged, feeling suddenly weary. The emptiness cracked free, just a little, wrapping its tendrils around him, since he denied it any other target. His voice, when he spoke, sounded distant in his own ears.

"All right enough. ...Do you really think this will work?"

"It's worth a shot," was her pragmatic answer. He sighed and let her lead him back to the guest quarters. There were two more nights of this, and then he would see what happened.

Chapter Ten

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