"Tavarez! Tavarez! Hey, Tavarez!!"

The rat-shifter, currently full human with his long, pointed nose and thin brows, turned at the sound of his name. Something that was mostly smile, but both of pleasure and rue, pulled at his mouth at the sight of the black-haired, blue-winged boy fighting his way through the crowd towards him. The lady he'd been in conversation with saw, as well, and smiled and excused herself, leaving him entirely to the dubious mercy of an eleven year old boy and his newly hatched partner. At least he was smiling.

"Well, Rowan!" he chortled, "I see you did not get yourself eaten."

"Not for lack of trying!" Rowan Sendarwing chirped pertly back at him, grin widening. "Did you see? Were you there?"

"I only just arrived," Tavarez apologized, holding out his hands helplessly. That was a bit of a lie-- or a stretch of the truth, anyway-- but Tavarez, as a rule, did not attend hatchings, merely what feasts, social events, or, on occasion, terrified mayhems that might occur afterwards. "Finding a ride between worlds is harder than it seems, when you actually want to go somewhere." The boy's face fell a little with disappointment, so he added with a sly smile, "So why don't you tell me all about it?"

The grin returned, impish, and Rowan looked over his shoulder. "I want you to meet him! Since, you know, it was you who brought me here to begin with!"

"Meet who, Rowan?" Tavarez didn't even have to ask; Rowan had bonded, just like he'd thought he would, and he wanted to introduce his bond. Most newly bonded wanted to introduce their hatchlings, often to anyone who would listen, whether they knew them or not. There was no harm in humoring the boy.

"Where'd he go now?" Rowan exclaimed with surprising exasperation. "He was right behind me!"

"Did he get lost--" Tavarez began, but cut off with a startled yelp as something heavy struck him in the small of the back. It wasn't quite enough to send him falling on his face-- or onto Rowan!-- but he did stagger several steps, realizing as he did that the only reason he hadn't toppled was that whatever had hit him was still clinging to his back, counter-balancing his own inertia.

"Xetele!" Rowan cried, half in dismay and half in laughter.

Tavarez looked over his shoulder and found himself face to face with a blue-eyed hatchling's muzzle. Actually, with several of its muzzles. The small maw gaped in a silent laugh and the little bipedra-- Xetele, Tavarez guessed-- beat his wings twice before pushing off his shoulders and back, landing behind him. ::Gotcha!:: the echoey mid-voice laughed.

"You coulda knocked him over!" Rowan scolded, trying to sound like he wasn't near laughing, himself.

::But I didn't!:: Xetele retorted cheerfully. ::I kept him upright! I wouldn't want him falling on you, after all. I just found you, I don't want you to get squished, already!::

"Your bond, I take it," Tavarez said with a smile, turning to get a better view of the hydra who had chosen the half-Ave boy.

"Yeah," Rowan sighed, shaking his head and grinning. "This is Xetele. Hey, Xetele, this is Tavarez-- he's really a rat. Sort of. He's the one who got me sent here."

::Nice to meet you!:: the hatchling replied, fanning his pale blue wings in greeting. Xetele wasn't particularly big: only about the size of a toddling child, if a toddling child were built like a reptilian raptor and had six lesser heads writhing on snake-like necks around his main one. His eyes were a clear, pale blue, his color slightly darker and more murky, with faint stripe-like patterning in gray, making him look like he was underwater with sunlight filtering through ripples above him. Odd silver lines patterned his face and hind claws, like metallic tattoos. He had three tails, all hatchling-stubby and waving around energetically.

"And you," Tavarez replied gravely, bowing in return. Rowan giggled at the formality.

"Watch out, he's a real trickster," the boy warned, still grinning.

"You two will be holy terrors in the Aerd," Tavarez chuckled. "Come, since I missed the hatching, why don't we find someplace quieter and you can tell me all about it?"

::He's starving,:: Xetele piped up wickedly. ::I already ate, but he was just complaining at me about it before he saw you.::

"'Tele!" Rowan exclaimed, flushing. Tavarez just laughed, and led the way to somewhere humanoids could eat, rather than the hatching chamber where only the dragons had food set out for them.

A few minutes later saw them seated in the dragonry's mess hall, Rowan well on his way through a very large sandwich and Xetele beside him taking snatches now and then, himself. Only his central head ate, interestingly, the other six stealing only to worry with their sharp little teeth and then drop their prizes, or offer them to the central head, who would reject them as often as not. Tavarez waited patiently for Rowan to think of something other than food-- growing boys were very focused like that, he'd noticed-- for the tale. He'd heard a few abbreviated tales of the bipedra, but most of them had been focused on one incident or another, and none of them had told of what might have happened to a certain winged boy-- and Tavarez did like to see what became of his "searches"!

"You're sure quick enough now!" Rowan complained lightly when Xetele's muzzle darted in to steal a piece of cold meat right out from between the bread pieces of his sandwich.

::Making up for taking so long to hatch,:: Xetele grinned.

"Taking so long?" Tavarez repeated.

"Yeah, he was, like, one of the last to hatch," Rowan grumbled around a full mouth. "So I was stuck out there during almost the whole thing."

::It's not as if it was boring,:: Xetele pointed out.

"Well, true... I got attacked! Twice! --Well, sort of twice" Rowan seemed to find that something to be proud of. Tavarez would have flicked an ear towards him skeptically, if he could have.

"You certainly look whole, for being attacked by a bipedra hatchling," he commented dryly.

"Well, the first one didn't actually hurt me much," Rowan admitted. "And the second one didn't even touch me-- it didn't get that far." At Tavarez's patiently curious expression, he readily continued. "Well, see, first, one of 'Tele's sisters kicked me an' knocked me over. Said I was in her way, or something! Got kinda scraped up, there," he added, holding up one torn sleeve, showing shallow scratches from a bipedra hatchling's hind foot on his forearm. It didn't look bad, so Tavarez nodded and let the boy continue. Very few who weren't very good at defending themselves walked away from the Black Sands without some sort of injury.

::She was just a brat, that's all,:: Xetele commented airily, though he couldn't have known: he hadn't even hatched at the time. ::Takes after our mother, I expect.::

"Who's telling this story, here?" Rowan snapped, but without malice. Xetele stuck out six tongues at him-- one mouth was gnawing absently on the table-top-- and Rowan stuck one out, back, before continuing. "So there was that. Then-- then!" He grinned. "There was this black, spotted one. It was gonna pounce me-- and I woulda trounced it, too," he interrupted himself with a frown. "--but it didn't even get to pounce. This-- rabbity-looking one. It pounced, first! Knocked it over, and started fighting. I was gonna help-- I mean, I thought maybe the rabbity one might be mine."

::As if,:: Xetele snorted.

"Hey, my best friend's a squirrel, so it could happen."

::Nope. You're all mine, not some rabbit's.::

"Well, anyway, so they were fighting, and I was gonna go help, but then-- a monster showed up!" From the expression on Rowan's face, this wasn't a bad kind of monster. "I thought I'd made it up. I mean, here I was, all by myself in this big ole place full of hydra things that'd be a lot more fun to bug than just Kin. I've got a good imagination, and it's easier to be brave when yer baiting a hydra if you've you've got back-up, you know? Even if it's just pretend back-up."

Surprised by both the boy's frankness and his boldness-- baiting a hydra... what other kinds of things did this boy do for fun?-- Tavarez nodded agreement, brows up.

"So I'd imagined this really cool monster thing. Big sword, all feathery, starry eyes, wings, sharp teeth, the works. It was cool. And somehow it got turned real! I dunno how, but it did! It even knew me-- smiled at me, even!" He sounded like he didn't believe it-- who would?-- but how could one disbelieve when he had seen the "monster" himself? "So it helped the rabbit-bipedra and chased away the other bipedra, and bonded the rabbit-one, itself. I haven't seen it since, though," he added, a little forlornly.

"Maybe you'll see it later, if it's something you dreamt up yourself," Tavarez suggested.

"I hope so," Rowan agreed fervently. "Anyway, after that, I had to wait a long time. It wasn't boring, really, but I was getting kind of impatient. I mean, come on! There were hardly any eggs left! I didn't wanna come all the way here, get nearly mauled to death a couple times, and then go home with nothing." He heaved a sigh, and one of Xetele's lesser heads reached over to nibble at his ear. "Cut that out," Rowan said, laughing a little and waving the muzzle away.

"Well, you obviously do have something to show for it," Tavarez chuckled.

::That's me,:: Xetele commented mournfully. ::Nothing more than a trophy-dragon to show all his friends and brag about.::

"That's not true!" Rowan exclaimed, throwing an arm around his dragon impulsively. Another of the lesser heads dove for his side, nibbling ticklingly, and he let go just as quickly, laughing and squirming.

::I know,:: Xetele said smugly. ::I'm just messing with you.::

"So Xetele finally bonded me-- and he tricked me then, too!" Rowan accused, playfully.

::He was so easy,:: the hatchling bragged, mouth gaping in a dragon's grin.

"I won't be so easy, in the future," Rowan warned, then added for Tavarez, as an afterthought, "That egg you gave me hasn't hatched yet."

"Give it a few days more," Tavarez suggested with a patient smile. "Then, I suspect, you'll have your hands will with two hatchlings."

Rowan grinned, back. "My friends'll be so jealous!"

Xetele just snorted and stole another bite of his sandwich.

Chapter Five

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