Rythrys had said that bonding didn't solve any problems. Ssubyrsyn had said that it only created new ones.

Both of them were quite right.

"Aaack, Gilvuuuus!"

Ssubyr burst into laughter, falling over in his haste to scramble away from his bond's grabbing fingers. The little dragon, out of sheer boredom, had decided to try and tickle him, quite ruining his concentration. For the third time today. Rythrys hadn't had any idea his brother was quite so ticklish.

So much for Ssubyr's half-hearted suggestion that his bonding would help in their search for the mysterious Lant'ien. If Ssubyr had problems focusing before, they were nothing compared to now, with his flighty, distractible, energetic little kid of a dragon he'd attracted taking those own problems in Ssubyr and intensifying them.

Needless to say, they hadn't found anything worth anything yet, and it had already been six days since the hatching. They'd tried everything they could think of, even sent Gilvus and Ssubyr off to the new bonding class for a day or two in the hopes of learning something, but all that did was bore Gilvus and Ssubyr and make it even harder to concentrate. At least Sythwyr and the others were too busy finding other part-bloods-- none of them so far worth even talking to-- and otherwise being distracted by the busy, exciting space station to get impatient with them.

Well, Ssothrysaa was getting impatient, but he was often impatient with his brother when he was at his flightiest, and Gilvus was only making things worse. Rythrys had already had to intervene in a bickering match twice, just today.

Ssubyr turned the tables on his new bond, pouncing and tickling again, turning Gilvus into a laughing, squirming, kicking mess of fur, gems, and translucent wings.

"Aren't you two ever going to get serious?" Rysaa demanded from across the room, where he was sitting with Neve on the couch with a book, once the giggling had died down and the pair had flopped together on the rug.

"Aren't you ever going to have fun?" Gilvus retorted cheerfully. At first he'd taunted Neve, as well-- until she'd proved that she could be just as devious as he with a well-placed bucket of water or a well-timed prod in the tail.

"We've got a job to do-- Ssubyr has a job to do," Rysaa corrected with a frown.

"It's so dull though!" Gilvus complained, sitting up to scratch at one ear with a hind paw, dog-like. "Just sitting there for hours and hours!"

"We need to find Lant'ien," Rythrys spoke up neutrally. "He could be a danger to himself or others at worst, and generally unhappy at best."

"So you have to sit for hours and hours?" Gilvus exclaimed. "What do you need me for, I'm no good at scrying stuff!"

"It's not as if he's helping," Rysaa agreed with a sniff.

"It's even more boring without you," Ssubyr said, a hint of pleading in his voice.

Gilvus pouted, but he did flop across Ssubyr's lap rather than flouncing off. Even if they were annoying to people who wanted to get things done, they really did like each other and get along well. Ssubyr was happy. That was important, at least.

"So you want me to sit there and try and help again?" Gilvus sighed.

"If you have a better idea, feel free to share it," Rysaa said irritably. Neve elbowed him lightly for his rudeness, and he subsided with a mutter that none of them could really make out, but which Neve rolled her eyes at.

"Can't you look for this guy some other way?" Gilvus complained.

"Star City's a huge place," Rythrys sighed. "We'd never find anyone just looking. If that were possible, Sythwyr and the others probably would have found him by now, themselves." The fact that they hadn't was a little disturbing, actually: a part-blood who was as unbalanced as Rysaa said this Lant'ien was, who didn't scream to their senses and computers of his kinship and need to be found? There was something wrong with that.

"So use the computer system, or something," Gilvus suggested, rolling over onto his back and thumping his tail on the carpet. Ssubyr obligingly tickled his belly, which didn't really tickly but made him wriggle happy across his knees.

"We have been," Rythrys reminded him. "Ffadoratha's at the computer almost all the time."

"But not the station's computers," Neve said suddenly.

"How would that help?" Ssubyr asked, mystified. "They aren't made to look for sythyn blood, are they?"

"No, but they might have a directory of people living on this ship," Neve said, sounding pleased. "Or some other way to search for his name. We had something like that in Driolo, for the school. It's worth a look, isn't it?"

Gilvus rolled back over and onto his paws, grinning. "Yeah! See, that's a lot more interesting than sitting there and trying to get the air to talk to you!"

"All right, Neve," Rythrys said, standing up, too. "Show us how to look for someone on a computer."

"Be glad to!" Neve beamed, and they all left the apartment together in search of one.

Chapter Fifteen

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