* * The Hatching Feast * *
When all the dragons had been fed and put to bed, yawns reverberating off the walls, the girls headed down to feast. They sat next to eachother at a long table, Shan and MeLi on either side of MoogerMint, who sat with a large chunk of cheese in her mouth, gnawing on it. She stared blankly at the person in front of her, who was starting to feel very uncomfortable. Maybe it was the close proximity of all those people, making him feel unnaturally hot, or maybe it was the wine. MeLi watched him, saw his eyes flick between Moogz and his plate, eyebrow twitching, and decided that it was neither.
She glanced at her sister, a foamy, milky substance at the corner of her mouth. She's got all the luck. She gets to scare the guy in front of her, while I -- she glanced at the guy in front of her, who had been eyeing her all night. She glared, tempted to throw something wet and squishy at him. I have a weirdo flirting at me. WHY?! She picked at her food, a really yummy pasta salad, and considered each noodle, each bean, each olive. Projectile...projectile... And her fork... She envisioned stabbing herself in the neck with it, and decided it would be much more satisfying to stab him.
She lifted an eyebrow, looked up at the scary guy in front of her, and stabbed a piece of meat off a platter to her right. Without taking her eyes off him, she proceeded to slice a large chunk of meat and lift it to her mouth. She smirked; suddenly feeling encouraged his smile widened, until she savagely tore a piece off with her teeth. Lip curled, she continued to stare at him, enjoying it's juicy meatiness. Taking the hint, he cleared his throat and quickly left the table. Once she had swallowed, she laughed long and low. "Damn, that felt good."
"Hey man! Pass the ketchup!" ShanIon called down the table.
"Ketchup?"
MelberLime interjected. "Yeah. Red, tomato-based. Tastes vinegary. Also called catsup."
"Er, sorry, no ketchup."
"Dang, man. What kind of place is this?" Raising her voice Shan said, "Well do you have any barbecue sauce?"
"No, sorry."
"Yeah. Okay then, FINE! Do ya have any gravy?!"
"Gravy. Yes we have gravy."
MeLi perked up. "Ooh! Gravy! Pass it down! I love gravy."
"The gravy's mine! I asked for it first!" Shan glared at MeLi.
Through lowered eyelids, MeLi returned the glare. "We share in this family." She lifted an eyebrow again and smirked.
With the latest plate of food, full of protein and dairy products, ShanIon's hyperactivity seemed to increase. Bouncing in her chair, she began to sing. "I've got a lov-e-ly bunch of coconuts, deedly-dee, and there they are a standing in a row..." MoogerMint, through her catatonia, supplied the base. "Big ones, small ones, one's as big as your he--ack!"
Palm of her hand pressed firmly to the top of Shan's head, MeLi said calmly, "Stop. You're done. Right?"
"Yeah, sure." ShanIon hunched over her plate, scooping up a large spoonful of gravy-drenched potatoes. MeLi thought she was safe to enjoy her food until... "Boingy...boingy...boingy...boiiiingyyy...." Shan found herself bouncing in her chair, in all sorts of directions.
A few times she bounced diagonally into Moogz, who hardly noticed, mumbling softly, "boi...nnngeeey...boing...bo...iiing."
The man in front of Moogz had disappeared. MeLi was starting to feel sorry for him. But who would feel sorry for her?
ShanIon continued to bounce, caught up in a rhythm not altogether of her making. The music from the dance floor was making her body move on its own. Scooting out her chair once, she bounced off and away from the table. She continued to bounce off down the hall, spinning and twirling at odd moments; any passersby became convinced that she had lost her sanity, and felt sorry for her new bond. Until they remembered just who that was.
"They are right for eachother," they'd say.
In this fashion, she got to know the various hallways quite well, keeping would-be predators away by her mere oddness. She was quite safe; she intended it that way.
One hallway in particular, a dank, poorly-lit one, intended to prove her wrong. Misjudging a particularly sharp corner, ShanIon proceeded to careen into the rock face. But before she made contact, something cold and wet, with the consistency of thickened milk, splashed into her, covering her head to toe. Her body hit the wall with a sickening splut! and through that sound came the unmistakable tittering of laughter. With a flutter of wings, something dark, something perhaps purplish, disappeared with a silvery glint of something boxy.
Shan peeled herself off the wall, eyes rolling wildly in her head. It took a moment for her eyesight to straighten, and two moments to realize that the thick wet substance was kelly-green paint. "What the..." Stepping backward, she noticed a slight indent in the stone, and the spattered but unmistakable outline of her now brightly-colored body. With a high-pitched snicker, she whipped out a felt-tipped marker, "permanent ink, heh, heh," and signed it.
"Gashundheit, Mister Dragon-sir"
~by ShanIon Dopp rider of Sunset-Winged Iridescent Green Tekerinaereth.
"Muahahaha. Body art." With that, she tore off down the hall, and at the next intersection, jumped off a wall and continued bouncing.
* * *
Yawning widely, MoogerMint stumbled sleepily down the hall. Her eyes felt gluey, lids too heavy to stay open. "Bed..." she moaned, rubbing her eyes. She muttered something angrily under her breath. She was lost and she knew it. She didn't recognize any of these halls. She didn't recognize any of the halls she should have known, but that was beside the point! She wanted to sleep, she wanted to snuggle up with her dragon and her fuzzy-wuzzy winged tiger Kolo, and she wanted to do it now!
Before she fell asleep on her feet.
She sighed, feet dragging across the floor. If she kept going, she was bound to find someone.
At the next bend, she looked at the wall, blinking in disbelief. She rubbed her eyes, shook her head, and slapped her cheeks. "I'm not dreaming, am I?"
She was not. There before her, was indeed a damp, life-sized, bright-green indentation in the wall, the size and shape of her sister. "Shan...?" Frowning, she stepped forward and inspected it. It was signed, it was named. "Yep, definitely Shan." She sighed. "Well, I must be on the right track..." she muttered, and followed her sister's dripping green trail back to the barracks.
The trip took several hours, winding their way through the halls as they did, often backtracking upon themselves, so that by the time she made it to bed, MoogerMint was anything but sleepy.
* * *
It was the middle of the night. That much was certain, for the majority of the Cathair had retreated to their rooms. As usual, MelberLime wasn't sleepy, but she was most assuredly bored. She yawned.
Earlier she had considered reading a book, but this trip off-asteroid had outshined any of her favorite fantasy writers, that they all suddenly seemed...dull. Monotonous. The very thought that there were dragons in the world (which she had already known, but she had never met one, let alone bonded to one!) made it so. Who wants to read about fictional creatures when the real thing is so much more exciting? She had considered drawing, but there was simply too much to see for her to pick any one subject. Perhaps I should have brought a camera, she considered.
That left her guitar, which required her to return to the barracks. She felt rather embarrassed though, since the Cathair was full of bards who actually knew how to play. She was self-teaching guitar, which made for bitter ear-candy. So she watched and listened, finally with the departure of her sisters, able to enjoy mounds and mounds of food, until the later hours.
And that put her here, with nothing to do.
She thought of The Barn then, wondering what would become of her wards in her absence. The foozet she had just acquired would need regular bandaging. Grendel liked to exercize, unlike the image most people associate with turtles, he was quite speedy. And Kermit, well he'd be fine by himself. So would Grendel, she supposed. And then there was the strange little Tscheem, whom she had seen nothing of before her departure. I wonder where he is? I hope he's not causing trouble for Captain Fhilsimian...
And speak of the devil, for he was demon-like in form, who should appear, but Tscheem himself. He fluttered in front of MeLi, gibbering in happy little tones. She held him and he stopped flapping his fairy wings to snuggle up to her chin.
"And where have you been, little guy? I never got to see you before we left." The creature's abilities were amazing, one of which was very similar to those which Danachians called dragonchen: instant teleportation.
Tscheem's reply was typical, a little warbling tscheem sound. He could understand her, but he refused to let her know that. No one was to know who had thrown that bucket of paint... No one! So he kept up his little charade, hoping ShanIon would never put two-and-two together.
"Well, I was going to head to bed soon," MeLi said to him, "might as well do that now." He made an affirmative sound, and she carried him off down the hall, the direct way to the barracks.