We met this Sanger in prison, in page 5.

Violetta chirped excitedly, her wings fluttering. She never got bigger than perhaps the span of two stretched hands, including her wings fully open. Perched on the Inmate's shoulder, she suddenly scrambled toward the door leaving a couple feathers drifting down before Van's eyes.

"Now what?" He asked. The man he was tending, having aquired a job in the infirmary that would allow him to stay within his profession while he also served out the rest of his terms, laughed.

"That thing is so weird..." he said. "Wonder what's that all about."

"So do I," Van said. "Don't go anywhere," he said. It was clearly a joke - because the guy had a broken foot. The Inmate walked out to the hallway, and followed the chirping.

"They're back," said a guard, "obviously for you," he let the tall tanned man by. The courtyard was crowded again, as it had been two years ago. But things change in two years: the guards were different, they had to be explained again what was going on. The warden wasn't there, he was on a trip.

And Jon had died. Opening up a new kind of life for this Van Sanger, one he wasn't really prepared to live yet.

Izzy dropped from Cephari's shoulder, looking more confident and mature than he had the last time these two met. Plus there was a different dragon with them - electric blue Umpteenth, which Carramba's Sanger rode. Between the two of them these men had a little gift exchange going.

"We know this might be a little late, it's hard to judge time passage between worlds," Izzy said, "but we'd like to wish you a happy birthday."

The Inmate's eyebrows shot up, and a few of the locals started hooting and laughing. Few people shared that kind of information here, but no one bothered messing with this Van. No one. Who would? They'd only end up with him as a doctor, later on...

The pair of otherworldly Sangers handed him another egg.

"Oh great, two of them?" He muttered with a smile. Again, it was ready to hatch. For some reason, Violetta was hyperactive and pushy - she bit Van's ear in her desire to have the egg hatch more quickly.

"I'm not going to pull the little thing from its egg!" He said to the rukel, who calmed a little but still was all afluff with excitement. When the egg finally did hatch fully, it revealed a second rukel!

"The... same breed?" Van asked, and Crazy Doc nodded.

"Yeah, we figured that Violetta might get lonely." He said.

This one was different in so many ways, everything other than color! With black trim instead of blue, and butterfly type wings, split tail and little antennae... And male, this one was male. For some reason, Van blurted out, "Betelgeuse."

Both Izzy and Crazy Doc stood there with weird expressions on their faces. The same weird expression. ".... Betelgeuse? Isn't that a big name for such a little creature?"

"Well, he's making this little girl very happy," the Inmate replied. Violetta had planned ahead, apparently having scrounged through the bins for meat scraps. Did she know this was going to happen? Van didn't care - all he knew was now, the little rukels would have hours of fun chasing each other down the halls - and probably making everyone else a bit happier in the process.

"So, how are you?" Asked Crazy Doc.

"Doing well. He died this summer, you know. Finally. Heart gave out." They nodded, that was becoming a relatively common theme: but still, no one knew whether it was suicide or simple heart failure. At this point, no one really cared, either.

"So are you coming with us this time?" Asked Izzy.

"No, I have a job here, the infirmary. But... Some day, perhaps. I've got another ten on my term here, we'll see."

"You could just fly away, man," said one inmate nearby, overhearing the conversation. "They came before, why didn't you go?"

"Because sometimes I believe I deserve to be here?" Van answered, and while the other inmates perhaps didn't know what that meant, the other Sangers did.

"We'll be back for you later, then. You don't have to meet this world and argue with it about what to do next," Crazy Doc said, "you can find a new one, or go between them like we do. There's more to the universe than meets the eye."

"I am positive there is," the Inmate said. He watched the riders fly off, and then, smiling, went back inside with his two little violet colored rukels.

Eventually, Van decided that his stay had reached its end. It was only five years of the ten he quoted, but enough had changed with the prison and its inmates, that he no longer felt he was of good use. That, and the newer staff members weren't all that thrilled with having him on board. Tainted by old impressions and news coverage, Van's life would never - ever - be normal again, everyone knew him only as that doctor who slaughtered people.

He had started communicating with the other Sangers, through a device that one of them had built and handed off during a short visit a year or two before. Somehow it allowed a connection between universes that was rather like a cellphone, only better. Text messages, when he didn't want to talk. Voicemail when they wanted to leave him an update but had little more to say.

The Sangers were rather efficient at this. When you're all the same guy, it's not that hard to imagine what you'd want, right?

They knew all along that once the seed was planted, Inmate Van would want to befriend a dragon. So they waited for his request to leave eagerly. It was morning, on a day when Van would be outside in the exercise yard. His two rukels on his shoulders, sharing a twittering conversation, he pressed a couple buttons and waited.

Not more than five minutes later, the same two riders appeared as always - Izzy with his lovely Wind Drak Cephari, and Carramba's Van on Umpteenth. Both of them beaming, they simply stood there waiting for him to approach. The Inmate chose Umpteenth to ride, unsure of how he'd fit on a drak's four-winged back.

"We're glad you finally decided to--"

"The HELL is going on here?" Bellowed a guard, gun out, and begining to aim.

"Leaving, bye," Carramba Van said with a chipper but worried smile. They heard a gunshot but it rang out into empty space - the drak and dragon had ported back to the Healing Den in the time it took to pull the trigger.

***

"There is a project, we're pretty sure the results will be of interest to you," Kalkin said, holding out a sheet of colorful paper with some images on it. "Treval City is working on a specific breed, this one's sire is a drak, like Cephari, but we're not sure if the results will all be drak-winged, or what. It's worth investigating at least."

"I'll take it," Inmate Van said, "it says 'bonding optional', what would that imply?"

"That the drak-side of them," Izzy said, "would not require a mental bond. You might be able to ease yourself into true bonding, if you sponsor first. Drak mindspeak is easier than true dragon telepathy," he glanced at Kalkin, who agreed with a chuckle.

So off they went to Treval, sure that he'd get a spot on the clutch sands.

She stood by his side resolute, glaring up at her mother with big eyes which reflected the same color as her mottled hide.

"I choose him!" Maldula said, nudging Van's hand. She was still wet from the shell but knew speech was important. She knew very well that her bond partner had trouble with mental speech. Her dam was irate.

He is a convicted criminal, my daughter, what are you thinking?

"I am thinking of him!" She reared up a little and Van went to steady her.

"It's all right, Maldula," the ex-con Van said softly. "I will take good care of her, better than you'd imagine." He looked with absolute love in his eyes at the young hatchling half-drak. "She's the first thing I could call mine in decades. That means a lot to me."

Fine, but if you lead her into something dangerous or bad... She was still a bit angry that her marked-Rain daughter would choose so oddly. But then, her own mate's ancestry was like that, weren't they. Hmph.

***

"She brought us here, not me," Van said to another of himself. Crazy Doc Sanger stood smiling at the edge of the building, watching his otherworldly doppleganger as he attempted to remain as close to his dragon friend as possible - and not the edge of the building.

"Yeah this place... It's pretty up here though, if you just look far off and not right up close." Crazy Doc's dragon Umpteenth sat relaxed on the roof of the local Alabaster building, where another of their breed had 'broken reality' with one of his devices. Dragons congregated at this place frequently, drawn in by the shining beacon in the Nexus. It was brighter sometimes than the Healing Den, many Nidus, or even the souls of those departed into the Nexus forever.

Inmate Van gathered up his courage. He'd had to re-learn how to be outside, for one thing. That was something that obviously the dragoness was going to force upon him whether he liked it or not: she had to be outside to fly, right? He'd spent more than half his life confined indoors, sometimes in cells no bigger than his outstretched arms (and sometimes, ones much smaller than that). And like other Sangers he was truly terrified of heights. Not to mention that 'never learned to swim' thing. How could one get around on a dragon and not expect to fly high in the sky, dive into fish-filled-lakes, or soar over the vast empty plains?

Well, Van wasn't sure what to think about any of it, but he was willing to try and that was enough for his dragoness friend. She was indeed much more than a sponsorship - it was clear that hers was a permanent bond. But her mind was able to detatch from harming his delicate brain, she sensed the pain that went through his mind whenever she spoke telepathically to him. So she reserved those things for emergencies and times when she got the feeling that he'd take it well.

The top of this building was therefore no place to be mentally muddling with him. He was scared, Maldula knew that much by the way she saw the whites around his blue eyes. So she went and stood by the bigger blue (Umpteenth had grown quite good sized for a blue after all, perhaps it matched his riders ego) and rested.

He'll come around, don't worry, bespoke Umpteenth, He's a good one. You're quite pretty, you know. Like Cephari. I like her.

Who is that? asked Maldula. Umpteenth gave her an image in her mind, of Izzy's drak. Yes, she is like me, but not like me at all. We are both Rains but I have markings.

I have markings too, Umpteenth reminded the drak-mutt. She perked up at that, and with a little tilt of her head, Maldula grinned.

Well I wonder how they'd look together. She took to the skies, and both Crazy Doc Sanger and Inmate Van stood dumbfounded as the pair just up and mated in the skies over Alabaster.

"Well crap, I guess that means we're gonna have babies," Inmate said, with a big grin.

Name: Maldula'Taykah

Gender: female
Species: Tavrayn/Pernese/SCD/Drak Mutt
Height: 5'9"
Color: Rain
Eye Color: Bronzed-Gold
Special Markings: Gold Splotches
Magic: Low Spell Magic
Abilities: Verbal Speech, Teleportation, Acid
Drak Personality Trait: Impulsive, often sneaky
Going With: 'Inmate' Van