The Hallowed Silk Breeding Project

Once the Rookery had been established, it was time for Keenan to make good on his 'agreement' with Baeris and Kalkin: they would want a permanent and obvious tie between the Rookery and Healing Den, and thus by extension the Kshau Protectorate overall. They'd informally - but Vortally - agreed on 'an in-kind' trade-off, and for the pair of genetic engineers that meant donation of DNA and the production of what would become a person bridging the dragonries.

Keenan didn't want to do this, not again - he'd already dealt with this kind of thing before, it was time someone else important to the project stepped up. That someone would be his highly-modified clone, Wilson Carver. Was he asked beforehand? Well... maybe? He's never minded actually having children made from him, he's just always worried about how they are made (because well, when you're as ridiculously strong as he is, traditional baby-making is a delicate subject and not one he likes to address). Working with Baeris, Melissa and on occasion some few others with expertise in the field, started looking for just who to pair the imposing man with. Someone from the Kshau Protectorate proper. Melissa pointed out that with the inclusion of the Medusa and Icarus devices found on site in her dimension, this partner could be anyone. Male, female, engineered, natural, didn't matter to her. She could mix anything. Up until then, however, Baeris had not yet met Wilson, at least not in that dimension. So on Baeris looking him over with that same appreciative eye almost everyone would, he puffed up like a peacock - oh, how often she'd seen that pose on...

They knew it needed to be a Sanger. And not Baeris - nope, she was not going to be having Yet Another Baby for this (Melissa looked it up, she'd already had a dozen children and half of those before she'd left Pern's environ?! Without embryonic extraction? Yikes, woman, no wonder!). Even though she's both a Kshau and a Sanger, Baeris started looking at the man that first voiced this idea: Kalkin. But the thing with him is that his mind is not overly suited to dragon-bonding in the first place, this feature having been ruined by his assailant in his formative years. But the multiverse is filled to the brim with Sangers of a huge variety. There are Zekiran ones, Equestria-born steeds, even cartoon character Sangers. The one they realized would make the best and most suitable donor for this project was 'Crazy Doc' Sanger, rider of Umpteenth, residing permanently - though not originally from - Carramba High on Twoarth. These two men, Wilson and Van, share quite a bit in common - and it's probably lucky that Wilson was 'born into the Vahh clan' because he would absolutely fit in with the Sangers given his history. (They'd already glommed on to Moraga Vasquez, over at Carramba.)

No, Wilson and Van did not get busy. This is to Van's disappointment, but you can't win them all, you scoundrel. The child produced from this unusually testosterone-ridden pair is Velasco Carver - named for Wilson because his place is among the Rookery riders, for the most part. He was produced in the Healing Den, and remained there for an actual childhood: time is different there, a location frozen in time in the same way that those in Keenan's stasis space might be. Time passes internally, but it exists outside of any other dimension's flow. Thus when Velasco was 'done' growing up (there was talk of putting him in Carramba's system, but he was already far too advanced for the high school's classes to even be of interest to him... at age 9) they revisited the idea of how best to tie the Protectorate with the Rookery. But they had a problem: there were very few dragons actually coming to or even out of the Protectorate any more. It had been years, possibly decades, since the last hatchings and bonding ceremonies. They worked up a solution.

That would be: to make a dragon worthy of this kid. There had already been hints that some of the disparate dragons residing in the Rookery would be pairing up - but leaving it to chance like that was not good enough. Melissa and Baeris pored over their records of arrivals, bonds, all the dragons in the Rookery for the right ones. It was clear that both the Sangers dragons - Van's and Kalkin's - would want to be involved (and subsequently slightly disappointed as they too 'didn't get to get busy') so that was a starting point. The ladies had specifics in mind, but it wasn't until the arrival of some Pyrrhan dragons that all of it gelled into a true project. Late in RY2 an encounter with Renee's hybrid Rain-Icewing Vra'ell led them to realize: Rainwings can color shift. Wilson's granddaughter Darly's dragoness, Chaen, glowed. Zappy bits from Umpteenth, smart and intense bonding from Sixth... And keeping it in the 'family' so to speak, since many involved with the Rookery had earlier contributed to the Color Guard going to Carramba: Baeris's 'daughter' Hyacinth's lovely water-born dragon Neelua would complete this picture. Shard even signed off on this: how blue can you get? Quite, in fact! Best kind! (Says he, a blue skinned man leading his entire Protectorate from the shoulders of an equally blue dragon!)

To be fair, the resulting dragon is a one-off prototype - an example, a proof of concept which worked wonderfully. They did keep the base genes and their mixure on hand just in case it was needed again in the future, but Gebavix Darelth was created for Velasco specificially as a search and transport dragon. Not huge, not small; easy on the eyes, fun to watch... Though he's a little pointier in places than they intended, Geba is ideal for this bridge to be complete.

Then they started eyeballing other projects. And because another Mel-Adjacent arrived in RY4-ish, requiring another dragon built to spec, the Hallowed Silk project became an ongoing development at both Healing Den and Rookery sites. Most of the dragon DNA being collected for this purpose is done on site at the Rookery, but all dragons after RY5 have had samples taken - and some, agreements made to use them wisely. Because a number of dragons have strong magic use, spellcasting, and other such non-Vortal components to their power sets, their offspring must be specifically trained in its use. This has never stopped anyone from the Den, and it certainly wouldn't stop Melissa... Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, after all.

But why is it called "Hallowed Silk"? Because quite a few of the participants in the more formal RY5+ groups bear striking orange, black, violet, and green coloration, and variations on those seem to be a multidimensional 'Halloween' theme. Also, because many of the Pyrrhan dragons involved are Silkwings or hybrids. Also, also, because originally all of these were meant to be adoptables on Deviantart but no one even hinted they would want any so fuck them, they're all mine until proven otherwise.

The Project's Long Term Goals

Because more colorful and varied dragons have been coming to the Rookery, and the size of their overall territory expanded, by the time some naturally-occurring clutches had been laid, both genetic engineers had the itch to keep this up. While both Baeris and Melissa had had extensive time apart, they picked right up again as though absolutely nothing had changed since the moment Velasco was bonded to Gebavix. This time, with the intent to provide a dragon to befriend Journey's son Peregrine. Mel and Journey - with only minor and later help from his father 'Local' Lane - had raised the boy in his own specifically created timeless construct. As had the prior rider Velasco, he would be given a dragon unique to the project above and beyond any remaining DNA samples.

This page will keep track of the pairs created by the project as well as any 'naturally' occurring clutches/litters found among the Rookery dragons. Some older dragons most certainly have extensive breeding but those records may or may not have any impact here, save for some of their distant kin coming back to haunt them... In the chart below, "Year" refers to Rookery Year. Notably, some paired dragons did also induce a very Old World result in the form of their riders hooking up - some longer term than others - and producing children that actively bonded to one of their own dragons' offspring!