Taijitu and their bonds enjoyed the attention that they got on campus, though some of the other dragons were quite put off by the weirdly conjoined creature. While the older and more traditional Pernese dragons hardly spoke or even acknowledged Taijitu, some of the younger upstarts actively tried badgering them. Every once in a while a couple would try distracting each head, Yin and Yang separately. To no avail, however... Because not only were Taijitu just together enough not to find it 'distracting' (rather, more refreshing that they each had something to do), but their respective bonds were always looking out for such things. With a few bemused and well placed comments aimed at the male riders, Magg could cause their dragon to withdraw to comfort their rider... And pretty much the same went for female riders and Anima's veiled (or not so veiled) advances.
They want distractions, they got em...
So it went through the end of the year. Taijitsu wasn't fully grown by that time, and it was obvious that it would take a lot more time before they were ready to fly. It wasn't that they could not coordinate their wings on each side, it was their wing strength still needed a lot of work before their long, slinky body could leave the ground well. Plus, they were quite large, even in the half-year since their hatching they towered above most heads of other dragons. Their adult size would be enormous, but both Anima and Magg reveled in that too.
They would trade off, mood dictating which head they'd pay more attention to or hop on their neck. Hollis had to admit that the foursome of personalities meshed beautifully, more so than almost any dragon rider pairs he'd ever seen. Their patience for the antics of their classmates was almost infinite, many other students would have broken down into tears, or gone into a rage with those annoyances.
It was during the post-Finals rush of graduation for some, re-application for many, and college for still others, that Hollis brought himself up to the dragonry at the school.
He noted that the dorm shared by this weird group was an organized disaster - there were books everywhere from their studies, paperwork from applications and the like, notes of all kind, along with artwork they'd collected or made, musical instruments, and such scattered on the floor and any flat surface. But Hollis (and perhaps only he, a less discerning eye would have missed it) noted that they were all put down in the order that their classes occurred. The pair would probably pick up a pile of stuff and cycle through the room during the day. And beyond that: they were in alphabetical order.
He smiled to himself, and gave a little whistle. "Hey, anyone home?"
Taijitu trundled around the corner, into the semi-messy chamber (there was a wide swath of space, obviously Taijitu was used to greeting visitors) and cheerfully exclaimed, "it's Hollis! Did you bring us something?"
"Always," Hollis said, "though this time it's something a little... different."
Taijitu clapped, "we like different!" By this time, Anima and Magg had appeared from their room. They looked, as always, slightly disheveled and slightly like they'd been doing the horizontal bop - but they looked that way when they entered a classroom too, so that was hardly an indicator.
They chatted for a moment, Hollis was pleased to hear that the pair had gotten high scores in almost all their subjects, and would be on for classes next year (the applications assured that). Then, Hollis indicated they should go to the fields below.
There, a smallish group of people had gathered already, around what appeared to be a young dragon. Taijitu was excited, curious and eager to get by the group. They gave off a tittering cry, "move! We want to see!" Which cleared everyone around to a good distance.
Hollis led the humanoids up, saying, "well ... she? Appeared here just this morning. It was too late to get ... her? Registered for housing in the summer... And we thought that maybe you wouldn't mind putting ... her up for the summer?"
"Why do you keep saying it that way?" Anima asked, "she's a she - it's clear."
"I beg to differ, he's definitely male," Magg said, looking at Anima with a confused shake to his head. Before Anima started in on why he would say that, Taijitu surrounded the newcomer with their body.
"It's pretty obvious that they're both," Taijitu announced. "And hir name is Naayab, isn't it?"
The newcomer nodded. Shhee was being rather quiet, but allowed Taijitu to speak. "Shhee wants to apply for school."
"We wondered why sssshhhee," Hollis slowly wrapped his mouth around the new pronoun, "was here instead of Alabaster. Usually dragons that are alone will go there first."
"But shhee is not just a dragon," Taijitu said, placing hands on 'hips'. "That much should be obvious to even you."
Hollis' eyebrows went up, but he laughed anyway. "Well I guess it's all right that Naayab will be here with you. Be careful if you go anywhere this summer," he warned Anima and Magg. "There are ... those people around."
Magg and Anima looked at one another with wide eyes, and Magg whispered, "Vocorr is here?"
"They've always been here," Hollis said, "we've just learned the name of their organization though, don't worry. But be careful."
"I will protect us all," Taijitu said, fluttering their wings. Naayab the new dragonet came out from under the flourish of feathers and fur, barely squeezing by the dragon. "Oh, but not too closely," they said and nudged Naayab toward hir new room mates.
Naayab displayed a lot of traits in common with Taijitsu, inlcuding lots of legs. But shhee had more than just 'arms', shhee was clearly a 'taur' dragon of some sort. A few people claimed that they'd seen something like hir but no one could name from just where. To some, shhee was more Zekiran than anything else. That proved to be the important bit, at least when it came to figuring out who could best tutor the young dragon in hir powers and abilities.
Shortly after the school year fully let out and summer session began (Anima and Magg were taking this summer off now, deciding that spending this quality time with not 'one' but two young dragons was more important than trying to jam more classes into their brains), it came out that Naayab was a shapeshifter! So any Zekiran help would be good, and fortunately for the group there were such shifters on the campus year-round. Soon enough, the yearling dragonet had not only learned to fly (with Taijitu finally gaining the strength in their wings, and Naayab having massive flight muscles developed to lift hir weight) but had begun to learn how to reduce the size of hir wings, pull legs into themselves, and approximate a more four-legged 'taurtype.
That said, even the Zekiran Treason (who taught one of the shapeshifting courses) admitted shhee may never lose every limb and go bipedal. He encouraged hir to learn to create extra arms, wings and such, compensating for the lack of legs - a lot of Zekiran shifters would do that trick. It would take a while to learn, however. And fortunately for Naayab they had a lot of hours in the afternoon at the Carramba dragonry to mess around with this.
It also became clear after a while, just before the next year's first semester was to begin, that Taijitu were rather enamored of the bigendered dragon. They were around the same age, after all, even though one could trace their lineage and the other could not. It mattered not in the slightest to Taijitu that their future partner didn't even really know where shhee was from.
Hollis put his foot down on any activities that would lead to effectively a 'teen pregnancy' - and even though Carramba High had a great student-run preschool and childcare service for students in that situation as well as employees, Hollis managed to convince them all that they had best graduate first, all of them, before supplying the world with more many-limbed dragons.
So in the meantime, the dragons got their specialized classes, while Anima and Magg proved themselves able to adapt to life at Carramba.
They were wary, as always - since Hollis told them that Vocorr was present they never quite knew who was watching them. Neither of them let the other get too paranoid, but never quite relaxed around unfamiliar groups of people.
Of course, Taijitu and Naayab reassured them time and time again: that nothing would befall them while they were around!
