If you didn't know they weren't, the general asumption would be that James and Thomas are brothers. However, Captain Ward is not related to his guitar-weilding bandmate Davies. They both attended the same schools, concerts and band events. They both dress in black, toe to top, but Tom wound up remaining in school a bit longer and has only 6 years of experience to James' 7 on the force. Tom's specialty rests in chemicals and explosions - he likes fires, but the kinds that you can put out the hard way. He loves playing with chemicals, and is never elected to drive when they have to retrieve a bomb. He drives like a madman.
Tall and skinny like Davies, Tom has slightly more normal caucasian skin tone, a broad jawline, and while his haircut is 'mod' he keeps his eyes under prescription sunglasses at all times - mostly to look good. It's not a well known secret, Tom's eyes are very sensitive to light, but he can distinguish many more colors than the rest of the 'normal' folk can. Tom is very proud of his Evil Shoes, as well as his bass guitar. Don't touch it. Those evil shoes will wind up somewhere very uncomfortable.
The band that he and Jim front is a kind of retro-mod-Ska thing called the GraveDigger Five*. Though they are quite good at their day-jobs, these guys truly put on a great show.
NOTE had been at Weyr Eriol but I have deprecated this yakima-made dragon and replaced it with a very logically gothy dragon of my own...
Doll made in 2026 on Meiker's Inquisition Style maker
---
Of course, Thomas has to have a black flit. This moody little boy grooves on his shoulder but remains silent at all times.
Decembember is his name. Don't ask why.
Egg hatched from Darkling Dawn Weyr!
The Healing Den's Abandoning was an adventure and a half. Well, at least half an adventure. Thom was annoyed because everyone kept asking him why he wore his sunglasses indoors. He'd long since trained the folks at the station not to ask, or for the n00bs to be told in advance so they didn't bother him.
Here, he felt kind of like he should be wearing a t-shirt that said, "they're prescription, stop asking me." But then again... Did half the people (and sometimes he had to use the term loosely because weren't there some odd things running around at places like this?) even read English?
He was glad he brought his bass, and glad that he had a new little dark flying friend to keep him company. He could practice without an amplifier, tapping his Evil Shoes against the solid floor for time, and humming a tune while imagining himself on the stage at the nearby pub.
Not that he'd ever trade his day job, but that night job sure was fun.
** 2026: Tom has been retroactively given a different dragon, and time-traveled to the Healing Den for the actual Abandoning though the story below can stand on its own. The dragon itself never grew from a hatchling.
It was a hot day, a day that Tom almost thought he was overdressed. But Decembember didn't think so, his claws dug into the turtleneck that Tom wore, and they stalked around in the halls looking cool together. Then, an excited bugle split the silence, and suddenly everyone and their brother were running down to the sands.
Tom strolled in, carefully took the white over-garment, and shooed Dece off to where the other waiting flitters sat. There were a good number of eggs, but there were also a number of fine candidates. Tom's stomach wrenched when the eggs began to crack open, and almost uniformly they disgorged duplicate or opposite dragons! Twins, in each egg? Almost every one...
But they kept coming, and kept walking past him. Most dragons didn't even bother looking around him. Maybe he was just too old for this. Maybe....
A bunch of eggs were broken, energetically, by one hatchling. So now a whole handfull of dragonets of every splayed color they came in, were trip-trooping across the sands. One of them, a nice normal looking brown, found his way to Thom's side. But the hazmat specialist wasn't looking down, he was still gazing around at the sands.
From his leg, Thom felt a tugging.
Hey! Hello! Down here! Adoth to Thom! Adoth to Tom Ward! The dragonet cried, while pulling on the dark pantleg that stuck out from the white candidates cloth. Feeed me!
The dragon finally caught his eye, and Tom swore that he looked all innocenty-cute. Great. But he knew the name, Adoth, and spoke it aloud. "Adoth, you are hungry. You're making me hungry. Let's get you fed, and then I can show you around."
That sounds like a plan, dark eye man.
Tom's thick eyebrow flickered. He had a rhyming dragon? He hoped that would be a phase...
***
He woke from a dream, an odd one, that he jolted from with a start. It was like having one of those no-pants-at-school dreams. Or flashbacks of his first retail job putting himself through college. The muscle memory was still, somehow, there. Standing on sands that he never had though? That was weird. He was in his mid-30s now, he was not a young 20ish candidate. To his recollection he'd never seen sands like those, his waking mind slowly dampened these strange half-imagined memories.
But he felt around on his night stand for his shades, yes they were there and yes even if it was night he'd put them on again.
Why would you dream about having another dragon, am I not enough for you?
He could smell the clove cigarette smoke drifting in from the dragon's ledge on the fire station's platforms, right outside his window.
"What if I did have another dragon, once? Something happened." Tom shook his head free from the odd sensation, but deja-vu crept around his memories.
You have always been mine, it was the Evil Shoes.
| Goth | Name: Goth -- from FinePrint 10 on the original Healing Den Abandoning -- Be sure to have a Frappachino handy, and if you really want to impress (not in the "classic" sense) this deep blue, you might want to know how to apply lots of black makeup. But don't establish eye-contact, "they" don't like that. If you've got a club-worthy makeup-professional with an eye or ear for long winded discussions about Absynthe, this is the one for you. -- from the fools-hatch - note that all have been returned to the Den anyway and thus Tom's presence was not listed, very shortly he would have come in to pick up the delightfully dramatic dragon. When the deep dark shadow beyond all shadows rose to his feet, the smell of Klah and clove smoke came drifting with him. Where he'd gotten another cup big enough to hold that vile brew that the dragon demanded was beyond Baeris. But she looked around and saw a trio of people step forward. Two males and one girl just behind them. She could hardly tell them apart, male or female. Most of them looked just... Skinny and pale to her. Underfed. Her maternal instincts still very strong with her still tending turn-old Lars, Baeris wanted to make sure those kids got some sunlight and ate something other than little klah-stand pastries and the occasional bit of sushi. -- addendum 2026: Gerald ... nor Sarra, were meant to be forever. Twice abandoned on distant sands, but Goth had an idea. He had a plan. He knew it would be risky but the reward would be worth while. He was very good at imagining things, this dragon. And because of that, also good at moving between dimensions. And he dwelled in dreams, finding memories or trauma that stuck inside those dreams. So when he spotted Tom Ward's grief, his sadness that a dragon that had by all rights been 'born for him' had simply wasted away... he went into action. He took his sister to find her own new friend, but this one... this would be his. And he went to great lengths to blot out this man's memories, but somehow, they kept returning. Only in dreams. But Tom was a good man, and he has let the past sit, for the most part. What might have been? Was never really there. But here and now? A creative dragon and a great bass player, you cannot ask for more. |
Lineage - none, progenitor
Mates and Descendants
| Location / Date | Partner | Offspring | Notes |
| . | |||
| Healing Den Fools Gather 2020s Edition | Black Gozulath | * |
All text is ©Lethe of Droppin the Fork 2003. Many images on this site (background and character) are from photographs taken by local news crews during the 2003 wildfires in Southern California. They are not meant as an infringement on the photographer - they are meant only as a tribute to the hard working firefighters and emt crews who are the pictures subjects. Any other images will be credited on the pages they appear.
*Yes, the Grave Digger Five are a real band, and yes, Tom really was in their band. He played a *slightly* bigger role than he's credited on the site, promoting their band at school. I even still have one of their first fliers for a show... Jim wasn't in the band, but fur real, Tom was.