With a trendy hairstyle and exotic dress, Atropa strode into the local Goth club. Here, she felt more than just an ornament - here, she felt wanted. Her family loved her of course, but this was a mass of young men and women (and sometimes it was hard to tell the difference among them) who craved their own special attentions.

She drifted from table to table, kissing her 'friends' and grazing her fingernails across her lover's shoulder. He was a tall, decently handsome man with a square jaw and pale skin.

He took her home that night, ears still buzzing from the amplifiers in the club. She favored him with a kiss, then a dance of desire just for him. They made love, sweaty in the small apartment bedroom.

Exhausted, fevered already, Shane looked at his lover and smiled weakly. "You're so different from the other girls, Atropa," he said. "You're so much more real."

"You don't know what's real yet," she purred. Her saliva made his mouth dry - made his throat burn. He loved every minute of the excruciating atropine induced hallucination she gave him. When his body sparked up with a convulsion, she reduced her 'dose' and let him rest at last.

"Sleep, my love... Sleep and dream of me..." She said.

A beautiful day greeted Atropa. Her father had a special surprise for her.

"Your siblings are going to be headed out for dragons, have you decided where to go?" He asked, but there was a little grin on his handsome face, so she shook her head.

"No, I can't -"

"I know where to send you," he said. Henshuth arrived, his beautiful radioactively glowing dragoness. "We're going to Vella Crean."

After collecting her clothing and some personal items, Atropa and Virus flew off to the nexus world.

Atropa got the feeling that her father actually wanted to go there himself, just for some guy he'd met. Not to cheat on her mother - that wasn't really like him. Though in this case? Maybe it was. Shy the scientist was like, the most beautiful man she'd ever seen.

Was he human? He moved with an infernal grace, and was so delicate... She wanted to watch him all day.  But instead, Shy took Virus back to the lab, and Atropa was led into the main dragonry to meet up with the other candidates.

Almost disappointed, Atropa dully watched the goings on. She grew up with dragons, those of her parents and the older siblings. She knew how to take care of them, what skin disorders they would get, how to treat parasites. Breaks, burns, ailments... They were all the same to her.

She could cure them if she needed to. Finally she outright said that, in a class. And thankfully instead of being laughed at, as she knew some of her sibs had been before they proved themselves, she was taken seriously.

"She'll be standing for a dark court dragon," she heard someone say. "It's painfully obvious."

"There is nothing wrong with that," a woman's voice carried in the hall, "it's about time. We have to deal with them too. And she's in good hands, while I don't trust Virus as far as I could throw him, I do in a way, trust him to the dragons."

Atropa stood still, in the darkened corner where she'd been trying to spore something. It wasn't working, the halls were almost entirely free of loose dirt. The two speakers went by her without seeing her.

She wondered where her father had got to. Maybe just to ask about why he was staying on so long. Shy apparently was that entertaining?

He was cute, of course, but... She knew that her father wasn't "like that".

"I wish that you could remain still half a moment," Shy said, as Atropa entered the lab.

"Well if you'd stop probing like that I would just as easily be able to - Ah, Atropa my dear." Virus said, looking up from what looked like a dentists chair. There were long instruments, a lot like those found in the labs in their home.

"What exactly is that?" She asked. Shy smiled widely.

"This is a collection device," he said.

"Which I've told him he doesn't need to use with me, but he keeps ignoring me," Virus said almost with a growl.

"He's right you know," Atropa said, "he grew all my siblings in containers, you know. Just by looking at them." She paused, "or so I've been told," she grinned.

But not to be deterred, Shy continued to poke and prod around getting samples of all manner of Virus' cells. Hair, skin, saliva, whatever else was gotten in private... Perhaps he'd be growing something new.

Atropa smiled to herself. At least he'd be getting all the human-sided things. Her mother would never go for this treatment herself, and Atropa wondered if Shy had been told of her own unique origin. He'd go gonzo on her if he knew she was part plant...

***

Fortunately there wasn't much time to worry about whether Shy was going to want samples or time from Atropa. The clutch would be hatching, though it was very somber an occasion.

From what Atropa could gather, the sire of the clutch - and apparently the baby that the dam's rider bore - had died shortly before. Or maybe some time before, no one would tell her. Such mysteries. Atropa did feel the down side of human emotions around her, but surely - they were something she thrived upon. If she enjoyed playing with her human partners, there was something sinister about the way she touched them.

A pair of eggs shattered as the woman went into labor. How fitting, that they'd choose together like this. Atropa's eyes gazed at the greens, but neither was for her. Blandly, she thought about what might happen should she not pair up here.

She would of course.

When the next pair of eggs shattered it was in time with one another. A blue and a green, both of the dark court designation. One could tell - because they just seemed somehow more broody and deep than the light-courts that sprang all happy and joyous from their shells.

The green and blue dragonets looked longingly at one another - and Atropa felt a pang in her stomach. When the blue moved away, shattering the long moment of desire that stirred within both dragons, he bonded off and left with his chosen. But the green...

She busied herself with picking at the shell of another egg, trying to help the hatchling out. The shell was thick, too hard for some dragonets to break alone.

Or she could have been morbidly trying to figure out how deep she could jam her claw through without hitting her sister inside...

"We are not evil, are we Atropa?" She asked, gazing up at the plant-woman. The dark green slid over to her side, after the brighter green in the hard shell had popped out a little.

"Not evil, just ... independant, Kaith." Atropa smiled widely. The dragoness shared her interests, seeing how things worked and making sure of where she would be, so she never made any mistakes. They could find their way to the food - but would that food be tainted after Atropa got finished with it?

Atropa laughed quietly when Shy finally approached her. Kaith however was not too pleased when her rider was being prodded and bled and suchlike.

I do not like how he looks at you, the dragon thought to her bond privately. It is not like the way other men look at you. He makes me feel .... dirty.

Oh, don't worry yourself, Kaith, Atropa thought back. He's a perfectly good scientist. After all you still need to meet my father properly and the rest of my siblings! I wonder how you'll feel about them?

Virus had gone home but sent a number of interesting letters to his children who were still scattered about. Notably that he'd somehow convinced at least one other woman - though he didn't use that word exactly - to bear him further children.

Shy does not want you just the way you are, Kaith decided. That bothers me. I love you exactly as you are.

And I you, my dearest. And now, we will go home and perhaps Shy might come up with other siblings for me in the meantime...