It was dark on that side of the Nexus. Strangely dark, like the kind of darkness that even deep space didn't see. Woodstock decided that the pall of thick sticky black over Dragon Soul wasn't much more than a tarp, as it seemed to be going through a little mysterious transformation and wanted a bit of privacy.

Woodstock wasn't often fooled by things like this. Allan, Terii and Dione on the other hand could barely distinguish one day from the next, so they were little more susceptable.

They stared, entranced, at the darkness and said things like "wow... wow..." and "deep, man."

"Okay," Woodstock said, trying to rouse the trio out of their daze, "you're going to need to be awake and aware for this so please forgive me." She punched a couple buttons on the console nearby, and the Improbability drive kicked in. They remained in exactly the same space-time frame, but the drive's 'prediction' engine found a reality level where the trio had suddenly become sober.

They stood around, looking a bit annoyed at this, but then remembered why they were there. Allan was the first to say, "Woodstock, how long will this... um, condition last?"

"Until you write another prescription, Allan," Woodstock muttered. "But I wouldn't recommend it, because you're going to be needed sober. Dragons and other hatchlings will need attention, you know. And lots of people will be watching your every move." She gave them the willies, paranoid parts of their still-soaked brains worked perfectly well.

"I've read up on the flight," Dione announced, "and it looks... weird. I mean, there are lots of wormy, squirmy types, and stuff that can't fly, and even some with too many heads..."

"Wow," Terii said, "that'd mean giving-"

"Don't even start," Woodstock said, cutting her off before she said something that everyone would regret. "So Dione, guys, would you like to be dropped the old fashioned way, or via the teleporter?"

"Teleporter!" They all chanted. They for some reason loved being teleported - even though there were sometimes mix ups in transport. A leg here, an organ there... Maybe that was why they liked it, they could experiment with being someone else, and be set back together easily enough.

So Woodstock sent them into the tport room, along with their baggage - which she'd helped pack - and some instructions pinned to their jackets. Without those, no one would know what to do with them.

"Don't forget to put the thumb up when you're ready to leave," Woodstock said, and figured they would in fact remember how to use the electronic Thumb she gave each of them. Multiple thumbs would give them a bonus to their chances.

They vanished from the tport room and showed up below the 'tarp' of Dragon Soul's extensive grounds. It didn't look very different from below than it ought to normally, someone had cleverly poked holes into it to let light in.

Kind of like a bug jar.

Only really big.

The trio wandered around looking in awe at the huge mountainside, the lovely sparkling lake, and finally at the underground caverns they located. It seemed mostly empty.

"There's no one here," Terii moaned, "now what?"

"There are people here," Dione said, "we just have to find them. Woodstock's coordinates can't be wrong."

"Okay," Allan said, "I think I hear voices over that way."

"You always think you're hearing voices," Terii snickered.

They went that way anyhow, because it seemed like the only lead they had. And soon enough they spotted what looked like a big, warm sandpit. There were a couple female dragons stretched out on the hot sands, and they saw a bunch of tiny, small, medium, large, extra large and 'double x-l' eggs on top and below the fine grains.

"Didn't Woodstock say that Zulda was there?" Terii asked, "and I think the other Bishen guys were there too, but they don't look like any are waiting with their eggs. What's up with that?"

"Maybe they had other places to be?" Dione pointed out. "Look, there's someone!"

"CRIKEY!" Yelled a man wearing khaki colored shorts and shirt, running away from one of the multiple-headed hydra who guarded the dimmer smokier section of the sands. He bolted toward the trio and stood gasping for breath. "That was close!"

"Yeah..." Terii said, "you almost ... um, what did you almost do?"

"Whoa, I almost got trampled, mate!"

"The hydra wasn't moving," Dione said flatly.

"She was all ovah' the place!" The man continued unabated, "Heads, arms, legs, tail," he waved his arms widely, "but she's a beaut'!"

Just then, as if to rescue the trio, a woman came walking into the sands area and pulled him aside. She chastised him for coming to the place without asking. Then, she noticed the threesome.

Stomping over to them, she took a look at them, and then saw the notes pinned to their lapels. "Ah. You're expected." She said, taking Dione's and reading it. Terii's was next, then Allan's.

"So, you three are going to want some accomodations, like our little explorer here," the woman tossed her head and gritted her jaw at the man who'd already gotten back onto the sands and was busy trying to dig through the smaller eggs. "There are a few rules to follow, so I would recommend not doing what this gentleman is doing. The sands are a dangerous place, especially with the hydra on them."

"Well, duh," Terii said.

"So where do we sleep?" Allan asked, "and do you have a good pharmacy?"

When Allan and the others came down to view the hatchlings, they were making a lot of noise on the sands. The group of other candidates stood by nervously too. Several eggs had already hatched, and one of the odder dragonets wobbled up to Allan.

It - he - had two legs, and wings that came sharply off his forelegs. But he also had two tails, and two heads! But most surprisingly of all, this green-black dragonet seemed to smell lightly of a favorite substance, and had markings which bore a striking resemblance to a certain plant.

"Juana," Allan said - "is that right? Wow! Wow man!"

"You can say that again!" Dione said, looking at the green-black. "Neat!" she exclaimed. But then, another dragon came forth. She had an odd crest on her head, it looked more like a mohawk than anything else!

Are you Dione?

"I am - and you're... Siouxsie! I know your name!" The dark skinned girl clapped and jumped up and down.

She hugged her dragon, who was indeed a female named Siouxsie.

Terii stood around for a while, watching other people as their dragons chose them. She almost felt like she would be left out, until she felt a mind brush up against hers. It was almost like a hallucination - only it was more real than anything she'd ever felt.

I am Satine. Do you love me?

"I love you totally!" Terii said, jumping onto the sand and hugging her dragoness. "You're pink! And bubbly!"

I like bubbles, Satine said lifting her wings up and then tumbling over backwards.

(cherry-dsoul3.htm)

"Some Time Later"

"Hey wow man," Allan said, staggering a little into the corridor wall. "That's... trippy."

His ever-present companions the red-headed Terii and dark-skinned Dione leaned their heads out of their quarters to see what he was seeing. Because rather frequently, especially after finding all the dragons, they could actually share some pretty good hallucinations if that were the case.

This time however, it was not.

This will not do, this can't be here, oh this is all so wrong.

"... Did you guys hear that?" Terii said, and the other two nodded. They heard it again when a voice in their minds - and not coincidentally in the minds of their three dragons, said:

I want to see the manager! There's altogether too much light and air here, and these poor potted plants aren't potted under a good light!

Finally they spilled out into the corridor and headed toward the mind-voice. It was coming from... a very very strange Xenomorph - everyone recognized it instantly but somehow they got the feeling that this one wasn't all that bad. In fact, she seemed downright homey to the trio. Their dragons showed up moments later, the Cherry Cream's 'height field' generator had managed them down to a smaller size so they fit.

She looked up at them - well, looked was a misnomer, because she had no eyes. She could see them, or at least percieve them, and her oddly toothy mouth made a strange impression of a smile at them all. She'd pushed a bunch of their plants out into the middle of one walkway, under a spotlight. They suddenly grew another three or four inches, right before their eyes.

There we go, good as gold. NOW! What about the others, eh? What will the others want? Their friends are in the sun, but they're left in the cold, dark hall... She apparently was talking to the plants. Which it was entirely possible they talked back, no one knew quite what to expect of Ireinasss when she strolled through the ship.

She was colorful, that was obvious - but also she was very picky about things. She paid attention to where she got her food - was it pre-killed? Did it suffer? She didn't want to cause unneeded suffering if she could help it.

A xeno who would have, if she'd the body for it, gone Vegan.

She latched on to the trio and their dragons, mostly because no one else dared get near this weird dragon. She didn't attack anyone, she merely freaked out near them and hissed and spat, and only the drug-addled group properly 'heard' her mindspeak. That solved the problem of where she belonged, of course. And, even the captain admitted she was quite useful in providing them with their healthy ship-grown crops! It was unusual that a ship as small as the Cherry Cream could even have such a luxury, but she provided well, and they all grew to appreciate the weird dragon.
(more below)

They had been wandering the multiverse, the galaxy, the Nexus, for almost 20 years and not one of the staff and crew of the Cherry Cream had aged a day since their last landing on Planet Twenty a bunch of seasons ago. Of course, the Cherry Cream hadn't landed - it was now part of the 'historical society museum' on the Caledrus. That was fine, it meant everyone from the smaller ship got much nicer housing, their dragons didn't have to all fit inside the small pie-shaped dome - or leave that dome when the ship was supposed to descend to the surface of a planet... Being in that dome would mean a crushed dragon!

But it was odd, that mothballed ship now called to them, this trio of stoners... And they did the unthinkable.

They hotwired their own ship.

It wasn't particularly hard, as basically no one but the original crew would be insane enough to try and lift it out of the museum's hangar anyway, and no one in the Society had saw fit to lock its doors or even remove the fuel.

Their loss, eh?

Either way there was a moment when the Caledrus bumped just a little to the left and then a bit to the right, nothing particularly happened anywhere else on the vast scientific cruise ship.

But in the historical society dock... there was one less ship for the time being.

**

It wound up being pretty easy to maneuver the ship with just this trio at the helm, somehow. Because of all three of these people, not one of them had any experience piloting or navigating it. Maybe it was that the Caledrus' Improbability drive just outright spat the thing out, like a cherry pit, directly to where it was needed most.

That place was the Healing Den, but it was also a dry, dusty, scrub desert.

"Feels weird, man," Allan muttered, "something's off."

"The dragons aren't here with us," Dione said, "I miss Siouxie."

Terii giggled from the doorway, "nahhh nahhh it's ... still upright, look?" She indicated the roof of the ship, which wasn't on the ground. It was Dione that balked.

"Well that just ain't right at all," she held her dark hand up to the bare unfractured wall, "there's no foam."

They puttered around a bit before realizing there was a nice cool, dark entry point to the Den's cool, dark interior. Store in a cool, dry place, well the exterior was not cool at all. Dry, yeah.

Allan's hair frizzed up immediately on entering the darker wide hallway and was the only one who realized that they'd been here before, perhaps on a road trip, when the place used to be called Open All Nite. Mall, burger shop, so now it was a dragon site.

They did turn and look at the desert beyond, there was a big dark mesa quite close by, and there were distinct signs that dragons flew over it.

"But... this is Earth isn't it?" Terii said quietly.

"It is," they were all startled straight out of their skin with that nearly sinister voice, "but it isn't your Earth."

A hot blond bounced her way past the three dragon riders, turning to face them and walking backwards, keeping their eyes on her instead of Keenan who stepped very carefully in and out of shadows behind them all. She glared at him, said something that actually went straight past the riders' Babel Fish implants, but twas very, very clearly swearing. But with a smile on her face!

"They're all scattered around the main sands, and I think some of them are like, fully grown or at least teenagers by now. Last time I looked," Melissa grunted, "they had removed the shells that broke and someone was handing out bling."

"I like bling!" Dione cheerfully called out, and they linked arms, and skipped into the sands together.

Even Mel just stood there with her companion, watching as they did so.

It wasn't too much later when they skipped back out, but this time with a pair of mostly-bipedal dragons who'd joined them as bookends.

The two dragons and their three new pals scooted straight back to the Cherry Cream, which definitely shook a little but only vanished from Black Mesa's desert sands and didn't 'take off'...

Dragon of Allan

Name: Juana
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium-large at adulthood, 14' s / 45' l / 72' ws
Colors: Hemp Leaf Green with lighter and darker greens, darker brown-black markings under, and ash-black spots from noses and heads, necks, back, and tails as well as on feet and wing fingertips; wingsails very pale pot-leaf green and ashy black
Features: Hydra Hathian; two heads, four legs with wing-arms on front; two bare tails -- note that this dragon might sire nearly any number of heads, wings, or legs...
Powers: Winged Flight
Teleportation local and Nexus
Telepathy and *Verbal Speech (not really used)
*Smoke and Hallucinogenic Breath Weapons (one from each head)
Smells of Weed, not just the smoke but the plant itself
Parentage: probable below
Origin: Dragon Soul Odd Frenzy
Other Info: far more laid back than parentage to say the very least

Lineage

Mates and Descendants

Dragon of Dione

Name: Siouxie
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: large 17' hip bipedal / 50' l / 100' ws
Colors: Asphalt Broken Black, entire body and limbs fine-lined graphite and oil black; wingsails smoky grey with similar pattern; crest vibrant black-blue
*Features: hybrid bipedal sea dragon; forelimbs are leather wings with 1 visible and 1 internal finger, hind limbs are talons; tall mohawk crest on head and upper neck only; bare tail - note that as this dragon is half-Sea (now), she may carry flippered legs and wing nubs, taller or more segmented crest, and a wide tail spade
Powers: Winged Flight
*Swims Ridiculously Well
Teleportation local, long-distance, Nexus
Telepathy
*Sonic Breath Weapon, very screamy, much loudness
*Echolocation under water
Parentage: *very sketchy on this one but fuck it the colors match well enough
Origin: Dragonsoul Odd Frenzy
Other Info: easily at home in most climates and settings

Lineage

Mates and Descendants

Dragon of Terii

Name: Satine
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: Medium 12' s / 36' l / 48' ws
Colors: Pinks, marbled white, pale red, and pink on body and limbs; wingsails and eye armor faded pink with faintly-visible bubble patterns
*Features: Hathian Sea Alskyran hybrid; forelimbs have wings, but also can walk with toes, hind limbs should probably have flippers; head has Hathian eye armor, bare tail -- note this dragon might also have shoulder armor and a variety of configurations depending on mate
Powers: Winged Flight
Shallow Swimming
Teleportation local, *temporal, Nexus
Telepathy
*Bubbly Water Manipulation, is able to stir large amounts of water into a fizzy frenzy, and can surround things with it
Also can *breathe water and put a breathable bubble around Terii to enjoy the experience
Parentage: *Absolutely a wild guess below
Origin: Dragonsoul Odd Frenzy
Other Info: between Satine and Ireinasss they have plants and sea food absolutely covered on the Caledrus

Lineage

Mates and Descendants

Dragon of the Team

Name: Ireinasss
Gender: Female, high-ranked drone
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium large 14'3" s / 54' l / 100' ws
Colors: Yes (pale celadon green lined with grey-green on most of body; carapace and spines vibrant wavy pink-yellow-magenta-blue-red; wingsails transparent mottled yellow and violet-pink
Features: Xenodragon as shown, with heavy armor carapace, no eyes, four legs with double-clawed fingers; two membrane wings with four double-clawed fingers and double clawed wrist thumb; long body and long tail with dorsal spikes and slashy tail end; Acid Blood and Acid Resistance
Powers: Winged Flight
Wall Climbing
Hive Mind
Resin Secretion
Plant Manipulation
Parentage: "Whorl Touched" eggs no known parents
Other Info: Personality: crazy, flipped-out, crazy, flipped-out (you betcha); Alignment: Scrupulous
From: Everrealm Xeno Dragon Giveaway on Nexus forum 2008

Lineage unknown, considered progenitors

Mates and Descendants

Dragon of the Team

Name: Bromanth ("Nirel" ni male, rel bond; Bonded To Him)
Gender: Male (swears he prefers females but will show off to anyone)
Size/Shoulder/Length: 7'8" Hip Bipedal;
Colors: Mauve body, yellow hair bright red mks, lavender/crimson and champagne red wings, grey horns
Features: Hybrid Drak, not full blooded; 4 very small flightless wings, upright biped with clawed hands and taloned feet; external ears, segmented back-pointed horns, mane and tail floof; abs; Twin Eggs will strongly carry
Powers: Cannot Fly with those teeny wings, but good on four legs for running and is very Parkour about it
Stands and walks easily and can pose for those abs
Telepathy and Verbal Speech
Incredibly Attuned to Nohomoth's emotions
Strong Empathy
Strong Unassisted Firebreath
Parentage: Banityna + Livoyee on Fool's Day page; Twin Egg bro Nohomoth
Origin: Fool's Day 202x Edition by Zekiran
Other Info: Bond: Pair-bonded to Nohomoth

Mates and Descendants

Dragon of the Team

Name: Nohomoth ("Hitaoryo" hi 'negative', tao 'to split one thing into smaller things', ryo 'differences'; Don't Split Us Up)
Gender: Male, (supposedly likes females but will compete for whoever will watch him)
Size/Shoulder/Length: 8'5" s /
Colors: Crimson body w/ red armor, bright red and indigo wings, violet pink w/red hair, medium grey horns
Features: Hybrid Drak, not full bodied but slightly more drak-like than anything; 4 small wings, armor belly bits, Very Tough Armor, smooth horns, mane and tail floof; Twin Eggs will follow in line
Powers: Gliding Only
Teleportation, local, long-distance, Nexus, and Instantly Teleports to Bro if needed
Telepathy and Verbal Speech, a 'fun twang' to his lispy speech
Acid Spit (hardly used)
Parentage: as above
Other Info: Bond: Pair-bonded to Bromanth
Meeting Notes: wants to 'round out' the group because "you have three ladies and only one dude"

Mates and Descendants