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Una and Moyan made a good team - particularly when he'd been able to practice his healing powers. If there was one thing that a vampire hunter needed was someone to watch her back. More than once, on outings designed to expose certain nearby evil spirits, Una had been ambushed - or would have been, if not for Moyan's quick movements and daring defense. He stood with his head low, antlers warning and hooves sharp against the cobblestoned road.

"I would suggest you take your tricks elsewhere," Una said, dusting herself off from the road's edge where she had been pushed. "Normally I would destroy you, but you've already made enough of a mess of the place and the locals will have a hard time sorting it out themselves. If they want to hang you if you show up again, that'll be their business."

The oddly floating pair of spirit-stealers looked her over, glanced at Moyan's gleaming antlers, and vanished in a puff of weirdly smelling smoke. They would be back, of course, but the town would be ready for them next time. Una would make sure of that.

In time, Moyan grew into a handsome adult dragon-creature. Una was never quite sure how to address him, was he her... partner? Bond was so weird (and it reminded way too many of her family members of their fetishes, and it wasn't like that at all!), friend was nowhere near the right word.

"I like partner," he said, lounging over the stone bridge. "We make a good team."

Una couldn't help but notice that he had such a shapely backside while he was bent over the bridge's handrail, he was poking at the koi in the pond and his tails swished around. Una realized that it was nearly the full moon - and she'd be hard pressed to keep from climbing all over her partner in the wrong way. She was not ready for children, and she certainly had no idea what in the world would happen if she and he ... She shook her head. That would just be crazy.

You know that I can hear you thinking, Moyan thought to her, Are you sure that you don't want to find out? To that comment, Una heard the added music coming from nowhere - bow chicka wow wow. Porn music? Oh no he didn't!

"Oh you!" Una smacked his shoulder, and stomped off - mostly pretending, but also, she had to get away and make sure that he had other things to do as well. There would be no end to it if she wound up pregnant. Her family knew that Ivo was all kinds of studly - he showed off this kitten or that half-whatever he'd found with alarming regularity. But the twins, and the half-siblings, and Una? They were seemingly supposed to keep a little better track of themselves. After all, their father was like this too. Why they had half-siblings. And half-cat siblings.

"Aren't you even just a little curious about what kind of shapeshifters we'd have?" Moyan asked from her doorway - he hadn't entered. The room was hot, but there was a breeze, and Una's instinct was to slam the door on him.

But she merely sat down on her wide bed and sighed. "They might be very interesting indeed - but I'm not going to be a mother. Not yet."

"That's all right," Moyan said, moving his eyes around the room, "but I'd still like to become a father - so... If you don't mind, could I... go find ..."

"A mate?" Una laughed, "I'd actually be very, very relieved if you would, my friend. Besides, perhaps if you find someone and have little baby horny dragonets I might want more of you myself some day."

Moyan twitched his eyebrows at that, but smiled and nodded. "I'll be sure to show them off to you, when I do find the right mate." He paused, "are you going to be fighting bad creatures any time soon?"

"No, no I'm staying in, the moon does this to me. Shoo, go find someone else to nuzzle, right?" Una chuckled again, as her partner sped out. He'd be heading off to the GoCat ranch, because neither he nor Una could send themselves through time and space the way others could. He did however have the speed and ability to fly that gave him a little less than an hour between Bijapur and New Mexico...

***

While Moyan was out, Una determined herself to work on more translation and writing. However, she was still very distracted. Any time a young man would walk through the courtyard of the clinic, for instance, she would watch him. Handsome or ugly didn't matter - her body wanted something more.

But more, she growled at herself, it was not going to get.

When she got home that evening, there was something on her desk, a small pot with a note.

Brought you this, it will be adorable and remind you of babies, and it was scribblysigned by Moyan. Una glanced at the jar, picked it up. It was heavy, well-balanced. There was sand in it, warm, and peeking out of the sand was...

"An egg?" She fished it out, and it wobbled in her hands. It was small, but the wobbling got stronger until the egg smushed outward. Cracked, now, it started to hatch! Una - having no great fear or disgust about blood, guts or goo, merely moved over to her bathroom where she could dry her hands off once the thing had finished. She wasn't about to drop it anywhere, not knowing how fragile or sturdy the creature within would be.

That she wasn't meant to eat it, was obvious by the card...

Within, a small dark-furred creature stirred again, pushing harder and with determination. Una smiled to herself, this little thing was ready for the world! Finally, after almost twenty minutes of picking and shoving, there was only a partial shell left, and a wet little animal sitting with its eyes still closed, in Una's hands.

"Aren't you the most adorable thing," Una said, whispering so she didn't hurt its ears, which were tiny. She got a wash cloth, and tossed the remains of the shell into her trash can, then gently helped the little creature get dried. Once he was finished, his eyes opened carefully and he gave off a tiny little cheep sound. Una about melted. Cutesy things didn't usually affect her, but this one bored right into her heart. Maybe that little nub on his forehead would help - she was sure it would be a horn.

"Well, Baccah Chandra, that's your name. You're supposed to keep me in mind of babies, I suspect you'll do that! Like the moon." Baccahchandra peeped and then bit down on Una's thumb. She winced, and then laughed again, "oh my you're hungry! Well I can't have a little vampire pet!"

She dug up things - what would it eat? Grasses? Meats? Well it turned out he liked flowers, which wasn't much of a surprise what with the beautiful wings he had budding on his back.

Within several weeks - while Moyan had come and gone frequently, looking for mates and getting better at asking potentials for 'a date' - Baccahchandra had grown up enough that he could flutter around on his tiny wings.

"I love him, thank you," Una commented to Moyan while they prepared to head out hunting evil spirits again.

"You are welcome," the dragon replied. "I'm still open to --"

"Hush up, you!" Una chided, and they flew off into the hills.