Character	Jerry Woods AKA "Point"
Gender/Orientation	Male, faintly bisexual (would experiment)
Type	Trying to Awaken, still Plugged in at start
Apparent Age	16
Dragon	Platinum Silver Male Taludir

"What will they eat?" Was the chorus first of all. What could they eat, anyway? Point found out quickly - if the dragons were really the hunters they should have been?

Cockroaches. Huge ones. The biggest things that Point had ever seen, really, walking on six legs. They didn't have wings, these roaches were grounded. And they were about the size of a small dog. He realized that they were just the top of the food chain after several centuries of the sunless storm ridden surface conditions, but still!

Taludir crunched on one, and Point turned away with his stomach churning.

You do not have to share - I do not want you to take my food! Taludir said, guarding his kill protectively with his wings mantled down.

"Oh, not to worry," Point laughed, "you just keep eating and don't you dare try to kiss me."

Their practice sessions and training continued, both virtually and in reality. The dragons and their riders would never really fit well into the Zion structure of things, but Point tried, really hard. They would walk down some of the side corridors, proudly with their heads up high.

By the time they made it back to their quarters, they were usually bedraggled and sullen, eyes watching their feet.

"They'll learn some day," Point said. "How important you guys are."

They do not matter to me, Taludir reassured his rider with a loving bump of his head, only you matter.

Because they were bioengineered to be in pods, the dragons skin was covered in a kind of odd plastic-y metallic stuff, along with the many ports for energy routing, and the all important brain jack. With that, Point and Taludir could be as one, in a more friendly environment.

The training sims were relentless, teaching tactics and reflex moves that everyone had to know. Why Point really had to, he didn't understand. He wasn't cut out to be a fighter - he was clearly of little to no use in a combat situation. He would be happy with guard duty, maybe, or maybe an escort to and from hunting or gardening missions. That would be something he'd have to bring up with the commander.

Or maybe...

"Derf?" Point asked, when the ship was charging up and getting ready for another run to pick up more normal Awakened folks, "can I ask you something?"

"Oh, no, I can hear it coming..." She muttered. "What is it?"

"What?" Point whined back at her, wounded. "I don't ask weird shit every time, do I?"

"Not every time, no," she admitted with a soft smile.

"I ... I need to know how I'm supposed to get ..." He glanced away, guilty, "get out of combat duty."

Derf's expression changed, a bit confused. Her eyebrow twitched. "You were in combat duty?"

"... Wasn't I?" Point asked, "what is with all the training, if that's not what I'm doing? Everyone is--"

"Point, everyone who can is being asked to come back as fighters or protectors." She draped her arm over his shoulder, "if you're not already in shooting practice, you're not going into combat again, if we can help it."

Point thought, hard. Had he? He was in some bits where you'd duck and dive, evasion techniques, and recognition of Agents or other situations... But he hadn't been handed a gun, hadn't really been taught anything other than how to get out quick.

"That's a relief," Point sighed.

Derfegurtz was still looking at him. He blinked and she turned her eyes away.

"But you'll be going back out, all the time," he said for her.

"Someone's got to do it," she said simply. She turned to leave, back to the ship and her repairs. Point grasped her arm, and turned her back, and surprised her with a deep, sudden kiss.

"I'm glad it was you, Derf," he said, and abruptly left back for his quarters.

They leared to fly - while Taludir was growing his odd armor grew with him - and over the fields they flew. The young fledges were allowed to do that, provided they left the Zion area entirely before going into the air. They would be seen, the council was worried, and so they had to keep to themselves. Away. Far away.

They didn't much like the dragons, still. It was odd, because the children in Zion were fascinated. What if they could breed the dragons here? Or near here? Give children like Derf a chance to bond - without having to be within the Matrix to do it.

Derf.

You look sad, Taludir commented. Point was sitting glumly on his bed, and didn't even glance at Taludir who walked on the slab below him. By this time, the pair had grown used to the Dragonchaser coming and going, leaving for the power plant and coming back with battle damage. Every time they left, Point's heart jumped.

Every time they came back, he was elated, relieved.

They would go back to the Vere structure soon, there were other dragons needing release, and other hatchlings that could benefit the world if they were outside.

Taludir pushed his paw to Point's shoulder and nudged him forward. I want to see Vere again. I didn't exactly see very much of it while we were there together.

Smiling, Point nodded and summoned the courage to get assigned a very brief guard duty.

But what they really wanted, more than to swoop through the dark skies over the power plants and distract the sentinels, was to plug in and become magical creatures again.

Point wondered if Vere had changed much, with their leaving. He hadn't kept up on events, so he wasn't sure. But when they did get there, secretly sliding in without any notice.

What would be great, though, was that the short-range broadcast signals that the dragons were fitted with... Could be jacked directly into their rider's heads too. "Super," Point said, let's go.

Taludir flew against the rain that came down in harsh torrents over the Vere fields, skirting the sentinels vision and the huge collecting drones. They landed carefully, the dragons could fly with their head gear on but it was going to be more dangerous that way - especially since Point's perception would be purely Vere, and not filtered. They would crouch down and hide.

Taludir found a roach, and ate it in one small bite, while Point readied his head gear. They jacked in.

It was like magic, all over again. The world wasn't grim any more. It was beautiful with a sunny sky and a warm breeze. There were dragons in the sky there, but none had Taludir's defiant coloration. Perhaps they'd have forgotten about it... Maybe. So maybe if they flew around here, they wouldn't cause quite the same ruckus as before.

"Ah, they're here too," Point said, of one of the other more aggressive dragon pairs, and it didn't seem like there were any Agents shooting at them yet.

Let us go over here, Taludir said, of a canyon area. The main difference, Point explained to Derf once, was that in the Matrix proper, there weren't places like this - nature had no place in their world. He'd read about it, but for some reason no one ever questioned that there were no wild lands, there were no canyons. Deserts and mountains, sure - sort of. No ocean. But here in Vere?

It was lush - there were trees and rivers... Point laughed loudly as they flew over the rippling walls of the canyon. Green brown plants, shrubs, everything that a nature guide might show off... he was in heaven. He really - really - wished that they could stay here forever.

But to do that, they'd have to plug back in permanently, and that simply wasn't going to be an option. They would always have to leave.

But ... would they have to go back to Zion? Couldn't there be some place? Other than there, that would accept dragons?

For the moment, Point and Taludir flew the warm winds of Vere. They would leave their search for a permanent home for later. This was bliss, and it was far from ignorant.