Candidate at Ryslen Flurry

Images contain artistic nudity

Triptych Character

Rigel Tull

Prime One

Prarie Falcon

Prime Two

Snow Leopard

Prime Three

Fey Horse

Abilities

Speed, Stealth (small size)

Candidate's Stats

Name: Rigel Tull

Gender/age: female/(apparently 15)

Physical: a little chunky, 5’6” and just as pale as her prime, Rita. She has pale freckles when she gets in the sun, but she also burns very easily and doesn’t tend to go out much. Her hair is quite short and has a cowlick at the back, and is almost white in its platinum-blondhood. Her eyes are an aqua-green. Her eyebrows are always a bit turned up at the middle, so she always looks concerned about something. Her round face is often pouting or scowling, as she seems to be easily picked on.

Mental: a dreamer and a bit of a space cadet, Rigel always is looking the other way when something important happens. She resents this greatly. A follower rather than a leader, Rigel is somewhat sad when the group argues. She rarely knows who to follow, though she would follow her prime and Dave before anyone else (save for Dean whom she has a big crush on even though he’s old enough to be her father). She is shy and very quiet, reserved in crowds and uncomfortable in gathers. Alone however, she shines in her own way, admiring the world around her.

Skills: as imaginative as they come, but practically unable to express herself. She might make a great singer if it weren’t for the fact that being in front of more than one or two people at a time causes Rigel to stifle up and get scared. Her dreams of flying on dragons and fighting dangers are curbed by others who tell her she isn’t good enough for the job. She wishes she could prove them wrong! She is a great seamstress, a skill which people can depend upon her and leave her alone at the same time.

The clone stood in the formation tube, relaxed, unawakened. The process to create her had been refined over decades. Rita had been unwillingly brought to the facility, but she eventually gave up and allowed her mind to be scanned with complicated machinery - well, gave up, probably because she'd passed out from not having eaten for days and finally consuming food which had sleeping pills in it. With both her cells and her brain scanned, it was now possible to grow a cloned body up to a more adult state, than leaving them in their childhood form as usual at Polygen's research facilities.

It was where the Smith brothers - the Phoenixes - had come from. They'd been cloned off of one couple's child who was then murdered (along with them). The whole process was rather clinical and gristly. By taking cell samples, they could grow whatever they wanted. Allow it to open up and grow like a child (complete with wet-nurses on staff, who were also Triptych and heavily controlled), or now: implant fake memories with the brain scan device and jolt a teenaged body to life.

This was something that Faust had come up with himself, Stephen Faust being the inheritor of the original Faust, who began tracking Triptych shapeshifters in the mid 1800s. A brilliant scientist, and a consummate researcher - but also, unwilling to bend emotionally, unwilling to allow for silly things like personal preference. To him, this matter of digging into the genetics of the Triptych and finding out what made them tick, it was in his blood.

Just as the spirits which controlled these changes and triggered them, would never be.

***

Rigel awoke and it was a sunny afternoon in her dorm. There was someone playing a video game up the hall, she'd probably want to join them sooner or later, but she never liked playing too much around here. Everyone would laugh, and she'd wind up back in her dorm alone.

At least, that was what she thought she believed. The implanted memories were fleeting, but they caused more than enough doubt for her to hardly ever stray from them. What if they did laugh at her? After all she didn't want to make a fuss.

But it was when Dr Faust called for her on the intercom, that she gleefully dressed (she'd been lounging around all this time in her nightclothes, how sad)(... she'd just been placed into her room and still even smelled of the laboratory gel suspending her cloned body in the vat while it grew) and headed up to where she knew his office was.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" She knocked at the half-open door, and the black, bald-headed man nodded and smiled to her to come in.

"There ... is something I would like you to do for me, and it's a little unusual. But I think it's something you can do well." He said. It was serious, his expression was blank, somewhat somber - it was his mask, that he knew anyone else would see through, but this girl would be easily led. "There is a group of people that have your abilities, shapeshifters. They've gone bad, gone rogue. They are set up at a reservation nearby, and pretending to be enjoying themselves. But we know they're just waiting, biding their time. They're like those crazy people in the north, set up against the government."

Rigel's eyes widened, she was kind of shocked to hear this. There were others - well, she knew that, but... There were others who didn't live here? Something odd gnawed at her mind, and she resumed looking at Faust for further instruction. Her hands however began fidgeting around themselves.

"First we're going to need to updated all your information - so we'll want you in the lab to shift, if you would. We need to make sure that you're healthy and strong, because..."

Rigel took in a sharp, deep breath, "you ... want me to... go there? To those people?"

Faust raised an eyebrow, "... yes, I do," he said, and leaned in a little with a gleam in his eye, "I think you'd be good at spying, you're a nice girl, no one would ever think twice about you being there. And we'd make sure that everything you need would be provided. All you need to do is say you'll do it for me."

Her heart pounded, this was so ... so new. Oddly enough, her head banged around while he was speaking: there was another voice competing with his, but she couldn't quite hear it - it wasn't nearby, wasn't in the hall. It was distracting, but not so much that she didn't comprehend Faust. She couldn't quite think of a good reason not to do as he asked, however. It would be nice to be outside, anyway.

"I'll have to spy on people, would I... um, would I have to be around them all the time?" She asked, voice quiet and meek.

"Not the whole time, of course not," he assured her. She actually knew he was lying, or that he was lying about something if not this. But still, he was a more comforting presence than any other she could think of just then. So if this was what he wanted, that would be fine.

***

The lab was active, there were a couple other Trippers in there working out. By that, meaning 'flying around' or 'digging' or whatever their animal shapes could do best. Rigel came to the right place, the right person, smiled like she'd been there a hundred times before.

Everyone who worked there had already been briefed to expect her. While she wasn't the spitting image of Rita, she certainly came close, and the only real difference they could detect was that her eyes had turned out more aqua colored than the leafy green of her Prime.

"We're going to want the whole thing today if you could, Rigel," said the lab tech. She wasn't sure whether her was a doctor, or just a talented technician. He did his job well and with care, and she liked him - he didn't leer at her, he was calm and patient. "This will probably take all day, don't want to wear you out."

"Okay," she said, they handed her a pack with sports clothes in it, better to see her body while she shifted, apparently. She found her locker, dressed, and waited again.

First they asked for her small Prime, her bird. They knew it was a bird, but not specifically which one - and the reason for all this was because she'd only just been wakened. They had no information whatsoever about whether she even had Primes yet. But from experience of many years, they knew that cloned bodies almost instantly accepted a new Prime. It was still something that they had no equipment to measure. And that alone still made Faust angry. When! When would they be able to detect the moment of change? When would they be able to capture those essences as they started to be used!

Like it was nothing, Rigel shifted her body into a falcon. She inexpertly flew up, not quite understanding why her wings wouldn't work this afternoon. It was because they'd never been used. The lab tech urged her to stand on the scale they had for such things (there were many, in fact, of all sizes and shapes for whatever they encountered here, from mice to mastodons - and yes, they had a mastodon). He took note of the size, length of wingspan, all those little details. It wasn't actually bad being poked and prodded, Rigel understood it was all part of the program. "Prarie falcon by the markings, a bit on the heavy side, better watch what you eat, Rigel!" He laughed, and the bird-Rigel made a mocking caw.

Next they asked for her feline, a middle shape which was a bit harder. She concentrated back to human form (growing her clothing back, which was also something that Faust would kill to understand) and then into a large, white long-furred cat. "Snow leopard," the tech said, "nice, that scale's not big enough, let's go over there. Watch the weights!" He snatched her long tail away before it swished into one of the weights on a machine that an orangutan was using smashed it.

Rigel knew better, she just did! But that tail! It would get in the way! (... Was implanted, wasn't it? Or was it just her assumption that she was a total clutz?) She stepped onto the metal floor-scale, and again the measurements were taken. Oddly on the small size for a feline like that, but with nice thick fur she hardly noticed any of the poking or lifting of feet she had to do. It was in fact a little warm by the time they asked to go outside to the bigger portion of the lab-center, where large hoofstock or whatever unexpected creatures might arrive.

They didn't expect what they saw, when she shifted into her hooved form. Though it was again, like nothing to her once she went back to human-form, this white horse... Had butterfly-like wings. And stood barely as tall as the cat did at the ears, so tiny. She wasn't a pony - this was a horse, perfectly formed and proportioned. Surely she couldn't fly with those wings though - and the lab tech covered his surprise by turning and asking someone to get a sample kit for the wings.

"Just want to make sure that you're not losing any ... scales," he said, unsure if the huge wings were just like a butterfly's or what. Eventually this was done just like the others - leg length, body circumference, eye clarity, the lot. "Can you ... can you flap a bit for me, just don't hurt yourself."

Rigel did as asked, but she knew ... just knew there was no flight for this little horsey. Flight was for the falcon! These wings, she fluttered them gently - that was as much as she could muster as they seriously weren't flight-capable - were for show. The tech nodded and thanked her, and then turned the page on his journal.

"And ... well, the full monty?" He laughed.

Human-form again. What was odd about her Triptych shape, however (they noted privately - they noted up in the observation area where a group including Faust watched on closed-circut cameras) was that she retained almost all her human features. Plantigrade feet, soft-nailed hands. Her feet had paw-like toes, covered in fur, and had pads below; her fingers were a little shorter than expected for human, but didn't have claws or talons. She didn't integrate anything other than some markings from her Falcon Prime, instead choosing the fey wings and fluffy tail of the big cat. In general, it was more feline-human than any mix of the three Primes.

"Can you add the falcon wings, Rigel? I don't have a note here of ever seeing you use them in this form." The lab tech asked - and though Rigel's long, long ears might have detected some kind of noise in his headset - that was something he'd want to ask anyway being curious and not only following the orders he was just given.

Rigel tried to concentrate on it, but failed to produce feathered wings. She bit her lower lip, turned and said, "no, not really - I just... I guess I'm just used to this way."

"It's okay, Rigel," the tech assured her, putting a note in the book and setting it aside for now. "That's about all we'll need, we've got the photos and measurements, so ... well, if anything changes we'll know!"

She nodded. To her, that sounded absolutely reasonable. Why make waves, why try worrying about whether what they were doing here was any different than could be expected? Some people couldn't shift and she felt sorry for them.

But they were ... the norm, and she had to know that, in the back of her mind. She had to, because Rita did.

And it was Rita's mind which was screaming at her to fly - shift into the falcon and fly away as fast as she could!

But she didn't listen, considering it to just be another way her own worries and fears wanted to stifle her progress here at the School.

***

She was exhausted. The training course that Faust wanted Rigel to go through before being assigned to this weird rogue group was pretty intense, and though she actually enjoyed pushing herself to her physical limit it did have a downside. She really had no time to herself. By the end of the first few days, she was beside herself when the knock on her dorm door shook her up. She asked, very quietly, if she could please see Doctor Faust, and they led her to his office.

"Yes, dear what is the ... ah, could you please close the door thank you, James, Michael," he said to the other two who were there to escort her to the training facilities. "Rigel your scores on these tests are very high, your physical condition is perfect!" He congratulated her, making her face jump into a brief smile. "But that's not why you're here, is it?"

"No, sir, I ... I just need some ... some space? I really can't - I don't like it when I have to be around all these people all the time." She stammered, she just knew he would hate her for it, damn her mouth.

"Ah, I understand, Rigel. I see." He nodded, placing his pen down and folding an appointment book shut. "I think that would be the cat in you," he glanced at her and decided she was relieved to hear him not yelling. She was to be handled so delicately - but then, he knew how to do that. "Snow leopards are one of the most elusive, solitary animals around. I can see how that would make you a little leery to join in group activities."

"I'm glad you-"

"But that does not mean that you can be excused from them, because you'll be expected to participate, where you're going to be placed. You do understand that this is part of the training, Rigel." It was hardly a question, but it was one she hadn't really grasped yet.

"Uh - oh, I ... I see," she said, nervous again. Her shoulders deflated, her hands fiddled with themselves. If she'd had the tail on, she would be playing with it.

That was fine with Faust. She needed to be reminded who was in charge here. And she needed to control herself - much better than this. He stood and placed his hand on her shoulder, "Rigel, I know it's hard. I know it's different than what you have been doing all along. But think of it as a ... as an adventure like they have in books. There is always a town to explore, or a bar brawl to watch, just think of it that way."

It was ironic that those very words would come to be some of the reason why she never did quite learn.

***

Because she took them seriously. She adopted a 'persona' (or in her case, literally, a 'fur'sona) that was confident, brave, not really talkative but certainly not the wallflower that she really was. It was that persona who could have an argument - and win. It was that persona who could put up a hugely brave face in the event of being discovered at something she ought not to be doing. It was... Rita.

It wasn't Rita, the real person - it was the little voice in the back of her head which was the remnant of Rita's brain scan. The thing that made Rita 'herself' could never be copied, but it sure could be laid out and given a life of its own. Rigel had been out and about for nearly two months, by the time this personality became the norm for her to display, even to Faust.

But not to one, very special person in the School. She'd seen him walking around, talking to Faust and then entering the big Water facility. She didn't go in there, no one did without a pass. But he was tall and blond and handsome. Probably old enough to be Faust's age, her father's age. If she only had a father. Her heart and knees kind of went weak when she looked at him.

Dean Rhein, Dave's father - she had a weird, very naughty feeling about this man. But ... why? Rita. Rita was involved with not only David but his clone Dane - at the place she was headed, Snow Rising reservation.

Rita had also seriously considered being involved with Dean, while she was captive here. But Rigel didn't know that. All Rigel could tell was that there was an extremely special place in her heart for him.

When she was three months in to the program, Dean finally saw her for the first time, as she was being taught to swim. He hung out with the dolphins Celebration and Notch, on the one side of the enclosure. But he was definitely not a dolphin... He watched her flounder around a little, knew that she'd never really like being in the water (not nearly so badly as Rita, that girl was a cheetah, not a snow leopard, and if there was one thing about cheetahs that was patently obvious it was that they did not swim). She looked up at him, breathless on the edge of the pool at the end of their session, and he stared openly at her.

It made him think of Rita, but he knew better. She wasn't that young - and he had seen all of her. He didn't really express or emote, just stared for a moment, while Rigel stared right back with a silly girl dreamy-face on. Ah, so it would be that way.

Dean immediately turned on his wet heel and went to go visit Faust.

***

Rigel's training came to an end, and she was asked to appear for Faust again, just before he was due to leave for Chicago. Her bags were packed, her observation collecting items were readied (celphone just in case, all kinds of recording and photography devices, she looked more like a tourist than a spy), and Rigel was standing tall. Faust congratulated her on a job well done, it was easily the most honest smile he'd ever given anyone there, because he really was proud of her.

He left his last instructions and headed out. Rigel's instructions on what to do were quite clear, and those on what not to do were also clear. She was to watch, not really get 'close' if she could help it, but that meant more emotionally than physically. Physically, she was asked to maintain as close a line as she could with the group. Make note about the other locals, the natives and those who had come to the big lake to enjoy their vacations. Her cover was that she was on a holiday here while her parents (she knew she was an orphan, it was all orphans at the School) were in Europe on diplomatic missions too sensitive for a young teen to be near. It was heading into Fall though, and she was not expected to be attending school properly like the other teens in the area. They'd probably wind up jealous of her.

The few hours after Faust headed out to Chicago were filled with last-minute preparations for Rigel's trip too. However they were in the same state as this Snow Rising reservation, so it wouldn't be nearly as much of a fuss for her.

The few hours before she left, Dean Rhein was watching intently for the ideal moment of impact.

It came when one of the newer arrivals sported claws and attacked his keepers - sending a wave of quiet pinging alarms through the building. "Lockdown now!?" Rigel sighed, "fine, fine," she went back to her dorm, while her bags had already been packed on the jeep which would take her to the reservation.

It surprised her, therefore, to hear a knock at the door and just as quickly, a key open it up. Dean slipped inside, and leaned against the door quietly. His bright blue eyes stared right into Rigel, and she melted.

"This is a very brief distraction, and I don't have much time, Rigel," he said. His voice was butter. Well, his voice was hard, but it sounded like something she'd like to hear more often. Only after thinking about his expression and that tone of voice, did she sober up a little. "This facility is not what it's putting itself out to be, Rigel. You are not what you think you are. I'd tell you now, but you're going to find out soon enough. When you get where you're going, I want you to look for someone specific, someone that I think Stephen told you not to find."

Rigel tilted her head, "why would I--"

"Listen to me, Rigel, this is important. You will find friends there. You will want to spy on them for Faust but you will need to stay at Snow Rising to learn who you really are. There is a girl you'll meet that looks just like you, only older. Not much older, she could be your sister - and doubtless that's what Faust will suggest if you say anything about her to him. She is not your sister, Rigel. She's much, much more than that." He took a breath, listened hard to the corridor and decided it was time to wrap it up. "And tell David that he owes me a website, he's behind on it."

With that, the man moved through the barely-open door and shut it behind him, leaving Rigel to wonder what the Hell she'd just witnessed.

It took her a moment to realize: he came in when everyone else was unable to do so. The only people who had keys were the technicians and security, and Faust. And he'd called Faust by his first name? So they were ... what, friends? It sure didn't sound like it from what he said! And why would he say that someone who looked just like her wasn't her sister?! What would she be then, her freaking mother?

With a shake of her head, Rigel practiced meditation and failed - the voice in the back of her mind, her scared and timid and quiet one - was pounding to be let out.

***

Snow Rising was a very nice, if very rustic place. There were tourist trap locations like a card shop and doodad trinkets, the natives had plenty of feathers and painted drums and stuff that people traveling through would like. But they had no hotel to speak of - there would be cabins dotting the lake itself for housing. It had been arranged (through three fronts and several quiet transactions) that she'd have a cabin to herself that was nearest the lake's boat dock. It would be a bit more noisy than she was used to, but it would bring her closer to the group at hand that she needed to spy upon.

She did feel very uncomfortable waving good bye to the techs who'd brought her here. And also, oddly enough, with the pack of lies that she knew she had to spout if anyone asked why she was there alone. It was actually the first time she was truly alone, the very first time in her life. She believed she'd had moments like these with her mother and father away on business in Vegas that one time... But that wasn't real. And for some reason, the seed of doubt crept into Rigel's mind more strongly than ever. The first full day she spent in the cabin, she slept almost the whole time. She woke and did exercises like she always had, stretching and finally exited. The lake was in use today by several fishermen, and a guy standing on weird floating shoe things - to the great amusement of his friends on the shore.

She went out to them, because they were obviously having a good time laughing at their friend. "What are those things?" She asked, and the one nearest turned with a start.

"Oh he's got this stupid idea that those things will catch on, sell em to the tourists." He said. He had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and was obviously a local with the long straight black hair and red-brown skin. His friends were mixed, one was black, and the other was more Mexican looking.

"How many tourists would want to pass up a nice safe boat for those things?" Rigel asked, muttering about how weird it was anyway. The guys laughed, and one of them started to offer her a beer, the other smacked his hand and suggested she was way too young for that.

"I'll get a soda in a minute," Rigel said. "I'll be here a while anyway, for the duration. My folks are out in Europe doing Europe things."

So she changed the story a bit. Just a bit. Who cared? She'd have to fit in here, anyway and if she led some weird story chase they might ask too much more. Best to just put up the teenaged attitude she really was starting to feel.

The Mexican looking young man stared at her a bit, but she attributed it to her wearing a snug tank top. She was pretty, after all, not at all unshapely. So let him look! They spent a while watching their friend, and then they had to go rescue him as he inverted and didn't seem too likely to come back up on his own.

Rigel retired back into her cabin, and started writing things. She wasn't sure what really to write. No one sprouted wings or beaks or hooves. Not today.

But they would.

***

"Blood calls to blood," Said the elder native man, at a big meeting. It seemed very strange that Rigel had been included in this gathering, after all she was just a total stranger to these people. His voice was aged, but his eyes sparkled like they were young. "We have among us a new comer who has something to say."

He was looking at her, was he looking at her? At Rigel? She put her hand up to her chest and blinked. "... Me? I'm not - um," she said, and the elderly woman known only as Grandmother came up to her side. She escorted Rigel into the center of the room, where -

everyone was watching. all eyes on her. everyone waiting for her to speak.

The confident part of Rigel fell away, weirdly crumbling like the illusion it was - finally to her. She realized she wasn't what she pretended to be.

After a month here, and she'd hardly done anything but sit on the cabin porch and watch birds (how weird there were birds here that really didn't live in this area did they? and bats - well there were bats everywhere but not that kind of bat, and ... was that a flamingo? and a bunch of European small wildlife like badgers and things... what were they ... ohhhh.) Rigel realized that it wasn't just the group of people who sequestered themselves out by the other side of the lake.

It was the whole Reservation. The entirety of Snow Rising was the 'rogue' group of Triptych. They all shapeshifted. It was clear when just in the moment that Rigel felt the most hideous and vulnerable, they all did so at once. First into their little shapes, which ranged from a doormouse to a leopard. She shifted with them. She couldn't help it - it just happened. The second time she was more in control over herself, and when they all went for their bigger forms she noted well that not everyone could do theirs: either because of size issues, species issues, or they just weren't ...

They weren't old enough to do it.

She felt more relaxed suddenly, when she turned into her feline-human shape. "You're so pretty!" Said Grandmother, "look at your wings! Dear those are magical, aren't they! That little horsey could visit the pelicans in their nests or the babes at night in their dreams, couldn't you!"

"I - I don't fly with them," she said, all quiet and shakey like she used to be. "I mean, I can't fly with them, they're too small."

"That's why I said they're magical," Grandmother nodded to herself, bunching her nearly toothless lips up into a smile, and walking away into the gathering. It was now more informal, they didn't expect her to actually say anything. Perhaps excepting 'hello' and 'this is who I am'. All but the speaker, John Tells-the-Winter. He sat and watched her, intense. By his look, Rigel knew he wanted to speak with her again.

She came to his side, quietly, and clutched her tail around her hands. "Yes sir," she said.

"You work for Faust," he said simply. That took her by complete surprise, but before she could even try to recover or cover it with a lie, he shook his head, "I know you do, we always know when they send people here."

She explained in simple words that she'd been sent and in the month and a half that she'd been there by now, she'd sent a weekly report back to the facility. Everything seemed so normal, until now.

"You are just like the other, only ... you're like her second boyfriend too. Not quite what you seem."

"I ... that's... that's just what someone else told me, before I came here," she said, and chewed on her lip. "Why is it you say that? I mean... what?"

"What did he tell you, Faust, about how you came to be in his ... place?" John asked, even but firmly. He was going to get answers and this time he didn't have to beat around any bushes. Rigel was clearly out of her element here, and someone had to step in and rescue her.

Rigel told him about how her parents had been killed in an accident when she was quite young. She remembered bits, but they weren't clear, she was from the mid-west and was proud to be part of a school where they learned to control their gifts like she had.

"Did you have a good birthday?" He asked and yet again that took Rigel by surprise.

"Wh..what?" She said, again tilting her head. "I don't - I don't know why you'd ask something like that, my birthday's not ..."

"You birthday is not until when, young Tail Twister?" He named her, it would stick.

She couldn't recall. She knew what the papers said, but ... she didn't clearly recall having had a birthday, really. No real evidence, no cheering friends and a class full of cupcakes.

She did remember those things.

They just weren't her memories.

Rigel began to cry, became human except for her tail which she continued to wring through her hands. John Tells-the-Winter reached over to her and pulled her close. They rocked in the healing hut for hours while he tried to get what little real life she had, out into words. It occurred to her quite late that night, while they were bringing her back to her cabin and tucking her in - and keeping watch for her to freak out, someone was to stay with her - that she had only about a quarter year, perhaps half, that she'd really been around.

She always came back to that one morning, waking up late, waking up to be brought to Faust.

It took another day or so before Rigel was ready to face the true reality of it all. Because it took another day before Rita and Dave and Dane came back from their extended... weird... trip.

***

"He said I'd look just like you, well, he said you'd look like me in the mirror..." Rigel whispered. The woman was standing beside two men who looked just like Dean, and it suddenly occurred to Rigel that they hadn't seen her and probably hadn't been aware that she was even here. Until she looked right up at Rigel. The little voice in the back of Rigel's mind, the one who'd become stronger and dominant and easygoing... Shattered away instantly.

Rigel turned and ran into the forest, around the cabins, and past the lake. The lake was beautiful, since the night that she'd spent talking to John Tells-the-Winter, it had turned a vivid purple color, like the way the sky would during sunset. Her hands shook, she instinctively took to the air as her falcon shape and lit into the trees.

Of course it was no wonder there were so many weird birds in this area. The place was filled with Trippers. She shot through the sky, falcons were fast that way. But she knew, she just knew, that Rita was there behind her. In a smaller, faster form than her own. Rita was aggressive, flew better, and had far more experience in the air than Rigel did. Of course she did.

She was nearly twenty eight years old, and wasn't a fake. Rigel closed her eyes in mid-flight, she didn't even know where to go. Something smelled weird, too, something big that she realized she'd missed this whole time, like the color of the lake.

While she flew with her eyes screwed shut, she hadn't realized that Rita was following using her Triptych form instead of purely her lanner falcon shape. While it should have been slower, the half-ton of muscle, fur and feathers she wore would out-maneuver a hummingbird and zip past just as quickly. But Rita's intent wasn't to overtake Rigel, in fact it was purely to watch.

Rigel shifted while she flew, frantically the falcon in her gave up and was replaced... with the fairy-horse. Of course she could fly with it, she just hadn't had any practice whatsoever with it, and with her being a clone the spirit form had to catch up with the body somehow. Moments like this, stressful and dangerous, were ones which made or broke some Trippers. Rita knew that: she herself had shifted into her Pegasus Prime only after being captured.

At that same campus where Rigel was born. She'd opened her horse shape up, and then... sprouted wings. The memory was so strong, Rita chuckled to herself - it was like watching herself, inexperienced and young, flapping around. But the little fey horse got its bearings quickly, and when Rigel finally opened her eyes she realized what she'd done.

And plummeted down into the trees.

"Oh no," Rita breathed, "no, fly, you can fly don't stop now..." She swooped down herself, but had trouble following in that form. Shifting into lanner-falcon Rita found the horse-girl, crashed into a thick branch, unconscious.

"DAVE!" She bellowed, while unwrapping Rigel's arm from the broken branch, and taking her into her fully-shifted arms. At that size, Rita could easily carry two of her 'sister'. While she was picking her way back through the woods, she heard Dave and Dane encouraging her to come out where they were. They went immediately to the lake.

"Let me," Dane said, gazing oddly at the girl. He was odd anyway - and he was the clone, just like she was. He transformed his arms into long, wavy tentacles - his octopus shape was of more use than most thought. Then, he dove directly into the waters. The sun was setting, the sky was the same color as the water.

***

She woke and it was afternoon, sunlight, bright and warm, was coming into the window. Rigel had the weirdest feeling of deja vu.

Right before she shot straight up to the ceiling, fully cat-fluffed and landed back down on her bed when she realized where she was, and who was in the room with her.

"Man you scared the carp out of her!"

"It wasn't me it was you! She took one look at you and --"

"Quiet down," Rita said, and the pair of young men - the ones who Rigel had met her first day in, black skinned Wade and his chicano friend Ramon, silenced immediately. It wasn't that she had said it harshly or anything, they just respected her enough to do so.

A pale-skinned woman was beside Rita, but she had bright red port-wine stain markings on her skin too. If not for them, she would be stunning. Well, even with them, she was a far sight prettier than many of the kids at the sch...

"I'm not ... I'm not a real person," Rigel said, human again and sitting crouched on the bed of her cabin. At that, both the men gave 'psssht' noises and started talking quietly at each other.

"Of course you are," Rita said, "you're me, only younger. Literally me, literally younger..." she said with a bit of a wistful air. Beside her the silver-haired girl leaned in.

"You took quite a while to heal," she said, "the lake brought you back to us, but you still needed healing. I helped you a little, your arm was really torn up."

With that, Rigel looked at herself. She was wearing a long tee-shirt, something she enjoyed doing even at the facility. It was Rita's habit, really, to wear oversized shirts to bed. While she was examining herself and making sure that she felt all right, which she did, Angela shapeshifted into ...

"Oh you're beautiful!" Rigel exclaimed, before she even could stop herself. Angela's unicorn-heron-mink was indeed a delightful mix, and the markings on her skin turned only to the color of her horn and hooves. Otherwise she was a brilliantly white as the new fallen snow. Rita laughed.

"She's blushing right now, you just can't tell."

"I am not!" Angela said, but it was true, Rigel could kind of tell. "Anyway, your injuries are finally all healed. It's been almost a week, we've kept you warm and fed, but now you're on your own!"

"Wait, you... you can heal things? People?" Rigel said.

"Yes, I can, and I'd appreciate you not telling Faust that."

Rigel went cold, why would she say such a thing? Obviously John had told them of her background, but ...

"I haven't written a journal entry in a week," she breathed, "they'll be wondering..."

"Feel free to string him along though, that rat bastard," Rita said. "Except that's giving rats a bad name." She rose and put her hands on Rigel's shoulders. They were the same color - only their eyes, and their hairstyles, were different. "Rigel, that's a nice name. I'm Rita, Rita Tull. If you want, you can share the Tull part - I don't even know if they let you keep it at the lab."

"I..." Rigel's words failed, she looked down at her hands. Tears fell on them. "I didn't even think about having a last name... Why was I so stupid? What am I?"

"You're a clone," said a male voice, from behind the door, and then Dane stepped through. The others in the room parted for him, except Rita. "Like I am."

"Wait, you're..." Rigel tried to remember, who was who?

"David's clone," Rita said, quietly, "he had to go back to Washington, so he's not here right now. But Dane is, and they're good at - well, whatever it is you guys do."

"We can think to each other, yes," Dane said. He was not frowning, but neither did he seem to smile all that much. His hair was shaggy, falling into his eyes which were lighter than Dean's were back at the lab. But clearly, his original, David, was the one who Dean wanted to pass something along to. After this long, and such a weird week spent sleeping and dreaming perhaps of flight and dragons and fantasy, Rigel realized she could just tell him instead.

"Dean said to tell David, that he owes him a website, he's behind on it or something. Maybe that's not even true now, I don't know... I don't know anything any more." She was about to start sobbing, when Dane got a weird look on his face, and then burst out laughing.

"No, he says he's still behind, and his dad thinks it's about time you woke up."

It struck both Rita and Rigel that Dane said 'his' dad, where it was always clear that Dean was both theirs. A form of rebellion, perhaps, unique to Dane.

***

Over the next few weeks, then, Rigel learned about how she'd been created. The Phoenix boy, Drew, helped a lot, because he of all three young men knew the school inside and out. Dane hadn't seen much of it, being on 'display' in another facility and having been rescued by his 'original' David, along with Tracy and others. Dane helped her understand that sometimes she might suddenly feel like doing something entirely weird, or thinking something different - that was probably Rita.

Rita helped her learn that their parents had been murdered by Faust's crew when Rita was seven - long before she would have understood that both of them had been Triptych as well. Their prime forms, animals, had moved into their new bodies. Some had waited longer than others. The fey horse in particular, Rita described something that she remembered from her distant childhood: a photograph of a horse with wings. "They look just like yours, I'm sure it was actually a picture of mom."

So it wasn't so bad that she didn't have parents - she really didn't physically, but she did at least have that in common with her 'sister'. Who was in fact inclined to refer to her as sister, which Rigel really loved.

She didn't much care for the attention she was getting, though, because too many people would parade through the cabin at random now. And the cat in her definitely thought that having some alone-time would be nice.

It was right about her third month, the start of November, when the snow started falling. The peaks around the reservation were capped with white, some almost year round, because of the altitude. Generally people thought of New Mexico as a big desert just like Arizona but neither were really all sand and heat. Where they were was hidden nicely - the tourists were there only as a presence from the freeway some distance away. Since there were no hotels, but a casino in the next city, they were drawn there more than Snow Rising.

It was also about then, that Rigel realized she belonged here. Those dreams she had, they weren't just fantasy. There were dragons. Some of them were people, too. Where they'd come from was still a mystery to Rigel, but she knew she'd find out.

And wondered with dread - what about Faust learning about them! That was the secret, he was intent on finding these huge dragons!

But like they'd been hidden to her until she was injured just like the lake's properties and the way that everyone was a Tripper. Magic? Just like Grandmother said.

So... Rigel had to figure out a way of trying to edge out of her 'contract' with Polygen. But she still had strong ties - she still felt a nicer feeling than some, about Stephen Faust, even though she knew better. He'd never raised a hand to her, hardly even raised his voice to her. But she knew in her head and heart now, that he was not the nice person she imagined he was. Most of the memory implants that they'd designed for her had worn off with her injuries being healed. So now, Rigel was born anew: she really did have little enough memory to go by. She still woke in the mornings and did exercises, which made her feel healthy. She still wrote in a journal - but now she refused to send it along to Faust online, and had thrown the cellphone onto a passing truck when she and Wade and Tracy were flying around. So if Faust were to try tracking the phone, at least, it wouldn't be near the lake.

The magic lake.

So in the meantime she learned a skill, at the local high school. She was expected to attend, now that they knew she would be with them a while. She learned more math than her head could take, but also enjoyed the sewing classes, and took up a bit of an apprenticeship with the nearby tailor. She had more than enough work, and the easier bits fell to Rigel while the expert worked more on the difficult alterations. That way too, neither of them had to be up at ungodly hours of the night (which was quite typcal for such a profession), and the work would still get done. Plus, Rigel didn't have to be surrounded by people like at the casino, or a fast food joint.

But even just talking to the old native woman (whose primes were a black bird of some kind, a mole, and a smallish deer species, and had long since been unable to unshape her deer-ears off her human head) was soothing. She learned so much about the world that way. How the Triptych in particular got along with the Polygen people. There were a few here who had either escaped or had been sent by Polygen and remained on. There were even a few of the tribe who went to Polygen - they offered good jobs, after all. But they were looked upon with a bit of disdain by many, and as traitors by some. Probably the woman who nursed the Phoenix brothers was one such, some of the janitors and very few security people.

Where that placed Dean Rhein was a mystery. But it was one that Rigel knew she would someday figure out.

There was so much more to this world than she ever expected. So when she was asked whether she wanted to head to a place called Nidus Ryslen to find a dragon of her own to bond, she said yes almost as quickly as they'd asked. It would be snowing there, too, and she loved the snow! She'd never in her real life had the chance to prowl and pounce through a mound of it! She still rarely flew in her little fey-horse form, but now that she knew she could, it would only be a matter of time before she really tried to test her own limits again. And Rigel still prefered the fey-winged cat-girl shape to any further triptych, she realized that was one thing she truly had unique about her. Odd? Sure. But there were plenty of trippers who looked like rabbit-mule-owls or whatever. She was special.

She hoped that a dragon would find her special too.