Candidate at Nidus Otykaii | Moon Forest

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Triptych Character

Tracy Downing

Prime One

Little Black Bat

Prime Two

Ringtail Lemur

Prime Three

Okapi

Abilities

Stealth (Hiding), Dexterity

Though there were eggs on the sands, and several other places around the Nidus, it looked like Tracy wasn't going to find her dragon among them. She wasn't exactly dejected, but she certainly was going to miss bunking with Angie, because they at least had something in common. She shifted into her lemur-shape, and went scrambling around the halls.

And ran right into a half-grown, dark colored dragon. Her eyes wouldn't stop looking, unblinking, right at Tracy.

I have been looking for you, said the dragon, whose voice was husky, like Tracy's. You are mine! I am yours! I got out of a lab too!

With that comment, Tracy kind of went a bit cold. How.... how would you know? She thought back, Tracy learned fast - dragons liked to pick things out of your mind if you let them.

I am yours! I should know! I am Xcyritecu and you are mine! Even if you are a little smaller than I expected...

Tracy laughed, she shifted back into her human form, and came up to around the dragon's head. "Is that better?" She asked, and Xcyritecu - who would come to be known as Exxcy (short for excitable!) - nodded her head off.

Xcyritecu, female, black - normal Dragon type powers (teleport, telepathy, fire breathing) - height 9 feet at shoulder; pronounced "ks-sigh-rye-tech-oo" or exxcy for short

The purple colored lake at Snow Rising was beautiful, and held healing powers for those who were in need - the animals of the world used to go there, for healing. Therefore, the Triptych, even though they were humans too, had been chosen to guard this lake and benefit from being near it.

Tracy and Exxcy had rarely needed to enter the lake itself, prefering the more quiet life of work and safe play. Wade of course did so all the time, it was a miracle too: it could grow back his broken antlers the way they were every time.

Tracy noticed that whenever they were at Snow Rising, the distant hills changed a little. They became more green, more hazed as though not just distance but humidity took over. But they were more than a thousand miles from the nearest large sea or ocean, so... she wondered one day. What would be out there that wasn't normally there when you were close to the Lake?

Xcyritecu got a message from one of the other dragons: it's not what you think, come back safe. Well, they were about safety anyway, weren't they? Sort of? After all the lemur-Tracy was quick on the ground as well as in trees, always standing guard. The bat-Tracy was able to hide in caverns and in the night sky, and the okapi-Tracy was excellent at hiding or escaping notice in even the most crowded jungle scene. Tracy herself ... stood out, because she was pretty and smart and sometimes quite loud. She worked at the local casino in another town, pulling in enough money to have a house built for she and Wade. Not just one of the little cabins by the lake, posing as tourist attractions.

They went high into the air, over the Lake. When Tracy could see as far as she could, with the weird sea-green color on the hills around them, she urged Exxcy forward. They flew for twenty minutes or more, watching the Lake shrink to a dot, and the greenery on the hills become more apparently lush. It was hardly the desert-scrub-mountain area that they'd left behind, that was absolutely certain. The one mountain was much higher than the rest, snow-capped but that was behind them, so Tracy urged the dragon to land somewhere nearby. There were houses - but there were also more dragons.

People came out of the buildings, when she landed, and Tracy wanted to shrink a bit from their attention. But they were strangers, she didn't dare shapeshift, and they were bearing smiles. "What a beautiful dragon!" "What Caer is that one from?" "Are you settling at N'someka?" They asked. Now that she looked around, this was a place flatter than the surroundings, by its own lake, tall grassland around it. And... not just dragons. Gryphons? Is that what they were? Creatures who had the body of some mammal and the front end and wings of a bird! A vulture-....hyena? Came striding forward, and examined the pair.

"They are not from here, but they are. Your kind are welcome here," it said.

"... What exactly do you mean by 'our kind'?" Tracy said, doubtful she'd like the results. After all she was black, she'd had more than enough racism in her life. But... almost all the people around this encampment were dark-skinned. She couldn't truly say they were black but they were definitely 'ethnic'.

"Spirit-shifters," said the vulture-creature. Tracy's eyes bugged out.

"You... you know?" She whispered. The gryphon stood tall above her, its shoulder was close to her own, and therefore its neck craned high in the air above. It lowered down, and winked at her.

"Of course we know. There are others of your kind living around the hills to the north. You did not come from the north, you came from the east - there has always been something strange about those hills..."

The group of N'someka...ns... (N'someki, they told her, their tribe's lands were N'somekaa.) brought her food and drink, and showed her maps. Their hunting areas were wide, but this was an island and not a huge one. The warm waters and frequent rainfall provided the lushness of the land, but also the dangers. Alskyr was the planet's name - it was one which Tracy knew she'd heard before. Dave had spoken of it, ... his dragon was from here. Not here, not Paniya island, but somewhere on this world! The Lake was on a borderland between worlds.

Tracy didn't pretend she fully understood any of this, but she did grasp that the place she'd been was on Earth (... on an Earth) and she was now not there, the Lake was the key. Perhaps something more was in play, they explained that recently whole buildings and groups of people arrived from another planet, Pern, and Tracy started to understand a bit more.

She wasn't sure whether she had to head back toward the Lake, with Exxcy, but she did think that there was more fun to be had around other worlds. The dragons that the other Trippers rode were varied - a handfull from Alskyr's 'caers', and then some extras from much odder places. There had to be more, so... She thanked the N'someki for their kindness, told them she'd likely return and she'd definitely be bringing her friends for visits if they'd let her, and then - they took off for places even more distant than another planet!

***

She wound up on another world again, knowing that she'd have to be home pretty soon. Tracy's internal clock told her she'd been gone just over twelve hours, and she was starting to get a little tired. She had two out of three truly nocturnal Primes, and had habits of staying out quite late because of her job. So, she was used to being up - but now it was starting to wear on her, and probably because she'd moved between two worlds already...

But there was a place, Moon Forest by name, where she landed. There was some amount of excitement around, there were ... live born dragons? She made her way around, Exxcy taking in the sights as she would - and probably sleeping, the lazy thing. Tracy saw the first nose of the kits come out of their hiding place, everyone ooohed and aaahed.

The kit came out, eyes still squinched shut, and lurched toward Tracy. "Oh - um, um," she said, but didn't back up. She caught the little female, who was several shades of grey like the stormy clouds in the sky over Snow Rising.

hungry! The kit thought, and Exxcy was awake in a moment. She trumpeted from across the hill, excited as always. still hungry! What's all that noise!

"That's ... that's my dragon, Xcyritecu."

That's much too hard to pronounce, I'm going to call her exxcy. The kit stated, no nonsense.

"That's what I call her too!" Tracy exclaimed, and then caught herself. "Wait, wait, what? You're - you can't, I mean I'm already-"

but I'm HUNGRY! why haven't you fed me yet! mom fed me yesterday but now it's your job!

Tracy gulped, this would be hard. She now had two dragons? Two? After all she'd been through in her life... Maybe... maybe it wouldn't be bad at all! She had one black dragon and now she had a bright grey one! She heard from someone around, that the 'family' name of the dragons was 'Kiona' which was a beautiful name and sounded very native-American-ish.

She'd picked up more than enough Cherokee to know a good amount of colors, directions, and feature words - and chose "Unitsila", cloud, as the name of the female dragon she'd found. "Unitsila Kiona, how does that sound?"

Hungry! It sounds hungry!

***

Unitsila enjoyed a lot of attention around Snow Rising, especially when she learned of her hereditary ability to shapeshift. With some difficutly, because of course she wasn't Triptych and her shifting was controlled by a different genetic mechanism than the triform shifters, she learned how to form hands instead of paws, a face instead of muzzle, skin instead of hide. She managed to pass herself off as a reasonably cute if slightly odd human girl. Always smiling brightly, always with her head in the clouds for which she was named. Unitsila enjoyed the attention and relished her time talking with her bond about human things, when she needed to.

***

There were plenty of dragon things to talk about too, with Exxcy. Especially about how handsome this or that dragon male was, when they would fly, and who would be the best to chase whom. In other words, dragon gossip. Things like that filled their days for quite a while, almost two years, and things settled into a long, wonderful routine.

Name: Unitsilia (u-ni-tsi-la, clouds) Kiona

Bond: Tracy (and Exxcy)
Age: Hatchling
Gender: Female
Colour: Grey
Species: Mutt
Abilities: Telepathy, Verbal Speech, Shapshifting (Human)

Dam: Kkauny'saa (Chiami / Haaji'hashmel)

Sire: Avar Kiona (Multra Kiona / Sorensen )