Avalon Crew Book One: Tiger XIII
By
Elendil Star-Lover

I'm serious on this people: flame me, criticize me, do whatever you want, but as this masterpiece is going to be published one day, I WANNA KNOW HOW TO IMPROVE!!! If you can't tell me what I need to do to improve, don't ramble on about how talented I am. SAY SOMETHING, even if it's just I misspelled a word.

Oh, yeah, this story is MINE and anyone to dare steal it will answer to the Ultima Dragon, cotton on?

Language: If eyes are the window to the soul, then expression is its doorway. You can look in the window, but can you open the door?

Morhi'Serath'Onia Black-Serpent-Elf, the DragonLady, cast her slitted red eyes set in her black and gold elfin face upon the immense ruins. A full, blue moon was rising over the genetics building, making shadows longer and the cracked metal seem like jagged-edged teeth waiting. Morhi shuddered as a whippoorwill called in the distant southern pines... She was a descendant of Jaxis White-Flame and Beast Who Never Tamed and she had her Phoenix Flame attack. She should have little to fear, especially at night, and God protects those who ask.

The sagging walls, glassless windows and warped doorways had an ominous feeling to them. For a second, Morhi's fear replaced itself with slight nausea, the kind usually associated with vertigo, but not quite. For an instant, Morhi thought she heard someone call her name. Then her fear was back.

This building has secrets, the DragonLady thought to herself, brushing her black and red hair away from her face, scraping a pinky against her pierced purple and gold horn, the left one. She could feel the secrets and pain.

"Scared, oh Queen of the Night?" Morhi's half-sister, Morgia, bearer of the Earth Charm, snickered playfully, laying a bronzed hand on the half-breed's dark clothed shoulder, trying and failing to hide her own nervousness.

Morgia was an Elf, a Nightelf. Meaning, she was nocturnal by nature, and therefore, like her hybrid half-sister, had little to fear of the darkness. It was the building, made of solid, burning, itching, hateful steel that scared the group. Not to mention the faded memories passed through seven thousand years' worth of instincts from the people who built the place, complete with long-faded memories how they used it.

Humans loved to meddle in things that they had no business meddling. They bulldozed hundreds of perfectly good forests for cows, more humans (as if six billion wasn't enough already), and new paper, as opposed to recycling, letting cows graze where they had been, and not being so many.

Fairy Dragons: small draconic creatures that mentally link to a partner chosen at birth. Their scales are unique in that they can change colors, unless the little one has one of two recessive colors: albinism or blackness. Sorsha, like Morhi, had blackness. Morhi would have been even shorter otherwise, being part-Dragon, and Sorsha would have been less than a foot long. Blackness results in very large Dragons.

Fairy Dragons link to those present when they are born through telepathy. The bond is unbreakable, either one able to feel the other's emotions. Such a partnership results in "soul-siblings", in this case, "soul- sisters", two who seem to share a mind and spirit. No one is really sure what attracts Fairy Dragon eggs, but it seems to be specific personality traits for different hatchlings, as if each individual Dragon has its own preference. Not an uncommon thing amongst Fey, who all appear alike and thus strive to assert their individuality in other ways.

The inky black Fairy Dragon, Sorsha, landed on her soul-sister's shoulder and chided her through the telepathic bond between them, You should not be so judgmental. Were you there?

Morhi snorted, Were you?

The tiny dragon's hematite black scales swirled with storm cloud grey, You know nothing of my people, do you?

Not any more then you should, being raised by common Dragons, Miss Rarity.

It was Sorsha's turn to laugh, Maybe. Nevertheless, I do know more then you.

Morhi whipped her fluid head over her shoulder, at her friend and regent, "So how come Dracul could not come? I thought him, me, and Morgi were the only reasons-oh, yeah, the daywalkers are still outvoted, three by two counting Morgi."

Dracul was a close friend of the quartet, though not very popular with anyone's parents.

Navy-wingedNexi laughed, "Morhi, you are only half Nightelf. Daylight shouldn't bother you that badly."

Morhi smiled dryly, "Yeah, but it does, and nighttime bothers me about as much, but I figure since I have this Night Charm thing, I should be primarily nocturnal, right?"

The literal fairy princess, Jess, shrugged, "Yeah. That makes sense."

Morhi's regent, Mae-Lynn, the direct descendent of Chien-Tang, growled, "Trouble at home with Dracul."

Morhi sighed and dropped her head. Dracul's family was not that respectable, especially for royalty, or the direct descendents of it, because Vampires gave their input to the Elfin Oberon and Titania, and did not rule directly. Dracul was always in trouble one way or another, and Mae-Lynn greatly disapproved of Morhi's associating with him, but the ever pure-hearted Morhi figured that could change him, make him was it Mae-Lynn and the red River Imperial's violet brother put it? Vamp-trash?

The DragonLady fondly remembered their first encounter, when they were eight, at a gala event between Clans. Drac had been so tiny! Especially for a Vampire (and a Vamp lord, too!), Drac had been very afraid of the freaky-looking thing with the birdlike wings, horns coming out of her forehead, sharp, draconic claws, and the odd patch of skin around much of her face, black and gold around the eyes and bridge of the nose, like a mask. He had backed into a corner and hissed at her, and Morhi had drawn her ruby-colored sai, just to tease him. When Dracul had realized that he was merely egging Morhi on, he had called her a freak, to which Morhi had responded by laughing her head off and telling the boy he could not have been more right and they had been practically joined at the hip since.

Of course, Morgi, Nexi, and Morhi were about as close from day one. It was custom that royal children be brought up together to be close friends. Fewer confrontations started that way.

But, Morhi thought sadly, Drac has gotten a bit dark over the years, even for a Vampire. Shoot! Mae-Lynn's gonna be right again and Drac's gonna have a real mean streak, just like his family.

You're right, it's been getting harder for Dracul to keep his tongue in his head and it's going to get him into trouble one day, but we can talk about that later. Right now, I want to see what's inside the building, Sorsha hissed in a voice only her soul-sister could hear, stressing Morhi's choice of contracting random words as grammatically erroneous.

Morhi brought her thoughts out of the past and back into the present. Mae- Lynn had already Transed into her "humanoid" (Elfin) form of a Chinese woman in a red gown, belted with a sash of bright gold, with pointed ears, unnatural metallic gold slitted eyes, and metallic gold hair. She had an impression of little humor and intellectual-ness that assured you that she was, indeed, a history teacher and a bit on the dull side. However, she was kind and understanding, unlike most in her profession, and that was the important thing. Morhi seldom got along with other history teachers.

She had a bit of an authority problem that she hid well--most of the time.

Mae-Lynn, as it should be apparent, was a bright red and gold five-clawed Chinese Water Dragon, a "River Imperial". Her ancestors were associated with Chinese Emperors and heavily. Anyone caught wearing anything with a five-clawed Dragon was put to death in those days.

Morhi, on the other hand, was a DragonLady, which is not a title. A DragonLady is a half-bred Dragon female, a halfling, a chimaera, a hybrid. Morhi's mother had been an Albino Queen Dragon, in charge of the more "beast-like" Mythics, Griffins, Unicorns, Rocs, etc. Her father had been Morgi's father, a nightelf Oberon, in charge of the wingless humanoid Fey, Vampires, Amazons, Valkyries, Sirens, etc.

She was an almost exact mix of the two. She was an acid-breather, but could not change her shape. She could fly and was a bit of a "spitfire", but on the other hand, had this way of blindly rushing in when it suited her and not thinking things out fully. It was, though, as if she inherited her parenting species' strongest traits, including the gene that made her larger and darker then most Elf- or Dragon-children, something that had formerly been a strictly Dragon's only thing.

Morhi, Sorsha hissed again, it does well for you to get your head out of the past and back into this trip where it belongs!

What's with you, Sorsha? Morhi growled through their telepathic bond.

Sorsha just smiled the smug I-know-something-you-don't smile the tiny dragon was oh so capable of, physically and mentally. Morhi didn't ask why. She knew all too well that her little companion knew things that very, very few others did.