It had been a few days since Dracothrope and Lha had been shunted up the Driolo-Star City lift (always an exciting experience), and already Dracothrope was regretting it!

She wasn't regretting the atmosphere of the station, itself. Oh no, not when she'd been born in the heavily populated artificial city, with its high-rises and tight spaces, its deeply descending alleys and myriad byways and sideways to explore. Compared to the never-ending expanse of Driolo's outlying deserts, this was bliss. No, what she was regretting was going to explore again.

Dark things lurked in the alleys and byways and sideways, and Dracothrope had known it from the start... but her instinct for avoiding them seemed to have worn off!

Even at this moment she was pinned near the entrance of an alley that was usually in good condition! A coruscant black form had her shoulders pinned to the ground, a monstrous eyeless shaggy head only about a foot from hers.

Promptly she screamed. It was one thing to play with a well-tamed drone like Brickyss, or with an altered human like Phoenix, but this... thing was neither tamed nor in the least kind looking. In reaction to her cry, it pulled back its lips and revealed sharp, dripping wet teeth; the black and red wings mantling around its newfound 'prey'. Dracothrope went very still as that mouth of its opened and a slug-slick tongue slid out... it wasn't that the tongue was unusually long, it was that it was tipped with a secondary mouth--and around those were several long, sharp claws!

She wasn't stupid, she'd seen Brickyss putting prey out of their misery, and that was usually with a tongue through the skull. While this creature looked ultimately different, she was certainly that it was about to do the same to her! She nearly burned out her teleparts shouting ~LHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!~

The white dragon, who had seperated with her in order to inspect the Abstract Destiny, seemed to be in the entrance of the alley almost before Dracothrope had finished her mental cry for help--and considering the size of the station, she must have been using those time-slowing powers of hers.

The claw-tongued creature shrieked--an eerie sound, with a higher-pitched noise issuing from the second mouth even as the primary one spewed hot saliva across the humanoids face. For a moment it appeared to contemplate defending its new-claimed turf, raising its metallic gold tail in the air and hissing at the half-Air dragoness, but presently it realized that it was not likely to win against a creature more then twice its size--so it fled.

Dracothrope, paralyzed on the ground as she was, didn't see as it leaped to one wall and all but vanished into the dark, but Lha kept her eyes on it as long as she could, looking as ferocious as was possible for a fluffy white dragon (which was surprisingly very!) before closing the distance between herself and the humanoid. ~Are you alright?~ she asked, lowering her head to snuffle at Dracothrope's prone form.

"....Yeah..." she replied, slowly but certainly wiping the ooze that now coated her muzzle (and her glasses! Ugh!), then rubbing her half-squished shoulders. "It didn't do anything serious..." She peered up at the concerned Lha. "Thank you for saving me--"

~Nonsense,~ The dragon replied, pulling her head back as Dracothrope began to sit up. ~That thing would have killed you, and there's a reason I'm here with you!~

"I thought that was to help you confiscate dragonets!" Dray exclaimed, sitting now, still rubbing her shoulders, which hurt! She gave a little laugh, though whether or not it was half-hysterical or not...

~Whatever it is, you'd better come with me,~ Lha demanded. She was in proprietary mode! ~Let's get settled in at the Destiny and see what there is to see.~

"...And maybe I can get cleaned up, too." Dracothrope added. Lha offered her nose again for the humanoid to use to help her to standing, and the pair made their slow way to the docked ship--once they'd gotten in contact with the good Doctor, perhaps they could find a place to stay!