Now he stood before one of the many, varied portals clustered at Immigrations on the Commerce level of the station, a pack on his back, a somewhat less satisfying cigarette in his mouth. This particular portal was made of a slab of stone, something that looked like polished marble, even felt like it... save for the fact that right now it was acting more like a window. A window to another world.

Frank glowered at the portal as several trails of smoke puffed up from the spiracles in his chest and back. The place on the other side didn't look particularly inviting: stone walls, torches for demons' sakes!

"Hey, are you going through or not?" The attendant asked, arms crossed over her chest. She glared at Frank, not amused at all with the wait. She looked as hung-over as Frank was beginning to feel at the prospect of traveling to this Mythicalae place.

"Whaddas it look like I'm doing?" He shot the glare she was giving him right back at her. "I'm just gettin' my goddamned bearings. Shut the fuck up about it, will ya?"

She harumphed and looked away, unimpressed. Frank tried, with great effort, to smooth his ruffled feathers. Well, if he was going to go any time... he might as well now.

~Excuse me...?~

The bird-anthro froze, then turned around to meet the curious eyes of a native. She cocked her head, her flared ear-tufts a further indication of her curiosity.

"What the hell was that?" Frank nearly dropped his cigarette. He'd heard her voice in his head... somethine he'd only heard that dragons did with their bonds... or--

She giggled, interrupting his train of thought. ~What, this? It's telepathy. Don't you have it?~

He shook his head dazedly, then came back to his senses. Swinging his pack from his back, he dug through all of the crap he'd thrown in (in the five minutes previous to his departure), and finally came out with the tiny electronic device. Tapping on it, he watched nonchalantly as a holographic projection appeared, displaying the info Jordan had sent with him. He pointedly stared at it, instead of at the rather gryphonic-looking female that stood before him. "Uh... anyways. So yer, uh... Draykeeayrah?"

The gryphosi stared at him for half a second, as if filtering the accent he used, and then burst out laughing. ~You're kidding me!~ "That's a laugh and a half!" She said both at the same time, causing a confused Frank to blink repeatedly. "Do I look like Drakiera to you? Oh, sorry, right. You're new." She laughed again, and then composed herself.

Frank, in the mean-time, had begun bristle-fluffing again, not appreciating the laughter in his direction. "What, you think I'm stupid uh sumthin'? How the fuck'm'I supposed t'know about who's who here?"

>~Touchy, aren't we?~ "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to... it's just... never mind. So, what's your name? I'm Fevrie, one of the local Gryphosi, if that means anything to you."

"Yeah sure... Frank Lambara... just Frank, though 's'okay."

"...Frank? Interesting name..." ~Where to do people come up with these things? Oh lordy!~ "So what are you here for, Frank?"

"Uh..." He looked away from the peculiar Gryphosi--choosing to ignore the part of her voice that popped up in his mind every once in a while--to his little 'pamphlet'. He pressed a button and the info began to scroll, and he muttered until it came to a stop again. "Yeah. Right, okay, I'm here for the 'Zor-in hunt'. I--" He looked up again, realized that the female had a hand slapped over her tawny forehead. "What?"

"You do realize that that particular hunt left several hours ago, right?" She peered out from behind one slender-fingered hand. A touch of a smirk coloured one nare of her decidedly hook-billed mouth.

"WHAT?" Frank nearly dropped his pamphlet, did drop his cigarette, which went rolling towards Fevrie. She stomped on it with a feline-like foot. He stared at her, furious now, especially as she allowed her smirk to grow into an unconcealed grin. "Great! Just great! I come all the fuckin' way here, I go through all the shit customs from fuckin' Driolo to th'muthahfuckin' station, put up with the godamned shit Jordan drags me through to get out here to this filthy dump, and I'm too late? Fuckin' marvellous! Just fuckin' marvellous. Why's this shit always happen to me?" He clenched his fists, not quite crushing the holo-pamphlet in one of them. "Great. How the hell do I get home now?"

"Excuse me, dump?" Fevrie dropped her hand from her face and crossed one arm over the other. She was clearly unimpressed with his little temper tantrum. "I'll have you know that Shivran Aerd is no dump, thank you. As for the matter of finding a way home, I'm sorry, but you're going to have to wait for your scheduled departure. We don't exactly have a plethora of portals to use, you know. Now," she calmed herself, running her hands over her loosely spun, wool jerkin. "Come this way, please. There's plenty of time to kill while you wait."

"Great." Frank scowled at her as she turned her winged back to him, and grudgingly tossed the holo back into his pack. Just fucking great.

By the evening, the two of them had ended up in the guest chambers, where Fevrie left him with a promise of returning in the morning, if he needed anything. While the bird-anthro wasn't exactly sure whether he was glad to be rid of her, or whether he'd have appreciated her company even later, he was certainly starting to feel better that he had missed the hunt. Screw Jordan: he was getting a free vacation, here, even if it was fucking cold. At least he didn't have to worry about all of the hardships he had a feeling he'd have to go through if he'd arrived only a few hours earlier.

With that thought on his mind, Frank made his way to a sounder sleep then he'd had in ages.

"Frank?" A familiar voice had him drag his pillow from over his brown-feathered head. "Frank, it's me, Fevrie! Wake up!"

With a huge groan, the would-be hunter threw the pillow from over his head and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "Whaddya want? It's," as he looked at the watch that he hadn't yet adjusted to the Aerd's time, "six in the feckin' mornin'! Gimme a feckin' break!"

Her voice came through the old-fashioned, wooden door again, "It's not six," ~birdbrain,~ "It's halfway to noon from breakfast! At least open the door. I have news!"

But he was already on his clawed feet and stepping gingerly across the cold floor. In his groggy state, he made to slap the Open command-button, but aborted the motion half-way through when he realized that there was only a simple door-handle to turn. He wheezed through his spiracles in disgust, grabbed the knob, and swung the door open. Fevrie stood there in a warm jacket, a dusting of snow-water droplets glistening on her feathery head. Her nares were flushed with cold, or with excitement, and she quickly grabbed his darker hand in her own. "Hurry up and throw on some over-clothes, or you'll miss the hunters!"

"What?"

"Come on... I'll explain to you on the way."

"My gods, they raked in a real bundle this time!" she exclaimed, shielding her eyes from the snow-glare of the trampled field. "There's got to be more here then they know what to do with. I'm sure you could find one or two for yourself, you know."

He looked at her dubiously, then back at the rows of dragons. "Y'think they'd let me?"

"Yeah, I'd bet on it." Fevrie gaped at him in a distinctly gryphonic grin. "Look, see that little golden guy there? The one with four wings?" She pointed at one dragon, who sat with his crested head hung over an unconcious, rather more striking Wyld. "No one's been around those two since they arrived, that I know of. See if you can claim dibs."

Frank still wasn't sold, but he approached the massive orange dragon who looked to be in charge of the whole outfit. "Hey, buddy," he called up to the dragon, who had been in conversation with a smaller green.

The orange swivelled his neck and peered down at the little bird-anthro. [[Yes...?]] he asked, in a voice that invaded his mind more thoroughly then Fevrie's had. Frank jumped, not expecting the telepathy.

"Those two, over there..." he pointed back towards the pair of Wylds, "You got any plans for them?"

His tone of voice was lost between amused and annoyed as the orange replied, [[I'm not planning anything for them. What do you want with them?]]

The dragon wasn't about the small-talk, obviously... Frank cleared his throat and looked the taller creature straight in the eye. "I wanna take 'em back with me to Star City. You got a problem with that?" He was surprised to hear a low-pitched, rumbling noise emanating straight from the dragon. "What? Do yeh?"

[[No, take them, little bird.]] Frank ruffled his feathers, insulted but at the same time glad enough to get what he'd come for. [[Wait.]] A great paw placed itself directly in his path as he'd turned around to go. Frank squawked again, glad that he hadn't been smoking for fear of dropping another cigarrette. [[What's your name?]]

"What's it to yeh?" Frank swivelled to meet the orange's gaze again.

[[I want to know.]]

Glaring sullenly, and well aware of the paw that backed him, the bird replied, "Frank. Frank Lambara. Who the hell're you?"

Another rumble nearly shook the bird anthro, but this time Frank realized that it was laughter. [[I'm Xivoku. Now, listen to me, Alamoss was it?]] "Lambara!"

[[Lambara, Alamoss, whatever. Listen. Next time you come here, you're making up for those two, alright?]] Xivoku grinned down at him ferraly, and Frank gulped back a knot of fear at the sight of so many sharp teeth exposed in his direction.

He quickly covered his emotions with a mask of anger--something that wasn't hard to do. "What makes you think I'm coming back, dayglo?"

[[Because if you don't come back, I'll have someone come after you. Got it, pencil-knees?]]

Frank gulped again, but nodded. The paw that had blocked his escape path lifted, and he made a quick escape. What an ass... he'd have to get his own payback when he got ahold of those two wimpy Wylds...