It was later in the evening, now, and still as hot as when they'd arrived at near afternoon. The air was heavier then Star City's ever was, and full of strange smells, things that Jayelle wasn't at all used to. She kept half-thinking that maybe there was some kind of vent-failure, or something worse, and she was having a hard time getting settled because of this.

"So," Tria interrupted her thoughts. "When're you gonna tell me about this show you were on? I only stimmed a couple of episodes, but they were later on in the season." The white-haired girl had propped herself up on her elbow, her cot across the room from Jayelle's. She'd been talking, but the younger girl had kind of dazed off, and now she returned to the conversation with a bit of a start. "Well?" Tria prodded.

"Um..." Jayelle shifted uncomfortably, the thin blanket feeling strangely rough over her legs. Lit by magic, rather then the halogen glow of electricity, everything had taken on a strange quality. "Well, it wasn't that special."

"Oh, c'mon! You got to be on a virtu-reality sim-stim show! How cool is that?" Tria sat up, her big mass literally propelling her to a sitting position. "I'd die to actually be on something like that. Spill it, faerie-girl, c'mon." She was grinning that huge grin of hers, those hazel eyes sparkling.

"It really wasn't all that special!" Jayelle replied, blinking up at the (thankfully) low ceiling. "I auditioned, they called me on, and I played for a couple of rounds." That was how the show worked... like most reality shows, regular old people like her got to enter the show--it was all virtually crafted, all they had to do was don these strange mesh outfits--and, well, sing. It wasn't called 'Sing or Die' for nothing, after all! Jayelle had been just good enough to get in... but not good enough, compared to the other contestants. For two weeks she'd lived in a virtual world of sound and light and dangerous circumstances. She'd passed the first week by improvising a ditty to soothe the bridge-master--each week they were faced with a challenge like this, something impassable unless someone died, in which case the rest of the contestants were allowed through. Jayelle half thought that she had passed only because someone ahead of her had died already, but wasn't going to worry herself about it. The second week, she'd come up to a dragon's lair--not the same kind of dragon as some Star City denizens, more a wild planet-side monster. She hadn't been able to soothe the beast, unfortunately, and had met a rather... painful end. She still shivered when she remembered the fake death. It hadn't seemed fake at all, at the time!

Tria listened to her ramblings with wide eyes. "Wow," she finally said, once Jayelle fell silent. "That must have sucked. You know they chop and form a lot of that for consumption?"

"Yeah," the younger girl replied. "They gave me a boxed set as a consolation prize." She'd left it back home, along with most of her other belongings. Old baggage. This was a new start, after all!

She'd been sitting with a group of friends, idly eating a small lunch, listening to the jabber of hopeful teenage voices. Trying not to watch the pair across from her as they kissed passionately, the rest of their world forgotten. It was a typical day with her typical group, until Tria showed up. Jayelle had known her before in an offhand sort of way. The great-sized girl circled through her friends every once in a while, and even chatted with her on occasion. But she'd never thought that Tria would actually sit down with her and have a conversation, and certainly not a traveling-proposal like this!

"I'm busting this joint," she'd said, waving her hands at the hallway, the warren of rooms that the large school was. "Going traveling, all over the nexus, where ever it leads me."

"What about your parents?" She'd replied, fingering her green hair nervously.

"Eh," Tria'd flapped her hand, "they'll be fine with it. Us kids leave the nest early anyways." At that point, she'd paused, giving Jayelle an eerie sort of look. "You want to come with me?"

Jayelle had laughed nervously. "You're joking me, right?" Holding her bowl of soup as if it were an anchor to the real world... she was still disoriented from her stint in the virtu-reality.

And that brings us to the present. Tria smiled at her, her every feature convincing. Jayelle thought about it--what it would mean, what it would mean if she didn't. "I'll think about it," she said. And she did.

Below them, a dragon roared a greeting. The mutt called back, the sound of her voice a shaking rumble beneath Jayelle's legs. Opening her eyes for a moment, she leaned a little ot the side as the mutt circled. The first thing she noticed was trees. Lots of them. Huge trees, up the side of the hill, even between the two buildings! The fronds and huge leaves shimmered in a coppery reflection from the mutt's hide like a mirror, making the girl a little dizzy. Still, unable to look away, now, she took in the Nidus' sights with rabid curiosity. She could make out other dragons, below. The greeter, for one, a strange, hairy dragon in reds and oranges, who was sitting atop the roof of the outer ring. He was tracking their slow spiral, but he didn't look at all threatening. Another dragon watched them idly from the rooves, but at the opposite end of the Nidus. He didn't so much as twitch a grey wing towards them, and Jayelle attention was quickly drawn away. Other creatures--mostly draconic looking--were out and about in the ring's courtyard or in the central donut-shaped center, most of them on the ground, but a few of them taking off for some unknown destination. Tria tapped her shoulder, then shouted in her ear, "Isn't it amazing!" she shouted, but most of her words were whipped away. Jayelle nodded, entranced.

Eventually the dragoness came to a landing, near the northern end of the inner ring. Her giant of a rider easily hopped down out of the light-weight saddle, then helped the two humans dismount. Jayelle's first steps on the soft, loamy ground were unsteady, and she stumbled a bit. Throwing her arms wide for balance, the girl eventually managed to right herself. She stared around her--at the gardens that stretched out across the length of the courtyard, and the pile of sand that ended not far from where she stood.

"Oh my god, look!" Tria had come up behind her, and was now pointing at the sands. "I've seen that dragon before!"

"What?"

"On the sands, that gold chick. Well, I think she's the same." Shading her eyes, Tria looked as if she were in deep thought. "Yep, rainbow wings and all! I was at her hatching with some friends! Totally wild!"

Jayelle blinked, still confused.

"She's from Star City, like us!" Tria explained, clapping her hands together once to show her delight. "I guess we're not the first ones here, eh?" She grinned, then gestured for Jayelle to turn around. "Let's follow the rider, she looks like she knows what she's doing."

"Excuse me!" Tria called, flagging down a short-haired blonde, a native who didn't look like another dragon in disguise! The human was lounging against her presumably draconic bond--the first that Jayelle had seen that looked even remotely like the mutts that she was used to. It was late afternoon, not quite dinner time, but long after the sun had reached its zenith. Jayelle followed Tria reluctantly as the big-boned girl strode over to the dragon-rider. "Hi," said she, "I'm Tria and this is my friend, Jayelle."

The woman looked at them briefly, while the big blue turned and eyed them speculatively. Finally the woman nodded. Tria stuck her hand out, and, after a brief hesitancy, the woman reached out and shook it. "Call me Chansua."

"Chansua," Tria replied, nodding and smiling. "I was told that you're the Decurio around here?"

Jayelle watched the interchange of words with curiosity and not a little confusion. They'd gone to the central offices to look around and see about temporary living quarters, and Tria had gotten into conversation with most of the people she met, easily able to talk with even the dragon-sized residents. Of course, the different terms and names had gone over the girl's green head, so of course she hadn't remembered Chansua, or even really what a 'Decurio' was. Still, she listened with an expression of concentration. She was determined to catch on, this time.

"Nah, just on a bit of a break," the blonde had said, and Tria played up an apology. "Oh well, you two are already here, it won't take more then a couple of minutes. What do you say, love?" She said, directing the last up to her blue beauty. The dragon gave a bit of a snuffle, his jewel-like eyes catching first Tria, then Jayelle in a brief but intense gaze. The younger girl shivered. Quickly after, the deeply tanned human chuckled. "Well, there's nothing wrong with either of you, he says. You'd do best to talk with the mother, though, just in case."

"Lovely," Tria said, then gave a short, curtsey-like motion. "Sorry to interrupt your break, Chansua."

"Not a problem," the woman replied.

Tria, an aura of sheer excitement about her, now, all but grabbed Jayelle's arm to drag her off. "Girl," she said, looking over her shoulder and grinning that giant grin of hers, "this is our lucky day!"

It didn't seem to affect Tria, at least. The girl seemed perfectly fine in whatever environment she was plopped in to, which was a bit unnerving in itself. Jayelle felt a small lump of envy somewhere in her gut--or maybe that was because she was hungry.

The kitchens were a central affair, but they certainly weren't hard to find. The two offworlders quickly made their way into the dragon-sized establishment, looking around in varying degrees of awe at how empty the place was. It wasn't past dawn, yet... the two had woken up early.

Attracted by the smells of fruit and other (real!) breakfast foods, Jayelle approached a table filled with covered trays... and started as a man popped up, two more trays in either hand. Humming under his breath, he only smiled as he laid the two dishes down, giving Jayelle a jovial wink. He was another of those dragons, judging by his skin and his outrageous hair. "Morning! I haven't seen you around here before," he said, placing his red hands on his hips. "You a Novo?"

Suddenly feeling shy, Jayelle quickly, silently nodded. She tried to think of something intelligent to say, when Tria appeared as if out of thin air. "That we are, sir! We saw those eggs on the sands and were hoping that, maybe, we could bond a dragonet! The mother hails from the same place as us, pretty neat, huh?" She grinned and mimicked him, her hands landing on the black corduroy of her own hips. Just like yesterday, she said, "I'm Tria, this is Jayelle. Are you the cook?"

The man seemed to appreciate her forwardness, smiling with some amusement. "Sometimes... I probably shouldn't keep kicking out the proper chefs, but I like to help around the Nidus when I'm not out and about. Besides, I've got to do something when my bond gets up so early in the morning!" He wiped off a hand--which was covered with flour--and shook Tria's, then Jayelle's. He had a firm grip. "I'm Cemitae. Pleased to meet you two." "You too," Tria echoed, while Jayelle eyed the covered platters. Her stomach grumbled, but she didn't say anything or make a move until the pair of them had finished talking. She didn't want to be rude, after all!

Once the dragon had disappeared back into the kitchens, the two girls all but pounced on the buffet. It was nice that they'd put out some provisions for human-sized people--for some reason, Jayelle had nearly come to the conclusion that, with the giant accommodations and the giant-sized residents, she'd have to deal with a giant-sized meal or something! They took a seat--human sized seats, of course--and ate with vigor. "Can you believe it?" Tria said, her mouth dripping watermelon juices, "I think the gods are looking down on us or something."

"Why?" Jayelle asked, pausing in her own eating.

"That was the clutches sire, I think!" Tria replied. She wiped her face on a napkin after dropping the rind to her plate.

Blinking, Jayelle finally said, "oh!" A flush crawled to her face. "I hope we made a good impression."

"I'm sure we did." Tria remarked, flapping her hand in a placating gesture.

Mollified, the green-haired girl took a sip of fruit-juice, and then said, "so what are we going to do now?"

"Look around s'more, probably. See what the mother's like of that clutch, see if there's any other Novo's hanging around--check out our competition!" Tria winked. "Maybe they have some kind of forest-tour or something that we can go on. I'll ask around." Pausing, her voice took on a different tone. "Are you enjoying yourself, Jayelle? I don't want to drag you around on all of this if you don't want to go."

"Oh, I..." Jayelle replied, her voice off-handed, "I'm all right. It's just... it's all really different."

"You'll get used to it, if you give it a chance," Tria said, putting on her convincing smile again. "Traveling isn't for everyone; I think you've gotta be in the right state of mind."

Jayelle nodded, but didn't deem to reply.

After a mid-day siesta, Tria and Jayelle finally moved out to the sands, their bare feet dancing over the almost-too-hot sand as they approached the golden dragoness. There were a few other people here-abouts. A purple, two-headed beast had taken briefly to the edge of the sands, and glared at the two girls as they passed her. Jayelle, quailing as one head's eyes bored into her, almost fled, but Tria grabbed her hand and dragged her by.

They came to a stop at a polite distance from the eggs and the mother, and Tria bowed to the golden dragoness. "Don't mind us," she called, "we're just curious!"

Chuckling, the gold shook her head, then lifted one of her many, rainbow-webbed wings to reveal nearly a dozen eggs, most of which were buried partially in the warm, white sand. At least she wasn't a broody mother, not like many a mutt that Jayelle had seen. Tria stroke up a conversation with the golden female, while Jayelle studied the eggs. Smooth as porcelain, save for a few dimples here and there, they looked about as hard. They were lovely, in their own way--and in the rainbow-tinted shadow that the dam's wing cast over them, they seemed a little mysterious. She wanted to cross the distance and touch them, just to see what they felt like... but she held her ground and her tongue.

"They're actually going to hatch very soon," the dragoness was saying, fondly touching one egg with her big paw. "Once in a while you'll feel one of them tremble. Lathan, of course, is documenting everything." she rumbled a low chuckle.

"I can only imagine," Tria replied, then nudged Jayelle's arm with her elbow. "So, whaddaya think?"

"They're marvelous," the green-haired girl replied, the words slipping out before she could think of something less awe-struck and more composed to say.

The dragoness chuckled, and Tria grinned. "I'm glad you like, then." the girl said, "because this is what we're here for." She turned her attention back to Supersyllaba, while Jayelle watched her eggs and thought. She felt better now, for some reason. Like being here for a reason--such a good reason--really put her at ease.

Maybe the Nidus wasn't such a strange and uncomfortable place after all.