I remember when I found out about Avengaea: Elsie and I were playing one of my dorky simulation games. We were beating the crap out of each other like we always do--or rather, our simulated selves were. Elsie was playing this huge red scythe-tailed monster, and I was playing, well... myself. People accuse me of not having enough imagination, but who needs imagination when you've got thrills waiting for you outside of yourself? Anyways, I remember he had just pinned me against a pillar, and it sounded so funny coming out of that devil's mouth:

"Guess who I ran into today?" He'd asked, in his airy, almost musical voice.

"Who?" I paused the game, and suddenly the fake sparring temple we'd been fighting in faded away, leaving your usual apartment room, save with holos of far off lands, daring adventurers and sickening looking stunt-scenes plastered over the wall and ceiling. I might as well have turned the game off... I never was interested in simulations. I remember my dad would always come home with new games. 'Look, Mariette,' he'd say, 'this one's about solar-surfing!' 'Daaaaad,' I'd whine back, 'Why can't I really go solar surfing?' He'd kind of pat me on the head the way that fathers do to children who don't know any better--and this would always piss me off--and reply, 'because you'd get yourself hurt! Besides, what's wrong with the game? You can hardly tell that you're not there yourself!' 'I can tell,' I'd say, pouting usually to gain his sympathy. He'd laugh and shove the game into my hands and shoo me off to play 'like a good girl.' Oh wait, where was I? Right, Elsie was just telling me...

"Debbie, down when I was checking out that club they opened up a few weeks ago!" He grinned, revealing his double-row of useless fangs, and made a whistling noise. His little pet, "Cupcake", as he'd named the floating ball of metal and wires, bobbled over and removed the SG-pads from his temples. He continued, past the briefly intervening tentacles, "We chatted for a little bit, and apparently she and her 'daddy'," He said it in a nearly perfect Deborah-tone, which made me giggle, "are taking some time off to visit off-world."

"It figures," I said, scowling. Deborah Ann Falken and I were, by default, friends. Her dad and mine worked together a lot, but the thing was, her dad was better then mine. Her dad let her do whatever she wanted, and because of that, she did everything... and everyone. I'd liked her when we were younger... she had the coolest house and the best things, and despite being so much older then me, she'd even pretended she wasn't babysitting me when my mum and dad were busy. But then she'd gotten into all of those things that she's in to now, and I found it hard to keep up. "What, did she bribe him into letting her go away?"

Now see, I didn't mean to act so bitter. Deborah was always nice to me, and whenever we were together, we usually got along really well. She'd introduce me to people, and I think that most of my apprentice-level cyborware installation customers came from her, or had heard about me through people who'd heard about me through her. She just... always had this way of doing things that got on my nerves. Like dismissing any guy who wasn't as flamingly gay as Elsie is. Or of just passing people off like she was better then them. Now that--oh, right. Sorry, back to the story.

Elsie grinned and shook his head, giving me one of those looks, the kind that says with the tilt of the head and eyebrow, 'silly girl!' He was always good at those little expressions. He said, "naw, I think she just gave him a good poking in the mind or something. Anyways, they're going to run off as soon as she can recruit a few people to go with her."

"Really?" I asked, pulling off the pads from my own temples. My thoughts raced ahead of me as I dropped the wired-pads in the little storage box, where Elsie's rested already. "What kind of people is she looking for?" People like me, I hoped!

"People like us," he laughed, speaking just as I'd thought, then grinning smugly, as if he'd been reading my thoughts. "She wants a couple of friends to go with her, who're interested in seeing some dragons, and maybe stand for one themsevles--"

I think I'd nearly had a heart attack when he'd said that last part. It probably looked funny, though I remember distinctly at the time feeling like someone had thrown a rock at my head. "What?!"

"What?" He looked at me funny.

"She's never wanted a dragon in all the time I knew her! What's so special about these ones?"

He shrugged, his slim, stick-thin shoulders rising and falling gracefully. "She said they were fuzzy and magical and cute."

I groaned, then shook my head. "You're kidding me?"

"I swear to Suri," (that was his goddess, I think, before he moved into the station,) "she said that very thing."

"And you're not lying?"

"Didn't I just say--"

"And she wants people to come with her. To bond dragons. That are fuzzy and magical and cute?"

I think I must have thrown my hands over my head at the very thought of walking away from an adventure with a cute little furball tagging at my heels like some kids show. Ugh. Not to say that dragons here are cute little fuzz balls! I just could only imagine them the way that Elsie had described: something like that hideous Ojee creature that Deborah always has following her around.

Anyways, once I'd finished making faces at the thought of doing any such thing, Elsie went on to tell me, "Really, I think we might both have a good time going! She was telling me that it's a mostly wild place, though they're only going to visit the dragon city--"

"Fuzzball capitol?"

"Mariette!" He'd laughed and poked me in the arm, right in one of the semi-viscous lumi-glo pads. "They're not really fuzzballs, honestly. I went asking around after I talked to her, and they sound really kind of enchanting. Think giant me's... kind of.

Okay, wait. If there's one thing that you have to know about Elsie, it's that he's never what he looks like. See, for all usual purposes, he goes around walking on two feet like the rest of us humans. He looks kind of like some vampiric string-bean, though the way he walks and moves makes him a lot less stupid looking and more adorable. Or sexy, I guess it depends on who you ask. But that's not what he is inside. I've only seen him the way that he really is a couple of times, and he's always told me not to go around shouting out that he's not a blood-sucking bean-like person. But I can tell you, because we're not home, and I guess we'll be leaving this all behind us after Deborah gets her kit. In his real form, Elsie's freaking huge! He stands on four legs, and he looks more like a giant dog or a dragon then anything human. He's even got the webby wings like my dad's filthy mutt. He's kind of cool looking... that's the only time I'd try to hitch a ride on him, except that his back is covered with all of these nasty-looking hooks. But yeah, so when he compared these dragons to himself, I think I lost any of the skepticism that was clinging to me.

"When did she say she was going?" I asked, more intrigued then anything.

He'd shrugged again, lowering his lashes over his jade-green eyes and smiling rogueishly. "Oh, so now you're interested, are you?"

I tried to put on a nonchalant expression, but I'm never good at those things, so I gave up. "Well, yeah, kind of."

"Well then! I suppose I'll just have to tell you!"

"Elsie!" I poked him back, right in his scrawny chest.

He pretended a hurt look, which actually looked like a hurt look, even if I didn't buy it. "She says she's going to be going in a couple of weeks, more if she can't find anyone willing to go--but there are people willing to go."

Of course there were people willing to go. Probably the majority of them were male. Guys would do anything Deborah asked of them, so long as they could get in her pants... I think I've always wanted to find out just how stupid they could get, like, I dunno, jumping out of an airlock or something, if they knew they'd get some. See, if I had the proper cyborware, I'd jump out of an airlock just for the hell of it, but you're not allowed to get that stuff installed until you reach legal age. And that, for me anyways, isn't for another five years. It really sucks. But back to the story!

"Well, what did you say to her?" I asked, suddenly worried that we wouldn't get to go along.

"I of course said something about how 'yeah Debbie, hun, mark me down! It's like a road-trip! Just me and the girls!"

"But you remembered to mention me, right?" I was so worried about myself, I probably looked like I was a little kid again. Not that I wasn't to Elsie. He was twenty one--'same age' as Deborah, though one time I caught a glimpse at his ID, and he was really in his hundreds. I think I was probably hallucinating or something, though.

Elsie laughed and patted me. Not in the way that my dad patted me on the head, but in a way that's a lot more reassuring. "I asked if you could go, yeah. Stop looking like you're going to bore holes through my head, of course I asked for you!" He smiled and winked, and removed his claw-thin hand.

He's always watched out for me. I used to think he just wanted to be my friend so he could steal 'ware parts, but he always stuck around, and was good most of the time, and he has always had the most interesting stories--er, not like this one is getting, sorry. So anyways, I think after that I just started bouncing around. Do you know how exciting it is to have something to look forward to other then your next installation appointment, or the next trend to watch, or whatever? There was, of course, the part about telling my parents that I was going. That... took a little bit of convincing, but honestly, that's not an interesting story to tell at all. You know parents: they're always 'oh honey we don't want you to get hurt and chop off your own head!' and stuff like that. Same old story...

So yeah. Once all of the arrangements were made, we packed our stuff and came out here with Deborah and her dad, and everything's just been so different that I haven't had a chance to sit down! Not that I want to sit down. I heard from somewhere that there's some pretty cool mountain-climbing expeditions around here, and that it's not safe because of Demons or something totally evil and dangerous sounding like that. I can't wait for the next three nights to get done and over with! Once this is finished, I think I might try to bribe Elsie to stay with me for a while... maybe we can do some exploring or something... I'll just have to see.

So anyways, that's my story. How'd you get here?