Dr. Schroeder was very pleased with the way this clutch had turned out. Working with spirit-essence was a fascinating exercise. If it weren't for the fact that his labs were as much magic as they were machine, he and his team might not have been able to make anything from it at all, regardless of the fact that Dark had prepared the sample for them herself. To play it safe, however, Schroeder had only drawn Whorling genetics from the Biopool--since those varied creatures had to have the most malleable genetics in all existence--and had been rewarded with a healthy clutch of dragontaurs.
When the candidates and audience arrived, they found that the clutch had hatched without them. The shell fragments of the large eggs that had housed the dragontaurs' bulky bodies had already been cleared away, and the hatchlings themselves were crowded by the feeding tables, happily polishing off the last of the rare meat that had been provided for them. Schroeder had given the hatchlings the go-ahead to hatch about two hours early, so that under the watchful eyes of their smiling mother and with the guidance of their firstborn sister, the dragontaurs had some time to learn to walk upon the eight legs they'd been granted.
That meant that once all the candidates had arrived and been verified, there was no further waiting. The dragontaurs were hatched, walking, and fed, and the only thing left for them to do was decide where they were going! Though neither spirits of Dark's sort nor whorlings were natural bonders, Schroeder had done the required tweaking and inserting of minor genes to give the dragontaurs the ability and a partial instinct for it, so there was a fairly even split between the hatchlings that headed for the bonders and those that headed for the sponsors. A few, however, loitered uncertainly by the tables.
One of the dragontaurs didn't approach the sponsors so much as he was chased to them. A large fellow with metallic brown scales (not quite bronze and not quite copper, so brown would have to do) had almost been one of the loiterers, until one of his sisters took it into her head to lunge at him with a child's growl and send him running for his "life".
His glowing eyes widened in shock when he realized the crowd of people he was being driven towards, but his sister moved adroitly behind him, cutting him off whenever he tried to veer to the side, and certainly not giving him any room to simply put on the brakes.
In the end, he was driven to hide behind the leg of the largest and most intimidating sponsor there, the xenodragon Proquess. He cringed when the drone turned her eyeless head to look at him, cowering behind her right hind leg, but he had decided that hiding with the scary sponsor was better than hiding from her.
"I'll go with you if you won't eat me," squeaked Greolis Tah. (And wouldn't Shishayair be happy? Another name with a hiss!)
As for the hatchling that had goaded her brother where he needed to go, she pranced away from the xenodragon with a smug look of pleasure on her face, brushing imaginary dust off her hands. She returned all the way to the feeding tables and smiled up at an amused-looking Schroeder.
"Okay, Grampa," grinned Litas Tah. "Help me pick somebody to remora with!"
With a chuckle and a nod, he turned to Devika and borrowed her datapad for a moment. "Remora, eh? How about Geedoran, from Mindspace?" He returned the datapad and pointed over at a purple anthropomorph of some sort who'd come to sponsor from the strange new world.
"Shiny!" agreed Litas, and off she scampered to join the anthro.
A tawny-brown female made her way to the bonders and briefly examined her choices, but was then diverted by a perfectly heavenly smell. Her fluffy ears perked with curiosity, she followed her nose until she found, of all things, a lost and lonely chocolate chip cookie nestled in the moss of the Bay floor.
She bent her forelegs to pick it up, but as soon as her purple-pink claws brushed the cookie, it turned into a tiny brown-spotted dragon!
"Surprise!" cried Cookie as the dragontaur jumped, indeed surprised. "I'm Cookie the one and only cookiedragon and I like cookie-cookie-cookie-COOKIES!"
Getting over her surprise, Ineen Tah laughed. "I like the sound of cookies! When can we get some?"
Meanwhile, there was a small uprising taking place back at the tables.
Six little spirit-dragons, clutched in Bravo Bay by accident and hatched immediately afterwards in the safety they sensed around them, had called Star City and the Destiny their home for the past couple months. Their mother, who was none other than Dark Shadow herself, had planned on taking them all--minus the little black one who had become very soundly attached to his unintended birthplace--home with her as soon as it was safe for them to realm-travel.
Four of the remaining five, however, had suddenly developed their own ideas.
"We want to do what they're doing, Mommy," begged one, anxiously shuffling her feet.
"We know we can't bond, but we can still be sponsored," added another, who had definite eyes for one of the candidates.
"Or can be bonded to," murmured a third, who had a dragontaur lurking at the fringes and watching him closely.
"Well I'm not going anywhere," purred the all-purple female, Dalene, pressing close to Dark's legs.
"But we wanna find adventure!" cheered the fourth.
"Pleeeeaaaaase?" chorused four little pleading voices.
What else could Dark do but agree?
The four little spirits scattered.
Kesiruun T'vuurisan was quick to capture a hatchling's attention, at first because he too was a dragontaur (albeit one of four fewer limbs), and then because the hatchling was drawn to the emotionally powerful mind within.
"I'll follow wherever you lead," promised Nesalla Tah.
"Don't forget me!" added a chome-black spiritling, trotting up to the pair and trying not to look like she was in a hurry to join them. "Call me Erian'gria!"
A black dragontaur swooped in on a red spiritling, bonding his simpler psuedo-sibling before the spirit jumped up into his outstretched arms.
"Come on, Fril~uslan!" grinned Allu-erian Tah. "I know who we should go with!"
"Woo!" cheered the spirit.
Allu-erian then carried his brother-bond over to the sponsor who wouldn't have been approved if it had been up to the Draconic Relations Ministry alone. Dr. Schroeder, however, had perceived that Kaiser would do no harm to any dragon she sponsored (even if she did reek of bleach and ammonia) and had allowed her on the lists.
"Where should I go, Grampa?" asked another indecisive hatchling by the name of Ackray-est Tah. She was teal-scaled and black of hair.
Again Schroeder took a glance at Devika's datapad. "Eikida over there is very nice," he answered, indicating the rainbow-hued SaaShiyovi. "Would you like to go to the Valley of the Sky?"
Ackray-est considered it for a moment, then agreed with a bright smile and ran off to join the SaaShiyovi. "Home sweet home!"
One of the candidates was a man who was doing all he could to stay out of sight--not from the hatchlings, but from a lovely woman standing at the opposite end of the Bay. His name was Aquillas Leonhart, and a silver dragontaur singled him out with a bemused look.
"She'd probably like you if you'd just be nice," observed Hibira Tah.
A purple-scaled dragontaur found himself rather hounded by one of Dark's spirit-children as he tried to approach the candidate he wanted to bond.
"Where you going? Who you picking?" asked the silver spirit. "Can I go with you? Can we be friends? How do you walk with so many legs? My name's Cyilume, what's yours? Are you going to bond?"
"Yes," Shar'voras Tah answered simply, looking up at a middle-aged man.
Jeffrey Eldon smiled back at his young new bond.
"I'm coming, too!" exclaimed Cyilume.
A creamy dragontaur with ginger-red hair made his way over to Yenva Litei.
"I'll go with you!" beamed Lure'kymi Tah. "And if you ever need any help with anything, just ask!"
After making a round of the varied candidates, a purple-haired male at last made his way back to Dark Shadow.
"Hey Mom," grinned Dure'coxa Tah. "I was pretty sure I wanted to stick with you, but I just wanted to double-check that I didn't like anybody over there."
Dark smiled back. "I'm glad you'll stay."
One little female had scales that glittered a metallic teal color, making her quite a color-contrast to the black-and-red spiritling that followed her. The two had not bonded, but they had the same candidate in mind.
Relan'ixehe Tah was the one to bond the hybrid Ghwen Ake Asant, while Darahighi just wanted to tag along for the ride.
"I'm lookin' for adventure!" grinned the spiritling.
"But I was just looking for you," giggled the dragontaur.
A pretty green-and-teal dragontaur at last found her way to the white wolv, Sharloa. The wolv's two friends had bonded at the Asandae Clutch, and while she had had the opportunity to go back home, she'd decided to stay and try to bond again.
"Here I am!" exclaimed Refa~wesa Tah, hugging one of Sharloa's arms and clinging affectionately there. "Thanks for waiting!"
One of the last hatchlings stood out from her siblings because she was almost entirely blue, a color none of the others showed. Her name was Vershdal Tah, and she ran excitedly over to the youth called Shan.
"You and Shion run around like Nril'relan and Ohon do!" she giggled, speaking of her firstborn sister and the spazzy spiritling who had declared the Destiny was his home. "I wanna play, too!"
A metallic cream male went over to the enigmatic creature called Indigo, his eyes curiously examining the audience up in the viewing stands.
"Where's the mushroom dragon?" asked Lan~ale Tah. "I'd like to meet him."
The last dragontaur was a silver-and-black male who remained standing by the feeding tables. His name was Shaleso Tah and he'd decided he'd wanted to go to the world called Mirus.
"I think that's where Kesiruun comes from," Schroeder thought aloud, rubbing his chin. "Maybe he'll let you go with him. If not, we'll still find some way to get you there and someplace you can stay and be looked after until you're older."
With a nod and a smile, Shaleso trotted off to ask.
With the last dragontaur seen to, Dr. Schroeder turned to Dark.
"So how'd I do?" he asked with a smile. "Did I make them interesting enough?"
The spirit smiled, stroking Dure'coxa's hair. "More than enough. Clearly you had fun with them." She then looked off, her eyes picking out the four of her offspring who had decided to part ways. "I just hope they'll all be taken care of."
Schroeder patted the woman's shoulder gently. "I'm sure they'll be fine, and I'll help keep tabs on them." A growl came from down by his feet, and he added, "At least one of them will never be hard to find."
Ohon, the spiritling who'd adopted Schroeder as his Grandpa, too, simply wagged his tail and went on chewing the hem of the doctor's labcoat.