1: Repreive

1: Reprieve
Yet another day, that would likely pass as plainly as the last.
Masumi stared out the window of the fast-moving cart, watching the various unsavory districts of Noctournicus pass by in a blur of light, naked bodies and colour. They wouldn't be stopping here, of course, which was probably good-- something as delicate-looking as Masumi would probably have attracted every remotely-horny thug within miles in a matter of minutes, and he was not one of those beings whose delicacy was misleading. No, he and the other entertainers-- mostly Geisha, but there was here and there a musician or two-- were all headed for one of the incredibly rare respectable districts in the city. Or rather, they were heading from it-- most of them had just finished attending a party there, and were returning to the district that contained their Geisha Houses, so as to finish the night's business close to home. He was doing this, as well.
Outside the cart, the mass of brightness and nakedness slowly melted to the more subdued colours of the willow district, and the cart began to slow. Masumi straitened and tapped the theigh of the younger geisha next to him. "We get off next, kitten." The other boy's name sounded unfamiliar on his tongue, wrong to his accent, but the boy evidently was used to that, for he offered a small smile and sat straighter than he originally was.
When the cart pulled to a stop and the footman opened the door, both Masumi and Kitten were ready, and stepped out with all the elegance expected of them, smiling their thanks at the footman as they continued through the door and into the smoky little tea-house at which their current clients were.
They were greeted as soon as they walked in the door. "Ah, Masumi, where have you been?" The voice belonged to one of his regulars, an obnoxious fellow who bought and sold cars for a living, and made a nice profit doing so.
Masumi smiled politely, and bowed to the current occupants in the room. "Forgive me." he replied, soft voice not betraying his opinion of the man, "I have been at another appointment. It was in another district, so I fear the travel time was longer than I am used to."
The car salesman laughed, shaking a hand. "That's fine, fine! And who have you brought with you? I don't recognize the pretty beast."
"I was just about to introduce him." Masumi said, making his way over to the small group that contained the familiar faces of those currently paying him to entertain them, and taking no outward notice of the salesman's . "This is my new Maiko, Kitten. He will probably be entertaining us later this evening, but I should think that for the moment we would like only to sit down and converse with you." He led his young apprentice not to the salesman, who was not his client this hour, but rather to the taller form of his Danna, the patron who supported him and his lifestyle as a geisha. "Sit, little brother." he said, motioning to a cushion to the left of his Danna, and taking the one on the other man's right.
The Danna was a strong, gentle man who looked slightly out of place in the fashionable tea-house. His name was Kalit, and his clothing was not as fine as that of the people around him. He was well-respected, however, as being one of the best breeders in the area of small, usually magical pet creatures-- particularly firelizards, which were growing increasingly popular around mindspace and Noctournicus especially. His presence in general was strangely comforting, and Masumi was certainly glad to have him as a patron.
Amongst the group assembled at the tea house, he only recognized a few faces-- the rest were strangers, which was not that uncommon. The night wore on in it's usual fashion-- after some conversation, there were performances by the geisha currently in attendance-- he did not dance tonight, that was for the maiko, but he did play shamisen for them, plucking at the strings with the skill of someone who'd been playing the instrument their whole life.
When he paused for a break, Kalit called him aside, and Masumi agreed, after sparing Kitten a glance. The maiko was occupied with a client-- the aforementioned car salesman, which made Masumi cringe in sympathy-- and would likely not miss him. He followed his patron out the door.
Outside, it was raining slightly, as it had been earlier that night. There were no puddles on the ground, yet, but the rainfall did warrant an umbrella, which Kalit graciously opened and held for him. "Here." the taller man said, beckoning Masumi to him. "Walk with me."
Masumi complied, walking as quickly as he could in the oddly slanted sandals of a geisha. They walked for a while in weird silence, watching the rain and listening to it patter against the umbrella and fall to the ground around them.
"You look tired." Kalit said, when the silence was beginning to border on 'uncomfortable.' "You have for awhile."
Masumi twitched, and looked at the ground. It was shiny, damp as it was with the rain, and the light streaming through shuttered windows made strange designs on the normally dark asphalt. "You have always been perceptive." he replied, finally, leaning very slightly against the tall breeder. "What do you mean? and where are we going."
"You once told me," Kalit responded, "that while you enjoyed your job, it made you tired and overwhelmed sometimes. It is, I can see that in your eyes. We're going to something I think might help and interest you."
"Am I that obvious?" Masumi's tone was amused, however-- with anyone else, this conversation would've been uncomfortable, but he and kLalit were old friends. "Or do you just know how to read you."
"The latter." Kalit replied with a laugh, touching Masumi's arm lightly and motioning to an alley on the left. Masumi was glad for the warning-- he'd lost kimono to the rain before, which wasn't a particularly pleasant experience, especially when the geisha house mother found out. He was curious now, he had to admit, and looked around for their destination.
"Patience, my dear." Kalit said, as he led Masumi into a large shed-- more a large empty building than a shed-- "We are here."
Here wasn't that special. An empty building, filled with a few blankets and thick quilts on the floor, and a roaring fireplace at the other end. What made the building different from every other building was it's occupants-- themselves, of course, and two creatures Masumi had only glimpsed briefly in the air.
"Dragons!" he said, with a gasp.
And, indeed, it was dragons. The first, a lovely creamy hybrid, laughed at his exclamation, and the second merely regarded him with interest, before turning her head back to the fireplace and inching further towards it. She was a rainbow pernese who evidently didn't like the cold.
The first didn't seem to mind it, however-- if anything, she seemed to like it. She got to her feet and wandered over, smiling. "Hello, Kalit. And Hello, stranger. I'm sorry I don't know your name."
Masumi was struck dead. He'd heard about dragons, and about their intelligence, but it was one thing to hear something and quite another to see it for oneself. Thankfully, Kalit answered for him. "He's Masumi, a geisha. Masumi, this is Olymphae, and the lovely rainbow dragoness is Atsooth. Atsooth only bespeaks her rider, but you'll find Olymphae to be quite talkative. Both of them are bonded to two riders whose company we were just in at the tea-house." He smiled at all of them, and then turned to Olymphae, continuing. " I thought he might benefit from a break from his job and a bond of his own, so I brought him to meet you."
Olymphae looked at Masumi critically for a moment, while the geisha gaped and tried to get himself in order. "He's cute." she said, happily, "I approve completely."
It was about this time that Masumi got over the initial shock of meeting them. He remembered his manners, bowing deeply to both dragons. "Pleased to meet you." he said softly. "If I may ask, what's all this about getting a bond for myself?"
"I think," Kalit repeated, grinning. "that you should get one. A dragon bond. You need a break from your current occupation, and you're well-suited to handling a dragonet. Very gentle and patient. If only to raise them, you'd be excellent. Besides, I can see that you're lonely, if no one else can. A dragon would be your companion, and" he paused, pointedly, before continuing, "it would let you escape the 'dreadful tedium' of your job once and awhile." He grinned when the sentence was done, and Masumi grinned back, sharing the joke. That was the line he used whenever being a geisha overwhelmed him to the point that he sought his Danna's company, not to entertain him, but for his own comfort. He was truly lucky that Kalit was so patient.
"You dog." he replied with a laugh, "Mother will never agree. It would cost her to send me away."
"She'll be fine." Kalit replied, "her geisha house is one of the most prosperous in all noctournicus. I'll go and convince her."
"You alone?" Masumi replied, raising a painted eyebrow. Kalit was well-respected and could be firm, but when it came to loosing one of her geishas even for a little while, Mother became absolutely vicious.
"I'll have help, I think." He motioned to Olymphae, who nodded happily.
"Yep." the dragoness replied. "She won't be able to argue with a dragon herself!"
Masumi looked at her skeptically, "but you're too big to fit in the geisha house, and it's raining."
"I like the rain." Olymphae responded cheerfully, "and I have other forms."
He could think of nothing to say to that, so he merely smiled gratefully at them both.
"Let's be off, then." Kalit said, opening the umbrella again, and he wandered out the door, Olymphae following behind him. They first stopped at the tea-house, to collect Kalit's two companions-- who also happened to be the riders of the dragons. The male, Kazi, stayed only for a few moments, disappearing then to tend to his dragon and get home to Akhet before time wore on any longer. Olymphae's bond, however, stuck around, apparently speaking silently with her dragon. They walked together to the geisha house in silence, Kalit and Masumi sharing the umbrella, and Neveaunt on her dragon's back-- evidently she enjoyed the rain as much as Olymphae did.
An hour or so later saw Kalit informing Masumi that the arrangements were all made, and that Neveaunt and Olymphae would be there in a week to pick him up and take him to somewhere called the Star City Dragonry, which was apparently affiliated with the ship on which Olymphae had been born, and had a number of clutches available for bonding. Masumi looked like he could barely believe his ears.
**
A week passed quickly, and most of it was spent packing or making arrangements. His clients weren't happy to know that he would be disappearing for some time, and neither was kitten, but he swore he would contact the latter and that he would be back eventually for the former. Kitten would temporarily act as Maiko to one of his senior geisha, a female, which wasn't as desirable for his training as one of the same gender, but it would do in his absence. For all the stress of making arrangements, part of him was glad to go-- he did love being a geisha, honestly, but it did get incredibly tedious. A break might be nice, and attempting to bond a dragonet was something he'd wanted to do since he'd heard about the creatures. Trust Kalit to be so perceptive.
He woke early on the day Neveaunt had said she would arrive to pick him up, and checked his belongings one last time. the Mother of the geisha house-- who was his blood mother, but very few people knew that-- had assigned the servant girls to pack his bags for him, and they'd packed everything he'd own-- probably on Mother's orders, as well. They'd also only put his bags within his reach last night-- also something mother had probably requested, knowing he'd try to go through them and remove what he considered extraneous.
He did attempt that--they had packed so much it was honestly ridiculous-- but only managed to get one bag unpacked by the time it was time to get ready. At that point he sighed, and dressed himself in one of his more casual kimono-- he didn't think riding a dragon would be a suitable expensive-kimono wearing activity-- and dragged his bags downstairs himself.
When he got to the lower level and opened the sliding door to the courtyard, he found it already occupied. Olymphae looked up at him and gave him a dragon smile, and neveaunt even attempted a smile of her own. "ready?" the goat-like anthro asked.
"Yes." Masumi replied, running a hand through his hair, which was not done-up in the traditional geisha style. He was going somewhere that probably wouldn't have the facilities to redo the style, and even if it did, he was technically on a sort of vacation, which meant to him that he could leave his hair down and sleep on a pillow, rather than a wooden head brace.
He and neveaunt attached his baggage to the harness Olymphae hadn't been wearing yesterday. "You've got a lot." Neveaunt said, nodding to the bags when they were done.
Masumi made a sheepish face, motioning inside. "Mother had the servants pack for me. She made them pack most of what I own. I tried to unpack, but I only got them last night... What's sad, I did get quite a bit unpacked."
Neveaunt made a face, but both of them knew it wasn't meant to be towards Masumi himself, but to the concept of other people overpacking. "Well, We'll run out of time if we just sit here." Neveaunt said after a moment, yawning-- she looked half asleep, and he realised it must be the middle of the night in her native area of mindspace. "Let's get going."
They clambered onto Olymphae's back, and she started off, out the gate, rather than teleporting directly as he'd thought she would. "Why aren't we just teleporting there?" he asked.
"She can't teleport." Nev replied. "We'll be taking a portal."
It took a few minutes to reach the portals, which were arranged randomly throughout mindspace and were the only way in or out of the highly magical world. "Ready?" nev asked, and motioned to her dragon to continue when Masumi nodded an affirmative.
Portal travel was interesting. The thing looked like a huge mirror, that reflected not it's surroundings but various other worlds, that changed every few moments. Olymphae blew on it with her eyes closed, and a clear courtyard in what looked to be a busy city area of a space station appeared, flickered for a moment, and then stayed still on the mirror. Olymphae then stepped forward, into the mirror-- which rippled like water and let her through. For a moment, the world was a jumble of colour, and all of his senses bled together-- he could taste the colours and sounds streaming through the air, and feel random smells dancing on his skin. A second later, that was done, and they were standing, as if they'd been here the whole time, in the courtyard previously seen in the mirror.
"We are here." Neveaunt said, dismounting, and helping Masumi down. "Olymphae, you're from the AD... Do you know how to sign up for everything?"
"Yes." Olymphae responded, cheerfully. "It's easy. I'll help. Come on~" She stayed in her dragon form, probably to make the carrying of the baggage a lot easier, and led the way to an area that apparently was specifically for people interested in the clutches currently available. She guided them through the sign-up process with the help of someone working there-- which was a good thing, because poor Masumi would've been lost on his own-- and soon enough he was set, with the SCD equivalent to whatever amount of money Mother had given him and a set of keys to the suite of rooms that would be his for his stay.
"Well," Olymphae said cheerfully, turning to Masumi, "We're set. C'mon, I'll lead you to your rooms." The dragoness did just that, all but bounding through the semi-familiar halls, while Nevaunt followed at a much more sedate pace and Masumi followed, giving every impression that he was in some deep state of shock.
An hour later, everything was situated. "Thank you." Masumi said, bowing deeply to the dragon and rider pair. Neveaunt gave a slight smile and nodded-- she didn't mind Masumi, probably because he was quiet. Olymphae grinned, and gave the geisha a hug, as she was now in her anthro form, having been relieved of the burden of the bags on her back. "Don't mention it. Good luck! We'll come visit you, and party if you bond." She smiled at him. "I think you'll do well." She laughed and hugged him again, and then both females took their leave. Masumi stood in the doorway and watched them go for a minute, before turning and going back to explore his rooms. There'd been a map somewhere of where to find food, and he was hungry and curious what strange things the space station had to offer in the way of eating.