Zudi is smallish, at around 5�'9 as a full adult, and of a small but compact frame. He has lightly tanned skin, with caramel blond hair that is fluffy to his shoulders. He has pale red-brown eyes, that capture his clever essence and natural ease with everything. He likes to wear bold, bright colorful clothing, often in excruciating patterns and combinations.
As an apprentice navigator, Zudi could be worse. He is a little too excitable and moody to settle on anything. His skills are refined, however he has never thought twice about his moody-broody disappointments or his over-exuberant moments of discovery or happiness. He is given to loud bursts of laughter. He has recently gotten his head-jacks, something that only the Alabaster folk can really understand. When he plugs into a computer, perhaps, his dragon -- should he bond to one -- will also be plugged in.
His own computer skills far surpass his father's. However there is no official "guild" for that line of work, at least not on Alskyr. He'll have to look elsewhere for the best of components.
Zudi has a pet feline named Bart, which is apparently at least as old as he is, but certainly isn�'t on his last legs, and will come with the rider whereever he goes.
And he was into everything. Simply put, the moment that the young pale-haired child had been able to stand upright, he was already running. This way and that. Blanche wondered, weren't children supposed to crawl before they learned to fly on dragonback?
She absently petted Bart, their old-world cat, and watched as he calmly groomed Zudi's messy hair as if it were his own fur. He purred, and Zudi squealed with joy.
That was why she signed on for this, Blanche grinned. It was all worth it in the end...
"Then why is mom all fat? She told me that there's a baby inside her tummy. Is it really there? Or is it just fat?" Zudi asked. His father, shall we say, had better answer this one right. Because he knew that if he said something even slightly wrong -- Blanche would certainly hear about it.
From Zudi. So... He sighed. "Well, all right... Yes. Okay. There's a baby. See. Inside. Mommy and daddy um, really wanted a baby... And..."
Zudi's bright brown eyes watched his father. The six year old certainly did ask the interesting questions. Yes, he did. Lots of them.
"Maybe you should ask your mother. Or," B'lane said, "better yet, maybe you should wait until you're old enough..."
"Oh yes, he's always right is he?" Blanche said, growling. B'lane was of course off collecting parts and products from folks on scattered parts of the world. He'd be back. And when he got back he was going to get an earful.
"He said I'd be a good candidate. I'm just not old enough." Zudi said, turning away from his mother's angry face. He cast his glance down at the stone floor of their dragon-shared den, and kicked at a pebble which had come in with the winds. "I'll never be old enough. It's always something I'm not old enough to do. I'm not old enough to fly with dad. I'm not old enough to stay with the riders when they celebrate killin' ants. I'm not old enough to have a girlfriend -- even though Rynal has one and he's only eleven too." Zudi rattled off another half dozen things that he couldn't do because he was still only eleven.
Blanche watched him with ever-softening eyes. "Zudi, honey, remember when you were five? And you couldn't reach the counters to make your own toys? And how you can do that now?"
She explained in that soft mom-voice of hers that in fact there would be a day when he was too old to do things. Things which, privately, Blanche wondered why her husband hadn't stopped doing, like playing with toys and games... Zudi finally felt a bit better, when Blanche's Orcth decided to pipe up.
He will make a good candidate, but I do not think he will bond here at the Caer. Or at a caer at all. He is bound for an old world dragon.
"Are they all doomed to ride dragons from there?" Blanche sighed.
Doomed?! Are you doomed to ride me? Am I all that bad? Orcth gave off an indignant trumpet. Zudi went to the dragon's side, and put his warm fingers on her neck. He scratched at just the right place, and put her at ease, even though he had not really heard any of her angry protests. He just knew that she was ired, like his mother, and knew just what to do about it. Like she usually did, his mother calmed him when he was having a tantrum or feeling out of sorts. At least for that, Blanche was happy the child had inherited something of her.
"Would you help your little sister, now?" Blanche asked of Zudi, and he nodded. The young girl had toddled away into the hall, and was busy pulling things off the walls. Pretty soon, the whole Caer would be bare of hangings...
He planned on exploiting this to its bitter end. But also, others wanted to help him do it. His father's pack of odd Alabaster guys, with their wires and their metal frames... They loved the kid. He was really talented. Not quite as good as say, N'ate, but when it came down to it, N'ate was great with assembling, but Zudi was really good at creating new things.
Programs, he'd think of a few before lunch. Devices? He'd apparently built sixteen different types of motor-controlled toys before his twelfth birthday. He knew that he'd have a place in the Alabaster workshops in any case. But now, Banbith had brought him for a different purpose. He was to be ... experimented upon.
Of course, B'lane didn't tell Blanche what it was in those terms. There were others who had head-jacks, things which could allow a person to directly communicate with a machine... Okay, there were three, but he was certain that his son would be the best among them. And he'd be in good company. W'ick, and the two sisters Circadia and Arcadia, they were all very talented. They knew that they could support a head jack AND a dragon.
Sometimes they tried the wiring, and it shorted out the person's ability to communicate with a dragon entirely. That was a bad thing. But once they got a professional to help them figure out where exactly the wiring should lay in the brain, it was a cinch.
In theory. So, with his mother and sister worried sick back at the Den, Zudi was escorted to the private dark labs of Alabaster -- they weren't on Alskyr, they were somewhere totally else -- and given a light sedative. They needed the boy awake during his minor surgery.
"Minor," B'lane breathed. "Minor surgery is getting a cut sewn up or a kidney stone passed..."
V'ax of Alabaster gently smiled, an expression looking totally out of place on the odd half-man. His legs hummed -- he was born without them, but still bonded to a fine brown dragon. The artificial legs he had when he bonded were mere stick toys compared to the new ones. These new ones, they made sounds like they were alive but angry. "He'll be fine. He does need to be awake so we can calibrate the programming properly."
"Then if something starts to go wrong, you'll know right away?" His concerned father said.
"Yes. There won't be a problem. We've definitely got a good subject here. The wiring will be grown over and absorbed into his skull, so the jacks have to be a little longer than they would be if he were an adult. But because he's still young, we can do this without worrying that he won't be able to handle it."
Nervous, but excited, Zudi took the drink of the bad-tasting liquid that Kalkin offered him, and watched with numbed worry about the whole thing. There was a big mirror above the operating table, and he got to watch as three small holes were drilled into the side of his head. It didn't hurt, though he did feel it. Some drug!
The wiring was chilly, and felt like he was trying to 'swallow' a large smooth stone inside his head. Within minutes, the process of actually inserting the tiny wires and their grid into his grey matter was over. The grid would expand when it was activated, pushing a bit farther into his brain. Then it was time to test it out.
The big device behind everyone turned on, humming. It sounded so different than in a Den, or a Caer, or even in one of the Guilds. They had no machinery like this! It sent an electric impulse into the wiring, and caused Zudi's body to involuntarily twitch. He almost laughed himself off the table. His father on the other hand almost snatched the boy up and ran out with him!
"It's okay, dad! I can ... feel it! It's weird... Like it's one of the dragons, only without anything to say. It's just... "On". Is that it?"
"We need to see if the images will come up properly first," V'ax announced, and pressed a series of buttons. Zudi obviously saw something, his eyes grew wide, and then he shut them tightly.
"I can see a pattern, boxes. Red and yellow. Changed to blue and violet. Now it's black and white. Now it's a circle, a target."
"Is it fuzzy, or clear?" V'ax asked.
"Clear. I feel like I could hit it with an arrow."
"Try it." V'ax said, and Zudi used his rather vivid imagination to send a cyber-arrow through the target. He visualized it so well that it showed up on the monitor beyond. "Good job. Your wiring, young man, is finished. Now, don't pick at it."
"I won't sir," he said. "Thanks."
The tall dark Kalkin watched the younger boy with a strange expression. "In the old world, you'd have been told you're owned by Lord Engell now... Fortunately he doesn't know what we're up to out here. See to it that he remains that way."
Zudi looked up and saw how serious the scary guy looked, and nodded. "I won't say a word. But... When will I get the chance to use these?"
"When you build yourself a monitor," V'ax said, patting their own.
"Keen!" Zudi said, and then popped up off the table. "Can we go show mom now?"
"She won't be happy..." B'lane said, "but she'll be happier when you're home anyway. Thank you, gentlemen. I'm ... really glad you know what you're doing."
They left, headed back to the Caer. When they teleported, Zudi could have sworn he saw things, static bits of glowing faces, in his mind. It was so tangible that when they came out over the Protectorate's island on Alskyr, he wanted to rush down to Alabaster's labs and put together one of those monitors so he could display what he'd seen...
He'd have instant access to it. Records, like his mother spent her life researching, could be brought up at the flick of a thought-muscle. Zudi had an extensive records-resource built up in his smaller computer pack already, but he was building a full sized lap-top device which could store even more. It would have to be durable. It would have to respond quickly. It was going to have to withstand being on dragon back. Right?
So Zudi spent two months, fully, in his own little work shop. He was a dedicated machinist, a devoted wire-expert, and most of all, he had the plans for a device in his head curtesy of V'ax. All he had to do was find glass workers who could make a screen, metal workers and leather crafters who could make a casing for it which wouldn't grow so cold while teleporting, and the rest he'd have to dig through the huge mess of stuff that Alabaster had in its big basement. Keys for the keyboard, a soft strap for the shoulder harness...
When he was done, there was a gleaming, freshly-tooled device hanging at his hip. He was so proud of it he really did want to show it off -- but half the people in the Caer didn't know what it was, anyway, and those on the mainland couldn't be bothered with such things. They were concerned about trade routes and rampage plant outbreaks.
So he plotted where the next one was going to occur, placed a bet with one of the local shipyard workers about it, and won. Sure enough he'd have a place plotting where to send troops, if he bonded to a dragon! Or even if he didn't! That device was worth its weight in pick-your-favorite-expensive-gemstones!
Zudi went home to show Bart. Bart, as usual, was unimpressed. He didn't much like how the wires caught on his raspy tongue when he licked Zudi's hair.
H'lis had been talking to the rider from Quinalt for quite a while before they came out of his office. Zudi wanted to ask the girl next to him if she wanted to go to a dance ever, but he wasn't sure that the holder girl was right for him. She'd been searched. She was then denied. H'lis announced that only Zudi and the tall dark-skinned girl Zanzibar would be headed off to bond. The girl was livid, loud, and angry about it, but once she'd finally left, H'lis congratulated the pair. Zanzibar said something about hoping to bond well for the Caer.
Zudi lept back out from behind her, pulling himself into the crook of her elbow and wedged himself under her arm. "Me too. I totally agree." The cute younger boy had wires sticking out of his head, some that led into a high-tech device hanging on his hip. "Thanks! I'll be ready as soon as my dad knows. He'll be totally proud of me."
And it was true, Zudi had finally been placed on sands. B'lane was proud, Blanche was thrilled but still worried -- she would always worry about her children -- and the dragons were completely full of themselves. Because of course they'd known all along that Zudi was going to ride! How could he not!? He was the son of their riders!
He was wondering why there was a humming in his head. That was a bad sign, wasn't it? When your head jacks started to hum? He'd heard there were others (long before, or perhaps long after him?) that had gone mad because of their jacks and the odd things that could go wrong when --
"The eggs are hatching! The hatching has arrived! Get your robes on!!" Yelled someone from the hallway, waking up Zudi's room mate and causing quite a stir. So it wasn't his wires after all! It was the dragons below, in the sands!
"Perfect end to a long night," Zudi chuckled to himself. He wasn't sure how he was going to manage without his keypad, but he disconnected it for the night and left it in his room. No one ever touched his stuff anyway, they were usually too confused or frightened by it. He slid into the white robe, and bolted down to the sands with the others.
Fifteen candidates, though there were only thirteen eggs. And, everyone knew that the one egg had to hold a queen -- so that left twelve eggs to choose a boy, possibly. Zudi's family was progressive. They weren't weird, and he certainly wasn't expected to bond to a female dragon!
He imagined himself on a brown, which hatched first... But didn't bond to him. Then two blues -- blue would be his choice, wouldn't it? He liked blue! Shard was blue. Shard's dragon was blue! But they didn't pick him either. Nor the greens, nor the bronze who came out among the first grouping.
He watched as the second bronze and then the beautiful small queen emerged from their shells... But neither (and thankfully not the gold, huh?) came to Zudi. It was after the queen left, when another egg broke open. The whole world seemed to change in a moment for Zudi, as he watched this shy, angry and slightly dazed bronze dragon try digging back into his shell. He'd obviously thought that the world outside his shell wasn't what he expected it to be, and tried to get back into his birth home. But his mother gave off a chuckling rumble, and nudged him out with a mental word of encouragement. Or was it chiding?
I didn't want to be chided. That's no way for a bronze to be treated. And I don't know about all this... Mom says that it's fine, but I just don't know...
The dragon had stood upon his hind legs and reached up to look into Zudi's eyes while he did so. The dragon was pretty angry at Polanith, but that would pass.
"Mothers are like that, Karonith," Zudi said, amazed. A bronze? He bonded a bronze!? Wow! And here he was hoping beyond hope that a blue would come to him.
You do not want a blue. They are too silly and little. You need me. I will be with you whereever you go. What is that thing on your head? Why aren't any of the other humans heads like that? Can I see it? Will it work for me?
"Oh... um," Zudi said, as they left, pulling the wires a little to tuck them back into his fluffy hair, "I don't know if you can get a dragon wired like this... Besides, Karo, you and I are hardwired together now anyway. You don't need these!"
