Rookery/Carramba Year: a few months before the big event, early 2021
Shy would be keeping his cat-like green eye on this one. She was good at locating subjects for sampling, but wasn't really all that into science. That was fine though, a social engineer like her would go far. Far enough? Perhaps... But what she was quite good for was spying on his fellow professors. She was quite happy to acquire notes and intercept messages in the guise of bringing hall passes to those instructors, generally being a gofer (she's a rabbit, not a go... ohhh...) and listening in on their 'adult in the room' conversations.
It was one of those conversations that led Shy to think harder about getting this girl into the Dragonry program. She'd brought a sample of that big and obnoxious mascot Hathian, Brasedi by name, and shy's curiosity was piqued. His own fellow researchers had been as well, Hu and Masui both had reason to explore new venues for dragons as well as riders...
They were both quite new to the school, but then so was Codah. He could use this, oh yes. He definitely could. There was a Homecoming celebration on the schedule in just a week or two, and wouldn't that just be delicious for all the potential new blood?
Or... Old?
***
Codah didn't really understand why her professor cackled like he had, after accepting her report about how easy it was to get a permit to snag DNA for school-based science classes.
She started to get the idea that she was somehow crucial to whatever it was that Shy was going on about. He of course wanted samples of whoever she could reach, be they dragon, student, or staff. Some of that staff was easily taken (Saqqaf simply glistened with sweat, that was left on any given towel nearby... Rayne left fur simply everywhere, like Kuumba and their feathers, and Atasenne Lallidar was just so apt to touch people or the fabric they were working on!) while others not so much (fighting Chon-gi was tough enough as it was during practice, and Nachos for whatever reason just never seemed to want to shake hands, so formal for a surfer dripping cheese!). But Shy also wanted to tell her things - and somehow managed to keep his perfect mouth shut while dropping hint after hint.
He was working on something, a big something. He was also in and out a lot, though he'd never talk about that either. He was working several jobs, she guessed. Did they just not pay their staff well enough here?
Either way, eventually... It did come out. And eventually she was let in on this big huge monster of a secret. They were working on their own dragonry. Like not just 'all the visiting dragons' dropping eggs on a semi-regular basis, but like. A whole-ass custom-built bunch of locally-sourced heavily modified dragons. He seemed super proud of this, giddy almost.
There was a little moment when he came back to work rather frazzled and ... almost distraught? But with the dignity that he always showed, Shy got right back to business.
Codah completed these weird tests, asking her all kinds of questions, but none of them were like, TOO personal. She'd taken personality exams online, but these seemed more... pointed. She wasn't even sure what some of them were aiming at. To her, it felt like they wanted her to talk more about the tools she used in daily life, than her own abilities, but they covered those too. An essay question about how her powers might be seen by others? And another about her favored time of day? Weird. But, she answered them honestly - more because Shy told her to than because she felt like it. She could absolutely bluff her way through everything else under the sun, why not this?
She didn't even have to leave the Dome after her Research Tactics course to get the rest of that testing done. Her own cell samples were taken by that blond spaz, Melissa Larrabie, did she even know how completely pretentious that name was? Well, her parents probably did. She was good at her job, though. Shy trusted her to do this, even if there was that other guy watching (well, several other guys, one she knew was actually Darkhanis Paveh in disguise, the only reason she knew was because she had ways of noticing shapeshifters like him). He had the same eerie turquoise eyes as Nachos California. Maybe they were related, maybe Nachos was his kid? Meh, whatever!
And then life went on as normal. She wasn't given information about what all that testing had proven and wasn't sure she would ever know. Classes were ditched. Not many, she always liked the fashion class, but sometimes she'd leave before that fur-side social studies on Tuesdays, she wanted more time to crunch for mid-week tests in other classes. She knew, for whatever reason, that her attendance at classes - or even her performances in them good or bad - wasn't going to really impact this application she'd put in.
She knew that, because the time for the hatching finally arrived...
Zekiran
Akanishi Codah
