Image © Lakota

Name:	Hojji Kurt
Species:	Human
Age:	17
Gender:	Male
Sex:	Male
Bond:	n/a
Sponsorlings/Wards:	Raabosi
Birthplace:	Davo, Sitheil Tirean
Current Residence:	Sitheil Tirean, Splintyr Sector
Family:	Dannen (brother)
Physical Description:	Hojji is lean and wiry, but strong from his three years of apprenticeship to a master carpenter. His expressions are almost universally more cheerful than his brother's. He always wears a blue bandanna on his head, and on the rare occasions when he removes it or it falls off, his hair is revealed to be curly and very, very unkempt.
Height:	5'11"
Personality:	Hojji is a typical teenager: slightly slack-offish, a little bit indecisive, and equipped with a slight attitude. He will happily do his share of the work, but would rather fall asleep than volunteer for anything extra. He is content to rely on his big brother, Dannen, for the tough decisions, even though he has an opinion of his own and doesn't mind expressing it. He seems to have no problem with allowing his brother to be the "voice" of the two of them, although sometimes Hojji might get a touch petulant and whiny if Dannen's decision isn't what he wanted, exactly. Unlike Dannen, Hojji isn't certain what "direction" his life is taking, but so far, he's content to let his boat drift along in the current, come what may. He is usually cheerful, much more so than his brother is, and is relatively untouched by the stresses and worries of having to survive more or less alone in the world. Hojji does not let the memories of the deaths of his parents get him down, and has a kind word for everyone.
Abilities:	»ABILITIES
History/Backstory:	HISTORY
Stories:	Hojji slept soundly on the sturdy wooden table, oblivious to the wood shavings in his hair and his brother's silent, frustrated contemplation of the barrel stave he was trying to make. Hojji dreamed, peacefully, of the three years of apprenticeship he and Dannen had had before their master, Terky, had fallen mysteriously ill. It was fairly amazing, actually, how much work there actually was. To Dan and Hojji, the pace of their work before Terky's illness had been steady, but not overwhelming. The master carpenter was so skilled and experienced that he could easily turn out furniture and containers that would take his apprentices weeks to complete, and shoddily at that. Who had known that the smallest mead brewery in Davo required thirty-five sealed, watertight barrels every month? Terky could make two perfect barrels a day. He could have half the next month's order ready by the end of the current month. His peaceful sleep interrupted by the sound of his brother scraping at the barrel stave, Hojji snorted and sat up. He noticed then that his hair, where it stuck out from underneath the blue bandanna he wore, was full of wood shavings. He pawed at it, shaking loose some of the shavings. "How's the stability of that table?" his brother asked, smiling a little. Hojji frowned a little, but then felt his face flush. He did feel pretty bad about falling asleep. "I'm sorry, Dan," he said. "I'm just so tired." It was true. The six hours of sleep they got per night were inadequate now. "I know," Dan replied. He picked the inshave tool back up. "Have a look at this barrel stave. I can't tell if it's crooked or not." Hojji scrambled off of the table and walked over to his brother. He pulled the barrel stave out of the clamp and inspected it. "It looks okay," Hojji said after a minute. "Gee, thanks for your detailed opinion," his brother said. He grabbed a small bottle and began to oil the inshave's blade. Hojji made a face and stretched. He put the barrel stave back into the clamp and tightened it. "I have to finish that oak platform-thing that the bakery needs," he said, tossing logs and boards from a neat pile in the corner. "Agh, stop that," Dan said. "The oak is right… hmm." His voice trailed off, and Hojji glanced over. There was only empty flooring where the pile of oak logs should be. Dan said, "We appear to be out." Hojji blinked. "How could we run out of oak wood?" It seemed incomprehensible. There had always been wood, and there would always be wood. "I don't know," Dan said. Hojji felt a shard of ice drop into his belly. As the elder of the two brothers, Dan was the trusted leader and provider, as he had been since their parents had died and they had apprenticed to Terky. Hojji unequivocally trusted his brother's decisions, but he also relied on them. The thought that Dan didn't know what to do was anathema. "I guess I'll go to the lumberjacks' hall and see if I can buy some more," Dan was saying, not sounding very confident. "But how much do we need?" Hojji said. He tugged his blue bandanna off of his head and twisted it into a meaningless lump of cloth. "What type of oak? Who will you buy from? How much should you pay?" Dan threw his hands into the air, uncharacteristically frustrated with his younger brother. "Hojji, calm down. I don't know the answers to your questions, but I'll figure it out. We have to, now. Terky isn't going to walk in through the door, miraculously healed, to help us--" The door to the carpenters' workshop banged open, letting in a swirl of wind and an angry-looking white-haired man wearing a leather apron. "Terky?" Dannen and Hojji cried simultaneously. "No," the man growled, and now the two assistants could see it wasn't Terky… for one thing, this man wore small spectacles, and Terky did not, and this man lacked the large scar that Terky touted on the side of his neck, the reminder of a freak accident many years ago that had involved a hacksaw, a splinter, and a very angry mule. "I'm Shikken," the man said, "Terky's twin brother. I got a letter he sent to me when he first got sick, asking for my help, which is kind of unusual since we haven't spoken in years." Hojji found his voice first. He still was half-convinced he was seeing some kind of ghost. "Why not?" "Well," Shikken said, striding into the workshop and eyeing their tools and projects, "you could say that we worked together for a while, then we had a bit of a falling-out over a wooden rocking chair. Then, we were rivals. But now I'm here, to bury the hatchet." He found their hatchet and tested its blade. "Thank you," Dan said. "Terky is expected to make a full recovery, but it's wonderful to have seasoned advice again. For example, we needed to get some oak wood, and I was wondering--" "Do you have any dragons around?" Shikken said, peering at Dannen's barrel stave in its clamp. "Crooked," he muttered. "Dragons, sir?" Hojji sputtered. The man might as well have said space aliens. "No, not here." "Not even a Schattarneki or two? No bonds? No sponsorlings?" The brothers shook their heads. Shikken snorted and said, "And here you live barely fifty miles from Sitheil Tirean." "I don't understand," Dan said. Hojji glanced at him, and Dan continued, "Why would we need dragons?" "To keep you company," Shikken said, grabbing the inshave and planing the allegedly crooked barrel stave. "To help you out around here. To be a friend. Don't get me wrong, you're not going to get an adult dragon. You have to raise them and take care of them. You have to be a friend to them first before they can be a friend to you." "Uh, don't take this the wrong way," Dan said, "but I don't know how to go about getting a dragon." Hojji let out his breath in a pent-up sigh. At least Dan was addressing the concerns that Hojji himself was feeling. "That's easy enough," the old man said. "I travel a lot, and the critters who run Sitheil Tirean are always passing out flyers and giving information on places that have eggs ready to hatch. There's a clutch ready on a spaceship called the 'Abstract Destiny'. That's where you'll be going. Which one of you am I sending?" The brothers blinked. Davo was a mixed magic-and-science world, and although they had heard of spaceships, neither, of course, had seen one. "I don't… um…" Hojji said. He wanted so badly to be brave, to leap forward and scream Take me!, but he was still so unsure, and badly shaken. "How would we get there?" Dan asked. "Through the Gates, of course," Shikken said. "We can handle the work here. You go on and bring back a dragon. Having a little critter run around here would sure cheer Terky up." Blitzed, Dannen blinked. "I… I'll go, I guess." Hojji wanted to yell Don't leave me here with him, but he successfully repressed the blind panic-animal in his chest. "Good to know!" Shikken left the barrel stave and clapped Dan on the back. "Pack whatever things you need. We'll send you through that Gate!" "What will I have to do?" Dannen asked, wide-eyed. He looked about as panicked as Hojji felt. "Hmm, you see, there's the thing. I don’t know," the old man said. "But there's a doctor on that ship, I hear, who's nice and friendly. I'm sure once you get there, he'll tell you what you have to do." "A dragon," Hojji said, starting to smile. He could picture himself seated just above its shoulders as it flew across all of Davo, and he would wave down at "When is it my turn to go?" Shikken roared laughter. "Soon," he said, "soon enough. Now, come on, let's go!" Hojji stared while the strange Terky-look-alike Shikken dragged his brother first to his room and then out the door of the workshop without so much as a farewell. He realized then that he had no clue about what to do now. How long was Dannen going to be gone? Would Shikken be coming back too? Should he, Hojji, try to get ahold of that oak wood, or finish the barrels? "Well, crap," he said to the empty workshop. ------- In the end, he decided to finish up whatever small tasks he could around the workshop. He had a strange feeling that the men in the lumberjack's guild, most twice his age and well-established in their business endeavors, would likely not even take him seriously, let alone sell him the oak wood. Either that, he thought with sagacity, or they would sell him the wood at a ridiculous price, and he lacked the experience to tell. So Hojji sanded, planed and cured barrel staves until his fingers felt as cold and wooden as the staves themselves. When he glanced at Terky's large metal gear-clock, feeling as though at least three days had passed, he was startled to see only a few hours had gone by. How could Terky maintain this kind of working pace for hours, days at a time? He was spared further contemplation of his complaining hands by Shikken's reappearance. The man banged open the workshop door as he had done previously and then just stood in the doorway, hands on hips. "Um, hi?" Hojji said. "Is Dan okay?" "Don't know," Shikken replied, grinning. "He might have gotten atomized during the Gating. We'll probably see him back in a few days, and if we don't, then we know!" Hojji stared at him. "I'm kidding," the old man said after a moment, sounding grumpy. "Your brother's fine. The Gate technicians would have known immediately if something was wrong." "Oh," Hojji said. He felt as if he should feel relieved, but still, strangely, he felt tense and nervous. "That's good. So, um, you're Terky's brother?" "Yes, yes," Shikken said, sweeping his massive bulk into the workshop and heading straight towards Hojji, "but enough about me. I'm sure Terky will tell you everything once he's better. Right now, we have to get you ready for your appointment." "My wha?" Hojji asked as Shikken grabbed him gently by the arm. "With who?" "Oh, you don't know them yet," Shikken said, tugging on Hojji's arm and indicating that he needed to pack a few things just as his brother had. "You'll get to meet them if their parents approve." "What?" Hojji yelped, shaking his arm loose from the older man's grasp. "I'm going to get a dragon too? But Dan isn't even back yet! Who's going to do all this work in the meantime?" "You saying I can't handle the work?" Shikken said, his voice barely above a growl. Hojji eyed Shikken's muscles. "Er, no," he said. "Good, then," the man said. "I can hold down the fort until you boys get back with your dragons. Now come on, change into a clean shirt. The dragons you're going to meet are liveborn, so you'll see them right away, if you're approved." And that was how Hojji found himself answering a Gate technician's pointed questions and then stepping through the blue-green web alone, while Shikken cheerfully waved goodbye. "Uh, what do I tell them?" he yelled at the man, even as the Gate technician ushered him through the pillars. "Just tell them Lakota's friend Shikken sent you," Shikken yelled. Hojji closed his eyes and stepped through the Gate, hoping things would be so easy once he got to this... "Star City". ------- In the end, it was. He was introduced to the parents of the dragonets by a catlike anthropomorph. There were what seemed to be half a hundred brightly-multicolored dragonets bouncing around--and on--the adult dragons, who tolerated it with a beatific aura that Hojji imagined all parents had to adopt. "Why don't you spend some time with them?" The cat-anthropomorph, whose name was Siche, suggested. "Then you can let me know your preferences." "Oh," Hojji said, looking at the mass of squeaking, leaping dragonets. "I, um, don't have any preferences. I've never done this before. Er, deal with dragons, I mean." The parents both looked at him with wry amusement. They were a tad intimidating, both of them towering far above his head. The mother, Milakik, was the larger of the two, but the male, Maix, was well-muscled and looked dangerous. "I mean, yeah, I don't have preferences. I'd love any one of them!" Siche smiled at this, as the kits heard and clustered around Hojji's feet. ~Me, then,~ a light-silver-white female dragonet said. ~I'm Niajuri. You'll like me. We'll have fun!~ Before Hojji could even so much as react, a purple dragonet shouldered her sister roughly. ~You stink,~ she said, and Niajuri gaped her tiny mouth wide, hugely insulted. ~I'm more fun. I'm Reimi,~ she bounced up and down a few times. Soon all the dragonets were "speaking" at once, each of them curious as to Hojji's life back on Sitheil Tirean and each of them expounding their own virtues. Hojji blinked under the mental onslaught, and tried to single out the hatchlings one at a time. "Um, hi," he said cautiously to a blue-furred male dragonet. "Which one are you?" ~Rabosii,~ the kit said simply. "Uh, would you like to come live with me? On my home planet?" The kit shrugged one shoulder. ~Sure, I guess, whatever,~ he said. ~If you want me to.~ Hojji felt a bit flabbergasted. And overwhelmed. "Er, I don't know what to do," he said, looking first at Maix and Milakik, and then Siche, for help. "Well, since this is your first encounter with baby dragons," Siche said, smiling, "Why don't we let one of them choose you?" "Oh, perfect," Hojji said. He breathed a little easier. It was almost like having Dan around, to help him out with the really tough decisions. "That's fine. Great." Thirteen dragonets looked up at him cheerfully. It was time. -------

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