Gavin stared at the colorful circles arranged very deliberately and surrounded by grass and things. Crystal pillars held canopies above them, and the canopies were planted with colored flowers. There were crstaline tiles on a table in the center, and Gavin stared at it.

"What's this thing again?" he asked.

"It's the teleportation circle, sir," one of the servants said.

Gavin cocked his head to the side. "Yeah? How's it work?"

Everyone kind of just stared at him.

"Is that something I, and only I, know how to do?"

"It is a job requirement, sir."

Gavin frowned. "Well. That sucks." He poked the tiles. They all felt pretty much the same to him. "Where am I going again?"

"There's an egg awaiting you at the capitol palace." The servants sounded really frustrated or drained or something.

"Yeah?" Gavin asked. "We having an omelette?"

"A dragon egg, sir." That was the sound of someone on his last nerve.

"You sound like you need a vacation," Gavin said, selecting a few random tiles and putting them on the table in the middle canopied area, which was covered in yellow flowers. This whole place was really cutesy rainbow colored. He wondered vaguely if it was a theme or something.

As he arranged the tiles, he felt a prickling sensation in his fingertips, and suddenly, someone behind him said "Welcome, Punjaro Gavin!"

He jumped about a foot and turned after smacking his head on the canopy. Rubbing the spot, he ducked out from under it and cleared his throat. "Yeah, um, thanks?" he said. "Am I where I'm supposed to be?"

Lucinda paced back and forth nervously. She'd taken a skycar to the palace, but the Lord Chamberlain had gone to fetch ... someone, or something. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Dragon. Really really huge wrathy dragon. Oh God.

And she had no clue why or how she was here, why or how she was getting a dragon, or why or how she was going to get home.

The door opened. She turned and saw...

"Gavin?" some blonde chick asked him. He blinked. Considering everyone else seemed to know his name around here, then this was just par for the course. Maybe he was just really really famous?

"Um, yeah?" he asked, blinking as the girl ran over and hugged him. Maybe he was her boyfriend? But he was getting an egg for an omle-- ... er. Dragon. He wasn't meeting his girlfriend.

"I must be in the wrong place," he said. "I'm supposed to be getting a dragon," he explained to the old guy in the suit with all the medals on it and the diplomatic sash. "You know, you're really dressed up for a butler."

The blonde chick facepalmed. "Gavin," she said. "It's me."

Gavin blinked while the old guy looked indignant.

"Lucinda?" she prompted

Gavin cocked his head to the side. And then he started humming the theme song to the Twilight Zone.

Palm wandered hazily into the room she saw everyone else in. "Hello, Gavin. Hello, Cinda," she said, pressing her hand to her forehead. "You'll excuse me. I suddenly have the most insistant headache."

Gavin and Lucinda both stared at her, jaws dropped.

"Uh?" Gavin asked.

"YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!" Lucinda squeed and hugged her tightly about the ribs.

"Owww..." Palm whined a little.

"PALM YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!!"

"There.... yes.... and.... Ow."

"Well, if you're all here," a stodgy man in a diplomatic sash interrupted as Lucinda finally released her death grip, "we'd best go to the other receiving chambers to see about those dragons for you all, hadn't we?"

"Had we?" Gavin asked, still staring at her and Lucinda. He quirked an eyebrow at them, studying them carefully.

"Stop staring," Palm muttered, taking the place of Kate's usual sourness. "Your face will freeze."

She followed as the rest of them followed the diplomatic sash of the overblown butler-or-something.

Into a very large chamber.

'Very large' did it absolutely no justice, Gavin decided. It needed a second 'very' with extra emphasis, so in caps.

This was a very, VERY large chamber. And maybe that wasn't even sufficient.

The roof of his new home was probably twice as high as this, but this wasn't the narrow corridor that his palace had boasted for its elevated roof. No. This chamber was wide, deep, and had huuuuge circles, with just that many 'u's in them. They needed those 'u's for the emphasis, also. Like the second 'very'.

What this circles would do was beyond Gavin, but the blonde chick knew, and the short-haired asian chick who reminded him a little of his friend Palm in her utter '....ngh, whaaaat?'-ness seemed to have at least some inkling. They shuffled over towards the circles as the glorified butler spoke.

Gavin wandered over, hands stuffed in his pockets. What were they getting again? Omelettes?

There was no kitchen around.

Gavin stared about the place, bored, as the glorified butler continued to speak. Uh-huh. Yep. Responsibility. Sure. Iminant threat. Danger. Life-threaten--when was breakfast around this joint?

Blah blah blah. This was boring. When was --

Suddenly, one of the huuuuge circles began glowing, interrupting the glorified butler.

"Ah," he said, checking his watch. "I guess I was a little late. Lady Amity, may I present to you your dragon, procured from the furthest reaches of --" And a brilliant violet flash of light and a catastrophic crash cut him off.

As his eyes struggled to recover, Gavin peered through the haze and nearly fell over at what he saw.