Sara opened her eyes. She had no idea where she was. Her back hurt from laying on a cold hard floor, and she was shivering with cold. The only thing warm was Hammy lying on her chest with all his paws tucked under him.

  "Finally, you're awake," Hammy said. It sounded like a meow, but at the same time her mind translated it to her in English. She just knew what he was saying.

  Everything started coming back to her. She'd been sure all that was a dream. "Still might be a dream," she muttered. She stood up and left Hammy sitting at her feet.

  Hammy meowed again. "I want to sit on your shoulder. The floor is cold and hard."

  "I'm not wearing my Hammy hoodie," Sara said. "You usually shred me when I'm in just a t-shirt."

  Hammy tilted his head to the side. "I... I never thought about that. What if I'm really careful. The floor is cold."

  "Ok, fine," Sara said. She picked him up and he settled in her arms. He tucked his head in under her chin so her hair was draped around him.

  Sara looked around. They were in a giant clear dome surrounded by a pitch-black sky full of stars. A flame-filled clear dodecahedron hung from the center of the dome casting a soft, warm light onto everything. A purple and blue twisted nebula took up half the field of view. The floor of the dome was perfectly flat and made from a metal that reminded her of aircraft aluminum. Cold radiated from it and through her socks.

  About a mile or two out - it was hard to judge the scale - at least a third of the dome was ringed in skyscrapers that made a skyline against the backdrop of the nebula, but there were no lights on in any of the buildings.

  The remainder of the circumference of the dome was lined with what looked like hills, each with a single archway leading inside. The central hill was significantly larger than the rest, and lounging halfway out of it sat Etta, the green and copper dragon who'd said they were her bondmates. She almost looked like a toy in the distance.

  Filling the entire space in the center between the city and the hollow hills were neat rows of raised planter boxes full of dirt and dead plants, each one had to be about a quarter mile long. They formed a star pattern that radiated out from a big clearing in the center of the dome where sara stood.

  She almost screamed when she heard a whump of air behind her. A dragon with sapphire blue scales tipped in silver landed with a clatter of enormous claws against the metal of the floor. As it strode toward her, it morphed into a man with blue hair and silver eyes wearing some kind of expensive looking fancy armor. He carried a blade across his back. If she had to guess, he was about ten feet tall.

  "Hello, Sara," he said. Or rather a bunch of weird sounding syllables formed and Sara heard what he meant, just like with Hammy. "My name is Bodran. Hammy has told me many things about you, but ... I don't know if he's entirely ... that is to say, I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about yourself and how you earned such a loyal guardian. He mentioned something about your ability to make light and warmth. He told me that you spend most of your day out hunting for resources, but most days you come back empty-handed. Your world must be a difficult place. I sense none of the magic he mentioned in you."

  "Ha," Sara said. "Guess it would seem like magic to Hammy." She rubbed her hands through his fur but he didn't purr like he normally would when she petted him. She was surprised he was handling all this so well. She could tell he was stressed because he was clinging to her like velcro.

  "So the light and heat, that's all from electricity, and that's generated from various kinds of fuel which is converted and sent through a grid that powers pretty much every home and business in the world at this point."

  Bodran sat down so he was at her level. He was so freaking big he'd make Shaq look like a toy. His eyes were practically glowing with curiosity. He held up his fingers and a little arc went between them. "Is this what you mean by electricity?"

  "Yeah, that's the stuff," Sara said.

  "And your world distributes it for everyone to use, and there is no magic involved?"

  Sara laughed at how incredulous he sounded. "If you think that's crazy, wait til you hear about the internet. All the information on our planet is stored in places called server rooms and anyone can access it using devices called computers. The small handheld computers are called phones. As long as you’re on the planet and near one of the information transmission towers or hooked up to it via cables that transmit data inside of light, you can access almost all of it. Of course none of this is free. I have to go to work and go to school to learn how to do more things so people will pay me more. That's probably what Hammy calls 'hunting.'"

  Sara pulled her cell phone from her pocket. There was no signal, which she expected given the mind-boggling circumstances, but she was able to take a photo of him and show it to him.

  "It stores a little bit of electricity so it can operate for a time without being plugged into the network of electrical lines that cover our world, but we can't access any information that isn't stored inside because we are out of range."

  "And all of this is accomplished through engineering with no magic," Bodran said.

  They ended up talking for a long time, with Hammy curled up in her lap complaining that he was hungry and wanted to go back home. When Sara finally convinced Bodran she wasn't knowledgeable enough about how all this stuff worked, Bodran relented and let her start asking questions. From what Sara gathered, the Galactic Empire was basically the British Empire, but Galaxy-sized, and only possible because of the wyrmhole dragon lineage that Etta was an inheritor of -- an ability that she needed a bondmate to unlock.

  Hammy fell asleep for a while, then started exploring a little. He used one of the dead planter boxes as a litter box, then started saying he was hungry repeatedly. "Mroooowww. Mrooooooooow."

  "I'm sorry buddy," Sara said. "Until I figure out how to get us home, I ... I don't know what we are going to eat, but I promise I'll do my best to get you some food as soon as I can. Just don't eat anything weird. You remember that time you ate that flower and I had to take you to the vet and you almost died?"

  Hammy looked at her, his eyes wide, "I ... is that what happened? I didn't understand before."

  "Yeah, sometimes things are poisonous. I know you're hungry. I am too. Just be careful, OK?"

  Sara looked up and saw Etta was flying in at an alarming pace. Hammy got behind her and pressed against her. She could feel his fear almost like it was her own. Just as Sara was certain they were about to be crushed under a dragon the size of a royal yacht, Etta transformed into a woman with green hair and copper eyes and stuck a super-hero landing. She was just a little bit taller than Bodran, but she lacked his catlike grace, and where he was all muscle, she was soft and curvy. Her hair was the same green as her scales, and her eyes were copper. She wore robes with what had to have been a king's ransom in jewels sewn onto them. Everything about her was flawless, from her skin to her posture. Something about the way she stood said, "I own all that is around me." Sara wanted to hate her, but through their bond she could sense that Etta was devoid of self-esteem.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "It's clear the guardian creature only gained sapience because of the bond," Etta said, looking at Bodran as if he was the only one there. "It is beneath even her." She waved a hand toward Sara. It's remarkable how similar her shape is to our Empyrean form, is it not? She’s duller in color, slow-witted, and weak, but it is interesting just the same. Perhaps Empress Ziedda will find them a worthy diversion, or perhaps she'll still banish and sterilize me. At the very least, Soulbi will want to study them while we survey their planet for magical resources."

  Sara did not like the sound of this, not one bit. Her heartrate picked up. Hammy picked up on her distress and pressed harder into her.

  "She's not going to bring us home, is she," Hammy whimpered. "I just want to eat and take a nap. I don't like her. I don't like the way she thinks at me, like I am a mouse."

  "I don't trust her either," Sara whispered. "But you see how big she is? What can we do?"

  Bodran put himself between Etta and Sara. "You aren't taking them back to the Imperial homeworld," he said. "There's no way they'd survive there."

  "Silence, traitor," Etta said. "They will do as I decree, and you ... you will... you will...

  "Think this through," Bodran said. "If we do things your way, even you won't survive."

  "My survival is none of your concern, Traitor," Etta spat.

  Their conversation devolved into a shouting match that was mostly Etta shouting insults and Bodran attempting to get a word in.

  Sara rubbed her temples and tried to wait for some place to interject something, but she just couldn't seem to find an opening, so she just listened and collected all the little data points that emerged as they fought like she wasn't even sitting there. She put Hammy down, put two fingers in her mouth, and blew out an ear-piercing whistle.

  Etta and Bodran stopped talking and looked down at her.

  "I know I'm just the puny dull-colored weak thing, but I think I deserve a say in what happens here, so let me just make sure I have this all right."

  Sara held up a finger, "First, the four of us have somehow gotten our souls all welded together into one big soul so that if one of us dies, we all do, and presumably because there's four of us, you can travel way way way further than any other wyrmhole dragon."

  She held up another finger and looked at Etta. "It's a problem for your society that Hammy and I aren't dragons and if you bring us home, there's a good chance someone will kill us just to kill you because politics, and because we are puny and weak and would be interesting to dissect."

  Another finger went up. "And you can't bring Bodran home because if anyone finds out he's a rebel, they'll execute him and then we'll all die."

  She turned to Bodran and held up another finger, "You can't bring Etta or us home because your dad would kill you if he found out you had an irreversible bond with one of the wyrmhole dragons he dedicated his life to killing off in order to restore planetary autonomy throughout your galaxy."

  "And you can't come to my planet because... oof just trust me, it would be a terrible idea for you and for my planet. Our nukes won't care how magical and special you are if you show up and try to take over, so we have nowhere to go except, apparently, whatever planet we are standing on."

  "It's not a planet,” Bodran said. "It's a wyrmcraft, actually. Sara's jaw dropped. The metallic ground made sense now. This was a freaking alien spacecraft.

  "OK, space travel, wow." Sara shook her head. "Alright, so how about this. My world is pretty safe for me and Hammy. Sure we could be randomly killed, but the chances are low. Since you have to return with a bondmate, Etta, you go back with Bodran, and I don't know, just don't tell anyone who he is. Change his name or something, or, maybe use magic to change his scales."

  "I'm not bringing a traitor into the palace," Etta said. "And none of that would work. You understand nothing about magic or the palace. Your ideas are not worth the time it takes to utter them."

  Sara took a deep breath. She was tired and hungry and pushing down her frustration at what a jerk Etta was being was harder every time she opened her mouth. "Ok, Ok, how about this, you bring me and Hammy home and the two of you live here on this spacecraft and start an Empire of your own, just the two of you. You can go take over some new galaxy and never speak to either of your families again. You can come visit and check on us. And if you can't do that, you could at least let us go get some food and blankets and furniture so we don't freeze to death and die of starvation."

  Etta and Bodran were silent for a long time.

  "That could work," Etta said.

  Bodran stared at her. "You're serious, aren't you."

  "No other wyrmhole dragon has ever been able to go to another galaxy," Etta said. "We'd be safe from both our families, and we could go back whenever we want. We could even bring loyal followers back here and they'd have no way home without us."

  "Without you, you mean," Bodran said.

  A range of emotions played over Etta's face and Sara felt it bleeding through. Elation, relief, a sense that she could be free, all pushing through the paranoia that blanketed her mind like a shroud. Etta smiled and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. "I could be executed for telling anyone this, but that would be a death sentence for you too. The best kept secret of the wyrmhole lineage is that bondmates can travel too. I just have to teach you the spell. There is an imperial decree. If anyone finds out, the bonded pair that failed to keep the secret will be executed along with everyone who knows. So you'll forgive me if I wait to teach you until our interests are more intwined. Serve me well and perhaps that power will be yours.”

  "I understand," Bodran said. Sara doubted he did. You didn't get more intertwined than shared souls, and Bodran didn't seem the subservient type, but she could understand why he'd say that. And she could see why Etta wouldn't want to give him that power just yet.

  "We can't let Sara and Hammy go home like this."

  Sara frowned. "What?"

  "You are too weak. Anything could happen. You could fall. You could be struck by one of the vehicles you told me about."

  "So you are going to lock us away?"

  Bodran's smile lit up his face. "No, Sara, I'm going to teach you magic, and you are going to teach me technology."

  "Um, I'm a biology major," Sara said.

  "We'll find a way," Bodran said.

  Something occurred to Sara and panic shot through her. She glanced at Hammy. "Your life span ... Hammy, you are already seven. Cats only live about 15 years. Are we all going to..."

  Etta laughed. "You share a soul with a dragon. Age dares not touch us. We live until we fail to survive."

  "And I intend to make you very hard to kill," Bodran said.

  Etta nodded. "We will live to see this new Galaxy bow before us," Etta said.

  Bodran looked at Etta. "No, we are not going to do things the same way as your ancestors. You haven't lived among the other races. You haven't seen the cultures your Empire destroys in the name of resources. You don't understand the wealth of beauty that has been wasted."

  "We are dragons. We are their gods. They are better for the civilization we bring. No other race can do what we can."

  "How can you possibly know that. You've never been out of your palace without an army of servants."

  As Etta and Bodran fell to bickering again, Hammy looked up at Sara. "It's kind of hard to take their promise of immortality seriously when they're trying to starve me to death."

  Sara picked him up and hugged him. "Hammy, do you know what this means? Not only do we get to explore space, I don't ever have to lose you!"

  Hammy purred. "Yeah, that is pretty good. Do you think they'll let us eat soon?"

  "I sure hope so," Sara said. "I think I'm missing work. And probably my literature exam too. I hope they bring us back before we get evicted and someone takes all our stuff."

  "My favorite furry blanket!" Hammy said. His howl sounded pitiful.

  "Maybe we'll wake up at home and this was all dream," Sara said.

  "Do you think so?" Hammy said. "Would I still be able to talk and think better? And what about my lifespan? And magic? I want to learn magic."

  Sara smiled. "You know what, I hope it isn't a dream. But I also hope we don't get evicted before we can get your blanket."

  Hammy started making biscuits on Sara's lap. She winced through the pain. It wasn't too bad. "Oh, and my fetch toy, and the food bowl that doesn't touch my whiskers, and that little toy that makes me feel silly! And your Hammy hoodie so I can sit on your shoulder without hurting you. Oh, and the little tubes of stuff to lick. And the treats. And don't forget my cave bed! And my tower, and my litter box..."