Fuzzy and warm from the pirate's rum and the exquisite feast, Rex focused solely on the ongoing battle in each of his hands. So intense was his focus that he was not even processing what Bob was telling the crew. Flix and Flox made for some seriously wriggly opponents in a thumb war. Well... Thumb vs. Head war. He held them around their bottom legs, and they bit, bounced, and jounced around, trying to capture and pin his thumbs down with their noodliness. Meanwhile he tried to get a thumb over the top of their heads, but they kept slipping out

  "I know they're wildly cute, but until and unless you make a proper Familiar Bond with them, I wouldn't fall asleep with them in your bunk." Bob warned, as it was clear the crew was winding down for a proper sleep. It had been quite the day.

  "Aww, but Bob, they're sooo cute!" Bethany said, a smile on her face as she watched the spicy noodle babies warring with Rex. "What's the worst that could happen?"

  "Glad you asked. These guys were designed to work as a sort of telepathic answering machine. Along with that, the Great Maker saw fit to make them capable of recording your dreams, given that they're snuggling with you while you sleep, that is." Bob chuckled, remembering some lurid incident of the deep past, "Turns out they make great interrogators, too, because when they're trying to get to know someone they've snuggle up with, they will draw up the most important memories that make you, you. Then they make you dream that set of memories, tricky stuff our maker was up to.

  "After a night's rest with someone, they have been known to give an Ideablast replay that information to others. So let this be a warning to you, unless you don't care about your deepest darkest secrets being shown to all your friends, don't let them snuggle with you at night."

  A short while later Bob found himself placed on the bridge, by the Nuphidri, "You have the watch, unsleeping skull. If anything happens for which you need thumbs, feel free to disturb my meditation."

  "You got it, Big Blue," Bob told her as he settled in for a long, eight hours on watch. Spoilers, the whole shift was boring as hell. Nothing happened on the bridge. Not even a beep or a boop on the sensors.

  ________

  Rex brought both dragons with him when he headed to bed.

  "Are you... sure you wanna do that Rex?" Lucas asked him.

  "Oh yeah, it'll be fine. I slept with kittens and puppies without squishing them when I was little a few times. No worries man, it'll be great!" Rex replied, oblivious.

  He brushed his teeth with his magic mouth-cleaning wand. Bethany's mother had been kind enough to provide the the whole crew with their own. He left his right hand leatherized, and wrassled the dragons some more while he cleaned his mouth with the magic wand with his left.

  Then the dragons learned - rather abruptly - that Rex had been playing before. He brought the wand toward their faces, and when they tried to wriggle away, he snatched those two little noodly bastards right behind their heads like an expert snake-wrangler. He caught Flix between his thumb and pointer finger, and Flox, gently, but firmly, pinched down with his other three fingers.

  "Open." He said, to Flix first, but the little dragon tried his best to not open. "Come on little man, you gotta clean your teefies or your breath will smell awful and no one will want to kiss you."

  Rex's Mother's words didn't convince Flix, who grumbled and growled, but kept his lips shut.

  "It can be easy, or it can be hard."

  Flix pressed his lips closed extra hard. And huffed smoke out his nostrils.

  "I see. You have chosen poorly." Rex chuckled before he gently, but firmly poking the tip of the wand into the little monster's mouth, and like a cat being forced to take medicine, Flix found himself opening his mouth against his wishes.

  Rex pushed the button on the side of his tooth brushing wand and Flix found his mouth filled with vigorous, minty, cleaning magic. It would only take fifteen seconds, but what a wild fifteen seconds it was.

  The back half of Flix flailed fervently as he pushed, pulled, and struggled against the true strength of Rex's grip. The little green dragon's claws gained plenty of purchase on the leather skin, but did no damage, nor could all his scrabbling free his head. He even tried wrapping around Rex's wrist with his free bit of tail and squeezing, but Rex just laughed and kept cleaning. Meanwhile Flox was getting battered by Flix wings flapping furiously but fruitlessly.

  And then it was done, and he set Flix loose to angrily fly around the tiny 'wind down' room he and Lucas shared. It wasn't so much a bathroom, as it was a sink and a mirror in a closet that Rex barely fit inside with the door closed. The toilet and shower were their own unit down the hall, and everyone had to share those. Flix ended up gripping onto the ceiling where he was absolutely not out of Rex's reach if wanted to snatch the little dude again.

  Flox huffed, knowing he was going to be defeated, and opened his mouth with no fight. He would acquiesce to this tooth cleaning, for now. The little black and purple dragon was clearly annoyed, but unlike his brother, he seemed willing to be governed and groomed, he was really plotting his vengeance. He planned to bide his time, awaiting revenge for this... Injustice that was inflicted upon his mouth.

  But then Rex ran some warm water, and when he went to splash his face with it, found it nearly ice cold.

  So much for biding his time.

  "Ahh!" Rex yelped. He double checked to make sure he had turned on the hot tap on the bathroom sink, and then looked at Flox, from whom he'd felt a weird surge of energy he was coming to associate with magic use. Yes, Rex was developing his innate magisense now that he'd been forcefully awakened to his magical potential.

  Flox did his best to look nonchalant, but Rex was on to his extremely obvious trickery. He filled his hands with warm water, and waited. Flox waited too. Then as Rex started to move the water toward his face, he felt the little dragon start to cast. Instead of his own face, Rex threw the ice water at the tiny prankster.

  Flox 'roared' in response, and threw himself wildly at Rex. The big man calmly caught the dragonling and wrapped him in the his thick, heavy sleeping shirt. Rex's sleeping shirt was a pair of weighted blankets stitched together. The little creature wriggled and bit and scratched, until he was dry and warm, and then... like a cat who'd suddenly realized his owner was just holding him and not hurting him; he stopped, and started purring instead.

  "That's what I thought," Rex chuckled, and reached up to grab the other scaly, winged menace, and wrapped him in his shirt-blanket too.

  Much to the chagrin of Flix, the purring of his brother was irresistible... This was... actually alright. He started purring too.

  Rex saw Lucas was already snoring softly in the top bunk, and took his precious bundle of trouble and swung himself into the slightly larger, bottom bunk.

  He put his back against the wall and tucked his second pillow between his knees, as he always did. Then as he got comfortable, he unwrapped the dragons to let them decide where to lay down, but found they were both already asleep. They yawned, stretched a little, then snuggle back down with one another, in contact with Rex, of course.

  He didn't remember falling asleep, but who really does.

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  ______

  Everything was blue, and green. Rex didn't remember that he remembered this until he was mid remembering, or dreaming, such as it was. He wasn't fully sure until he realized there were little baby dragonlings with him in the tube. It was like the revivification tank, but blueish and greenish, not just greenish.

  The muffled voices became more clear with a pair of dragonlings to clean up his memories.

  "Duncan, there's a kid in this one," the face Rex knew as Mother was saying. She'd stopped looting.

  The one he knew as Uncle Duncan, stuffed things into a bag as fast as he could. "So what, leave him. Whoever runs this place is gonna be even more pissed if we steal their oldest most successful looking experiment."

  Rex reached out a hand, smaller than he was used to, and pounded on the glass.

  "Sample, R-3-X. Look at you..." Mother said, placing her palm on the outside of the glass. Rex put his palm against the glass and smiled.

  "What're you doing? We gotta hurry before the defense golems reactivate."

  "I'm getting him out."

  There was a brief argument between them, and then... Rex was flushed from his tube, like it was a toilet.

  _____

  Scenes of the next few years of his life flew by, learning to build and repair weapons with Mother, Uncle Duncan, Dad, and Aunt Keelarg, a killitoot. Rex learned how to build and repair blaster pistols, ship based weapons, and electroweapons of all types. Swords, axes, whips, knives, you know, electroweapons.

  He was used as a distraction more than once to help them manage a caper. It wouldn't be until reliving these memories in dreams with the dragonling's help that he'd realize his parents stole him from a lab, and were mostly illegal gun runners that sometimes dabbled in exotic animal smuggling.

  _____

  He was getting bigger, but he wasn't nearly full grown yet. He was taller than Mother, and as tall as Duncan and Dad, but not quite Keelarg's height.

  Rex was pretending to sleep, the adults were shouting, some of it was about him. He'd buried this memory.

  "He eats as much as horse, Kathleen!" Duncan had never liked Rex.

  "You've been against him from the beginning."

  "She's got you there Dunc, you ain't never liked the kid," Dad said. "But Katie, I'm afraid he's right. The kid's costing us a lot more than he's worth, and he's fucked up the last three jobs we had for him. We're in debt cause of that oaf."

  "He'll be able to fully pull his weight, and more, just give him another couple years," Mother pleaded. "He's already pretty good at rebuilding guns, we'll find a job for him."

  "But we don't need a gun builder. Buyers prefer them in parts." Keelarg said.

  "I vote we sell him to the pirates," Duncan said. "First chance we get. He's old enough, or big enough anyway, to take a collar now. Then we can recoup some of our losses feeding him these last few years, and eat like kings ourselves for a change."

  "Sounds good to me," the old Killitoot woman replied.

  "Eh, sure." Dad sealed the vote. "Works for me, I'm tired of this brat fucking things up."

  Mother didn't agree, "This is bullshit, you guys are fucking assholes."

  "Yeah, but we'll be well fed assholes, again." Duncan laughed, and everyone but Mother joined him.

  Rex cried himself to sleep that night. In this dream, at least, he had the two dragons to hold close for comfort.

  ______

  It was only a few days later, and something had gone wrong with an engine. Mother, the engineer, said they'd have to land to buy parts. Closest place they could. They risked exploding with every light second they traveled.

  Every time they were forced to land some place civilized, Duncan, Dad, and Keelarg were all very worried about getting caught.

  Rex hadn't really thought much of it then, just a silly game they played. The rule was that certain places they went, only Mother and he were allowed to leave the ship, or talk to people on comms. They had to pretend everyone else wasn't onboard. In retrospect he realized it was places, with laws, and order. When they came to civilized places, the others had to hide in the 'special room'. Rex had been in there to clean it. It was cramped, but comfortable enough for three adults to kill a few hours lying down, reading or taking a nap.

  Mother geared up more than she normally would in places like this. Weapons aren't allowed to be worn on words with laws, but she'd brought a hidden stunner pistol, which Rex noticed and found odd. He asked if he should bring one too, and she said no, he hopefully wouldn't need such things here.

  They left the space port, Mother paid the man the landing tax, and a little extra so they could use the back door to leave without being scanned. They headed to the markets not far away by free public transit.

  Soon they arrived at a food market, which Rex thought was odd, normally space ship parts come from industrial districts. Mother bought Rex an ice cream. It was the first time he'd ever had something so delicious before. While he ate, Mother made some calls, Rex had always thought she was looking for a part, because he'd hardly paid attention at the time. He was far too distracted by the ice cream to understand the words... but he had heard them, and with the power of two dragons, his memories crystallized, and he heard her words, loud and clear.

  "So you promise he won't be charged with anything? And he'll get to live a safe, normal life, right?"

  Whoever she was talking to he couldn't hear, even with the help of dragons.

  "That's fair." She sighed. "Let's hope it never comes to that."

  The other party said something.

  "Ribald Piebald, soon as possible, got it."

  Rex finished his ice cream, and then he and Mother walked for a while through the bustling city. The dragons floated along with him, quietly observing, and enjoying their first dream.

  Rex and Mother found themselves outside a bar, the sign for which he couldn't read at the time. As soon as he'd read it, 'The Ribald Piebald' he took a stunner shot in the back.

  _____

  Rex woke in a nice warm bed, in a medium security, government run, orphanarium for older children. He attended classes for younger children when it quickly became apparent he had not been educated in the least. He learned to read and write in just four years. When he was large enough, for no one truly knew how old he was, he decided to join the space marines.

  There was some song he'd heard from a busker at the train station about joining the space marines. 'High adventure, higher pay! Join the Space Marines, Today!' Something about staying young and handsome for your whole life, and he was sold. Well... he sold himself, after a fashion.

  _____

  "Congrats Rex, we're shipping out a week early on a special escort assignment for some rich broad's kid, coming back from her second year at wizard college. There's been multiple pirate attacks on merchants in that transit lane recently, but no military action until some rich lady's kid's in trouble. Typical bullshit."

  "They'll have to get through me to hurt the girl, Sergeant Bawn!"

  "That's the spirit, Rex. Don't ever let that pretty head of yours worry about the bigger picture."

  The trip there was boring. Rex spent a 16 hours a day sitting in a turret, looking at space go by in warp. Waiting. Ready. Just in case they were pulled out of warp by a pirate's subspace snare.

  They needed to put down fire immediately if it happened. At least he got to switch to a different turret every four hours, and take lunch and snack breaks between turrets. It wasn't all bad.

  They expected no trouble on the way there, they were broadcasting like a military ship. Pirates want loot, or prisoners. Military ships tended to be light on both, and heavy on return fire.

  When they got to Avalon, they didn't even go down to the surface, they just parked in orbit and waited for the civilian ship to meet them in orbit. The civilian ship docked, and Rex wasn't sure why, but all the gunners were lined up in the galley to be inspected. Bethany was there, and Sheena too. They pointed at him and giggled, then an older woman pointed at him too, and asked him to step forward.

  Next thing he knew he was boarding the civilian ship in his marine exosuit, and manning their one and only turret. A pair of 'less than lethal' distortion cannons that break through shields and shut down systems, but are nigh impossible to actually kill anyone with. That was all that was legal for civilians ships in these volumes.

  The flight back was... much more eventful.

  A subspace snare hit during the second day, pulling both ships out of warp. More than twenty targets lit up his scopes and he cut loose with the distortion cannons. Within a few seconds the escort gunship was disabled. In hindsight, as Rex relived this in the dream, he thought there must have been some sabotage aboard the ship. It was a properly running ship, and with what he knew now, there's no way that it should have been disabled so quickly.

  He fought valiantly in the turret, but the overwhelming number of pirate fighters attacking quickly disabled their ship. They were mostly using the same type of distortion weapons he was shooting at them, but not all. A few precisely placed and powered shots to their engines from the properly deadly weapons of the pirate mother ship ended any hope of escape.

  True to his word, Rex killed or maimed at least a dozen men as they tried to board what they thought was a mostly harmless civilian vessel. The boarders were equipped with stunning weapons. They were there to take prisoners, and some one like Rex apparently wasn't in their mission briefing.

  He finally went down... after more than forty stunner rounds. His last sight a he hit the deck was Lucas. Weird. He was certain they hadn't met until the pirate brig.

  Whatever, Rex just chalked it up to dream logic.

  _______

  Back aboard the Chrysaora, Rex was the last one to wake up in the morning. For some reason he had slept extremely deeply, but not so deeply that the smell of S-Meat cooking couldn't rouse him.

  When he appeared in the galley doorway, the dragons trilled a happy noise, and flew over to greet him. His whole crew turned to look at him, and everyone got to their feet. One by one they came over give him a hug, but Bethany had gone first, and wouldn't let him go, so when Sheena took her turned into a group hug. Lucas piled in, and even the Nuphidri got pulled into Rex's long embrace.

  "Aww, I love you guys too!" Rex said... and then, after a while of hugging his family, he said, "Who is burning the S-meat?"

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrZcyQNGros