---

   *Sunlight slashs a knife-like cut across the sleeping figure.  The man, a
tall, handsome figure with a noticable scar perverting the features the left
half of his face.  His hair, black as pitch, fans out and around him.  His
clothing has various knots of useless cloth banded around him.  Then,
lifting up from the foot of the bed is the head of a small, though not
particularly young, dragon.  This is Shard, whose scales are dark as onyx,
and smooth as night.  It whispers, in a silibant tounge* "Mannin, wake
up...I am hungry you over-sized monkey!"
   *This rouses Mannin, who glares at Shard.  He is still amazed that his
dwarf dragon, having attained the full 20' that is it's maximum, and being
snake-like in it's shape, managed to survive the trauma of birth.  It was
horribly small when it chose Mannin, who was recovering from an attack by a
rouge dragon that left him a resident of Geode, and the bearer of a mauling
scar.  Shard proved to have a quick wit, matched only by Mannin's, who had a
talent for speech and debate.*
   "I am up, you malformed lizard"  *Mannin gets up, stretching, and puts on
his boots.  He arranges his clothing and goes to get some breakfast.  Shard
follows him, actually capable of sliding through the passages while leaving
enough room for someone to squeeze past him.*  "I wish you wouldn't do that,
Shard...it annoys people!"
{He will walk till he gets to where ever you go to eat (Unless he meets
someone on the way, and more interesting things crop up) and see how things
progress from there.}