Solo 7 - Pat Lassiter

Traditional Percussion

Canadian-born but brought up in the middle of Seattle, Pat's liberal parents always enjoyed it when he would bring his friends over for games and discussions. Never very traditional in most other ways, Pat's love of drums brought him the desire to travel to learn.

Since he was able to do so, given a family while not rich, were well off enough to send him for summers to distant lands, Pat went around the world in search of the beats which drove his heart.

He discovered Tabla in India, and studied for four months under a Master there, learning everything he could and impressing even the old man whose hands were scarred from their work pounding drum heads. He went to Jamaica, and learned oil-drum tunes. He traveled to Africa to study 'talking drums'. And finally he came back - to California where he was hired on to do movie music.

Standing at the Bower for Generation Red 16

Sara Giovanni and Pat would frequently go back and forth about the differences and benefits of "modern" versus "traditional" drumming. Even their stick-holding styles were different: he preferred the heads to be extentions of his forefinger, drawing a straight line from his elbow through wrist and hand. But then, he didn't need to use sticks, all the time. He actually preferred to hit drums with his hands directly, but valued his sense of touch too. He'd switch out from the tablas over to a drum kit, off to the oil drums, and then back. His collection of exotic, off-world drums was growing too.

Now, if only he could find a dragon like the others. Only one other and he hadn't found their pairs - and the rest of the group were waiting. Mostly patiently, but it had been a while. The other intergalactic bands occasionally drifted through on their tours, but since this was so close to restricted Vocorr space, they didn't dare go too far in.

Some day, Pat thought, they'd really have to do something about Vocorr. He'd got the feeling that they were getting more subversive and less obvious about their dealings with Earth especially - and Earth was where the most 'objectionable' music was found. If they got their claws into his homeworld, Pat wasn't sure what he'd do.

He had memories so precious - the smells of the curries and dung in India, the dust of Africa that clung to his huge eyebrows and made him cough. What would become of such amazing people as his Master drummer? Vocorr was an evil entity, filled with single-minded and dangerous individuals.

But the Solos had dragons.

Pat determined himself to ask next time one of the other Solos' dragons drifted by him, to find a place. Any place. He needed to move. He'd heard very recently of a raid on one distant rocky world, which was known for providing drum-head skins and leather, bindings and cords. According to Vocorr that was a crime the whole world would pay for.

Pat didn't think he could stand that. He also knew he couldn't stand alone - but he had friends...

And what friends they turned out to be! When he was brought to the Bower, there were a multitude of different creatures. Dragons, aliens, humanoids, whoever.

The little ones being cared for and awaiting friends or sponsors were just as varied as anything Pat had ever seen. Stripes, solids, fades... But it was one in particular, a little blue and black and white faded female, that came trundling up to him.

"Hi!" She said, her voice was adorable and musical already. Pat's heart melted. "What'cha'doin?"

"Waiting for you, I think," he said. "We'll be heading pretty far away from here, will that be okay?"

She nodded, "yup. I--" But before she could continue, one of her siblings screeched loudly causing a ruckus, and causing little Akscha to leap into Pat's arms in terror.

"I see." Pat chuckled. This would be... interesting...

***

And it was. At the very least, Akscha learned quickly to control her acid spitting when she was startled. (That melted two nice chairs, a bongo and a reasonably new box of drum sticks before it got trained out of her.) She loved to be around the other dragons with the Solos, and absolutely enjoyed singing along with their tunes.

Thankfully, even though she's a bit of a coward, her sense of justice and helpful nature allows Pat and the others to bring her along to places that are in need of aid. The others encouraged her to use her immunity to fire, to help rescue folks, that was something she could easily justify rushing into - fires didn't scare her at all!

In fact, the Solos wrote a song about it, after she rescued a whole orphanage full of kids! Every other little thing though, from Vocorr ships sighted nearby to unexpected loud noises (and around a drummer of all things), would put her into a quivvery pile wrapped halfway around Pat and usually most of the way around his current activity.

But he loved her for it anyway.