Solo 8 - Cathy Wise

Traditional Keyboards, Piano, Harpsichord

Born in the Bayou, a very southern-fried girl with longings to become something more than her parents could ever have imagined. When she showed interest in her uncle's upright, untuned piano on one visit, they let her bang away. When she was able to recreate the music they were listening to on the radio only minutes later, they knew they had a prodigy on their hands.

Cathy was sent to a good school, thanks to a local musical scholarship program. It was there that she mostly lost her deep accent, but there that she gained an appreciation for the music of her roots.

Always more of an intimate performer than the big stars or orchestra-worthy of the Solos, Cathy enjoys a small audience and a small venue. The Grid therefore is a bit out of her league but she's gotten used to it pretty easily.

Standing for one of Unyko's 'Tardis Generation' dragons

Cathy had been patient, she'd watched the others as they collected their interesting dragon friends. She wasn't really certain she wanted to have something so big, or so weird as a dragon. But then she had been used to the alligators in the swamps back home, some of those were even bigger than these guys!

Well, at least, when they were younger!

The dragons kept their eye out for places and nests, and there would be no stopping them once they found her something appropriate.

As it was, she wasn't even on the Grid when they found one. She was out carrousing with Galactirock in some seedy rural bar on a planet where 'human' could mean almost anything. The other band members enjoyed Cathy's presence, and her enthusiasm. The audience thought it was amazing that she could get so much music out of just two hands with only five digits on them!

Perhaps she spent a little too much time with Arick and Coelestaad, she'd almost been spotted once or twice by Vocorr while hanging out with that band. But eventually one of the Solos' dragons caught up with her.

You will wind up back here, Glissando told her, of the Grid. For now, seek your path there!

The green marked dragoness dropped her off and Cathy immediately wondered which direction to head. When she saw a number of dragons doing aerial stunts, she knew that would be it...

It almost felt like she was on the Grid. So much strange energy, Cathy wondered if this was mistake. After all she didn't feel like she knew what she was doing out there, let alone down here. Her element was ... smaller.

But there was a sound in her mind, one that she couldn't play out on a piano. Well, no - that wasn't true at all. She could reproduce this sound. By running her short, hard nails up a piano wire!

All these years of hitting the right keys, in the right order... And suddenly she knew there was much more to her favored instrument than merely white and black pieces of ivory!

That is how I like to think, said a voice in that same sound, inside Cathy's head. She wasn't surprised to hear it, the other Solos' dragons had spoken to all of them and she knew it was from a dragon's mind.

It was so pure, so bright... Stunning. Hot, but it didn't burn her. "What is your name? I'm Cathy," she replied, looking around in search of a dragon here that might match that particular mind-voice. She caught a glimpse, and knew.

The brightly burning chest cavity kind of made her worried. But then, the mind-voice didn't burn. Why should a dragon who chose to communicate with her, then choose to harm her? It was bright, it was hot. But - Cathy approached anyway. She squinted, and laughed. "I'm gonna need to get some sunglasses!"

Star Glasses! the dragoness replied. And my name ... is Kssht, I hope you can say it to your friends...

And after a few tries, Cathy managed a good reptition of that sound of nails quickly over piano wire.

Kssht would be rather larger than Cathy anticipated, when she became older. But ... Older to a dragon like this might mean a star's age, Cathy wasn't sure what that meant for her and her friends. Were they mortal? Immortal? Did it really matter?

The Solos were now Duos, that was at least obvious!

It was also obvious once the group of dragons were together, that Vocorr had best think twice, or a couple dozen times, before messing with ANY of the Solos!