Book One: Onnu and Pannu

New Kin

She made the jump in one clean swoop, almost not needing to grab a spire. The sky was indeed dimming.
   "Darkness falls!" she cried, trotting toward the group. "There is no time! To me, now!"
   They backed up when she reached the bottom, but she'd expected it. That was why, though her mind screamed for her to run, she'd kept to a trot.
   "Grab hold of my wings, here and here. We must be quick!"
   She dropped to her belly after showing them where to go. The hooved creatures pranced anxiously, afraid they'd be left behind.
   "Hooves up front. I'll carry you. Hurry!"
   There were more hooved ones in his group, but she had long arms. She lined them up on both sides, facing the Bowl, and when her wings were full, she gently scooped them to her keel. They gripped her forelegs, bodies clamped to her chest.
   "Dragon Air is departing. All abooooooard!"
   The last thump hit her wing. At least, she hoped it was the last. She didn't hear any movement, and she couldn't see much with her wings splayed out.
   "Hup!" 
   She would've trotted, but the wind had begun tickling her feet. A canter was the slowest she could risk. Along the spire she jogged, feeling people scramble for better handholds. Someone slipped, but one of their companions must've caught them. She could feel them dangling slightly behind the rest.
   "Brace!" was all the warning she could give.
   She dropped, and several of her passengers experienced zero gravity. She lifted her wings slightly when she landed, to cushion the fall more, and lunged forward, under the nearest spire on the opposite side.
   The other dragon had crawled near their landing site, so she barked "under a dragon, now!"
   Kin scrambled off her wings, and under whichever dragon happened to be closest. Those in her arms were already under her, so she mantled over the little ones on the sides and scooped them under her body. She didn't like the feeling of this wind beneath her wings. She preferred to keep them as close as possible.
   She didn't know why the manta was already sucking things up. It was never this fast!
   But what do they eat? Surely, our scraps aren't enough to feed those things. What if... what if they feed on dragons?
   It made horrible, awful, sickening sense. Just as she'd singled out the wounded herdbeasts, this monstrous beast must have sensed the other dragon's trembling, and rushed to feed.
   We haven't seen any dragon bones, but the holds are empty.
   In a world where dragons grew so large, there had to be something to feed on their dead. Humans, had they thought about it, would've assumed smaller scavengers. Maybe something as big as a house. But what if there was one moon-sized manta ray, feeding on the dead dragons of the worlds in this multi-star system?
   Because she'd observed the system every day, when she hunted. She only ever saw the one. Sure, she could only spare a few minutes here and there, so there could be more on the other sides of the planets she could see, but they would all have to have the same hide pattern.
   She'd named this one Charon, because it ferried the dead... well, into its stomach, but she wasn't super knowledgeable in mythology. She'd had to wrack her brain for even that scrap of information, but when you looked at it, the name sort of fit. You'd imagine being on that ferry to be pretty slow, and so was Charon.
   Except today. Today she'd learned that it also fed on those not quite dead. Perhaps it needed a new name. The two spots on its back, though, made her think of the coins you placed on the eyes of the dead, to pay Charon for passage to the underworld. Whichever underworld that was. Was Charon Greek? She couldn't exactly Google it anymore.
   Besides, wasn't she changing its name?
   In her private thoughts, she did not ask for feedback from the kin. Her thoughts did not affect them, and they kept her mind off of the monumental manta trying to suck her, and her wards, up into its maw.
   Charon, or whatever she decided to call it, hovered over them longer than usual that night. It could sense the other dragon's fatigue. He was so close to being food!
   Eventually, the opportunity cost was too much. It required more effort to suck up something as large as a dragon, and if he wasn't going to come quietly, it was a waste of energy to continue trying.
   Charon moved on, switching back to passive upthrust to catch smaller debris. It didn't hang around as long as it usually did, so the "night" was shorter than the kin were used to.
   The dragoness worried that they would notice, and ask questions she wasn't sure they wanted the answers to.
   The smaller dragon was too tired to care. As soon as the sucking wind stopped, he dropped into a heavy slumber.