Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Firmen is Firm on It

Firmen wanted to know what was in the stars, but when he'd ask, the dragons would shake their great heads. Pannu said there was no way to get into outer space, and nighttime was dangerous. How would they know what was up there? Onnu never said a word, but her face was suspiciously grim... he thought. It was hard to read a dragon, but her lips would compress until you could barely see the teeth that normally poked out. She would stare off into the distance, and he swore something haunted her.
   "Have you ever tried flying as high as you can?" he asked her one day.
   Pannu was trying to make fire, across the Bowl. He sort of had the hang of it, but wasn't reliably able to do it.
   Onnu knew it was because he didn't go up into the gases daily, as she did, but she wouldn't say as much. I should, though. He's adjusting better every day.
   "I do not know how high I can fly." It was a partial truth. "Besides, what if I never came down? Then what would you do? Eat your food half-cooked?"
   "But you have these gills at the base of your neck. Are they aquatic?"
   "There is not yet a body of water large enough to submerge that deep," she replied with strained patience.
   "I wonder if this planet has oceans," he murmured. "But would you be willing to try? I'd just like to know what's beyond the atmosphere--or if we even have one."
   "How would we breathe without one?" she countered, hoping to distract him with theories.
   "If this really is Rapture, we might not need to breathe at all. Maybe it's just a reflex we never got rid of."
   She nearly rolled her eyes. "I never said that it was, just that it may be. And our bodies function as bodies do, otherwise. Why should breathing be any different from digestion? That reminds me, we really do need some sort of sanitation system. Those algae might not be able to cope with all of this biological waste forever."
   "Then it's a good thing you two defecate outside the Bowl," he said.
   She thought they would switch topics, but he was on this like a terrier. I suppose he's had this bottled up for roughly a month now. Soon, he'll begin grumbling to the others. She sighed, nearly knocking over Slate. A month had not been enough time for them to adjust to their new legs.
   "Sorry."
   "Nah, s'ok. I'll get used to it." They walked further away, in case Onnu forgot again.
   "What if I go with you? I don't know what my species designation is. Maybe I can handle space travel."
   He would label her face skeptical, if he wasn't aware that projection and personification were possible scenarios.
   "And what if you cannot? Then I must cut my trip short, and return you to the ground."
   He was bold enough to put a hand on her jaw. She barely felt it, but she knew that he wasn't super comfortable with touch.
   "Look, my experiments with the materials we've collected are at a standstill. I don't know if they need to dry, or be moistened, and my brain is hitting a wall. I need to walk away for a bit, and astronomy was always a big passion of mine. I had a telescope, but I always dreamed of seeing the stars firsthand.
   "Except... On Earth-that-was, I was paralyzed from the waist down. I didn't qualify for NASA."
   "Sounds a bit Avatar to me," she joked.
   "Yeah, except Jake got to go to space!" His eyes blazed yellow. That gave her pause. She hadn't seen anyone but her spark emotion in their eyes. Perhaps he was a Dragonkith? Except she thought her friend was her kith. His eyes don't glow, though. He just kinda looks like me.
   She stood up and held out a paw. "Fine. We test your theory. But I will descend at the first sign of distress."
   He stepped up onto the massive paw pad. Huh. I didn't know dragons had paw pads, but I guess it makes sense. Lizards and turtles do.
   She cupped him to her keel, checked her blind spots, leapt up, and grabbed a spire. She told no one where she went, and no one could see what, or who, she had in her paw, which caused some concern among the kin in the Bowl. She paid it no mind, for the moment.
   She circled slowly up into the sky; more for his benefit than hers. She knew that she would make the trip. Her earflap tilted his way as best it could, with the winds sweeping between them. He did not cry uncle.
   She paused a moment, before the veil parted, and cupped her paw with the other one. She brought Firmen up to her eye, to be sure he was still alive.
   "Why have we stopped? Are we here?"
   "No, little one. I was unsure if you yet lived. You make no sound."
   He climbed up one of her toes, but the angle was too steep, and he slid down. "Can I see the view from up here?"
   She carefully widened the gap between her paws as little as she could. She didn't want him to fall!
   "Wow. There really are a lot of dragonholds. Did they all have dragons in them?"
   "I do not know."
   "Are there dragons in any of the others?"
   She chuckled. "I do not know."
   "How do you not know?!"
   "I cannot see every hold, nor watch every one for activity. I am far too busy protecting and hunting for such idle pursuits. They could rotate between holds, and I would not know it. It is not safe to leave after dark, so I cannot check then."
   She lofted them up a little further. He stayed strong. She circled up again, and he began to fidget.
   "Are you well?" she asked.
   "Impatient!" This was the first time he'd lost his composure. It amused her, for no reason she could name.
   "And that is why you are no dragon."
   She swept more air into her wings on the next round up, and still he did not tap out. She gauged that any human would have fainted before this, so she ceased her circling and flew straight up.
   "This is amazing!" he cheered.
   Until they broke atmo.