Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Firmen in Space

She had to look to see whether he was speechless or dead. His face could have meant either. The gravity well was barely behind them, so she could duck in whenever he needed.
   "How can I--?" He patted his neck, and was shocked to discover the same gills Onnu had! "How did I not know I had gills?!"
   She chuckled. "I did not know, either. What do you see?" She secretly hoped that he would not spot Charon. It was currently where it was when she took Pannu up the first time, so the small planetoid concealed it, for the moment.
   But as she'd noted on her first trip, there was not much that was dark, in this verse. He was bound to see the great beast eventually.
   Firmen had thought to bring a scrap of grass with him, and was frantically scratching at it with his sharp nails. Like an ogre, they weren't precisely fingernails, nor were they claws. They were perfect for scribing, and that was exactly what he was doing.
   The scritching stopped when he saw Charon. Onnu couldn't see the grass parchment--grassment? Parchgrass? Grapper? Papass? Actually, that almost worked. It sounded like papyrus. But also ass, which would cause giggles. Papygrass!
   Firmen, not distracted by nomenclature, stared at the massive creature. There were too many suns in this 'verse, and now this? How was he supposed to process that?
   "What's that?" he whispered.
   "Look around. How many suns do you see?" she asked instead.
   He consulted his notes, looked out, and counted again. "Seven?! But how is that possible? Wait, is there a moon?"
   He'd leapt to the conclusion she'd made, and he was physically shaking.
   "We descend. You need oxygen to process all of this... or whatever gases we breathe, here."
   She was kind enough to leave the crack in her paws, so he could watch the land speed by. It was, all puns aside, grounding.
   She didn't take him to the pond-lake, where the mer were all too apt to slip. Instead, they went to the basketnut grove. They needed a plausible reason for leaving, anyway.
   Which was to say, she landed at the edge of the grove. The trees grew too close for her to fit.
   He fell out of her paws, though she set him down as gently as she could. A cross-legged sit was the best he could manage.
   "How do we have nightfall? I didn't see a moon. Is it on the other side of the planet?"
   "I have seen no moon."
   "Have seen? As in you've looked before?"
   "I can fly quite high," she hedged.
   "Not high enough to see a moon on the other side, though."
   She laughed tightly. "I cannot see through the planet, no."
   "So there might be a moon?" He knew the answer. He had to. But he didn't want to believe it.
   "There might."
   He thought for a while, wrestling with what he'd seen. "That... thing... It's as big as a moon, isn't it?" He was so frightened, he was reduced to child-like questions.
   "It is."
   "What was it doing? What is it?"
   "You do not truly wish to know; and yet, I think it is there. You do not want to know what it is, but your insatiable curiosity digs at it."
   He paled. "The shortest night!"
   "What about it?"
   "There was more wind than we've had before, or since."
   "Yes," she encouraged.
   "Was that thing... alive?"
   She nodded. "One might call it a name like Charon. It even has coins on its back, if you got that detail down."
   Firmen stared up at her. "How are you so calm?" His eyes narrowed. He leapt to his feet. "You knew, didn't you?!"
   Calm eyes stared down at him, trying not to show emotion. "Would it have given you ease, to know about it sooner?"
   "Is that the worst of it?" he asked.
   Her eyes were placid. She didn't want to give anything away. That, in itself, was a giveaway.
   "What are you not telling me? Telling us?"
   "Have you not observed the nighttime?" She wasn't going to make this easy. The more he worked out for himself, she thought, the less angry he could be at her, directly. It didn't make sense, but that was her logic.
   "Not anymore. Not since we started sleeping in niches. It's the only way to keep out of the wind, but you can't really see the sky."
   Her head dropped down a little. "And what have you observed of the wind?"
   "It hurls everything loose out of the Bowl."
   "Partly true."
   "What?" was all he could say.
   "Have you ever found what was lost, outside the Bowl?"
   "Aw c'mon, it could've blown miles away!"
   "You do not want to see. You know, but do not want to know. Think on it. Watch the direction of the wind. Observe that, if you cannot see the stars. And perhaps wonder why you cannot see the stars, ever."
   "Because that thing, that... Charon, blocks out the stars."
   She stood. "And when you figure out why, you will know the truth."
   He really was a bright man. But what she hinted at... it was too monstrous to consider. A creature the size of the moon, that she named Charon, of all things...
   He shook his head. "I cannot. I will not. It is too much."
   "I did warn you."
   "Take me home. I do not want to be outside any longer."
   "I will--after you obtain supplies from the forest."
   He stared at her for a moment, until comprehension dawned. "You don't want them to know why we left."
   She stared down at him, with what he might label compassion. "Would you tell them what you have seen? Would you burden them with what you yourself cannot force to light?"
   His jaw set. He didn't like it, but he understood now why they'd hedged, and kept it from them all.
   "How long will you keep them in the dark?" he asked.
   "As long as we can protect them, we will. It is in our nature.
   "I have a theory, by the way, that it is our personalities that determine what kin we become after Crossing. That is why the children begin human.
   "It would seem that dragons were protective, sturdy, and firm in our beliefs, on Earth-that-was. Don't know yet what else we have in common. We've been too busy to socialize, as of yet. Time will tell."
   He made a mental note to mention that to the others, to see if they could schedule... How did one schedule downtime? Well, their dragons did need to know each other better.
   "Whether or not this is Rapture is still in question, but I have noticed some similarities in kin members. Perhaps that will give your mind the diversion it needs, to come to terms with Charon."
   He shuddered when she said That Name, but nodded. "Much appreciated. I'll go harvest some supplies. Maybe I'll observe the natural habitat a little, see how they grow. I'll need a scrap of grass to take notes, though."
   She sliced off a bit of grass to the size he specified, and lay down to wait.