Book One: Onnu and Pannu

The End of the Charon

"How did you avoid getting sucked up with your dragon?" Onnu asked gently.
   Solar paled for the first time since the day they met. "We all huddled under him, the same as always. He drilled it into us to hold on to each other as tight as we could. He was a big dragon, almost as big as you. When he lost his grip on the ground, he sort of... twisted around, so his claws were aimed at the Maw. He didn't go down without a fight. He tore a chunk out of the Maw on the way in, which gave it sort of... hiccups? The wind stopped long enough for us to run the other way. He always told us to run the way it came from, not the way it was going to. By the time the wind started again, it was starting to get light again."
   He hugged himself and rocked while he spoke, Tandy gently patting his back. His eyes had gone hollow. "I never want to be under one of those things again. Above, fine, behind, sure, but not under."
   Tandy made some notes, which surprised Solar. "I thought you talked to everyone."
   She looked up briefly. "No one else looked up."
   His jaw hung loose. "Nobody?"
   "Nobody I've spoken to."
   "Did you speak to him?" Dragonfriend asked.
   She looked sheepish. "Not yet.
   "Some of them did say, however, that you were supposed to keep your head down when Charon 'attacked'. It might not have occurred to them."
   He ducked his head. "I uh... might've forgotten that part."
   Dragonfriend clapped him on the shoulder. "That's okay, man. You gave us vital information that we wouldn't otherwise have."
   Solar looked up. "I did..?"
   Onnu's eyes had a hard glint in them. "You just told me how to stop Charon, if someone is in its path."
   Dragonfriend glared at her. "Don't you dare!"
   "I didn't say that I would make a habit of it. But if something happens, and we aren't in a Hold, I can save you. I am healthy, and according to Solar, a bit bigger. And most of all, I have dragonfire. If our claws can cease its feeding, I've no doubt fire can do the same, from further away." Her nares widened. "Just let that thing try to eat my fire!"
   She'd seen How to Train Your Dragon. She knew what could happen, and it gave her a bit of courage. Not enough to be foolish, but enough to feel that little bit safer.
   Firmen scribbled notes as fast as he could. "Might I ask why you couldn't take them out altogether?"
   Sense returned to her eyes. He missed it, writing as furiously as he was.
   "The Charon are a force of nature. They are what clean up the dead and dying. Without other scavengers and pests, the worlds could very well die."
   "But we haven't seen them deposit erm... processed matter. How, then, do they rejuvenate the worlds?"
   Onnu shrugged. "Perhaps they land where we cannot see, and make their deposits underground? If it does not come from above (and I would not wish it to), mayhap it comes from below. It bears more study."
   Firmen paled. "What if... What if the core of the planet is poo?"
   "What if the moons are poo?" Solar gagged.
   Nobody was hungry for the rest of the day. Nor did the topic of Charon digestion ever come up, without vigorous shushing.
   Once, Dragonfriend could be heard singing softly "poo mooooooon."
   Tandy's notes tripled, with the reports and approximate maps she obtained from the pilgrims. Her notes increased tenfold, when another four groups of pilgrims made their way to the Holds.
 
   The first group arrived from the west, with a thin blue dragon, though her kin were mostly healthy. She'd expended her own personal energies to make sure they were safe. She and her kin were sent to one of the unexplored Holds beyond Farm Hold.
   The second group straggled in from the south, decimated as the pilgrims had been. Their brown dragon was the smallest they'd seen, but she'd managed to keep twelve kin alive. They were sent to live with the group who'd lost their dragon, as South Hold was one of the smallest Holds they could easily see.
   The third group trickled in and settled the Hold just to the south of the blue dragon's Hold, which took a day or two to notice. Their dragon was a large greyish lad, nearly as big as Pannu. He'd kept all of his kin alive, but had become harsh and unyielding in the process. He might have been a military man, on Earth-that-was.
   The fourth, and final group actually came from the North. They brought word that the Holds stretched for many lengths that way, and had been occupied by a host of dragons and kin. These pilgrims, and their amber-colored dragoness, had come in hopes of finding an empty Hold to the south. Onnu sent them to the Holds to the east, beyond the blue and grey dragons' Holds. She advised that they leave a Hold here and there open for farming and hunting, as Blue and Grey had done. Brown was still recovering, and as such, benefiting from their aid.
   It got confusing, knowing whose Holds were whose, until Onnu discovered that the crystals were attuned to the colors of the dragons therein. She taught the other dragons how to shed the covering, and collect it, but did not sing for them. It was while she taught Blue how to do this that she realized the hue difference. Theirs were blue-green, like her scales, while Blue's were closer to the earthen sky. Brown had a mottled bunch, as her crystals had already been harvested by Onnu and Pannu's littles. She didn't mind. She said it made her Hold unique, and easy to find.
   Grey refused to sing, so any Hold that had its crystal cover intact was approached with caution.
   Amber happily lit up her Holds with brilliant glowing crystals, and sang to them often. She said the light made her happy, like one of those SAD vitamin D lights.
   No one felt right marking Egg Hold as their own, so it sat, matte amid a sea of color, until the first nesting dragon rose. None of them had begun even thinking about the process, though they all instinctively knew what it was for. They were content with it as it was.
   And so the plains, waterways, and forests were populated once more. It became quite common to see many dragons, gargoyles, gryphons, and birdkin in the air at any given time; often carrying kin or goods from place to place.
   Clay's flatbreads became a hot commodity, as did Dean's sauces. They still hadn't found ways to transport large quantities of either, so they had frequent visitors from every Hold.
   South Hold found a skitter that had fibers fit for blankets, so they began trying to weave the awkwardly claw-shaved hairs into yarn. The creatures were hard to catch once they knew what the kin wanted them for, so they tried domesticating them. Results were... mixed.
   Grey's kin were eerily adept at making tools, and weapons fit for hunting; but that made sense, given their history.
   Blue and Amber seemed to attract artisans of different sorts. The skitter fibers that were too short for yarn were sent to Blue's Hold for felting. They had craftskin who used small bone needles for it. The aquatic dyes were harvested and fine-tuned by Amber's kin, and sent wherever they were needed, in the vessels Clay and kin had taught them how to make.
   There were musicians in every Hold, though Grey strictly forbade his from touching the crystal spires. Sometimes, they would gather around a dragonfire cooking vessel in the other Holds and sing together; and whichever dragon was their host would sing along, so their crystals lit up the sky.
   In this way, their little community of Holds thrived, and began to flourish.