Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Society and More Names

A society of sorts developed over time. If a kin found they wanted to pursue a craft or skill that another Hold was making advancements in, they would ask for a ride to that Hold. The term Holderkin came to mean any craftskin who was the most skilled at something. It evolved into a title, so one would say "Holderkin Clay, have I got this dough right?" If it was said with a lowercase "h", it simply meant someone who lived in the Holds. It sounded confusing, but they made it work. You knew it was capitalized if it preceded a name.
   The three name system spread, as the kin intermingled, as did some of their terminology. With more kin seeing the same things, terms migrated in as often as they did out. Someone even came up with a creature naming system that made sense.
   If it had elements of a bird, snake, and rat, for example, you'd call it a bisra. If it was a crocodile-gar, it was a crocogar. In retrospect, no one could say why they hadn't thought of it sooner. They did have a giggle at the snaketurtle being called a snurtle, because they were so scary in person.
   The fiber skitters they used for yarn were an odd combination they could only label Persian and some sort of reptile, so the Amber Hold child who'd named everything else called them peryarns. They might use the fibers for things other than yarn or felting, but the creatures could be quite cute, and the name suited them. Once heard, you couldn't see one without calling it a peryarn.
   The rubber clover grove was shortened to Rover Grove. The various farms attached to the Holds became Blue Farm, Brown Farm (when they'd grown enough to need their own), etcetera. Even after the dragons named themselves, the farms were still called the color of the crystals--or lack thereof, in the case of Grey Farm.
   Though she'd never thought of it, Onnu had never ventured north because of the large mountains that abutted their little community. She could easily fly over them, but it felt like some sort of fence that she wasn't supposed to cross. According to Amber, those mountains were the boundary of the larger group of dragonholds she'd passed on the way to them.
   "It's like some weird... pod people city," she shuddered. "They haven't figured out the singing thing yet, so there's no way to know a Hold is occupied until you're being chased off. You may as well label that part of the map 'Dragon City', 'cause there's no room left for us up there. May as well not even try."
   Tandy gave Mirrim Mapmaker, the dragonkith from Amber's Hold, the sheets of papygrass they had cobbled together, with "Dragon City Crags" dutifully scratched along the top of their local map.
   Some things stayed the same. No one could think of a better name for crystal-cover, because it was such an odd texture. It wasn't dust, or fibers, or powdered rock. It just... was. It could take on multiple applications, depending on what was added to it.
   The merchants bemoaned the relative scarcity of it, and the jealousy with which Grey, who would later choose the name Steel, guarded his crystal-cover. No one could understand why he was so adamant that his remained intact. He would only reply that it was camouflage. Being told that dragons didn't need camouflage didn't budge his resolve in the least.
   Weaver Blue was willing to trade her crystal-cover for fibers, and Marla Brown would trade that crystal-cover for bone combs and dyes from Amber. Amber's artisans were quite skilled at carving intricate tools out of bone. They traded the combs so Marla's weavers could make the yarn for blankets, and they traded what crystal-cover they didn't use for breads. The dyes they didn't trade were used in artistic experiments.
   The papygrass didn't take color as well as they liked, but a water reed yielded something closer to papyrus that they called bampa, or "bamboo paper". The reed wasn't quite bamboo, but they decided it was close enough for naming purposes. It took color almost too well, so they had to be careful where it was applied.
   Marla, being closest to the pondlake, tended to have claysand on hand the most reliably, though her littles were having to travel closer and closer to Grey Farm downriver for it. Onnu and Pannu hadn't even seen that there was a river leading out of it, until Marla mentioned it.
   Steel's warriors were usually requested to protect Marla's littles when they went to the water's edge. If he was particularly surly that day, Marla would ask Onnu or Pannu for help. Having been the first to settle there, they tended to be the default dragons to consult about things in general.
   On the matter of space, Steel was the first to fly into the gases with Onnu. All he needed to hear was "dragonfire", and he was impatient to take off.
   Marla didn't think she was strong enough yet. She thought she was given the body of a much younger dragon, and worried that she wouldn't be able to breathe the gases yet. Steel was less than thrilled to have a flameless dragon as a neighbor, but Weaver promised to join them when she'd gotten to a healthy weight, and Amber was quite willing to fly with them, the day she was asked.
   Between the dragons and their dragonkith, none could unravel the mysteries of the Verse. Every time they flew Above, it seemed every landmark they'd established was gone. It was exceedingly frustrating. So much so, Steel focused on the Charon, and nothing else. That was all he really needed to know, he said. Everything else was just starfluff.
   He was, however, quite interested in the Charon's Maw weakness. Onnu made very certain that he knew the role the Charon played, and cautioned him against trying to take one down. She also stressed the fact that they didn't know what had killed off the dragons that had built the Holds they now occupied.
   She hoped that he understood, but he played things close to the chest.
   All of the dragons warned him not to attack something that could swallow even Onnu, given the chance. They reminded him that there were two that they knew of, so even if he managed to down one, the other was sure to exact revenge.
   The most he would promise was that he wouldn't attack one unprovoked.