Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Steel Determination

Word spread quickly, as you'd expect when someone comes along asking if you're also laying eggs. Steel and his kin were the last to know, simply because as far as anyone knew, he couldn't lay eggs.
   Since Amber had been around the most dragons, they asked her what she knew--which was nothing. "We've been on this planet for like three months, yeah? I passed through the city 'bout a month and a half in. If we carry eggs for three months, how would I have seen any of this?"
   "It might explain why they were so territorial," Mira said.
   "Ehh, they all gave me the 'no room at the inn' speech. I think it was more like 'first come, first served'. Maybe we could go look someday." She wasn't volunteering, of course. She'd found a Hold to settle, and she wasn't giving it up that easily!
   Surprisingly, Steel did volunteer. He thought he could fly over the mountains, take a peek, and return before a Charon passed overhead.
   "I'd need to launch from a Hold closer to the border, of course, for optimal scouting time. Why are they so small, though? I'm not sure I'll see anything that size, from the air."
   "Maybe a scouting party of winged ones?" his dragonkith suggested.
   Steel thought for a while, looking at the tiny eggs, relative to his size. "No more than three, I think. Any more and they'll think we're invading."
   "I know just the three we'll need, sir."
   "Good. We shouldn't need more than a day's rations. It sounds like we won't be welcome overnight, so it'll have to be a quick reconnaissance mission. Might have to make a few forays into city territory over several days. Could set up a temporary base camp at the Hold nearest the crags."
   He was clearly in his element. Even though this was an intelligence gathering mission, and they didn't anticipate a battle, organizing and issuing orders were his forte. He might've been restless in Hold life, more than willing to explore.
   While they still hadn't found things that sparked, the tinkers had devised small flame pots that kept dragonfire alive longer. A tiny spurt from Pannu was enough to candle test roughly half of Onnu's eggs.
   "Look, I know you laid these eggs, but I'm seeing every kin on the planet in them." Clay was clearly in over his head. "None of this makes any sense!"
   "Nothing is the same." Onnu didn't seem to notice she'd said it aloud.
   "What?"
   Her eyes focused again. "Hmm?"
   "You said 'nothing is the same.' What does that mean?"
   She stared off across the Bowl. "That was the first thing I heard on this planet. So far, it's the only thing I've Heard since Crossing. Not that I haven't bloody well asked."
   "Maybe He's busy with the Tribulations."
   "Grim, I told you, I don't know that this is Rapture. I don't know what else it might be, but if it is the Big Ending, He isn't talking to me about it." Her head dropped to her paws in what might almost be called a sulk. If they dared say as much to a dragon.
   "But He said nothing is the same," Grim prompted.
   "I think it was Him, yeah. Beyond that, all I get are nudges and hints about what to do, or not do. Just like when I was human."
   "They seem to be helping so far," Dragonfriend said. He'd caught a ride to Egg Hold as soon as he could, to see his friend's first clutch with his own eyes. Besides, you always visited new parents when it was safe to do so!
   "True. Again, same as on Earth-that-was. I just thought... I dunno, maybe being a dragon would... oh, it sounds silly."
   "You thought you were more special as a dragon," he guessed.
   Her earflaps drooped. She didn't agree, but she also didn't argue.
   "I thought my metaphorical Hearing would be better, at the very least."
   "Look, He's only gonna tell you what you need to know."
   She almost forgot to whuff away from a little kin. He stepped to the side anyway, even though she did remember.
   "Yeah, I get the feeling we're supposed to work out as much as we can on our own, but... sometimes I get asked hard questions, and He doesn't give much guidance there, either. What's the point of being ordained, if we don't know any more than lay people?"
   "You're a priestess?" Grim perked up.
   Her head lifted a little, earflaps at half mast. "I'm not sure I'd call myself that..."
   "You're ordained, though. You're a girl, so you can't be a priest, which makes you a priestess," he insisted.
   She didn't like it, but despite her many protests, word got around that that's what she was.
   All of her original fears resurfaced. There were other dragons now, so she'd begun to hope that no one would deify them. They had such varied personalities, it made them more human. Surely, they would see that the dragons really were just humans that took on bigger forms.
   And now they had births without copulation. She reminded them time and time again that there were creatures on Earth-that-was who were hermaphroditic, and could reproduce without a mate. They all looked rather pointedly to Pannu.
   "We. Haven't. Done. That. Not mates."
   "Then it was pristine birth," they insisted.
   That brought her back around to Earthen creatures going solo. "Not everything is spiritual. Sometimes, it's just biology."
   "But you're a priestess!"
   Onnu gave up trying to convince them. They were bound and determined to believe that she was the Virgin Mary, reincarnated as a dragon, or some such nonsense. It made no difference to remind them that Mary wasn't a priestess.
   She prayed for help from above, which was not forthcoming. Sadly, this did nothing to disprove their theories. She cited angels outright telling Mary what was going to happen, which wasn't happening to her, and only a few desisted.
   When the eggs began to hatch, it only got worse.