Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Well THAT Worked!

Since Capitol Hold was brand-new, Dragonfriend decided to try growing basketnuts near the walls. The older Holds had grass everywhere, and their attempts to grow anything had involved fighting the well-established root system of the hardy grasses of Tupino. While that had been possible with some plants, basketnuts were far too fragile to fight for resources.
   Onnu, meanwhile, was trying to figure out how the wells had been made. She could now explain the sleeping niches, but the wells were a mystery. She pondered it for weeks.
   Maybe there had to be water underground where we landed? Is that something we'll have to establish beforehand? How do we dowse on Tupino?
   She remembered dragons having magic on Erdewaz, and she had some elemental magics that didn't rely on the gases Above. Did she have the Othersight she'd read about in books? How did she find out?
   Her Brothers were little help, there. Trey was too busy traveling, and Dwayne was more of a practical applications guy. Ask him how, and he'll shrug. Tell him how, and he'll do it with very little training. He was a quick study, but not an innovator. He was, however, a very quick study. Almost before she'd finished explaining how to do something, he was firmly "stuck in", doing the thing. She began to see why he'd been planted on another planet, away from the larger population of dragons. He'd need to be able to implement things quickly and efficiently.
   She, on the other hand, was exposed to more kin, more ideas, more quickly, so they could work through the bugs before handing it off to the outlying planets. Trey was exposed to an even wider variety of ideas and kin, including some she'd never encountered before. When he'd describe them to her, she would try to imagine who he was describing, as best she could, with what she'd already seen.
   For example, on the other side of Tupino, there was a larger population of furred kin; including variants of the scaled kin on their side. He said that their grasses were different, less likely to pierce tender hides, so fur was preferable. There were also more trees on the other side, which dropped the temperature enough that fur was more comfortable, as well.
   None of that solved the water crisis, though.
   Onnu settled against the ground more firmly. The hatchlings were sleeping, so she had the leisure to explore what was around her. She sort of unfocused her eyes and looked around, to see if anything was different. Then she tried to find the inner lids that dragons probably possessed for things like underwater exploration. The see-through ones that many predators on Erdewaz had. Maybe hers also amplified what was unseen?
   Gah! No! Why did I think that would work?!
   What that did was blur the outside world, so she could see auras. In a Hold full of kin. In daylight. It was nearly blinding.
   Duly noted, but not immediately useful. She then sort of rolled her eyes back, but not all the way back into her head. She wasn't trying to Listen for anything, she was trying to See, so there had to be some light coming in. Her head swiveled this way and that, but nothing stood out.
   Maybe I smell water? Stella does. I'd ask her to find water, but I don't know if she can find it underground. Can I? My nose is certainly bigger!
   She lifted her muzzle, closed her eyes, and focused on the input through her nares. Something just behind her olfactory pits tingled when she looked in a few directions. She didn't know what it was, but it was worth exploring.
   When the hatchlings woke, she walked toward one of the tingles in her sinuses. The kids lounged where they were. They knew they couldn't keep up, and if they needed anything, a cry would have her there in a flash.
   Her eyes were at half-mast, so she wouldn't step on anyone, but she could focus on her nose. Some of the kin saw that she wasn't all there, and took alternate routes, but she didn't want to rely on their observational skills to avoid accidents.
   There! There? Yeah, maybe there. She put one paw down where the tingle was the strongest, and pushed. She'd seen a dinosaur in a movie do it, and as big as she was, it was worth a shot. She pushed at an angle slightly under the rocky base of the crystals, like the wells at the other Holds.
   It took more force than it seemed to in the movie, but she did reach water! She pushed further under the rocks, rocking her palm in the firth to dig out a well trench. It had to be wide enough for her to drink from, and deep enough to continue flowing up from the firth.
   But how did they make the rim of the wells?
   Looking back, it had been little more than bricks of crystal cover, probably mortared with more of the stuff.
   Except this is a new Hold, with bare crystals. She would have to ask if any of the other Holds had spare crystal cover for the well. In the meantime, she scooped the bare firth up around the edges as best she could. The water would be muddied, but what could she do?
   Rocks. That's what she could do. Pannu brought her rocks that had been flung outward from their new Hold's formation, and they plastered them with claysand. She didn't even know that they were out there, but clever Pannu had spotted them days ago, and piled them at the base of the crystals outside, in case they needed them later.
   She gave him extra aggressive nuzzles as thanks. They had enough for two wells' worth of walls, so she tuned into that extra sensory sinus and found that they could have dug three, total. She placed the second well hole at the further site, and suggested they find materials to build the third later. She thought it best to have water accessible from either extreme of the Hold, for the kin who could not walk as far, as fast, as a dragon. Pannu and their kin agreed.
   "Now we don't have to brave the water beasts every day!" Dragonfriend cheered.
   Onnu felt bad that they'd had to do that for the couple of months they'd been encamped at the new Hold, and vowed to herself to take better care of them. The kin were far more likely to want to stay in this Hold, if they had fresh water inside the spires.