Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Adopted Family

Onnu and her daughter hugged and cried for at least fifteen minutes, with snatches of sentences butting in here and there. It was as she'd feared! Her children thought she'd abandoned them when she was Raptured!
   "We didn't really think it, though, honest! An', an', big brother said you told him it might happen, but I didn't believe, and then you were gone, and the rest of the fam said such horrible things!" she wailed.
   "I'm sorry, baby, I tried to tell you guys. I really did. I know you guys had bad experiences with churches, but I had to try. I didn't want you to go through that. Wait, where's your brother?" She pulled away to look her daughter in the face. "Sweetpea, what happened to your brother? I've been so worried! Well," she sniffled, "when I haven't been doing the whole 'immortal dragon guardian' thing..."
   Her daughter looked at the eggs suddenly. "Could he be in one of those? Wait, am I related to them?" Her eyes widened significantly.
   Onnu was already shaking her head. "The kin of the Fortnight Worlds follow certain personalities. Your brother wasn't devout enough to be a dragon, unless he changed a lot after Rapture. Did he?"
   The younger girl laughed. "Actually, he did. I dunno about devout, but all that Trib stuff made sense enough that he started doing research into it. I don't think he went to church, but he was always talking about signs, and the Beast, and--oh."
   She blanched. Onnu hugged her to her ample bosom. That much, it seemed, hadn't changed much from Erdewaz.
   "Don't think of it, sweetpea. When you've told me all you remember, think of a name to use here. Then you'll forget all of it." She whispered it, so the others wouldn't hear how to stop the nightmares. She would tell them before she left, after they'd figured out what knowledge they would use, here. "But not yet. What else? Forget the Things you saw, focus on family. Whatever you think I need to know."
   Her daughter sat back and sniffled. She was pretty sure some of their relatives weren't coming to the Fortnight Worlds, and Onnu couldn't have said that any of them surprised her. She was saddened, of course, but if her children could be with her again, she could withstand most losses. Even if one of them was a sibling, or a parent.
   "They made their beds, mama. It's not your fault. And when you got Raptured, some of them snapped to. Not many, but it was your disappearance that got some of 'em to come around."
   Onnu caressed the side of her daughter's face. Her countenance, which was nowhere near what it had been, grew sad. Her daughter sat straighter.
   "What's wrong?"
   "Time's up, I'm afraid. I'll be right back." She kissed the tear-stained fur once, hard, and leapt into the air. A streak of light shot up to one of the crystal spires, and the Elder Dragoness Onnu the Eternal swallowed the sky for a moment. Her suddenly bulky-looking form stretched across many spires, until she re-oriented in her natural form again.
   "Can y'all clear a spot?" she called down.
   Her daughter got up and shoved her way to the most open spot in the Bowl. "You heard her, make room!" She waved her hands at them, but they were already moving.
   She felt a massive thud, and a gust of wind, and turned toward her mother. She could only hug a single toe, but that was okay. She was with her mom, and that was the only thing she cared about!
   Onnu hadn't pinned down who the dragonkith was, though. He wasn't any of her children, that she knew, but there was one she hadn't seen in over a decade.
   "Why don't you ask how old he was?" her daughter asked. She'd been trying to help her mom find her other brother, when all Hell broke loose.
   Onnu slapped her brow ridge. "Because I didn't think of it. Why else?"
   Her daughter asked where he was, since the dragoness could see further, and for a lift to where he was sitting. Her tail twitched in her mother's palm, she was so excited.
   Onnu let her take the lead. She was afraid she would scare him away.
   "Hey, um... I have a couple of questions, if I may?"
   The dragonkith looked up at them, momentarily annoyed at his note-taking being interrupted. "What's up?"
   The furgoyle looked to her mother for strength, wringing her tail between her paws. "Um... how old were you... you know, on Erdewaz?"
   His brow ridge furrowed. "Why? Isn't it rude to ask that?"
   "She has reason for asking, little one."
   The frown didn't leave, but he grumbled a number that made both women inhale sharply. His frown altered slightly, in a way that gave them hope.
   "Why..." He cleared his throat. "Why does my age matter?"
   "It matters if you were adopted, doesn't it?" the little furgoyle blurted.
   His scales paled even lighter grey. The grass scrap fell to his lap. "And... if I was?"
   The dragoness's eyes grew misty. "Because if you were, and that was your age... Your mother has been very worried about you."
   "And your sister!" her daughter chirped. "We weren't sure, but Mama feels drawn to you, only she doesn't know why, and she's been worried ever since you were taken, just like she did me, but I found her first, and why aren't you talking?"
   The dragonkith looked from dragon to furgoyle, Adam's apple bobbing wildly. "They... they told me you didn't want me."
   The dragoness was already shaking her huge head. Her daughter said "They told me the same thing, but they were so wrong! It was just crap taste in men, and worse finances. Hey, you don't think he's here, do you?" The last was directed at her mother.
   "I don't know, sweetpea, and we don't have to know. He can exist wherever, and it won't bother us any."
   "Okay, but if he finds us, I'm gonna punch him."
   Onnu laughed. She shouldn't have, but she did.
   "Punch who?"
   "Our sperm donor, that's who!"
   "Now, now, sweetness, there's no need for that. Just forget he ever existed. Besides, he had nothing to do with either of you making it to the Fortnight Worlds, did he?"
   Her daughter's grin was, perhaps, a tad too feral, but she let it slide.