Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Onnutrey

"Wait, are you saying he's who I think you're saying he is?" Kaia asked.
   Onnu smiled, but didn't answer. "The thing about naming is, you forget what your name used to be. I, quite conveniently, do not remember the name of this person from Erdewaz." Plausible deniability was wonderful. While it was true that she couldn't remember his name, she knew darned well that her daughter knew who Pannu was.
   Even if she, also, could no longer remember his name.
   Sven just smiled vaguely. He hadn't been into the same kind of music his mother was, and he'd been out of contact most of his life, so he'd missed her chatter on the subject. All he knew was that she'd hooked up with some guy who was a musician on Erdewaz.
   "Speaking of Pannu, oddly, reminded me of dragonkith. I don't really know why, because he kind of doesn't have one. Solar just sort of hangs around. Although, I guess, Firmen doesn't do the same thing other dragonkith do, either. He mostly studies astronomy. Wait!"
   Onnu's head jerked up suddenly. "I wonder if Firmen might not be more suited to being Trey's dragonkith? He loves astronomy. But, then, why did he appear with me?"
   An ogre that had been listening to their talk of Tupino pointed out that the other dragon hadn't seemed interested in being tied down by anything... aside from her.
   She forced a laugh. "Trey was born on the Fortnight Worlds with one desire, and it wasn't me. It's travel. His job is to map out the worlds as best he can, and keep on traveling to disperse knowledge. They called him the Nomad, the Wanderer, before he took a name."
   "What did they call you, before you got a name?"
   She laughed more genuinely this time. "Back then, I was the only dragon they'd seen. When Pannu came along, well, he's male, so it was pretty easy to tell us apart. Big dragon and smaller dragon."
   "He's bigger than you?" Kaia marveled.
   Onnu threw her head back and laughed. "No, sweetie, mama's one of the biggest dragons in the whole Verse. So is Trey. Elder Dragons are bigger than normal dragons." She said the last part a bit louder, as it was need to know information. She was pretty sure she'd said it, but it bore repeating. There was zero chance her egg would hatch and grow into a dragon even half her size, before this first generation went to Heaven. They needed to have their expectations set low, for scale (pun intended).
   As always, she avoided saying that there were only three Elder Dragons. Just because they were new didn't make them any less susceptible to Holy Trinity comparisons.
   "How big are we gonna get?" some of the smaller kin asked.
   "I don't know yet. We've only been on the Fortnight Worlds for a few years. I will say, though, that many of you look as large as your Tupin counterparts.
   "Which reminds me, you guys do need to come up with a name for your world. You are the first to settle here, so the choice is yours."
   She heard all sorts of names, and called out what she heard, pointing in the general direction they came from:
   "No, Earth 2.0 is how we got Tupino. It got abbreviated. Heaven isn't quite accurate, but good thinking. Uranus was a planet already, and you know the jokes that came of--Zeus is a bit sacrilegious, don't you think? Tup Tup is cute. Tupinopino, that's fun. Kinda hard to say, but it's your world. Putt Putt? Like mini golf? Oh, Tup Tup backwards. Okay. Oniput is Tupino backwards, that's an option."
   And then someone yelled "Onnutrey!"
   She hesitated to repeat it, but to be fair, they did already have Wayne's World. She didn't have to say it, though, because the name swept through the crowd until they were all chanting it.
   "All right, all right! I guess we've got a name for your new world. We'll let Trey know when he gets back, along with everyone he brought with him to the forest."
   The crowd cheered. Onnu thought it sounded like something in pig Latin, but it made them happy, and that was important, in these early days.
   Trey, when she told him, was... perhaps a bit more enamored with the name than she thought he ought to be, but it wasn't her place to take him to task. At least, she didn't think it was. Boundaries were so vague sometimes...
   They still covered the eggs together at night, and he still draped his neck over hers, but she tried to find less intimate ways of protecting her earflaps and eyelids than under his wing. She would've tucked it under her own wing, but that would've twined her neck around his, and that's what she was trying to avoid!
   They worked together to make the egg its little clay hut, which he took far too personally for her taste. If she didn't know better, she would think that he coveted the egg. Dragons were supposed to be above such things. She made it a point not to single out one egg until the day she left, so he couldn't... Shards. He's going to get attached as soon as I set one in there. It really isn't healthy for him to fixate on something, just because... what? Because it's mine? This is all so screwy. I thought we were supposed to be better than this? I know we're only human, deep down, but transmogrification was supposed to... I dunno, purify things? 
   She'd been so focused on keeping Trey out of her head, she forgot about Dwayne.
   :He's been alone a lot more than we have, though. I don't think he's... well, to use his word, 'boinked' anyone else this whole time. Funny, huh? The one who travels all the time, and isn't tied to anyone, is the one who's monogamous. Life is weird sometimes.:
   She'd forgotten that he didn't stay in one place for long. His hyperfocus on something stable suddenly made sense. She was unaccountably sad for him.
   At the same time, she knew that her son wouldn't be a good fit as his dragonkith. She would feel much, much more comfortable with either Firmen or Solar in his stead. Solar wasn't as big on astronomy, but Firmen had Wraith to take care of. She'd forgotten about Wraith, she was so tiny, but she was fairly certain that khagulo would have no reason to be space-worthy. She wouldn't make Firmen choose between space and his pet.