{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/endless-stars/18",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/endless-stars/18",
  "publishedAt": "2019-04-06T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\nClouds drew in asudden and hid the suns, bearing down on the world. The\nninth long ring came to a close like it was seeking us out in the\ncliffs, faintly.\n\nOut here little skinks slithered along the cliff faces, hunting the last\nglider-scorpions and tentacle-snails before the gray season in full\nfell. The calls of the ax-crested pterosaurs filled the air, sounding\nreedy and warbly. I saw one swoop down all asudden and fly off with a\ndust turtle I hadn't even seen, hiding behind a low fern.\n\n\"Poor little turt.\"\n\n\"Pterosaus have to eat too.\"\n\nI looked around. Past the Berwem gate, all the guards had pulled\nashcloaks over themselves, though they maneuvered the red sash onto the\noutside. We walked up that same ravine that wound us back into town\nlast night, limned almost adventurous in the sky light.\n\nThe pink guard was slinking back beside the dark-green wiver, more\nsubdued, but not so much as when talking under Rhyfel or Adwyn. \"Hey,\nuh, Hinte, was it? Everyone called you Gronte-wyre, but I don't think\nthat was your name.\"\n\nThe dark-green wiver glared at the guard. \"Call me Hinte.\" Then she\nsaid, \"Why do you need my name?\"\n\n\"To talk. My name's Ceian, the youngest in the guard. But I'm going to\nbe the best some day.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\n\"And you're my age, and already doing cool stuff, so I thought you might\nmake a good friend.\"\n\n\"Me? The creepy alchemist's daughter?\"\n\n\"Oh. I forget about that.\" The pink guard frowned, brilles clouding.\n\"Well, you didn't do any weird alchemy stuff back there. So long as you\ndon't do any of that, you're fine.\"\n\nHinte turned away from the guard and high-walked on. The guard kept up,\nuntil Hinte scowled and said, \"And just what is weird alchemy stuff?\"\n\n\"I don't know. Whatever it is alchemists do. Turn sneks into snails,\nmake dragons blind, raise the dead, unnatural stuff like that.\" His\neyes flashed clear. \"I heard alchemists have a potion that makes you\nshit out your soul. Is that true?\"\n\n\"First, souls don't exists, they are absurd. Second, half of that is\nmagical or impossible. If you could turn animals into each other, it\nwould be magic, not alchemy. You can make dragons blind, but I have\nonly read of one mixture that wasn't temporary. And it is costly.\"\n\nThe fledgling alchemist looked around. She continued, \"And⁠ ⁠---⁠ you\ncannot raise the dead. It's not even worth trying.\"\n\nCeian rolled his eye. \"Magic, alchemy, what's the difference?\"\n\n\"Alchemy makes sense. The harder you try to understand magic, the\nmadder you become. Alchemy is reliable. Magic is mercurial.\"\n\n\"It's all the same to me. They're both unnatural.\"\n\n\"Alchemy is perfectly natural. It's magic that isn't. An alchemical\nagent doesn't do anything that wouldn't happen on its own. Alchemy\nfollows laws, the same laws as anything else. Every piece of magic is\ndifferent.\"\n\n\"Um,\"⁠ ⁠---⁠ I brushed my wings along my cloak⁠ ⁠---⁠ \"Specter cloaks\nare all the same.\"\n\n\"And what are they made of?\n\n\"Medusa fibers. Hairs from these vicious jellyfish things.\"\n\nHinte snapped her tongue. \"And what do those creatures do? To hunt,\nthat is?\"\n\n\"They make these really blinding flashes of light.\"\n\nShe padded on a few breaths. Then, she at last said, \"Compare your\ncloak to my knife. They're both magical, yet could they be farther\nremoved from each other?\"\n\n\"You have a⁠ ⁠---⁠ magic knife?\" Ceian stepped to the side.\n\nHinte looked at me. \"Had,\" she said.\n\n\"Alright.\" Ceian tended a slight closer. \"So, what sorts of things do\nyou like?\"\n\nLicked her brilles, Hinte said, \"Alchemy. Seafood. Birds.\" She\npaused. \"Drakes who know when to spit off.\"\n\n\"Cool. I've never had seafood. Birds are kinda---cute, I reason.\"\nTimes passed in footsteps. \"So, what are you doing after this mission?\"\n\n\"Reading.\"\n\n\"What for?\n\n\"My studies.\"\n\nFrom ahead, someone called, \"Ay Ceian, let me get your take on this,\nc'mere.\" Rhyfel was glancing back.\n\nThe pink-scaled drake dash toward him.\n\n\"Good riddance,\" Hinte said. I grinned at her. She only peered, and\nsaid, \"What?\"\n\n\"He likes you.\"\n\nShe rolled her head, and only said, \"You are hardly one to talk,\" with a\npointed glance at a warm-gray drake.\n\n\"Still,\" I said. \"He's cute. Especially when he isn't being a vent.\nYou could do worse.\"\n\n\"With whom? There is no crowd of tongueless drakes pining for the\ncreepy alchemist's daughter.\"\n\n\"Do you even talk to any drakes, though? Besides Digrif.\"\n\n\"I sit in Dadafodd sometimes,\" she said. \"It's more than you've done.\"\n\nI stopped walking.\n\n\"Hinte...\"\n\nShe stopped with me, watched for a bit. \"Should I apologize?\"\n\nI licked my fangs. \"I⁠ ⁠---⁠ you're right. I don't really go out\nmuch.\"\n\nHinte started low-walking again, and I did too, while she overtook me, I\nsidled up beside the warm-gray drake.\n\n\"Digrif?\"\n\n\"Huh?\"\n\nI forced my tail to hang still between my hindlegs. \"I was just\nwondering. If tomorrow or some other day, you wanted to, um, fly down\nto the cliffs southern. They're kinda pretty and there are cute\npterodons and the clouds fly right overhead and uh...\"\n\n\"Sure. Maybe overmorrow or so. I have job to handle tomorrow, don't\nknow how long.\"\n\n\"Yay.\" I look around. Hinte still low-walked ahead, clicking softly\nand several strides beside her Ceian had some smirk on his face. \"Gah!\nI forgot you two were so close.\"\n\n\"Don't mind us, plan your date,\" said the pink guard.\n\n\"It's not⁠ ⁠---\"\n\n\"Focus on the mission.\"\n\nI jumped again. Behind us padded the hooded wiver, who stared blank at\nme.\n\nI high-walked till I was up beside Hinte, and had three dragons between\nthe secretary and me.\n\nWe walked on like that, another wind coming down from further through\nthe ravine. It was dirty with dust and vog, and, with that stench of\nsulfur and metal, it was clear, in my heart, where we were headed. I\ncoiled my tail up.\n\nWe advanced toward the Berwem.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n:::\n\n::: subchapter\nThere was a weird smell as we walked, and at first I thought it might've\nbeen someone's lunch.\n\nWith the turts' bags sealed tight, you had to wonder where. I'd left my\nbags with the turts, and Digrif, padding on beside me, had too. Hinte,\non the other side, had kept her bags, but having bought that roast I\nwouldn't guess she brought lunch.\n\nLooking down from the haughty cliffs, the stone-shells were big rank\nboulders in front of me, but they moved. Gwynt and the prefect perched\nup there, and I would have smelt this on the black-tongued guard before\nnow. Was it the prefect?\n\nThrowing my gaze further, there was Rhyfel the younger and Adwyn up\nfront, and Cynfe nowhere to be seen, not even behind.\n\nWhen the wind turned and the smell waned, I tossed my head and kept on.\nMust be ambient. But slowly, the scent crept up again, now turned\nalmost toothsome. Flicking a tongue, whirling the forks, you could\ncatch details⁠ ⁠---⁠ coppery, and like boiled meat⁠ ⁠---⁠ and fill in\nthe details: glasscrab meat.\n\nThey served it at the Moyo-Makao, always to a lot of applause. All I\nknew about cooking it was how delicate it was, scooping out only the\ngood meat, with the shell all shattered and crizzly; and how long it\ntook to cook, with the skin taking to heat like dirt. Cooking it was a\nday and a night's work, but you did it for the taste.\n\nThe smell wavered and waxed with our march forward, until more details\nresolved: underneath and beside it were the smells of blood and smoke\nand spice. It made me slow down, and when I looked I saw more and more\ntongues waving.\n\nThis wasn't the smell of a wild glasscrab.\n\nI wasn't sure what could cook meat in the lake. A dragon, out camping\nin the lake? But you couldn't enter the lake without a sifting\nlicense. Were they trespassing? Or maybe they came here with a friend\nwho didn't tell that entering the lake is trespassing, and illegal.\nCompletely understandable, really.\n\nHinte would've taken a mess of a detour into the lake⁠ ⁠---⁠ through the\ncliffs and caves and badlands⁠ ⁠---⁠ and it couldn't be an accident.\nShe didn't even flick when Adwyn revealed her crime. And she said she'd\nsifted for almost half a gyra⁠ ⁠---⁠ but did you get that good at\nsiftings that quick? On your own?\n\nHinte was smart⁠ ⁠---⁠ smarter than me, maybe. Ushra was that\nlegendary alchemist, Gronte was that artificer turned fugitive. And\nyet, I couldn't swallow that answer.\n\nAdwyn hissed from somewhere up front, \"Does any else smell cooked meat?\"\n\n\"I do,\" I said, amid a chorus of agreement from about everyone. \"Smells\nlike cooked crab meat.\"\n\n\"Well,\" someone started, \"there's a few sifting parties out this ring.\nMaybe they got a snack.\"\n\n\"Mlaen canceled sifting today, idiot.\"\n\n\"She can do that?\"\n\nA sudden scraping sound snapped off the conversation. You looked\nup⁠ ⁠---⁠ and a boulder stabbed down until it became a rock explosion!\nThe sound was earthy thunder. A scar was gouged, a crater of rock and\nglass tears, and some blood that might've been a wormrat.\n\nI was over by the rock in a leap, with Digrif and the prefect.\n\n\"Get away from the rock!\" someone yelled, and it was Rhyfel.\n\nThere came a certain patting sound from behind, like the rain after the\nmonumental thunder.\n\nI was turning confusedly around⁠ ⁠---⁠ and a brown ape charged right at\nus! Snarling like a wildcat, wrapped in rags striped with grime, and\nlunging as if pouncing forth, it came at us⁠ ⁠---⁠ and the thing wielded\na wicked bronze spear, and it was only like a spear. Something deadly,\nsomething known.\n\nThe spear went for the gray drake. He dodged out of the way, out of my\nsight. Then came his scream and I looked and there was another ape, and\nropes were smacking against the cliff wall.\n\nThe new ape twisted its spear, and it pulled it out and there was his\nblood, dripping.\n\nThe black-tongued dragon was standing up, the white-cloaked dragon was\nstanding up, the scarlet drake was coming, the orange drake was coming.\nThere were swords out now. Three.\n\nThe green wiver was beside the other ape, and punched it. The ape\nstaggered with a yell. I saw it'd stood over a bleeding pink drake and\nI saw the spear now stabbe",
  "title": "Harrow"
}