{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/endless-stars/13",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/endless-stars/13",
  "publishedAt": "2019-03-02T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\n\"The bodies need to be guarded,\" the pink-scaled guard was saying to\nAdwyn, \"don't they? You're plenty big and strong sure, but I can watch\nyour back.\"\n\nDidn't they hear me? \"Who are you?\" I asked again, a bit higher. I stood\nsomewhere behind Adwyn, beside Digrif, but I knew they could hear me.\n\nThe short, mouse-like dragon at last glanced over, frowned, and tossed\nme a, \"Ceian,\" before turning back to the schizon-clad adviser.\n\nHinte stood beside the orange drake. \"Do we need a little fledgling\nslowing us down?\"\n\nThe guard glanced at her, and his frills popped open and there may have\nbeen a gasp or mutter. \"You're the alchemist's spawn!\" they said, and\nstepped back.\n\nThe wiver declined her head so that the shade ate her face, and at her\nneck the amber goggles were regent eyes. \"My name is Hinte.\"\n\nYou saw a pink head tilt. \"Why do you have a name like that?\" They had\nthe look and stance of some traveler guarding against a strange wraith\nthat wanted tea and dancing.\n\nThe fledgling alchemist said, \"Because my mother --- why do you care?\"\n\nBy now I was stomping up beside Hinte, saying, \"Will no one tell me who\nthis weird little guard is?\"\n\nThe guard turned a narrowed-brow gaze to me a breath before they\nlaughed, and Adwyn only sighed.\n\n\"Some orphan drake Mlaen's fond to, whom Rhyfel also has taken a shine\nfor. Quite the graspingly ambitious sort, which looks impressive from a\ndistance as much as it does nothing to endear him to me.\"\n\nCeian scoffed with his tail flicking and a forefoot smacking the gravel.\n\"And you're the sort who thinks he can bundle up a dragon in a few\nbreaths, Sofrani.\"\n\nThe adviser only smirked.\n\n\"Chance you could deign to inflict the same on this⁠ ⁠---⁠ colorful\ncast here? Never seen these jokes.\"\n\nThe orange drake looked back at my night-blue face, at the warm-gray\ndrake behind me, and at the dark-green wiver beside me. He sighed and\nplainly he spoke:\n\n\"Back there is Digrif, an orphan without your luck. He works harder\nthan he acts. Beside me is Hinte. Ushra's daughter. A wiver raised by\nmoney and the absence of limitations. And the other one is Kinri.\nShe's a sky-dweller if you omit everything that make sky-dwellers\nnoteworthy.\" He paused. \"Which is a compliment.\"\n\nHinte looked at the orange drake, but shade still had her face;\nmeanwhile, Digrif, with sweet-tinged fangs, was back there softly\nkicking bits of gravel. I didn't react: if I didn't act like a\nsky-dweller, it was all a part of the act.\n\nOver there Ceian was nodding vaguely at Digrif, but he settled on Hinte\nand said, \"She doesn't look bloated, or dress bloated. I'd even hazard\nshe doesn't act that bloated neither. Too jagged.\" His tone wavered\nbetween unease and nothing in particular.\n\n\"She lives in Gwymr/Frina,\" said the adviser with a laugh. \"That sees\nsomething of a damper on that sort of thing.\"\n\nCeian flicked his tongue, brows narrow, but I saw him stop it and pull\nit into his mouth.\n\nBrightly he said, \"So Sofrani! We decided you needed someone to guard\nthe cart with you, right? And as you can see:\"⁠ ⁠---⁠ the pink drake\nwaved at the guards letting the crowd into the east market, like a\nstrainer; where Ceian had stood among them someone had ran to fill his\nplace, and now glared at the drake, who was continuing⁠ ⁠---⁠ \"my spot\nhas been filled.\"\n\nAdwyn tossed his head and said, blankly, \"You have raised a gray\npoint.\" A forefoot had been lifted and tapped his horned chin. He\nnodded once.\n\n\"No,\" Hinte said. \"We will be slow enough as it is. We do not need\nanother drag.\"\n\n\"He's nice, though.\" Digrif slipped up beside me, looking at the wiver.\n\"He'd make sharp company.\"\n\n\"Maybe, maybe not.\" I shook my head at the warm-gray dragon. \"This is a\nserious mission, Digrif. You can't just bring someone along because\nthey seem nice.\"\n\nHinte gave me a look.\n\n\"What?\"\n\nAdwyn said to Ceian, \"It's a gray point, but I am entertaining my own\nsolutions.\" He turned, regarding us and our little brewing argument.\n\"And alas, you've stirred a certain discord we could do without. It's\nnothing against you, you must see. It's only Hinte is awful when she\ndoesn't get her way.\"\n\nWith a starfallen pink drake behind us, with Hinte scowling and Digrif\nfrowning, with Adwyn lugging the weight of the holey pumice cart on, and\nwith waxing unease curling onto my fangs, we marched forth wordlessly.\nI could look at the silly side of things, find something to cheer\nsomeone up.\n\nI glanced at Hinte, and shook my head. I was walking behind everyone\nnow, Digrif between me and Hinte or Adwyn.\n\nWe entered the market proper like that.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe first thing you saw in the market was food, our food.\n\nThis was the start of the gray season, and now almost all of the foods\non sale had grown here, been prepared here, without owing more than\ntheir names to something outside the cliffs. After all, no merchant\nwould trudge through the Berwem, through dust clouds and eruptions, just\nto sell in the land of glass and secrets. To Anterth/Gwirion? Maybe.\nTo Dyfnder/Geunant? Of course. But to Gwymr/Frina? The only dragons\nwho would care to were the mountain-dwellers, and they had better things\nto sell than crops or livestock.\n\nIn a word, Gwymr/Frina was obscure --- and because of that, I'd\ndecided to settle here instead of the skip mountains or the hovering\nshores. Most exiled sky-dwellers ended up in either of those, and I\nknew why. I loved the Constellation's open skies, its immense\nheights, and everything. I just couldn't live where I would be reminded\nof them everyday. Nothing could compare to the sky, so I decided it\nwould be better to forget about it, if it came to that.\n\nSo I had fallen to the cliffs. Yes, my brother had suggested it, but I\ndecided it.\n\nRubbing the singed scales around my headband, I glanced at the stalls\naround me; they were simple things, easy to build and tear down, and,\nbeing made of rough paper drapped over bamboo rods, they sat somewhere\nbetween flimsy and not. They weren't ugly; but I didn't look at them,\neither.\n\nEach stall around us wafted some delicious aroma. Gwymr/Frina's clifftop\noutskirts were dotted with small farms; and there they raised cliff\ngoats, gigantic land snails, fourteen-legged caterpillar cows, Hägre\nhogs and tidbit chickens. And dillers and turts, too, but you shouldn't\neat those. Here, meat from those animals scented the air with a lure\nrestrained only by their price tag.\n\nAnd one stall, it sold fish! I waved my tongue, yet before I could\nslink after it, Hinte'd broken away herself and slinked over to that\nstall selling Hägre hog pork. Before I'd even unclouded my eyes she'd\nbought a whole roast. Being from a smaller kind of hog, about knee-high\nand half as long as a dragon, it sat clumsy and tottering in Hinte's\ncloaked wings. She tried to place it in her bag, but it wouldn't fit.\n\nShe kept trying, so I giggled, stepped over, and said, \"Just put it on\nthe cart, Hinte⁠ ⁠---⁠ is too big,\" I said, waving over to where Adwyn\ncarried the cart.\n\nRust-orange eyes peered at me from under her hood. She flicked her\ntongue once, but took my advice. She placed the roasted hog on the\ncart, away from the tarp-covered bodies.\n\nHinte broke off two of the hog's six legs and offered one to me. I took\nit with a murmured thanks, even as I turned away to bite into it. It\nwas polite, but Hinte didn't really have a sense of those things. I\ntook another bite and tasted again the crisp, almost-sweet flavor of\nroasted Hägre hog.\n\n\"Hey!\" Digrif said. \"What about me?\"\n\nHinte hissed. I prodded her with a wing (or rather, tried to prod her,\nfailed, tried again, failed again, then finally turned around to aim\ntrue). With Hinte's attention I nodded at her. She snapped her tongue\nat me, but relented. Returning to the cart, she broke a third leg off\nand passed it to Digrif. I looked at Adwyn, tilting my head and raising\nthe hog leg in my foot.\n\nHe shook his head. \"I am not hungry,\" he said.\n\n\"And I would not have given one to you if you were,\" Hinte said between\nbites.\n\nI gaped at her, but Adwyn laughed. Shaking my head, I settled into step\nbehind everyone else again.\n\nWe walked on for a bit, roaming the stalls and crowds. I'd seen larger\ncrowds before, at House parties or Constellation assemblies, but none in\nGwymr/Frina. It didn't take twenty steps to remind me why I avoided\nthem; scattered gazes all around lingered or stared, some almost\nglaring. I kept my head down, and tried not to scratch at my\nscales⁠ ⁠---⁠ they felt like they were molting.\n\nAt one point, Adwyn stopped suddenly, saying, \"Allow me to find\nsomewhere to hide this cart. I won't be lugging it around.\"\n\nThe orange dragon turned and strode toward one of the cliff walls.\nDigrif and I trailed after him, but he brandished a wing at us. \"Go. I\nam not your minder, and this diversion is as much for your own benefit\nas mine.\"\n\nI flattened my wings and stepped away at once.\n\nFoots sounded, and I glanced at the warm gray dragon coming up at my\nside. \"Hi, Digrif,\" I said.\n\n\"Huh? Hey Kinri.\"\n\nLooking away again, fangs damp, I found Hinte a ways behind us. When\ndid she get there? Then I moved my gaze to her wings --- she'd doubled\nback to wrench her roast from Adwyn's cart. Roast in wing, she was\nlow-walking away. With another prodding glance to Digrif I shot up and\nhalf-glided, half-flew to Hinte. I planted down beside her first ---\nno question of that --- but Digrif wasn't more than a few breath cycles\nbehind me.\n\nTogether again, I walked between the two friends. I brushed my wings\nagainst them as we waked, but that only pulled brief, puzzled glances\nfrom each of them, so I sighed and looked around at the crowd, then back\nat Hinte, then around again.\n\nSurrounded by the gazes of strangers, I curled tighter in on myself. No\none noticed.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe crowd writhed and spilt over itself. Like pillars in the chaotic\nmass, wherever we looked there were guards in high-",
  "title": "Suspect"
}