{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/endless-stars/03",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/endless-stars/03",
  "publishedAt": "2018-12-08T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\nUp above, past the lake's shroud, there were birds, clouds and stars. I\nlooked at the gray blackness above, hunting for something outside the\nmind-numbing tedium of the lake. My last canteen had drained to a\nhalf. We hadn't encountered any rockwraiths.\n\nAt one point I'd scribbled flat, imagined monsters in the dust while\nHinte wrenched at an uncooperative cryst. My scribbled rockwraith had\nsnarled with massive claws dripping gore, mouth agape with angled\nsword-teeth and streams of caustic venom flying forth. I'd smiled but\nnot laughed, and that kept my throat satisfied.\n\nBy now I wouldn't complain to see a real rockwraith. As long as it\nprowled far in the distance, downwind of us, and with no chance under\nthe sky of eating me. But no. Instead I sifted, seeing the same three\nthings over and over again. The ash clouds were still cloudy. The\nglass crags were still craggy. And Hinte was still Hinte.\n\nWe'd found another stone. Well, I did, not Hinte⁠ ⁠---⁠ even if she\nwouldn't accept that. We had argued up and down about it awhile before\nI tried making my argument with a thrown rock. She retorted with a\nbigger rock and we did that again before she uncovered another cryst\nthat way.\n\nI dug up a messy red gemstone, too! Hinte hadn't taken it, so I kept\nit. It looked a wrinkly raisin, red-streaked and translucent. So maybe\nnot the kind of raisin you'd want to eat. We saw another glasscrab\ntoo! But it ran off when we approached and I couldn't catch it with my\ntired, hurt legs and by the time Hinte looked over at me it had fled.\n\nThat'd deflated me, and it lasted until I found another stone, one\nwhich was my find, with no quibbling from Hinte. I'd preened and wagged\nmy frills at the dark-green wiver. That lasted until she decided we\nshould check again for another.\n\nMy stomach growled, my forefeet looked⁠ ⁠---⁠ and felt⁠ ⁠---⁠ like a\ntornado passed through, and my legs were sagging.\n\nHinte was peering at me, and I put my wings under my snout and shrunk my\nfrills in my closest to a pleading hatchling.\n\nShe didn't even twitch a frill. \"Well?\" The dark-green wiver frowned\nbeneath amber goggles, head snaking forward and tilted.\n\nI sighed and said, \"No, I don't think⁠ ⁠---⁠ there are no more stones\ndown there. I don't see the point.\" My voice tended hoarse and small.\nMy throat was about to melt, at this point. Even my saliva tasted\ncoppery.\n\nHinte bared her fangs, unfolded her wings and spread them, and she\nalready was bigger. When she growled I slumped. I wouldn't have\nanother fight with her so soon. I twisted my head toward the hole.\n\nWaves of heat swelled out and crashed into my face, my scales rawer and\ntenderer. I stared at the molten maw, my eyes seeking out currents,\nflows or anything that might move other crysts, if any others existed.\nThe cracks clawing out from the hole had the lake skin crumbling or\ntrembling. Under my claws the ground wobbled. I shifted my footing,\nand winced when weight fell on my gashed foreleg.\n\nCrouching down, I doomed my sore but gashless foreleg to that hungry\nmaw. The lake had eaten, devoured, my lunch, and that hadn't sated it.\nHinte stepped me, frills swiveling as she plopped down a few strides\naway, punching her own hole in the dustone with a single hit.\n\nA few moments, and my claw grazed something hard dragging along in the\ncurrents. Toes traced it in the sand. It felt about the size and shape\nof a ring, but larger by a notch. Not holding out for anything of note,\nI pulled the hard loop out and shook away glass. I poked and ripped at\nthe glass on the loop.\n\nI peered at the melty thing. Glass sloughed off the hot gray metal, and\nrevealed was an iron loop twisting deeply around itself, lousy with\npointy barbs and a rough all around. I gave a secret smile and rolled\nthe loop into my sole, and held that foreleg out to Hinte. A moment\npassed before she glanced over. The wiver flicked her tongue and looked\nup at me, head atilt.\n\nI let my expression turn solemn. \"It reminded me of you,\" I said.\n\nWrenching a foot out she took the loop of metal, and regarded it for all\nof breath, and then glared at me, bared her fangs. From them the wiver\nspat at my my sole, venom projecting out in twin streams. They splashed\non my foot, leaving a faint salty smell.\n\n\"Eww!\" I squeaked, driving my foot into the molten sand, waving it\nwildly around. More glass creapt into splits and lines of my foot, but\nI forget that for the act.\n\nAnd it worked! A small smile had lighted on Hinte's face, until she hid\nit. She brushed it off with a glance away, to the lake. I glanced\naround with her. As I shifted, the move tore a crack. The plate\nbeneath me sunk. Glass flowed onto it.\n\nIn heartbeats, the glass had crept to me. Because it had cooled even as\nit flowed, it crawled like so many toes. Still, some of it got onto the\nbright white fabric at my hindlegs or belly. With the sand cool enough\nto spare the stuff, it threatened less than it just annoyed. Still, I\nsquirmed and talked reason to my companion:\n\n\"Hinte,\" I said, and waved a wing at her, \"I told you there's nothing\nelse down there.\" My hoarse voice was faltering.\n\nShe said nothing, still peering at the lake surface. I glared at her.\nWhy did she have to be so difficult? She looked over the ground again.\nHer focus settled on a spot a few strides away. She lay down there, and\nagain had her foreleg in the lake with a single punch.\n\nSeveral beats of sweeping her leg through the glass, then she pulled out\na stone flickering green and blue. I made myself cringe and glance at\nher as she stood, but it held no hint of smugness.\n\nShe cracked the stone, and this time she let the scuttling fragments\nfall to the dustone. They skittered about there for a bit, and not long\nafterward faltered motionless. Hinte walked forward without me, not\nquite waiting for me, but not striding off.\n\nIt took moments to stand up. The gashed foreleg was folded under the\nweight, and even the other foreleg was bruised, and only good in\ncontrast. Wounds ached. Like that, I took care trotting after her. I\nwas a few steps away, and she turned to me. The wiver looked to my\nforeleg.\n\n\"It still hurts?\" she asked.\n\nI tried to say 'it does,' but it came out an alien croak. I lowered my\nhead instead. She said nothing else, turning around, walking on.\n\nMy canteen dwindled to a third as we roamed straightly the surface of\nthe lake. The glowing cracks in the dustone shrunk or fell away. Were\nwe walking toward a shore of the lake? I let my hopes well up. Would I\nfinally get a break?\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nIn the distance, the gray-black vog gave way to a grayer, blacker wall\nof crumbling dustone. Sprawling cliffs sheltered, the Berwem, on three\nsides. On the last side, there was also a cliff⁠ ⁠---⁠ that one opened\nto a ravine. As far as I knew, through that ravine wound the usual\nroute into the Berwem.\n\nWe'd taken a different route: a long, winding detour through the\nfarmlands and emptiness on the outskirts of town, doubling back through\ncaves and trenches in the cliffs, climaxing in a glide down from the top\nof the cliffs right into the lake!\n\nThe vog thinned here on the shore, and I had a better view of only the\ngnarled crags and crevices. Covering all the ground and piling like\nwaves, the gravel here looked the lake's exiles, half tough clinker\nrocks and half wild-looking lapilli fragments. In the troughs of those\nwaves, you sometimes saw glimpses of the fire clay insulating the lake\nbottom and encircling cliffs; or sometimes you only saw gyras of built\nup volcanic hair, glassy and brittle. Things calmed and flattened the\nfarther you got away from the lake, and by the cliffs walls it was\nproper ground again.\n\nIf that sounds all very lake shore, like no particular places as much\nas a kind of place, well, you'd be right. You couldn't even tell which\nedge of the lake this was.\n\nHinte walked up to the wall, slowing to a stop at the base. She lay and\nwithout looking to me unstrapped her bag. Setting it in front of her,\nshe withdrew her canteen⁠ ⁠---⁠ a blue and pink bit of leather bright\neven in the dark⁠ ⁠---⁠ and a roast the size of my foreleg, wrapped in\ngreasy leaf-paper. Unwrapped with haste, it was six-legged squirrel\nwith each limb splayed.\n\nThey were everywhere down here, but I hadn't heard of them back home, in\nthe sky. There, the closest we'd dealt with were winged rats, pests\nthat climbed the skywires to glide from there down to every corner of\nthe cities. We raised nets everywhere to keep them out. Sometimes it\nworked.\n\nHinte finished unwrapping and ripped into the squirrel roast. I turned\naway.\n\nThe ground here grew more solid than the mix of dustone and glass\ncovering the lake itself. I crouched to lay down, and as I lowered\nmyself, a wave weary lightheaded throbbed. Lying down fully, I settled\na strides away from the eating wiver, and snaked a tail into my bag for\nmy trout lunch.\n\nMy tail curled around air, even after I'd remembered.\n\nHunger roiled in my belly, and it had been long rings of exertion\nalready. I couldn't ignore it. I looked around, my gaze still avoiding\nHinte, and I glared at the voggy lake.\n\nCould I eat a raw glasscrab? Maybe not the highest idea. Even besides\nall the glass and weird soot on it. No scuttling fragments would remain\non the any of the stones, either. I scratched my belly, and just\nscowled down at the ground.\n\nDust crunched. A wing prodded my side, and I looked up. The dark-green\nwiver stood above me, holding her squirrel between her alula and\npinion. Taking the squirrel in both forefeet, she ripped. It was two\nhalfs. One leg was already eaten, and she offered the half with three\nlegs.\n\n\"Thank you,\" I whispered\n\nShe didn't say anything, just stepped away, returned to her spot. I\nlooked at the squirrel. It was no trout, but I had gotten hungry. I\nbit into it and ripped out a chunk of meat.\n\nThe taste was lighter than I'd like, but I savored it, and took care to\ngrind the smaller bones with my teeth and suck th",
  "title": "Cullet"
}