{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/endless-stars/02",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/endless-stars/02",
  "publishedAt": "2018-12-01T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\nI was alone.\n\nAs I limped over the molten glass lake, only one set of footsteps\ncracked the crumbling skin. My heart floundered in my breast, still\nwracked even with the argument behind me. Salty, sour venom dewed on my\nfangs, my anger leaking out. My tail uncoiled from my leg, and I drew a\nshuddering breath, and bit back a cough.\n\nEvery motion and habit stood salient in my awareness, with no one else\nand nothing else to distract me. The vog renewed its constrictions, so\nmuch darker now without the figure in bright-white leading me. I took\nanother breath.\n\nI needed to dig up five more stones, prove to Hinte I could help her,\nand convince her to tell me the secret behind all this.\n\nFive stones. We had collected about seven or eight together. Could I\ncollect so many more before we left the Berwem? I needed time, but how\nmuch? I fanned my frills, listening for a sound I hadn't heard since we\nleft.\n\nIn town, we measured time in rings. High up on one of tallest cliffs,\nin the timekeeper's belfry, they kept a massive glass carillon. It rang\npiercing and melodious, and rang fifty-four times a day. Four of those\nrings, the dawn rings and the dusk rings, sang the loudest. Ten of\nthose rings sang loud too, loud enough to be heard deep in the cliffs by\nthe sifters, the farmmasters, the patrolling guards and anyone else in\nthe cliffs with or without a reason. The remaining rings, softer\ntrills, had no such ambition; and you only heard them in the town.\n\nWe called the louder rings 'long rings,' and the smaller ones 'short\nrings.' If you needed to talk about something lasting longer than a few\nheartbeats or tongueflicks, you measured it with rings. Two rings,\nthree rings, half a ring⁠ ⁠---⁠ even a third of a ring. (Digrif used\nthat last one all the time, but I didn't know why.) However they\nmeasured it, the town loathed using anything more descriptive than the\nplain, obtuse 'ring.' Yes, which ring is sometimes clear from\ncontext, but for me it never ever hurt to be precise.\n\nWhy? Because I had floundered for the first cycle living here. What\nelse could all this talk of rings have been but another example of the\nGrymri's frilly obsession with glass-working and metallurgy? So I\ndismissed it. And I had continued in my ignorance until Sinig-gyfar had\nlain me down and explained the system one day. I had blown the shop,\nthe Llygaid Crwydro, a whole cowload of wet ash, a cowload that\nMawrion-sofran told me to lash and lead back to the shop. But I had\nflown by the supplier two long rings after the ash had hardened and\ngrown worthless. I almost lost my job that day.\n\nI never lost count of rings, big or little, after that.\n\nStumbling over a crag brought me back to my senses with a gasp and a\nlightning strike pulse of my heart. I crouched, made my footing extra,\nextra secure and looked around, glaring at the vicious crags and\nspineless dustone skin.\n\nMy gaze softened as it lifted and roamed around me, looking for\nsomething to anchor my mind in the lake, instead of wandering through my\nmemories. I looked at the shrouded blotches of sunslight, which had\nalready moved from their last position.\n\nHinte had never told me when she planned for us to return. But we left\ntown in the evening, three long rings before second dusk. The last\nproper long ring, reverberating through the cliffs around us, came\nvaguely on our way toward the lake; and on the tail of the first dusk\nring, we'd flown down into the smoke and vog. Just one more would sound\nbefore the day alighted. I never lost count of rings.\n\nSo, came the natural question, when should I find and reunite with\nHinte? After the second dusk ring? It sounded good enough and maybe\ngave me enough time to sift five stones⁠ ⁠---⁠ if I worked fast. The\ntask pressed down upon me like that, knitting itself into a tight knot\nin my belly.\n\nStarting forward again, I still eased the weight I placed on my injured\nforeleg. The tedium of marching over the Berwem gave me something to\nlose myself in, at least. Even if I could do without the dust and dirt\nin my foreclaws. Or the reeking vog burning my throat raw. Or the\nsoreness settling into all of my limbs, but especially my forelegs,\nwhere the constant ripping away of glass felt like I didn't even have\nscales there anymore.\n\nI yelped when too much weight fell down on my injured foreleg. Without\nHinte here, I could fly now. It would ease the strain on my legs.\nShould I? Flying took less time, put me in less danger, and I liked\nto fly. Hinte said it would tire me out, but unlike her, I would take\nbreaks. Yet something she said echoed in my frills.\n\n\"I need to feel the crysts.\"\n\n\"Oh, really?\" I said aloud. Hinte had fanned her frills to feel that\nannoying hum. It tasted so obvious! How else had she found all of\nthose half-buried crysts?\n\nI fanned my frills, an imitation of that dark-green wiver. Five\ncrysts. I could do this.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEven after a while, my frills hadn't felt anything interesting. Only my\namplified footfalls and the low, slow groan of the Berwem as the\ncurrents below distorted the skin.\n\nTime had passed with nothing to show for it. Did Hinte have some secret\ntrick for finding out these stones?\n\nSighing, coughing, I lifted my canteen to soothe my throat with another\ndraught of alien coolness, and kissed the glass bottle. I should have\nbrought a dozen more like it. Dressed in patriotic red and yellow\ncloth, the glass canteen stood tall and just wide enough I couldn't wrap\nmy foot around it. I could empty two of them between one long ring and\nthe next, or just one if I rationed, and you had to ration in the lake.\n\nI shook the thing. By now this second canteen had only a sixth left,\nmaybe dozen or half again swallows. I did have one more of them, but\nit's been ten swallows since I left Hinte, and I'd never gone this long\nwithout anything happening before.\n\nWhat if I lowered my head really low as I walked? I had never seen\nHinte do it, but it didn't sound so silly to me. Though when my fourth,\nor maybe my fifth attempt at it revealed a faint rumbling below me, my\neyes cleared and I had to choke down a sigh for fear of coughing again.\n\nDoing it this way would only reveal stones sunken deep in the lake, out\nof reach. But... this was given me my only result since trying this\ngambit.\n\nAfter some shuffling around to find the start of the hum, and some extra\npacing I stood close enough above it, so I made to grab it. Maybe it\ndid lay too deep in the lake to grab, but I needed to find five crysts.\nI needed to try.\n\nI punched the ground. It broke with a sizzling crack. Three more\npunches opened a glowing hole in the skin. Prickling numbness once\nagain enveloped my foreleg as I offered it to the lake. The molten maw\nswallowed me, first my claw, then my knee, then my upper leg⁠ ⁠---⁠ as\nfar as I dared to reach. Toetips grazed the surface of the stone.\n\nStaring into that glowing maw, there was an echo of the sound of dustone\nslamming against my stomach. My eyes paled, and for just a moment, I\nagain teetered on the edge of that maw, with a fiery line of pain\nrunning up my leg, breaths away from joining my lunch in the burning\nlake.\n\nBreathe, Kinri.\n\nMy fist had clenched in the lake. I relaxed it. Just a little bit\nfarther, just a few more lines of scales swallowed, and I still couldn't\ngrasp the stone. But I wouldn't⁠ ⁠---⁠ couldn't⁠ ⁠---⁠ feed more of\nmyself to the lake.\n\nI pulled my foreleg out, wiping the glaze from my leg without thinking.\nBut I stopped and sighed: no point.\n\nI needed a plan to retrieve the stone. Could I reach in with both legs\nand wiggle it up? No, that could push it further down. If I had a\nstick or something, I could nudge or even pull it up. Hinte might have\nsomething like that. Anyone could think of it. Even if she didn't sift\nsubmerged stones.\n\nSo, what angle was I not considering? All those ideas relied on\nbringing the stone closer to me. Could I bring myself closer to the\nstone? No, that sounded frilly. But no, they didn't only bring the\nstone closer to me, they also brought the stone closer to the surface.\nCould I bring the surface closer to the stone?\n\nMy forefoot pressed down. The skin flexed. If I put more weight on, it\nwould flex even more.\n\n\"And if I fell onto it...\"\n\nMy wings spread. A leap, and several wing-beats had me in the air.\nWhen the vog blurred the ground below me, I stopped threshing. I\nplummeted. But I panicked, instinct animating my wings. My fall\nstopped a wing-beat above the ground.\n\nRising to that height again, I steeled myself. I needed to stop\nwasting time! So I dropped myself mid-flap, as if to trick myself into\nfalling. And it worked; I crashed against the dustone. The crash beat\nthe breath out of me, and the ground hit my legs like a lightning bolt.\nI bent and gave, falling onto my belly, but too late to save my legs\nfrom the pain.\n\nI groaned. \"This was a bad idea.\"\n\nThe ground gave in its own way. The crash turned to a crater in the\nskin and then a wave rippling away from me. A massive crack filled my\nfrills. It reverberated and echoed, the lake's own pained groan. Hinte\nhad said something earlier about sound attracting monsters, hadn't she?\n\nAs if the blow to my legs wasn't enough.\n\nThe crash to the dustone ripped wide my hole. Around it, the skin was\nshattering into several smaller plates. My crater dipped below the\nmolten sand, and now glass trickled in at the fringes. I reached into\nthe widened mouth again, looking away. My knee had sunk in before I\ntouched the stone. I grasped it then, while sliding the leg's pair in.\n\nAs it emerged from the lake, the vibration doubled. I sat the stone on\none of the floating plates, near its middle, before wiping my forelegs\nhard, and only removing the largest hunks of glass.\n\nMy frills bristled at a distant crunch, but nothing emerged from the\nvog. The lake still groaned after my crash had upset the flow\nunderneath, some of the plates still grinding together. They didn't\nsound like that,",
  "title": "Shatter"
}