{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/endless-stars/01",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/endless-stars/01",
  "publishedAt": "2018-11-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: subchapter\n\nSomewhere above, as if waiting, the loversuns still shone.\n\nBelow that⁠ ⁠---⁠ past all the ash, dust and smoke⁠ ⁠---⁠ the two suns'\nlight became a vague hint, offering the lake's surface to the shadows.\nAnd they accepted, waving their shadow tongues, swishing their shadow\ntails, and enveloping.\n\nTrudging over the crumbly shell of this molten glass lake, you'd tire of\nthe lack of light or company in your first breath cycle. The Berwem was\nvast and empty; there was only me and⁠ ⁠---⁠ somewhere I couldn't\nsee⁠ ⁠---⁠ my companion, Hinte.\n\nWithout dropping my prize, I hugged my wings a little closer to myself,\nand pouted. I had lost her again... but it was the lake's fault, not\nmine.\n\nI sighed, my tongue flicking out in starless habit, and, traitor it was,\nbrushing the vomer on the roof of my mouth. I scented despite myself.\n\nThe lake could have smelled worse. Its ash just tasted... ashy, but its\ndust tasted like aluminum and copper, with little hints of electrum. If\nthat were all, well, I think anyone could stand to scent precious metals\nall evening, if maybe without the mouthful of ash and dust it came\nwith. Pervading them both, though, was a vog that choked and stung and\nreeked of smoke and sulfur like a horribly burnt dish of festering eggs.\n\nThe image gave me a little giggle. Maybe some frilly god had prepared\nthe lake Berwem as a little bowl walled in by cliffs, turning up the\nheat with volcanic vents, adding in some weird crabs and weirder stones,\nand then sprinkling in so much ash and metal, all as some big joke.\n\nThe silliness lifted my thoughts off the vog that slithered down my\npanting throat, and off the wriggling, constricting shadows.\n\nSo I started forward like that, giggling, every step of my four\nnight-blue legs cracking the lake surface. It opened glowing breaks in\nthe lake's gray skin, like slit eyes that stared. I peered back at\nthem.\n\nWrithing under the skin, molten glass split the ground into brittle\nplates. Those plates rattled as they ground against each other, and the\nburning glass underneath hissed as the air vitrified it. Those rattles\nand hisses, taken together with the scaly plates and cracked eye slits,\nonly completed the image.\n\nI could imagine the lake as a meal all I wanted, but it would never stop\nfeeling like it had swallowed me instead.\n\nAfter that thought, I wasn't laughing; the giggly tongue-clicking\nstumbled in my throat and turned into a choked cough that bit into me,\nand⁠ ⁠---⁠ determined to drag up a yelp or a groan with\nit⁠ ⁠---⁠ stretched and overstayed itself for ten heartbeats, long after\nI'd gotten tired of it.\n\nCoughing filled the air, and even when it waned it left my breaths\nwheezing. Its only accompaniment was the lake's dim rumbling. The\nsound⁠ ⁠---⁠ the emptiness of it⁠ ⁠---⁠ stilled me. Fangs wet, I looked\nleft and right, forward and backward, listlessly up and then finally\ndown at my scaled blue feet.\n\nI'd lost Hinte again, and now I was alone in the lake.\n\nIt wasn't my fault. I'd tasted an opportunity scuttling along unawares\nand leapt for it. But we shouldn't have lost each other so quickly.\n\nLast time⁠ ⁠---⁠ every other time⁠ ⁠---⁠ she'd only gone as far as the\nedge of my sight, and it was a matter of leaping over to her. Now, I\ncouldn't see or hear her⁠ ⁠---⁠ I could smell her, but that was awash\nin everything else, nothing but a tinge. Hinte had been more than\nenveloped, she'd been swallowed, just like me.\n\nMy fangs dewed with a little bit more... saliva. It wasn't sour, and it\nwas only a few drops. They dripped onto my muzzle and slid and fell to\nthe ground by my black-covered feet. I looked up.\n\nIt'd be a bit easier to forgive the friend-swallowing shadows if they\nhadn't come from this stinking, sulfuric, vog-stuffed air, or if they\nwere at least thin enough to see farther than six strides ahead in.\n\nI was glaring at the shadows now, but stopped myself with a cringe.\nHinte would see me before I saw her. Would she catch me glaring and\nthink I hated sifting? I couldn't seem unappreciative.\n\nFrom behind, a smell of boiled meat reached me, reminded me, and I\nsqueezed the glasscrab held between my night-blue wings⁠ ⁠---⁠ my\nprize. The dead gray form swung over my back, then bounced and fell\ninto a bag opposite my lunch. I had gained something from getting lost,\nat least.\n\nGlasscrabs. They were some weird lake creature said to have alchemical\nblood⁠ ⁠---⁠ disease-purifying alchemical blood. And I would know, with\nhow many long rings I'd lost poring over old, smelly scrolls about them,\nexpecting Hinte to be impressed.\n\nWhat the scrolls hadn't mentioned was how flighty and stinky they were.\nOr how silly... though maybe that was just the one I'd found. Dumbly,\nit had scuttled right by me and Hinte as if we didn't exist. So I'd\npounced on it. A long-sought alchemy ingredient walking right past? A\nchance to do something besides walk and ask unanswered questions? It\nshould have been worth it. Instead, I'd lost Hinte again.\n\nAll four of my feet were digging into the ground, biting into it, as if\nthe clinging would keep me from sliding swallowed down into the lake's\nfiery maw⁠ ⁠---⁠ even though they would crack it open instead. Breathe,\nKinri. The breath came clearly, but that was easier than relaxing my\nfeet.\n\nConfused, I breathed again, and the breath came just as clearly, as\nthough the coughs had crawled further down my throat, into my breast,\nwhere they were just a faint wheezing. Maybe they'd rush back out any\nmoment⁠ ⁠---⁠ but for now? They were gone.\n\nI didn't smile, but I spat out some dust. It left as a wet and cloudy\nspray, turning my mouth into a little volcano. I did it a few more\ntimes, making a little swirl in the air around me. You had heard of the\nlegendary heroes that could breathe fire, but I could breathe dust.\nTremble before me!\n\nAt that, I did smile a little. I didn't dare laugh again, though. But\nI smiled. Because you had to stare at the silly side of things, keep\neverything positive. If I stopped, then the dewing would start.\n\nSuddenly, a crack beneath me! I jumped. Dustone was shattering in my\nfeet, and a storm of glowing cracks was ripping around me. I didn't\nlike how the ground was sinking.\n\nI hadn't been walking. I'd stilled on the spot, alone, swallowed up\njust like my companion, and laughing and coughing in that aloneness.\n\nI breathed again, through my mouth, letting my tongue focus on just that\nhaughty electrum smell. Releasing the shattered dustone in my feet, I\nstepped forward. Hinte hadn't been swallowed by the vog and I wouldn't\nbe either. I just needed to find her. She knew the Berwem like a\nfavorite scroll.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nBelow, furious molten glass burned beneath a façade of hardened dust and\nglaze. The heat of the lake's blood rose and animated the air, driving\nit upward. I found it curious, as that same heat wore me down, draining\nmy energy with every step I took toward... with every aimless step\nforward. No sign of Hinte.\n\nAs the lake clouds rose, they became a gray-black ceiling above me.\nLooking up at that blackness, sunslight still filtered down in vague\nblotches, keeping their promise to the coiling shadows of the lake. At\nthe sight, the white-speckled frills on either side of my neck folded\nand sagged; I missed the suns.\n\nMy scaled feet, still slick with a black slime, scraped the ground as I\nwalked on, leaving short lines above my footprints. More dust worked\ninto my nails and between my toes. Despite the slime, I felt all of\nit.\n\nI'd resigned myself to the sensation, but it still needled me. And\nthere was nothing to distract from it. Every single step forward\npressed more and more dust and glass bits into my soles! I shuddered.\nIf only I could shed on command, and just my forelegs...\n\nMaybe walking with bare forefeet wasn't the absolute worst part of\nsifting, but the feeling crawled over me, always worming its way into my\nawareness. A pair of sandals, at least, spared my hindfeet.\n\nBreathing, I wrenched my focus to other things. Like the drifting smell\nof my lunch, caught by an idle flick of my tongue. So faint, yet I\nsavored the briny, acrid aroma of trout charred almost black⁠ ⁠---⁠ my\nfavorite. Saliva moistened my mouth, and the smell twisted the waxing\nhunger in my belly into a mean knot.\n\nI hadn't eaten today, and the toil of sifting hatched an appetite I\nmight go days before working up otherwise. My first canteen had already\nemptied itself, and we still hadn't taken a break. And now, I could\ntake one, and I needed to find Hinte instead.\n\n\"Hinte!\" I called, as loud as I could, loud enough I felt a burning\nreturn to my throat.\n\nShe hadn't wanted to bring me with her to the lake at all. But, after\nall my incessant prodding and pleading⁠ ⁠---⁠ which went\nnowhere⁠ ⁠---⁠ and after her rejections saying I would only slow her\ndown or I would injure myself, I still kept asking to join her. I\ndidn't have anyone else.\n\n\"Hinte!\" I called, lower, rubbing my throat with a wing.\n\nAfter that, the cycles had danced by, and the moons had wound in their\npaths; in a word, the gray season approached, promising ash clouds and\nvog. I faltered then. The gray season would have definitely grounded\nher trips into the cliffs, and grounded any chance of mine to learn what\nshe did there.\n\n\"Hinte?\" My voice was barely above conversational, and that was the\nbest I could do, now.\n\nBut the weather had done neither, because then she relented all asudden,\nleaving me slack-tongued and wondering what changed. \"Two days,\" was\nwhat she told me, \"and I will not wait.\" With two days to prepare, I\nbrought along a lunch, some light-shielding goggles and my excitement,\nsome thrill of adventure.\n\n\"Hinte,\" I said, and it could have been called a whisper.\n\nNow, after an evening spent in this stinking lake, I only had the lunch.\n\nI opened my mouth to call again, and my voice didn't cooperate.\nInstead, a cough. I tried covering my mouth, I tried breathing slower,\nI tried drinking more water",
  "title": "Crizzle"
}