As I slinked along, my only warning was a sudden lurch. My hindleg tripped on a crag! I stumbled, flew forward. One foreleg buckled. I threw the other out to break my fall. But the leg punched through the ground! Dustone cracked, disintegrating, and a burst of dust sprayed onto my brilles.

Wings blasted out from my sides. A foreleg plunged into the molten sand. Incinerating heat ate at my scales, but I didn’t feel burning pain. Only a prickly, muted feeling. The molten sand’s viscid thickness slowed my fall. My wings spread to their full width. I threshed them.

My foreleg hit a cutting hardness in the lake! I fell right onto it. It ripped through scales, cutting me open. I screamed as the molten sand invaded the wound.

Despite my threshing, I crashed into the lake surface. Cracks rippled for strides around. Pieces of the lake skin broke apart, opening glowing cracks. Cracks that infuriated the air, and blasted heat and wind.

Hinte, just in front of me, had walked on, not noticing my misstep. But she jerked to a stop when I screamed. She leapt into the air, winging over to where I lay slumped on the ground.

I pulled my leg out from the lake. It brushed against the stone before emerging. But I overpulled when the resistance fell away, throwing myself to my side. Something fell out of my bag!

There was a burning hiss, and fear stabbed into my fangs. The crabs? Was the lake eating my crabs? I squeaked. Would I never give Hinte that alchemical gift? Would I never see anything other than that same long-suffering glare in her eyes?

Breathe. You don’t need to care. Maybe it was taking off a mask, maybe it was putting one on, but I dried my fangs and steadied my face.

My foreleg was more important, I was more important, right now. The leg glistened a warm golden yellow. As I watched, it hardened to glass, glazing onto the scales. The new glass grew murky and speckled with flakes of stone and metal, already vitrifying where it met the air.

I flicked my tongue, smelling the sizzly glaze and the crackly dust. Rolling onto my belly, I pressed my glassy foreleg to the ground, and winced as pain raced up the leg. I tried again⁠ ⁠—⁠ less pain.

Convinced I could still walk, I looked to my side, where something had fallen out of my bag. I froze.

Beside where I lay, a gaping maw of burning sand opened, just as terrible as my dread had limned it. I’d avoided falling in by the narrowest margin.

Over that edge, in the burning smolders, my lunch sunk. My lunch, the trout I killed yesterday in preparation for this, incinerated as I stared.

It wasn’t the crabs… but I’d prepared for that, stopped caring about it. The lunch was for me, and that hurt more, right now.

As I watched the lake devour my lunch, a green wing nudged my side. I turned, meeting burning amber goggles. She made two quick motions, lifting her head in negation, then tossing it to the side in indifference. I caught her meaning.

No. It doesn’t matter.

…And she had a point. It could have been me eaten by the lake, instead of my lunch. I could have been maimed. I could have died! Draw two deep breaths. Then four. Then six. Let it go. You lived, that was enough.

I looked at the foreleg again, and groaned. Thanks to the plunge into the lake, my foreleg had gained a new coat of scales. Glass scales.

I pushed the white fabric off the glass. It wasn’t quite a sleeve⁠ ⁠—⁠ these suits didn’t have sleeves⁠ ⁠—⁠ but my leg had plunged almost to the hole in the torso. Any further, and it might have burned the fabric. Or maybe plastered it onto my scales, and that would be even more of a nightmare to clean.

The glass would still take forever to scrape off completely. I would have to wait until we left the lake, as much as it bothered me. But I slid my other foreleg over it, sloughing off some still-liquid hunks of glass.

The pieces clinging to the gash pricked me as I pulled them off. But even the others still stuck to the scales and it was just unpleasant! It felt like peeling off molting scales too soon, before they were ready to shed. Something, I admitted, I did a lot as a hatchling.

I scowled at my attempt to shed these glass scales; it had come to the same result. My legs looked awful! The blackened, burned gash stretched a few claw lengths along my foreleg, bleeding and blistering. Lumps of mottled glass stuck out from my foreleg. And on the clear patches, the protective black slime oozed back, almost glued to my skin. The glass formed almost rubbery the closer it'd glazed to the slime; and the stuff flaked or crizzled more than it shattered.

My fangs dewed with tart frustration. Again, I let it fade. I had lived. I almost died…

----------------------------------------

Above me, Hinte stared, frills wrinkling as she huffed, sounding both annoyed and exasperated.

“Tongueless!” she said. “Did you hear none of your noise? You walk on the lake, not in it.” She made a walking gesture with four toes.

I cringed, looking down. Bleary dust had settled onto my brilles again, and I licked it away. “What?” I asked, my voice rough and coughing as I spoke. “Why–why is noise even a problem?” I looked at her, folding my frills back.

She snapped her tongue. “It awakens sleeping things, sleeping out the gray season. Rockwraiths,” she said, voice a growl. “They might eat you.”

“Eep!” I squeaked, and heard Hinte click her tongue, snickering. I growled. Why was she laughing at me? I didn’t want to be eaten! “Um. I think there was a rock⁠ ⁠—⁠ a stone down there. It cut me! I’ll grab it⁠ ⁠—⁠ then we can get away from here!”

“Yes, we should get away,” she said, lightness slipping out of her voice.

I focused on the stone.

Where I had almost fell through the ground gaped a still-widening hole. Waves of heat blasted from the uncovered sand, and singed my face even more. If only these suits had masks… I raised a foreleg to cover my snout. But the blazing glass still hurt my eyes to look at, even with clouded brilles. I glanced at my broken goggles again, and sighed.

Cracks shot over the dustone and fringe pieces fell meltingly in; but soon the hole would stabilize, and the collapse would reverse. Again dust would cake onto the glass, and mix with the cooling glaze, hardening and creating another dustone scale for the lake’s facade.

Still lying on the ground where I fell, I stood. I shot a glare at Hinte. Would it have been so hard to just help me up?

I faltered on my hurt leg but leaned into it. It looked intentional. Hinte would chide me again if she knew I had just injured myself. I wasn’t that useless.

Crouching to secure my footing, I prepared to wrench out the stone. Breathing once, twice, I broke through the new glass surface with my good foreleg, sliding the other in after it.

The prickling engulfed my legs again as I reached into the lake, pushing through with the sluggishness it imposed, and after a beat I grabbed the stone to pull it out⁠ ⁠—⁠ but I misjudged the weight, sending a flare of pain through my bad leg that cost me my grip on the stone; I braced myself before trying again, and this time I used only my good leg, and I managed it out, struggling with the weight and resistance of the lake.

The stone glowed a wavering pink and red, littered with flakes of deep purple. It almost looked pretty, the loathsome thing. Shaped like two jagged spheres welded together, it fit in my sole, but I couldn’t wrap my forefoot around it. It made that atonal, trembling hum and low clicking that and writhed resonatingly in my frills.

The glass coating the stone began to harden, but vibrations cracked the new glass, rattling it off. I turned it over. The stone had a few outjutting edges, and one of them, I suspected, was the one that had cut me! I flicked it with my claw, retalitating.

Vengeance inflicted, silliness restored, I gave the stone the grip of tight carefulness and the look of reluctant respect that it deserved. We had come out here for these stones, after all.

Together, Hinte and I sifted through the molten sand, hunting for these stinking rocks. It seemed easy at first⁠ ⁠—⁠ in the first ring we came across three in a row just poking out of the lake skin. The next few had us dredging through the incinerating glass to gather. For several long rings. I’d spent all evening in the Berwem.

But whatever secret lay behind these stones lifted Hinte. She had flown out into the cliffs every cycle in the few moons I had known her. I wanted to know why, and I wanted to help her.

So I took the stone and passed it to her, seeing how the lines of her face softened as her gaze moved from me to the stone. Watching her, I asked the stars that this time, unlike every other time, it would reveal something of the stones’ secret. I didn’t hold my breath, though.

She regarded the rock for a moment, then clenched her forefoot, digging her claws in. The stone cracked. Broken shards of the stone moved in mindless scuttling along the surface. Its clicking died, but the hum spiked, and became a piercing keen! I flinched.

Hinte shifted her grip, now holding the stone between two toes. She stared at the shards before sliding her tongue over the stone, taking dozens of the skittering fragments into her mouth. There was crunching. The glow of the stone faltered and the remaining flakes fell to the ground, made motionless.

Hinte had shown me this strangeness with the first stone we found, letting me taste the flakes. They had a strange sweetness I wasn’t sure if I liked.

Amber lenses stared at the stone, and you couldn’t make out any eye motions behind the goggles. The dark-green wiver rotated the stone, so I imagined her eyes darting about, examining every angle.

After she placed it in her bag with a hum, I started to walk off, eager to avoid any hungry rockwraiths, but I stumbled. At least I didn’t fall over again.

Hinte looked at my bad foreleg. “You are injured,” said she.

I rubbed my leg. Would she see me as weak? Or think I was incompetent enough to trip into the lake and hurt myself? “No, I⁠ ⁠—”

“Stone-frills, I said you are injured. Do not lie to me,” she hissed.

Hinte scraped her claws over the ground, beckoning me to come closer. It was one step forward before she snatched my injured foreleg. I pointed a wing at the wound, and she clawed off the coating glass.

The wound screamed and I yelped, but it became a ragged cough. “Hinte!” I rasped.

“Ground yourself. It is only a burn,” she said and kept working.

I spoke through clenched teeth. “I tried to tell you I’m fine,” I said, but even I found it weak.

“This burn will get worse if not treated. Do you want to keep this leg?” She looked at me, teeth flashing and frills only half-folded.

“Yes…” I said, looking away. With the glass gone, she prodded the wound. I hissed. She withdrew a vial of clear ointment from her bag, known by a glyph that read ‘burn,’ but not in the local tongue. “Wait!” I said, “the black slime⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was supposed to prevent these burns.”

“It did,” she said. She uncorked the vial and scooped out a thimbleful in her claw. She rubbed it on the gash, repeating three times to cover the full length. “You cut open your leg in the sand. Your scutes were protected. The flesh underneath was not.”

“That’s so silly,” I said.

Hinte replaced the vial and groped around in her bag for a moment. “That is alchemy.” She produced a bandage, but put it back after a moment. Then, she produced the oozing black salve. “If you watch your step, you cannot fall.” She rubbed the salve over the gash.

The familiar prickling numbness seeped into my leg. The rest of the oily slime oozed between the glass and over the burned flesh, hugging and enveloping the new slime.

I glanced up at the alchemist. She wasn’t frowning, or scowling, or glaring. Instead, she watched the salve settle with intent, and rubbed a dollop more on a thin spot. And… she didn’t have to do that. Maybe she did care?

Hinte stood, about to leave. But before she turned, she pointed behind me. “You dropped a crab.” Then, she stalked off.

I squeaked and grabbed the crab. It was in my foot, and I poked it with a claw, hard; its precious blue blood slicked my toe.

The crabs’ blood would brew a purification mixture for to Hinte. Friends gave each other gifts, right?

Alchemy was one of the things that had brought us together. I… wasn’t an alchemist⁠ ⁠—⁠ couldn’t have been, really⁠ ⁠—⁠ so it wasn’t quite a common interest; but when I’d found her studying and she let it slip that she was an alchemist, I failed to recoil in fear or suspicion. Why would I? I had been in a similar position, once, with my brother as the understanding one. It almost felt like paying him back.

And if it gave me a chance to maybe become an alchemist, after a hatchhood of being told I could only be a Zenith, I’d thank the endless stars.

And that started with the crab’s purification mixture. I would make it, and prove myself. I’d transmute myself from someone Hinte could talk to, to someone she wanted to talk to. We could be friends.

It had made me smile, once. Now it only made me sigh.

----------------------------------------

For once, something new lay under the blackened ash sky and the fake glass stars shining from below instead of somewhere above me. Here, the crags and pits of the Berwem deepened, becoming troughs and valleys and gorges. Scaly plates of dustone met and hugged each other so tightly they folded together into mountains as high as my withers.

My clear-eyed gawking clouded into a glare, and I punched one of those mountains. It cracked and crumbled to the ground in five or six pieces, the crack tickling my frills and pulling a hissing laugh from me. If only I could give this entire lake the same treatment…

In the belly of that fallen mountain, there sat a little hollowed-out chamber. Little black sacks of slime and dust writhed inside. Lava slugs? I poked one and flipped it over. Had I interrupted their sleep? I picked up fragments of the tiny once-mountaintop and placed them in something like a shelter.

“Sorry, little icky slugs,” I murmured to myself. Hinte stood a few paces away, watching me. I limped back toward her with a cringe and some whispered apology⁠ ⁠—⁠ it didn’t matter which.

She asked, “What was it?”

“Lava slugs,” I said. When Hinte gave me that frown, I added, “Let me guess: they’re also really dangerous and going to kill me and even a hatchling would have more sense than I do, right?” I didn’t think my tone would fray as much as it did.

She flicked her tongue. “No,” she said, and turned to walk off.

Huffing, I kept behind her. The gash’s bite on my leg loosened with every step, helped along by the ointment. While the bite fell away, its teeth still gnawed at the edges, and my legs’ soreness burned from within.

We walked on like that, at least until my frills wrinkled, catching some faint tickle. I looked ahead, at Hinte. Did she feel it? Her frills still fanned the same as before, tilting but not twitching⁠ ⁠—⁠ as if she knew enough not to be surprised or interested.

Because of course she would. I kicked another, even smaller mountain. She never tells me anything! I mouthed to myself. My imagined voice is deep and stormy, with clarity and anger I’d never allow into my voice otherwise. It’s like she can’t be bothered to explain even the simplest things!

I breathed calm. And again. I was calm.

I fanned my wings, and at this point I didn’t even bother to close my mouth, drawing in deep, refreshing pants. Well, refreshing by the lake’s standards, that is. The panting eased the searing heat to merely blazing, but dragged up another cough. I tried controlling my breath cycle to fan away some of the anger, but my throat still burned tender and summoned more coughs.

So I gave up and licked my eyes, only for them to catch more dust instants later. My gaze was clear enough to see Hinte, at least. Willing calmness into my voice, I spoke at last, doing everything I could to keep my fangs retracted.

“Hey, Hinte,” I said. She hitched her wings in acknowledgment, still walking. “Well… about these stones we are out here, um, sifting for⁠ ⁠—⁠ you still haven’t told me what this is all about.” I measured and weighed my next sentence. “This all seems so…pointless.” The words left me, and there was a certain emptiness where I’d kept them inside for so long.

We walked forward a few moments before Hinte answered, voice low.

“Maybe it is pointless⁠ ⁠—⁠ why do you care?”

“Well, that’s kind of my point? Why do I care about any of this⁠ ⁠—⁠ why should I care?”

“I don’t care if you care or not,” she said. But her tone sounded different, scented with emotion. Tilting my head, I licked my eyes and peered at the bright-white figure; I’d never seen Hinte with anything other than her impassive, abrasive mien. After a pause, she added, “I do not need your help. Go get lost in the vog or quit bothering me.”

“Come on! I just want to know what this is all about⁠ ⁠—⁠ I’m curious.” I stepped closer. She looked at me, a frill tensed. When she spoke, I smelled her anger, but I heard a certain note of hesitation.

“I need to focus,” she said, voice now a growl. “Shut up or get lost.”

She kicked me with a hindleg. I stumbled and yelped.

“Hey!”

I lunged forward and swiped at her. But that swipe went wide as the bright white figure leaned away. The pairs of her legs crossed, but she wove it into her gait without a hitch, walking forward as if nothing had happened.

But missing threw my balance off. About to teeter over, I threshed my wings and flailed. Between the two motions, I landed upright, but about to stumble again. This time though, I had all four of my feet on the ground.

“How dare you!” My voice came out airy and unwavering. The words hadn’t even left my mouth when my frills widened. I cringed. My legs stiffed, becoming loose and floaty dustone about to crack. As my tail coiled around a hindleg, I brought a wing to my mouth and coughed. It came easily with my throat already burned raw.

Rubbing my headband, I opened my mouth to try again. This time, my voice came out simper and stuttering, “What–what is up with you!”

Hinte paused for a moment before walking on, ignoring me.

My frills flared, and I bared my fangs. I leapt over Hinte. Spinning in the air, I landed in front of her with a crash, and stared up at her. As bold as I dewed, it all evaporated as I stood in front of a wiver a whole head taller than me.

The dark-green alchemist looked even more angry, baring her wings and raising her tail. When I noticed, I averted my gaze, looking instead to her face. Her frills were cupped. She opened her mouth, teeth glinting, growling at me. It sounded more aggressive, less of a warning. As if she had played with me earlier and now, with fangs angled like knives, did not.

“Are–are you going to hurt me?”

She growled low.

“Okay, I get it⁠ ⁠—⁠ I get it. You want me to leave you alone. But I want to know what’s going on and you won’t tell me!”

She lunged at me.

I took a step back. “Gah⁠ ⁠—⁠ let me finish.” When her head snapped forward, I jumped. “Flick⁠ ⁠—⁠ if you want me to get lost so much, maybe–maybe I will.”

The dark-green wiver tossed her head to the side. When I met her amber lenses, she hissed again and stalked off.

I watched her for a few beats before I startled in inspiration, and grinned. Low to the ground, I slinked after her.

“Hey Hinte!” I was shouting. “I’ll find more of these stinking stones than you, on my own⁠ ⁠—⁠ you will taste it!”

The bright-white figure stopped moving, as if torn between walking away and staying. It was like that for a few beats, and she didn’t turn; yet I found myself holding my breath cycle for it. In the distance the dark-green wiver hissed low, and I strained to hear her.

“—⁠ fine. Five crysts. If you can find that, I will tell you,” she said before she stepped forward again, walking off… but I heard her speak once more, quietly, “Do not fall in again, Kinri.” And she strode away. The bright-white figure tended to a silhouette, then a shadow, then nothing in the darkness.

I sighed, seeming to shrink after my half-shouted declarations. With my guide in white gone, the vog redoubled its suffocation. Was this conflict with Hinte inevitable? I had wanted us to be friends. Was that doomed to fail?

I coughed. Evil-smelling vog crawled farther down my throat, promising more to come. Drinking from my canteen and licking my eyes clean, I turned away from my former companion’s path. I marched off into the darkness, one dragon enshadowed by a massive, volcanic lake.

Somewhere above, as if leaving, the lover suns still shone.

* * *