Pylo was not exactly tense, this was going to be a perfectly normal trip. But Tunie’s sight lines were still extremely limited.

And every time they made their way through the closed in space she could taste Tunie’s unease and uncertainty of what would come up again.

There had been times during earlier transits through this secret hollow that some of the defensive munitions Tunie carried had been needed to open up crumples of foliage and reef structure. Burrowing through and clearing either dangerous obstructions or priming the surroundings for the next passage.

There was still plenty of sign according to Tunie’s own intuitions and expertise that this passage would remain open for the foreseeable future. The local shifting of the Stellar Volumes and their reef walls had long since found a new equilibrium. Barring another star birth or death this passage would remain about as clear as it could be hoped.

And after such a shift? It was depending on the situation liable to open up the volume as much as close it off.

Such was the way of stars. Their births and deaths shaping all of the reef.

Pylo was not sure she and Tunie or the port they were traveling too would survive long enough for that to be a factor.

But the life of a trader could be stretched very long indeed.

“You’re going to be fine Tunie, We’ve made this trip at least a dozen times now! Don’t worry, if there had been anything dangerous in here we would have already run across it by now.”

[https://i.imgur.com/5PCd9Co.png]

Tunie was still jittery, but that was kind of just how she was when scooting into the darkness where no stars could shine and there was only the wider, thicker lights to see by, and even then many of them were blocked out by the detritus and tangles of reef bones.

“ ↶ ◎⎌█ ⎌▄▁ ◶↶▃⌓⎌⎌ ↹↹↹ ▄▅▄◮⑈!”

“Nothing is going to hop onto you and burrow into your hull and eat you from the inside while we are getting past this Tunie, Anything that leaped would be so bright you’d see it coming and we can push it off, I won’t let anything hurt you Tunie”

It was really very silly of her, she was a ship so the speed they were traveling through the dark was very very very slow and sluggish to Tunie. But objectively it was faster than most things could match. Pylo prodded her friend and reminded her to cross reference her ecological intuitions on this.

“↷▂ ▅▃▁ ◆◍▇▞▁ ⌒↺◬⑈ ⌒⌒”

Ah good she was signaling little sub-actualized tumbles of laughter. That usually meant Tunie was well on her way to getting over her jitters and the instinctual terror of closed in corridors and spaces without open space to accelerate into.

“There ya see? Silly to get worried anything could match your velocity in here, there isn't enough in the troposophics to budget for that. Like you said, everything here is very slow and quiet. Your wake is probably the richest feeding anything in here gets”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Oh dear that was not good, now she was getting jitters all over and wanting to twitch and flutter and spin all over.

The terrans would not like that.

“!◷◶ ⎌↭↬ !”

Pylo sent comforting reminders and tried to get Tunie to convince herself of how absurd some of her flights of fancy really were regarding the terrors of deep darkness within the reef walls. It was not exactly the best place for a Ship like Tunie.

She was not really made for flying in wilderness this close in.

Manuvering in dense urban traffic? Possible if uncomfortable. But the dark of the abyss where there was no light of civilized transit authorities? Where there were not compacts between fellow trade vessels on the proper rights of way and collision avoidance?

Where only the echoes of the strange wide light could inform of what was out there around inumerable corners and anywhere a monster could be lurking, sending false reflections to confuse or lull one into false security?

Oh drat now Pylo was getting worked up and tense over the whole thing herself.

And thanks to the Terrans and the rest of her Passengers she was going to be agitated and tense and conscious for this whole leap of the journey within the abyss.

“Tunie, It’s okay. We’ve been here before, nothing is going to get us. Mother found us this trail and setup this polity. It’s just dark and close in, nothing is hiding out there. You know this, help me here and work it out. We are okay right?”

That helped a bit but Pylo could tell from the ambience of her drive and the way that the hull get rolling a little and things would twitch and jump a bit that Tunie was not feeling so sure of herself. On top of that Pylo could all to clearly hear all the perfectly sound reasons to panic and be terrified, it was doing a number on her stress.

“↷ ◆⎌◴ ◵⎌▅▁ ▂◺⑈◶⎌▁ ⌒◸?”

Oh bother, now Tunie had noticed that she was feeling stressed and was trying to calm her down and make her feel better.

Well.

If it got Tunie to relax it would help her relax. Just don’t focus on just how little her friend and ship could actually see in this dark cleft of closed in space.

Pylo could do for a bit of comforting.

And of course that’s when Aleph sent her a message asking for some help with filling out the human’s food stores.

Because apparently they had been too distracted by Quarti having a bad resonance interaction with proximity to a star.

So their normal food system was damaged.

Because apparently no one knew that Tunie would just brake with her feathers instead of wasting the energy and serious risk to her spine by flipping around.

Canners...

Pylo shook her head in another terranism and began gently tugging herself along down Tunie’s Corridors.

At least the acceleration was going to be light for the majority of the journey to the port.