Oleuni’s lonely light slipped into my room and glowed the curtains. I roused awake… and then it faded, just as when the first dawn ring stormed in some time earlier; after that, it’d only taken the moments to find the pillow aflung somewhere and bury my head under it before I floated back to sleep. I murmured promises about getting up soon and that’s all I remember.

I only had to fly out to the Llygaid Crwydro and plop myself down behind a counter after the second long ring of the day, and that gave me enough time to convince myself awake somewhile later.

A note of something like a forgotten worry rung somewhere in my mind.

Some time after, an insistent short ring prodded at me. When it sounded I was laying somewhere in the valley of half-sleep, and stayed there awhile. It wasn’t until the light in my room exploded into full day⁠ ⁠—⁠ Enyswm rising, the second dawn ring chiming⁠ ⁠—⁠ that I started to have any trouble with my half-sleep.

My eyes, even clouded, couldn’t hide from the loversuns’ combined light. The day pressed over my brilles, even as my frills covered them. Stretching and curling under the blanket, I settled into another comfortable pose. I’d almost drifted back⁠ ⁠—⁠ not to sleep, but to something⁠ ⁠—⁠ before thoughts of my responsibilities flared suddenly across the surface of my bleary morning mind. I had to get up.

 

My frills freed my eyes; but I only managed that. Drifting again. I just stared at my pillow. More flares, more calls to action. Get up! To help with that⁠ ⁠—⁠ really⁠ ⁠—⁠ I played around with my sheets. Doing something should keep me awake, at least. I had to get up.

I flexed a foot wrapped in a sheet. Nights in the cliffs tried and failed to be cooler than the days, so you didn’t need blankets to keep warm. As I played, the thin sheets split under my claws. I gave a confused murmur before poking my snout. Oh, my claws had gotten sharp. I needed to file them. Maybe I’d do it today or tomorrow.

A frills brushed my face, and I felt the slight singing from last night, still there. How I wish I’d had a mask.

The sheets had met a better fate than my pillow. Where my pillow lay somewhere on the floor (who did that?), my sheets had at least stayed on the bed, though they’d curled and wrapped all around me. Had I just not moved that much last night?

Well, my forelegs still felt the prickly, crackly feeling of the salve and lake’s glass spittle on my forelegs, and an odd smell lighted on my tongue as I lay there: evil sulfur lingering from my dreams, the smell of dying glass and ash, haunting me.

I flapped my tongue and kept it still in my mouth, but it had already set my mind in motion. My wings wriggled as I was flying back through yesterday’s events: sifting, exploring, more sifting, tracking, hunting, the wraiths, walking, and then the meeting.

So after all of that, of course I’d fallen over onto the inn’s bed, dove into the covers, immersed myself in sleep. The memories pulled at the stitches of my dreams, and they gave me one last shudder before they drained from my mind:

Digrif finally remembering my name, except he pronounced it just like mother.

One note of those dreams struck and stayed, filling my frills. Hinte. Hinte, the friend I didn’t deserve, who I’d nearly left to⁠ ⁠—⁠ a fate with the humans.

The words we had exchanged last night echoed in my mind, “Will I see you in the morning?” “Yes!”

Oh, I didn’t have time! Hinte expected me at her house⁠ ⁠—⁠ and I didn’t know when!

I yanked my head from under the pillow, and it rubbed along a wet, drool-y patch. Eww! I wiped at my jaw; but I didn’t feel the cool smoothness of my scales. Instead, I felt a rough, shattered surface of glass moving as my foreleg, and my unclouding eyes met⁠ ⁠—⁠ the murky glass of Berwem.

I let out a low, growling groan, and at last woke up. Sliding from the bed, past the shining window restrained by white curtains, I sighed and scratched my headband, right around my ‘matua’ brand; a part of me never remembered I’d left the sky until I stood up.

Think of happy things, Kinri, like how Hinte became your friend or the awesome, terrifying story you now have to share with Chwithach.

Falling to a stand, the rocky floor gave its warm, black-speckled kiss to my glassy feet as I clinked over to my wardrobe, a chest crouching with a slant opening.

The chest’s doors gaped, the left only half-shut and the right still opened wide. I smiled. Yesterday, I had rushed out of the inn’s window to work, with the frilly half-hatched thought that (somehow) if I started my day earlier, it would make my evening with Hinte come that much faster. Silly, silly Kinri. It had been one day Sinig couldn’t joke about me being late, though.

I dug through the drawers and grabbed a short-sleeved, plain dark shirt. You knew it could only be a work shirt. It was boring seriousness you could wear.

Already it was falling onto my back before I felt my breast and the dusty white fabric that still clung to it. After ripping the new shirt off and throwing it onto my bed, I fell onto my flanks, tore off my hindleg’s sleeves and yanked at the shirt… but that couldn’t get the trunk past my forelegs and head.

After I stopped to breathe, the suit’s trunk slipped off and flew its way to a clothesbasket. I’d need to wash it at some point, but not soon, not now.

Hissing at my glass-covered limbs, bandages were unwrapped. Slow as you might, the wounds still hurt. I scraped and peeled the glass, starting at the cracks before prying bigger pieces off.

“Ugh,” I groaned. I couldn’t scrape too fast, because that might rip at my scales or flare up one of my wounds. So I went along at a tortoise’s pace, probing and backtracking as my fangs dewed with salt and my careful tugs grew more and more forceful, if not at all at all less careful. When I scraped one big piece off, revealed was the black salve still clinging to my legs, hardened to sticky shell.

Was it a sigh or a growl?

When the second chiming short ring mocked me, I paused to give what was a growl and to slam my foot against inn’s wardrobe, and punctuate the unfairness of it all.

Shards of glass sprayed out. Flicking my tongue, I did it again; and again, the glass sprayed.

I didn’t smile, because I was too rushed to smile — but the edges of my pout eased a bit.

The sunlight shifted a bit as I was slamming my legs against the wardrobe, catching glass shards and sparkling them.

I had work to do… but did I have the time to do it?

There came a loud knocking at the door.

It ruined my rewrapping the bandages, and I just jerked them unraveled, and they were swirled the back around in a few seconds. It was a mess and didn’t even cover all the cuts. Probably looked worse than no bandages.

Another knock.

I leapt to the wardrobe, throwing the suit over the hidden side of the bed, and searching for something I could cover myself up with. You didn’t need it, in the cliffs⁠ ⁠—⁠ dragons here didn’t wear more than a ventcloth unless they had a reason to.

But I fledged in the sky, in a noble House. I’d never went out without at least a halfrobe. Unless I had a point to make. And then, something had to have really worked me up for that. I hadn’t gotten that angry, let myself get that angry, in a long time.

More knocks.

I wasn’t in a high mood, but no one in Gwmyr/Frina⁠ ⁠—⁠ no one at the door⁠ ⁠— could make that worse unless I let them. So I breathed calm, and cleared my eyes.

Knock.

Sitting in a ball at the bottom of the chest sat in the only cloak I had so far, my Specter cloak. Käärmkieli glyphs swirled across its silvery, cloud-gray surface. For buttons and decorations the cloak had precious gemstones. In the breast my name had been calligraphed in such a commanding style that it looked down on me even as I held it in my feet.

It would have to do.

Still more knocks came, louder, quicker. I leapt to the door.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said as the door opened, my tail coiling under my cloak. I pulled the door from the wrong side, so I needed to step around it, blocking my view of my guest.

“Oh, you are up. Privetik, madame Kinri,” she said. I should have known, but I didn’t want to.

Stepping around the door, I saw my guest: Uvidet. The innworker’s scales looked the bright, unblemished white of the ash-dwellers of the land of frost and flame. They gleamed. It reminded me of some the noble ladies in the higher houses of sky, who shined their scales. It looked beautiful. Tedious, but beautiful. Her eyes and sclerae were a shade dark enough you mistook for black.

I smiled and folded my frills down. The innworker smiled too, opening her mouth, revealing her teeth, also a shiny white, something that stood out to me even as I had grown used to it.

“Hi Uvidet,” I said, and my tail uncoiled. “I’m up. Do you need something else?”

“You know I am not satisfied until I see you step out of door.” She was shaking her head, but smiling. “But yes, they sent me up to see what the noise is⁠ ⁠— have you heard it?”

“Oh — I think that was me…” I bat away my unfastened sleeves, showing the cracked glass and chipped scales on my foreleg.

The innworker scowled. “Eesh, that is messy. What the fires happened?”

“Uh, I was in the lake. Sifting.”

There was a thoughtful hum at that. “Hrm. Well, try to keep it down or take it elsewhere⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was far too loud.” She tone had been cadencing, but she added, dropping to a sudden low voice, “And tell whoever gives you your salve that it is terrible quality. Sand should not cake on your limbs.”

“I — will, I guess.” I looked up for a beat, and tried the words, “And uh, you don’t have to knock at the second long ring. I’m leaving now.”

“Oh? What for?”

“A friend wanted me to have breakfast with her.”

I hadn’t finished before the ash-dweller was beaming, and when I did, a wing reached out and her alula brushed my cheek. “A wonder that you are at finally getting out of your room. It is not good to be so lonely and⁠ ⁠—”

“Uvidet, please⁠ ⁠—⁠ I um, don’t know if she was expected me before now or what, so I need to get there as soon as I can.”

“Enjoy yourself, Kinri. You deserve it.”

Uvidet had disappeared down the stairwall, waving me bye with her tail. She twirled her tail in a circle instead of the side-to-side I saw so often.

I’d waved my wing, even though she couldn’t see me, and like that she was off again to whatever job she handled in the mornings.

The door was closed. I stepped back into my room, pouting. How was I supposed to clean my forelegs without smashing them against something? The sound must have disturbed someone, so I’d just have to manage. My legs were wrapped again, and I didn’t bother with any more scraping, but slid off some looser pieces. Like that I sighed and stood up.

My forelegs were hideous!

I clamped down on my disgust, licking my fangs and tossing the cloak on the bed. I sifted through my scattered shirts, garments that covered my neck, breast, and base of my wings. Shirts down here didn’t tend to have sleeves, and the ones that did didn’t reach to my knees. It was all very revealing, more than anything I could have gotten away with as a fledgling. But, with the heat and winds that blew as zephyrs instead of near-constant gales, you couldn’t really be surprised.

Except I could not fly out with my forelegs looking like this! Having yet to live through a gray season, I had no ashcloaks, or any kind of cloak besides my Specter cloak. I had a raincloak, but it might look frilly in the clear weather.

With a huff, I snatched up the Specter cloak. My name still glared at me from its breast. The gemstones still glinted up from the buttons and joints. I felt them, their cuts sharp and satisfying. I could list the species and their meanings without missing a beat. All Specters could.

Yellow citrines, for our wealth and power. Set inside the hood, above either eye, they were stars, light for when the clouds breathed on the suns or when one walked in the night.

Violet-blue iolites, for our shifting duality. The pleochroic stones looked different from different angles. As if twofacing were something to brag about.

Ghastly black jades with golden rutiles like fangs, for our protection and introspection. A priest once told me the stones were gifts from the Cloud Constructor himself, one of the only four gemstones you’d find aloft, the only aloft magical stone besides star-blessèd Stellaine.

No matter how pretty or keen the gems looked or felt, each weighed, a reminder of what I’d ran away from. I felt the empty receptacle where the cloak’s plackets met just below the neck.

House Specter had hatched its name from the Specter cloaks. In the last war of the heavens⁠ ⁠—⁠ the one which had, in the end, drawn the Constellation and the Severance⁠ ⁠—⁠ Specter distinguished itself with magical cloaks of woven medusa fiber. These cloaks could reflect, refract, and distort light, creating illusions, camouflage, and other things. They wove light.

Legend has it that the tenebrous cloak of Ashaine I could wield light ten strides away. He had used it to great effect, my tutors said, when he brought dozens of rogue or Empyrean skylands under the Concordat of Stars. And when lasting peace lighted on the sky, the great dusk, House Specter turned from war to politics, and the Specter cloaks turned from implements of battle and espionage to implements of ritual and spectacle.

All children of high Specters had one. They costed a fortune to make, fortunes that elders expended again and again to maintain an image. I had brought it with me to Gwymr/Frina. Because it was mine, not because it was anything more than a piece of trash to me.

I could sell it. But that empty receptacle stopped me. The silken cloth, the gemstones, the overall beauty of it, could net me plenty. But the empty receptacle once held a shard of star-blessed Stellaine, the stone that fueled the magic of the cloaks. If I could repair that, find some Stellaine down here or another fuel source, it would be an implement again. I could live my whole life from selling of it.

Which was a pretty long way of saying I didn’t know if wearing my most valuable possession was a very good idea. But Digrif would come to Hinte’s house for breakfast, wouldn’t he? No way he could see my legs like this.

I danced the cloak in front of me, watching the way the fabric shimmered, how the gems seemed to go out of their way to catch the light. It looked striking, regal. Maybe it would overwhelm, but better to try too hard than not hard enough, right?

The cloak was over my torso once more. My wings had found their coverings; it ran down the forearm to the alula, and trailed ribbons for each finger of my wing. It dragged⁠ ⁠—⁠ of course it dragged⁠ ⁠—⁠ but it looked elegant. I’d ripped the ribbons, and they snapped with a click of clasps undoing.

The buttons of the cloak found their holes, and I could at last forget about it. I slipped my feet into sandals, but the hindpair was still covered in dust. Bleh.

I looked over the room a last time, but there was nothing I could remember forgetting. As if to push me on, the third short ring chimed its smarmy little song, and I found myself on the other side of my room’s door closing.

In the hallway only the doors to other rooms stood. On the left there were four doors stretching down to a window overlooking the streets below, and I padded over to window just to have a look, even though I’d lived here for dances. The world was dimly limned in the late half-morning light of a single sun⁠ ⁠—⁠ Oleuni had risen, up and about sooner than anyone I knew, while Enyswm still crouched behind the cliffs and buildings just above the horizon.

Back in the hall, another dragon stepped out from a door, some coast-dweller with a dark tongue I’d seen once or twice before, maybe a new resident or so. I never fledged conversation with them. They’d leave in few days and our paths would never cross again. And if they did, would we even remember?

The floor looked a cozy red, of some stone found deep in the pits. Craggy but not too craggy. It looked uneven, natural ground; but I’d feel comfortable resting a drink on the floor. Another bit of local weirdness.

The light flying in through the windows lit the common room. The lamps from last night now sat opaque and glum; at this time of morning, most lay in bed or do whatever their job is, and so the room sat nearly empty. But some dragons lay at the slabs, eating.

The large, hexagon-shaped room had long, hallow slabs on either side in two long rows. Each broke a few times from one end of the room to the other, the breaks wide enough to step through. Those slabs could lay about four dragons on either side; and while most had eight mats, some as few as four or five and a couple as many as twelve. One had twenty mats crowding over each other around it!

Looking closer, some stray playing cards scattered on the floor under between the crowded slab and one mat. And a few coins!

I slinked over to that slab and slid between the mats. Picking one of those coins⁠ ⁠—⁠ it was only glass, not metal. A game piece. Oh well. It fell in the pocket of my foreleg anyway, along with the few cards scattered on the floor.

The floor only had three glass pieces. One red, another an amber, and the last one blue-green. The cards were low: the liar, head lowered, frills folded, ingratiating; the soldier, wings flared, claws raised, attacking; and the alchemist, tongue flicked, head tilted, questioning.

As I stood up to leave, the familiar face of the waitress passed by. Today she was working at the counter. And unlike the scheming Adwyn, unlike the tired Mlaen-sofran, and unlike the anonymous, scowling strangers, Ffein had the second friendly face I’d seen in this town, a pale red smile ringed by jingling bronze piercings on her frills. I couldn’t see her uniform from here, but I would bet on the same amber and black all the Moyo-Makao workers wore.

“Morning, Kinri,” she said.

I waved a polite hello or goodbye to her as I walked on. She still remembered my name after all this time, even I always had trouble with hers. Her voice and presence fell diminutive in a odd way. She was smaller than me even, and her voice sounded whispery even when she spoke up; her wings seemed to forever hug her body, and she didn’t say much when she did speak.

On the streets of Gwymr/Frina, the twin lights of the sun now lit up the world in combined volley of light. As the cycle pushed on, Enyswm danced closer to Oleuni, the twin shadows of objects merging as one, and the chilly crestday approached.

This part of town was something of a center of entertainment. Nearby was a theater (Dychwelfa ac Theater or something) and a scrollshop (owned by someone with a really long name) and a gallery (that was really big despite being mostly empty). I’d never found the time for theater, but the bookshop had a selection like leftovers and prices like quicksand. And the gallery⁠ ⁠—⁠ well, they didn’t want me there, so I can’t really judge it.

After a few paces and a few beats of my wings, I was rising over the town. Before long, I flew above most buildings. Hinte lived across the canal, on the west side of town. Would I be late?