Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Triplets, Triad, Trinity

When he could speak, which took a few false starts, he said "It was your womb I wanted to talk about, but... now I'm not so sure."
   The unnamable emotion flared brighter. "I have laid eggs twice in as many years. What more would you ask of me?"
   He visibly swallowed. "I didn't mean now, mind you. I just meant... If something does happen to one of us, it's up to you to bring us back."
   Her face didn't register understanding, so he pushed on. "Let's say Dwayne gets sucked up--"
   "Who?"
   "Oh yeah. Uh, that's our sort-of-brother's name. He calls himself Dwayne the Undying. You know, because we won't die natural deaths. Calls us the Undying Trinity."
   Her face scrunched up, but at least that unsettling glow had blinked out of her eyes. "Why Dwayne? And what do you call yourself, by the way?"
   His muzzle twisted wryly. "It seems we've all chosen names that reflect our positions. Diad plus Twain equals Dwayne. Two. He named himself 'Two'. Me, I thought myself clever. Everyone calls me traveler, nomad, wanderer. So I take it as my name, and add 'Trey', because we're a triad. I'm fuckin' Three. But you..."
   "Didn't name myself," she said faintly.
   "What?"
   "One of the children that made Crossing. She named us."
   "Well she bloody well named you One, woman!" he roared.
   David was the closest, and he actually looked up from a nearby planet. When the two tasty dragons didn't fight, he went back to feeding. He would eat them someday, but today, they were still too tough a meal to risk.
   Onnu quite forgot to flap her wings. She should have drifted down toward the planet, but she didn't. That wouldn't occur to her until later, though. For the moment, she was stunned nearly speechless.
   "From the mouths of babes..." she whispered.
   "We really can't escape it, can we?" he asked, face bleak.
   "Maybe you two can, but not me. That's why I'm..." She couldn't say the words, but he could.
   "That's why you're number one. Why it's your job to bring us back."
   "Why?" she whimpered; her face, if possible, even more bleak than his.
   "You're the only one with a womb, I'm afraid."
   A scowl settled in to stay for a while. "Back to that, are we?"
   He inched closer, wary of what she might do, but grimly determined she understand her duty. "If he dies, I have to race back here as fast as my wings will carry me, and make sure he comes back. The old fashioned way. If I die, he's got to find you. Except he hasn't left his world yet, so it'll take him longer to get here."
   "That's what you meant about us breeding true..."
   "Now, I don't know if it'll be me specifically that'd come out of... All I know is, as soon as he's big enough, he'll leave home and wander as I do. If it's Dwayne you have, he'll leave too, but only as far as the planet that calls to him. Right now, he's on one of the planets with a moon; could be another one next time. I dunno. I figure it's even odds on which one of us is gonna go first. Me, I might be in the air when a Charon comes by, get sucked up. Him, he might try to protect someone and get sucked up."
   "And what if I'm already... bred," she near-gagged.
   "We'll make room. Doesn't really matter when in gestation it happens, we'll pop out when the rest do. Even if it's the day before. Big Guy didn't say how that works, but basically, any time, any state you're in, it's gotta happen. He doesn't care if you just laid eggs yesterday, there have to be three of us."
   "And what if I die?" She asked.
   "I'm not entirely sure. I think one of us finds the biggest dragoness we can, and see what happens, but He didn't say."
   "No pressure, huh?" she scowled.
   "Here's where my data banks get fuzzy, though. I don't know what happens if... if all three of us are alive, and we, uh..."
   "I don't feel the need to find out," she said tartly.
   He couldn't say he felt the same. She was the only dragoness his size, and although he could make do with the largest normal dragons, he didn't feel particularly motivated to. 
   "You're not married to that guy. You can't marry."
   "Says who?" she snapped.
   "Who d'ya think?"
   "Why the heck not?"
   "'Cause you'll outlive him. By a lot. Plus I think it's some sort of clerical thing."
   "Priests can marry," she objected.
   "That wasn't always the case."
   They glared at each other across the space Above, neither giving an inch. She wasn't willing to experiment while her mate was alive, and he'd been celibate for over two years.
   "Don't your neighbors all share that one guy?" He tried another tack.
   "That," she said haughtily, "is out of necessity. Pannu lives in the same Hold as I do, so they consider him taboo. Steel is unattached, like you." She stressed the last two words, to no visible effect. "They didn't have a choice when the veil fell."
   "What veil?"
   Her jaw snapped shut.
   "If you don't tell me, I'll ask around. Someone is bound to tell me."
   She whuffed unhappily. He was right, but she didn't have to like it. He would think things she didn't want him to.
   "You might have noticed a... change... in the behavior of the kin on this world. When we first arrived, we were full-grown (those of us who were adults on Erdewaz), but as children. We saw not our nakedness, nor took thought of it."
   He nodded, but she took her time continuing.
   "I... I laid the Hundred Little Eggs..."
   "I heard," he said, when it seemed she was done speaking.
   "Without mating," she finished.
   This time, it was he who forgot to flap.
   "When they hatched, we... well, everyone but me, that is... woke up. We remembered our more... base needs, and hearkened to them. That is why we had a baby boom when we did."
   He said nothing, for quite some time.
   And then, as if he couldn't help himself, he reached for her.