Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Hold My Glass

The Triplets, or Triad, or Trinity, all dealt with their (for the time being) immortality in different ways. Trey traveled, of course, and learned everything he could of the Fortnight Worlds. He began to think that he would know which world he was on, by instinct alone. His theory was that this was his first task: to map every world in his mind, that he might tell them apart, where none other could.
   Wayne and Onnu thought they might be able to do the same, if they took the time, but neither really wanted to. Onnu said that if she was to inhabit all of them at some point in her lifespan, there was no rush. Wayne was quite happy being planted where he was.
   Wayne took immortality in stride, which his "siblings" found enviable. Where they struggled with the concept, he settled in and burrowed into the lore and life of his world. He wanted to absorb as much as he could, so he was often the first to ask about the others' experiences.
   Onnu spent her immortality learning and innovating when possible, and teaching it to her Brothers. Her kin did the bulk of the work, of course, and Wayne could probably pick out her most prodigious craftskin on sight from the bragging she did. Hers was to dredge what she could from the depths of her memory whatever information might aid their work, and watch them create from that, with new materials and methods.
   For example, Steel did find that sand and pulverized sea rocks could be sort of smelted together to make a glass-like substance. But instead of a more liquid molten consistency, it oozed over the rounded metal forms like melted wax. The Tupin glass was almost like clay, at high heat.
   They would make curved panels, one at a time, smoothing them over the metal forms and letting them cool. When there were enough to make the first dome, they spent a day heating them along the seams and fusing them, atop the stone floor they'd already inlaid and set. Firth was scooped up over the join between Tupin glass and stone, so Charon winds couldn't get under it and lift the whole dome.
   The door was set in the glass the same way, heating the edge where the hinges were to go. They made sure that it was well-fitted, so the winds couldn't rip it out of the frame. When the second dome was added, the next day, it butted right up to the first, so the door led into the larger dome. Here, though, there was a claysand ridge about two feet high, which the glass panels were affixed to. They'd carved channels down the middle of the claysand bricks for the glass to sit in. Steel theorized that they could plant right in the claysand, and the roots of the basketnut trees would anchor the dome more firmly to the claysand.
   This glass behaved more as an organic material, they'd learned. While making the panels, they had to keep them off of the grass, as it would grow into the glass, if left there too long. Thus they couldn't store them in the little basketnut additions that had been anchored below their sleeping niches.
   They already knew that plants could grow in claysand, as potted plants had grown beyond their pots, in the time they'd been on Tupino. Steel thought that if they planted trees in a few places along the edge of the larger dome, they would fuse with the whole thing, and keep it in the ground where they wanted it.
   They would perhaps have to keep the trees pruned, if they grew outside of the glass too far, but no trees had been observed being uprooted yet.
   Onnu applauded his ingenuity, and passed it along to Wayne. Having glass that things could grow through? It was a game changer!
   This organic glass did, indeed, change the way things were done across the Fortnight Worlds. Every domed building outside the Holds got Tupin glass windows, and it became popular to plant a tree in the middle, under a skylight. The smaller kin hoped they would live to see the day that it grew up and out, even though it would likely block the light.
   That led to Steel's botanists trying to find the best plants to grow into trees for such projects, as rubber clover, or "rover", was too broad-leafed and wide. Clay had been cultivating some of the groundcover that couldn't compete with the rover trees, and had a few suggestions for candidates. He'd been experimenting almost since he arrived at Onnu and Pannu's original Hold--now simply called First Hold--which had since been completely given over to such things.
   The dragons had to accept that their former Hold would only feel smaller and smaller, as their hatchlings grew. Even when they were fledged, it would not feel less cramped.
   "I suspect this is why the egg holds are oblong, hence the name 'oval holds'," Onnu said one day. "The spires protect a larger area, when arranged lengthwise. Perhaps the round ones, which do not support much of a running start, are meant for adult dragons who are not ready to lay eggs?"
   "Which we were," Pannu agreed.
   "The question is, who moves into that Hold when the children are full-fledged dragons? And will that happen before we run out of room in this Hold? Do we send them to the Hold that barely held us, and rise to fill Egg Hold again? I just don't know!"
   Pannu nibbled her neck. "These younglings are not yet a year and a half out of the egg, and you worry about what could be a century away?"
   She rumbled, eyes half-lidded. "You keep that up, and it will be much sooner!"
   "There's no way to know whether you will mature in eighteen years, fifty, or a hundred," Solar chimed in. "I vote we worry about it if and when the time comes."
   "That was my vote, as well," Pannu said, trying to soothe his lady's ruffled scales.
    "It's hard to plan for what we do not know," she objected. "Are we supposed to have children every decade or so? How many will fit in this Hold, and for how long? Where will all of the dragons we have now live, when they are adults?"
   The males were exchanging a humorous "she'll never change" look, until that last part.
   There were going to be eight more dragons in their holdshire, and aside from the Holds that had been vacated by the adult dragons, there were only two empty Holds. Those were being used as hunting and foraging grounds, at the moment. Assuming their children took residence in their old Holds, how big would they grow, before they each had to have their own Hold?
   They would end up being two dragonholds short, if they used the fallow Holds!