Chapter 2: Words from the Wise
Hana walked with purpose. She always did, her strides broad and decisive, but she felt a particular pressure in the back of her mind, a tension about the shoulders. She was too good at schooling her expression for the apprehension to show on her face, but that was not for lack of feeling.
It was a funny line she walked, now. The mists had been a damnable thing, isolating the Nidus for so long, but they’d at least made simple the question of her background. Nobody could corroborate her story, even if they’d wondered, though she was fair sure she’d played it close enough to her chest that no one had. Still, would another few years of reprieve have been too much to ask?
Maybe she should have turned Lance away from the notion of visiting the Vella Crean. Maybe she should have… but she hadn’t. The question of why she hadn’t came down to an ache in her chest, a burning need for knowledge in her brain.
So much had happened back home. She needed to see it for herself.
Besides, she had firm hope that this could still be turned to the good, without turning up that she’d been low-key lying to her colleagues and compatriots for years. For that, though, she needed intel, and she needed a secure means of communication.
“Sister.”
Hana had taken one look at the creature that had come home from that great three-Court hatching some months ago and made it her goal in life to avoid her. Because of exactly this, of course.
Yan Yu was standing there in her showy leather jacket, a grin of immense satisfaction on her face and her arms cast wide.
Hana did not come in for the hug.
“If you would, honoured Lark, I’d like a moment of your time.”
“Anything for a —“
“Please.” It was not a plea.
Yan Yu’s beckon turned into a wide-armed shrug. Her little green Blood Court, not so little after months and months of growth spurts, was curled up in a sunbeam on the sandy central courtyard of the Nidus’s central ring. She had been sleeping, or seemed to be, when Hana had arrived; now she had one eye open and shamelessly watching the exchange. Hana gave the dragon a flinty look.
“Well then, what can I do for you, Ms. Qian-Travers,” and then she added, “what a name.”
She ignored the dig — joke? — and stood, hands clasped behind her, back straight as a rod. Yan Yu was a storm of unpredictability, always had been, and it was too much of a wind for her not to try and fight against. She wasn’t going to give her sister an inch, not one inch, into which she could interject her chaos.
“I need information. About the Vella Crean, about what’s been happening there. What little I’ve heard has been… evocative.” Had worried her. Saying she’d washed her hands of the place and actually becoming dispassionate about her erstwhile home were two very different things, as it turned out. “Evocative and not very illuminating.”
The Project across from her tilted her head down, slid those dark glasses down and off her face, tucking them in a pocket. Hana couldn’t help it; her eyes flicked away from that golden-nebula gaze.
“I mean, while you’re not wrong that I’ve got all kinds of deeply interesting shit to tell you, do I get to know why it’s taken you this long to come and ask?” Her tone was light, mocking. “And I’m not talking about your stolid flounce, Hana.”
Stolid flounce was a hell of a way to describe her conscientious exit from the Vella Crean.
“No,” she replied, short but trying not to be unkind. All business.
“When did you get so buttoned-up? Never mind,” the terrible Lark answered herself, and before Hana could deftly slip away from the gesture, Yan had her arm around her shoulders and was guiding her towards the sitting room. “Come on, we’ll talk.”
Despite herself, and after the initial shock, Hana could feel her shoulders relaxing an iota, maybe two iotas. She had worked so damn hard to build a life for herself here and in the wider Nexus, but the yearning for home, for the familiar, that was something wired in to any creature, wasn’t it? The Project who was chatting amiably to her now was a chaos agent, to be sure, but she felt, sounded, even smelled like home. She let herself be guided, seated, even given a glass full of something cold and amber and tart. For now, the battle between the tension of exposure and the relief of feeling seen was lost to relief, and she allowed herself to be coaxed into conversation with her sister.
Relief didn’t last long. By the time she’d heard a blow-by-blow of everything that had happened in her hometown during the Mists, Hana’s face was hard and set.
“This is exactly what I said would happen. Exactly.”
Yan Yu gave her a dry raise of the eyebrows.
“Well — perhaps the details are different.” Who could have predicted Naxi’im, after all? “But I said it. You don’t create more Courts in order to decrease conflict between Courts. The original split was — was a tragic mistake, and I’m still not convinced our — father didn’t have hands in that. You can’t just double down and expect that to solve the problem. Now the whole thing is just spreading.”
The Lark put down her glass, which left a wet ring on the wooden table. It was not the first such mark on the furniture that Hana had spotted. “I don’t think you can put the cat back in the bag. I don’t think we ever could have.”
“We didn’t have to actively make it worse.”
“Isn’t your Captain’s whole ethos something about all the complexity being a good thing?”
Hana’s mouth pinched, her teeth clenched. She pulled in a breath, let it out slow through her nose. “The Captain is — perhaps — a bit of an idealist. Which, for the record, I think we need more of in this universe. But I don’t think he’d disagree with me here. Difference isn’t the problem. Using difference to fuel and justify disunity is.”
“Sounds like a good guy.” Yan Yu’s gaze, sisterly and open before, had closed in an interesting way; there was a veiled quality to her now, a poker face, a feeling of keen observation. There was a leaning-in that Hana didn’t trust. “This change your plans any?”
“I don’t think so, no. I think it’ll be a good object lesson. And I want to see the damage for myself.”
“Shy’s going to want to see you.”
With the look of one in court, up against a jury guaranteed to convict her, Hana said, “I know.”
The rest of Lance's day was spent in deliberation with the Admiral of the UNIS, an eldering, dark-skinned man with a frizz of white hair across his scalp, and stubbling his jaw. If it weren't for Admiral Rosun, the earth-hailing UNIS would never have lasted through its time in Avengaea or through the Mists. The strong core of military discipline on the back of the infinite possibilities the universe could throw at them had held Rosun together, and through Rosun, the soldiers who'd settled the Nidus.
Lance wasn't the only one who had plans for their new-found freedom. Rosun put him through the metaphorical meat grinder the entire day: how far were the cadets, how were the special operations team integrating, how was the morale and how much were Lance's unit and the Optio's Wings working together?
Though Rosun's black eyes held their own sparkle, Lance could see the uptight need for security, the fear of the unknown lurking around the edges. He wished, privately of course, that the fear of the unknown was what kept him up at night. Compared to his vision of a painful death, the unknown nature of their new home was a waiting wonderland... but he was old enough not to go running off into the first gorge or gully he could snap his leg in, unlike some ensigns.
The pair of them split apart in the evening after they'd made enough classified plans to make Rosun's stenographer's head spin.
Lance wasn't finished, though. He entered through the main causeway that led into the Nidus proper: a sky-high cylinder of a building with a central access tunnel to the little town outside it, meant to house drakonars and their winged mounts. Primus Hensley deserved a thankyou for his quick response to the emergency situation that Lance's cadets had got themselves into a few days ago.
It just so happened that Lance had been saving a bottle of wine for the occasion, older than the Mists, one of the few remaining of its vintage.
He found his way to the leadership's lair and stood at attention near the entrance as he awaited his presence to be received. Lance eyed the Primus' dragon with respect and amusement both: Such huge predators as this were beautiful, strange, and honestly a little scary. It had blown his mind from the time that he was a boy that a person could forge a life-long relationship with someone like a dragon and just live that out... but though it might have been a childhood fantasy, he'd put that behind him when his bigger dreams of exploration had been turned to preserving the _tradition_ of exploration. When he'd had to hunker down like all the rest to survive an uncertain life in the Mist.
Those wings now, though... well. One could get far in a day on wings, he reckoned.
"I'm sorry I don't have enough for everyone," he said, when the fiery-furred creature caught sight of his wine bottle.
"If you're trying to bribe me by way of my bond," the great dragon rumbled, "he prefers a port."
The Nidus's leadership (inasmuch as it was distinct from the humanoid township that had grown up around it) fell to two draconids, traditionally, and in this case it was not the rider per se who held the title. In fact, Dewan -- an old UNIS hand who had bonded later in life -- abdicated as much responsibility as he could to Assoluth, who had been a leader amongst the Nidus's social circles even before his tenure as Primus. The half-Asandus unfortunately lacked the shifting abilities of his father, but he had a way of loafing himself and his great bronze bulk that was a little easier to navigate around for the smaller folk of the Nidus.
Dewan clasped Lance's hand in a tight, welcoming grip. Although officially he was no longer UNIS, shared history and a shared origin were enough soil for camaraderie to grow in readily.
"Lance," he greeted. "Best you didn't roll into here with a keg in any case; Luth's a lightweight. For his weight class. Good to see you. How are the cadets?"
Lance had swirled his bottle a little and then gave a pragmatic shrug, grinning apologetically even as he clasped Dewan Hensley's arm and gave it good shake. "You've already heard about my star pupils getting whupped by gravity?" he asked, following Dewan into his frankly monolithic quarters.
He set the bottle down where he was gestured, made a quick gesture to ask if he should uncork the gift after all, and added, "You know where we come from. You know how deep the drive to learn goes. I don't blame them for getting over-excited; we might have found our first exo-archaeological site on the planet-- barring anything your teams have, of course-- and we're suddenly very under-prepared for it."
Dewan was already turning to the open-plan little kitchen in this human section of the huge quarters, fetching down two broad-bottomed glasses. "You and all of us."
"There's consensus on the point that we need to investigate further, at least." The deep rumble of Assoluth's voice was clearly trying its best to keep to the human volume of discussion. Impressive, frankly, when Lance had heard similar voices bellow loud enough to shake walls. "Though from there, perspectives differ. I don't think we can count on Au'gur's predictions to rescue everyone who gets into trouble; frankly, sending your people out without draconid backup was a risky proposition."
Dewan shot a look at his bond, who met the gaze evenly. The human offered up the two glasses to Lance. "To be fair, we're in a position where we don't know what we don't know. Have you spoken to your team? Is there anything they left out of what they told Chansua and Chuah?"
Lance had quirked his brows at Assoluth's presumption. There was some part of him, perhaps from his training, or maybe from his youth, that felt a spark of denial that he or anyone else _required_ the assistance of draconids. When a bond was a partnership, he could imagine that being fair pittance. When it was a crutch, it concerned him... but that was a private matter, not meant for debate with the huge creature who could, in all likelihood, quash a debate with his smallest finger if he wanted.
He'd been about to volley a counter-argument, but the mention of Au'gur's name left him a little gut punched. He caught himself before he overpoured a glass for Dewan, but he couldn't hide the twinge of pain and concern. Clearing his throat, Lance said instead, "nothing more or less than what they gave during their debriefing with us: subterranean structures that _appeared_ to be constructed with greater finesse than a burrowing animal... and something living in them that was not at all happy with their intrusion."
He passed Dewan's glass over, before pouring for himself and leaning one arm on the kitchen counter. Lips pursed, jaw jutted a little, he shook his head minutely and added, "Apparently they also found a few good alternatives for herbal medicine, for what it's worth, so I count that as an achieved objective." To Assoluth, he added, "there are a few things humans are good for, when you need a ground's eye view."
Assoluth's laugh was a rumble in the floor. He put a quick stop to it, though he did bring his head down, propping his chin on the staircase in a casual affect.
"Inarguable. True. I'd be just as skeptical of a draconid-only expedition. We need your eye for detail. In almost every case, multiple perspectives on a problem provide better solutions, hmm?"
Mollified, Lance raised his glass. "Infinite diversity in infinite variations is what we aim for," he acknowledged. He took a sip, splitting his attention between his old friend and the newish leader of the Nidus. "Gentlemen, I come to you with my hat in my hand-- ah, so to speak," he added for the dragon. "We're running into the problem of being without the means to get off-planet, now that there's a planet to be off of, and our objective has always been one of exploration. Whatever we wind up calling this place," and he tapped a foot, looking down for a moment as if to respecfully acknowledge the earth upon which they'd been deposited, "it's not alone out there.
"Frankly, we could use a lift." He pulled a message out from his gilt, bicoloured overcoat, a little tablet that barely used any power for its dark background and gently golden-flourescing writing. He passed it to Dewan for convenience-sake, but he spoke to Assoluth. "We could have done it off the record, but in the spirit of a joint community, Admiral Rosun was wondering if we could negotiate passage to other worlds in the Nexus for the purposes of, well, seeing what's up." He quirked his boyish grin again. "We'd like to officially connect with the other lifeforms out there. A few of us with ties to other homes are looking for ways to report in with them," he was wholly oblivious to Hana's hidden mission, of course, thinking of his Skal's depictions of his mountainous, alien home. "Others specialized in studies about particular worlds-- Like Tris'hath, or the Vella Crean, or even Old Earth."
Entreating Assoluth, he canted his head forward a little, brows raised. "Can your people help us get out there?"
Assoluth had nodded the tablet over to his bond, and then unfocused in the way that meant he was reading it through Dewan's eyes. Wine glass in one hand, the ex-UNIS hummed as he read, his casual sit straightening a bit.
He shared another glance with his bond, something passing between them. The great dragon had pulled his head up, too, leaning in as Lance spoke.
"You're hoping to register your cadets as novos somewhere?" Dewan was the one to ask, putting the pad down on his lap and drumming his fingers on the side of his wine glass. Only very few of the original UNIS personnel had bonded, and of those -- the results had been mixed. As it turned out, not every dragon was cut out for pseudomilitary (or as it had been at the time, fully military) service and Dewan had been one of those with a front seat to the resulting slow motion shitshow.
"It's easily enough done." While Dewan's had been a tone of guarded interest, Assoluth's open approval was clear.
"Oh," Lance said, feeling as though he'd been introduced to an entirely new challenge that had, until now at
least, been guarded in the back of his mind as a non-option. "Not necessarily. If they'd been itching to be
novos, you'd already know it. Hell, they'd be living inside the Nidus properly, probably." A good chunk of the
kids that had been born a little before and during the time into the mists, second-generation out of Earth, had
integrated into the Nidus well enough that some of them even _had_ signed up and left the mostly-human barracks the UNIS had cobbled together in the interim.
But Lance felt the need to be gracious. It was always a dance, negotiations, and while he respected draconid life, he didn't want to offer up his candidates without their explicit permission. "Maybe once they see more of what the worlds have to offer, they'll be intrigued, but right now we're looking to get as many different opinions on what living in a brand new world looks like. We want input from different cultures -- humanoid and draconid and everyone else we can find -- because in the end, we're all figuring out where we belong."
"Not just on a personal level. As a community." His grin was a little tight, but he hoped he'd set a reasonable boundary.
"Taking it slow is a fair approach," Dewan granted.
"I do think it's something you should consider." Now that he'd gotten on it, the dragon seemed unwilling to entirely let the notion fall. "I hope you don't consider it crass flattery if I say that you have some of the Nidus's most promising young explorers amongst your ranks. If even a few of them were interested in bonding, it would support your cause." He folded his forepwas, giant talons tucked under. "Even just one with the ability to teleport, to carry several passengers, to communicate mind-to-mind without regard for distance. You see the benefits."
The human bond to the Primus was looking up at Assoluth with a wrinkle between his brows. "I don't fully agree."
"I know. But the point stands. I don't want to lose any of your bright young minds. I hope you pass along to your cadets that their prerogative does credit to the Nidus, but for your ears, their discoveries have left some of us a touch concerned. Exploring a world that is potentially inhabited is a different game of dragon ball and if I can be frank with you, Captain, your cadets at their best are not equipped to do it alone.
"Please don't take this as pressure, though. You'll find any number of cheerful volunteers to take you offworld, and you have my and Veoimath's blessing to do so. You'll likely even easily find volunteers to send along with your UNIS expeditions. But in my experience--" another very brief glance between bonds-- "nothing is quite as efficacious at expanding perspective as a bond."
At that, Lance's eyes crinkled as he experienced a genuine chuckle, warm humour bubbling up. "I'm sure it does.
I'll keep it in mind, absolutely." He was beginning to have a sneaking suspicion that the Admiral had personal
views deeply rooted _against_ dragons and humans pairing up, if Assoluth was this driven and this persusasive about the deal, or else he had a feeling everyone in Lance's class would probably have been bonded already. Dewan being an exception instead of the rule was all but a guarantee of this.
So, tread carefully, but be grateful. He was happy to do both. "One of my officers actually recommended the Vella Crean. Do you have any volunteers in particular who could help us get established?"
"Oh, a few." Something in the question had sent a ripple of humour between the Prima and his bond. "A couple of town kids bonded there quite recently, in fact, though theirs are too young to be sent out on errands just yet. We've got a few old hands from before the mists, though; let me see about some introductions."
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