Dragons always share their egg with a twin of the opposite sex but one eats the other before we hatch. I think about that often when I’m feeling melancholy. What might he have done in my situation? Would I have been better off as a drake?

  As I land on the moon, Drakera Hyver lands beside me. She sets Gisk down as gently as she can, but a plume of dust shakes up beside him and the thud alerts the others that we’re outside the shelter they’re building. Howl pokes his head out, thinking to greet his friend. Instead he is greeted by shock, anger, grief, sadness. The stark reality of the uncaring and vast universe.

  “What… what happened?” Howl asks.

  Drakera Hyver collapses.

  By the dark and by the light.

  Before I answer Howl, we need to get Drakera Hyver to safety. I say, “Help us.”

  Thankfully he doesn’t hesitate. Dragons are enormous creatures when compared to any of the other living beings in the universe. The only things I’d ever seen that were bigger were trees. And the difference in size between a hatchling like me and a full-grown dragon like Drakera Hyver is… significant. Even with Howl’s and Jade’s help, even with the low gravity on the moon, even with our telekenesis, we can’t get her all the way into the shelter.

  A few of the other students come out to assist us, all with questions. But the only question that needs to be addressed comes from Ugo: “Is everyone else alright?” Everyone except Gisk he means.

  “I don’t know.”

  Ugo and Spav exchange a look and then leap and take flight. Pivi and a few of the others help Howl and me with Drakera Hyver, who seems to be alright. No life-threatening injuries. Just exhausted. Hopefully. After some effort we’re able to get her situated in the cave before transporting Gisk. He’s much smaller and easier to move. We seal the entrance, sucking in as much atmosphere as we can so Drakera Hyver has air to breathe. It isn’t much, but it’s something. We heal faster if there’s breathable air and water. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to find any water on this moon, so air is all she gets because there’s no way any of us are going back down to the surface of that planet.

  Once we are inside and sealed, Howl asks again: “What happened?”

  “There were a huge number of these big bats—” a great big thud outside interrupts me.

  The ground shakes and Howl reshapes the makeshift door to slip outside. Drake Rov and the others are there. Everyone is injured. Even Ugo and Spav are covered in blood, though I doubt it’s theirs.

  Drake Rov looks around for Drakera Hyver. Once he sees her, he closes his eyes and the ground starts to rumble and shake. All around us the top layer of dust shivers. A cloud begins to form. Then massive chunks of soil rise from the ground and begin to stack upon one another around us. Slowly, surely, a pyramid begins to form, with pillars shooting up to support it along the way. Somehow, he is able to take the dry, lifeless soil and mold it, shape it around us, giving us protection. And, using another trick we’ve gotten good at over the sweeps, sucking in enough atmosphere that we can breathe before the pyramid seals.

  When he’s finished, Drake Rov doesn’t rest. He sets about treating Rust, Gisk’s sidekick, who looks all the worse for wear. I can see Howl’s inner turmoil. He feels like it’s his fault. If he’d only been there then maybe Gisk and Rust would be alright. Maybe Gisk wouldn’t be dead and Rust dying. If only he hadn’t been so concerned about his own project and sat out this hunting world, things wouldn’t have changed irrevocably. I wish I could provide him some comfort, but anything I do would only reinforce those insecurities.

  “We need water,” Xy says. “Howl, Ugo, Spav, can you come with me? There is another moon in this system that has water buried under ice. If we can bring some back it will help speed up the healing process.”

  Before he finishes, a few of us begin working on opening Drake Rov’s pyramid while keeping the air inside—no easy feat. Ugo and Spav comply, eagerly jumping at the chance to do something productive. Howl is frozen, eyes still glued on Rust, who is flailing and wailing in pain. And Gisk, who is doing neither. Xy doesn’t wait. The trio charge from the opening and take off while Jade and the others and I close the opening after they leave.

  It feels like an eternity of Drake Rov’s heavy breathing and diligent work on Rust before Xy and the others return. An eternity of hoping that Rust will be able to pull through. Of hoping that Drakera Hyver will wake. A pyramid full of nervous and scared hatchlings.

  When we open a door for them upon their return, they are each carrying a large bubble of water, using their powers to keep it contained. Some of the others take the water and pool it into one sphere that hovers overhead so it isn’t sopped up by the dry sand at our feet. We begin using it to clean Drakera Hyver’s wounds. Drake Rov takes scoops to wash the blood from Rust’s flank as he tries to mend the gashes in his flesh and scales with telekenesis, giving Rust’s body and blood time to clot. But there’s so much blood. So much…

  I wonder if I had been as badly wounded during my accident. I’d lost consciousness before I really knew how bad things were and I hadn’t woken until the healing process had begun. But even if Rust did survive, he and Howl and Gisk had been nigh inseparable. What would three do when they were reduced to two? Or one?

  By the dark and by the light…

  I glance over at Xy, who has wetted his bag and is using that to wipe Drakera Hyver’s neck and face, staring at her with a rare intensity. She has been like a mother to him these past few sweeps. His own mother has been so brutally traumatized by his father that she is a shell of her former self. Xy whispers to her softly as he looks up at me, an unknowable expression hardening his features.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Drake Rov is exhausted, we all know it, but he is our rock. If he falters, panic will capture us all. I think he knows it, too. Thankfully, he is up to the task. He is using his flame breath as a tiny, focused stream to mend Rust’s flesh back together when he asks for help. I am the first one to answer the call, holding one of Rust’s front claws in place with the weight of my body. Jade rests on the other. When Drake Rov blows his flame once more upon Rust’s skin, the hatchling jerks and wails and roars, but pinned in place as he is, he cannot disturb Drake Rov’s work. By the end, Rust loses consciousness. His flesh is mended, but we all know his hold on this life is tenuous.

  No one speaks. Drake Rov settles himself in one corner of the pyramid and falls asleep. I look around to see our teachers sleeping and unconscious, one student dead, another dying… Panic begins to creep up my neck and into my brain, but I refuse to allow it access. Instead, I focus on Psy Dwok, wondering if I can reach her transtemporal from here. I focus and allow my mind to travel the vastness of space.

  At first, nothing happens. It doesn’t take long, however, until I am no longer inside my body. I am no longer inside that pyramid. My mind is free. Perhaps all my time spent with my mind outside helped me practice for this moment. I let my consciousness float out into space. The lack of gravity makes it easy to escape this moon’s pull. I look around to get my bearings. I’ve never had to do this outside of our cluster, so there are no waves pulling me in, directing me to someone else’s transtemporal. Out here, I am alone.

  The stars and planets look different to my mind’s eye. They are but gravity wells, heat and light, places to avoid. I try to gather my bearings, knowing it will be easier when I’m outside this star’s influence. So I float up and up and away, letting my mind go perpendicular to the system’s orbit. The star tugs at my mind intensely, with wave after wave of force, but the further I go, the more its effect is lessened. I’m exhausted by the time I reach the outer band of its influence. Once I am beyond its pull, though, I am able to rest, to refocus.

  I take a few deep breaths and center myself. The greatest draw is still the nearby star, but I can feel others now. The next closest star is a blip to my left. And the one beyond that. I know that the galaxy is mostly flat, just like the individual systems, gravity pulling them in a similar trajectory. It’s especially true for the stars further out, away from the dense cluster at the center of the galaxy. We haven’t gotten close yet, we are going methodically from the outer ring, deeper and deeper, so we have only traversed about ten percent of the distance to the center. I’m still closer to the asteroid cluster than I am to the planet I chose.

  I breathe deep and search for the tug of the galaxy’s center. It’s a long ways off, but the density of a galaxy’s core is no small thing. As my consciousness widens and expands I am in awe of the incredible distances between things. We are large creatures, but when compared to a planet, we are minuscule. When compared to a star we are but a dot. When compared to the galaxy, we are nothing. When compared to the universe, we are an order of magnitude less than nothing.

  When I finally catch a whiff of the core, I try to orient myself. The further I traverse outside my body, the harder it may be to return. There are cases of dragons who have taken a trip in their minds and never returned. Maybe they liked the quiet of space. Ever since I left the star’s influence I have felt nothing but quietude. The center of the galaxy has to it a steady thrum, a pulsing of power beyond anything I’ve ever felt, even from this distance. When we are in our mental form, we feel nearby things much more intensely.

  After claiming my bearings, I begin to fly. It’s so much easier and faster when I don’t have gravity to contend with. When I am not confined to my aching shell, my injured husk. I let the stars guide me, feeling their pulsing below as I travel on a plane above the disc of the galaxy. I reach the rim, where the pulsing lessens beneath me, and I wait as the stars whip past below. Yet another thing to marvel at: the velocity with which the stars below me speed past. When I am on a planet, it feels completely normal, as if I’m not moving at all. But when compared to a stationary object nearby, planets and stars at the edge of the system are whipping past at incredible speeds. Once I’m sure I’m in place at the rim of the galaxy, I begin to send out distress signals with my mind. This could take some time, and I know it will get harder and harder to find myself again, but the others in the cluster know the locations of all of our planets. I am counting on them to guide me back.

  As time goes on I can feel the tether that connects me to my mind weakening. It’s slow, but it is a very real threat. I am not exactly in my best shape, injured and exhausted. Yet, I have found peace in the thought that, even if I ultimately do not return, I will get everyone else some help. I don’t know how long Rust might have. I feel his best chance at survival is with Drakera Sol’s help. Drake Rov and Drakera Hyver and Xy and the others have done what they can. Now it’s my turn.

  With my mind and body so separated, I can no longer tell what’s going on with the others. They might think me unconscious or sleeping as well. I did endure quite an ordeal and they all know me to be fragile, no matter whether I am or not. I didn’t tell anyone my plan because I knew they would stop me and I was not to be deterred. So I scan and roam the rim of the galaxy and hope beyond hope that someone in our clan picks up my distress call. It’s nowhere near as powerful when it is purely mental. If I were able to roar, they would doubtless hear my call, but my mind is nothing compared to the adults, and it doesn’t even begin to approach the psys.

  After a time, I can feel myself weakening somehow. Not my body, nor my mind. But there’s this sense of… I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s like exhaustion, but not the sort that makes me want to sleep. The sort that I felt just after my injury that made me fall asleep without my permission. When I realize what’s happening, I snap to, send out another distress, hope for a response. It gets harder and harder to not succumb to the sweet reverie of sleep, but I know if I do, I’m done for. The others will likely survive, but Rust may not. I’m so tired.

  “Help!” I scream in panic into the void as I realize I had once more fallen asleep.

  I know not how long I laze along the rim of the system, bound by fits of sleep and wakefulness. If only I could see. If only I could hear. But there is no guide save the hum of the stars far below me.

  So tired…

  Why am I pushing myself? Why am I trying so hard? It would be so much easier to just let go. Just because the body dies doesn’t mean the mind follows. There is no definitive proof those dragons who have severed the connection between mind and body are gone completely. Maybe this is the way to a different form of existence. Maybe—

  “Siluastryx!?” Ola exclaims. “By the dark and by the light. What are you doing out there, girl?”

  Knowing that I am found, I finally allow my body and my mind respite.