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It was all Magnus's fault, really.
When the dying dragon landed hard on the deck of the Starblaster in Cycle 10, and dragged herself into the ship's warm underbelly, Magnus refused to hurt her. Instead, he begged Merle to try to heal her. She was in distress, and her warm golden eyes were full of fear.
Merle tried his best. But he couldn't save her.
He did, however, feel the bulge in her belly. So when she laid her egg, the whole crew was ready, crowded into the engine room with warmed towels and every pillow they could find.
She looked at all of them in turn. None of them could turn away from her molten-gold stare. "Take care of my child," she said. "Please."
"Of course," Magnus said thickly, before anyone else could speak. Davenport opened his mouth, half a protest forming on his lips, but he said nothing and nodded instead.
Magnus held the dragon's head gently in his lap as she died.
When the ship made the jump between realities several months later, the egg cracked, and its tiny squirming occupant burst out of its shell with a loud, needy cry. Barry theorized that it had somehow reacted to the power of the bond engine, but nobody was really sure. None of them knew anything about the dragons of that previous world, now lost to the Hunger.
So it was all Magnus's fault, really, that the Starblaster acquired an eighth member, a baby dragon that none of them knew how to care for.
But nobody held it against him.
#
"Why do I have scales, and you don't?" asked Lark one morning, as Magnus was giving her a bath on the Starblaster deck. Lark had learned quickly how to talk, and she loved asking questions.
"That's because you're a dragon, and we're not," he said, rubbing a soft cloth over the scales at the base of her neck, where she couldn't quite reach. Her scales had been a dull brown when she'd hatched, but as she grew, they began to shine more and more, until they were now a bright brassy color.
"I'm a dragon?" she asked, turning her head to look at him. "That's amazing! I'm a dragon! Woooo!" She jumped in place like a little antelope, splashing water and suds all over him. Magnus laughed.
"Yes, you're the best dragon!" he said, and meant it. "Now come here and let me get that spot under your wings." He washed the spot in question, wiping away the layer of gritty sand, then pulled out the moisturizing oil that Taako had made for Lark. This particular cycle was a very arid one, and Lark's scales were prone to drying out. "You have to take care of your scales so they don't crack," he said. "They keep you safe. Like my armor protects me, and like I protect the others."
"Like you protect me!" said Lark. She stepped from paw to paw, stretching. "It's like I'm covered with tiny Magnuses!" She grinned.
He laughed. Lark was so funny. She always found a way to cheer everyone up, even when things were hard. That was why he loved her. Well, that was one of a lot of reasons why he loved her.
"One day," she said, "I'm gonna be really big and really strong, like you," she said. "And then I can protect you!"
"Hah! I don't need anyone to protect me!" he said.
"No," she agreed, her warm molten-brass eyes shining into his. "But I want to."
He quickly put on his sunglasses, since the sun was so bright. It didn't have anything to do with him crying big manly tears. He just loved his big baby dragon a lot, okay?
The conversation moved onto other subjects. But later on, when he was protecting the ship against a band of desert marauders, he noticed that their weapons didn't bite as deeply into his skin. Like he'd become tougher, somehow.
It was probably just all the training he was doing.
#
Davenport didn't know why Lark stayed aboard the Starblaster with every jump. So far, the only creatures that stayed aboard beyond the original crew were animals—rats and birds and the occasional spider (much to Magnus's chagrin). Fully sentient lifeforms always vanished. And yet here was Lark, defying all his assumptions.
Still. She was part of the crew now, and she did not get any resets.
So the first time she fell off the deck, awkwardly flapping her wings and trying to catch air, he took it upon himself to supervise her flight training. He pulled from storage a mechanical wing harness, modified to his height, and took her up to a low ridge above a still, deep lake.
"Just follow my lead," he said, and jumped.
The harness used electrode attachments to sense and respond to the movement of his shoulder muscles. He'd acquired it a few cycles ago, and if he'd occasionally snuck off for some solo flights to blow off steam, well…the crew hadn't needed to know that.
Lark flailed beside him, her wings flapping gracelessly. She was quickly losing altitude.
"Hold your wings steady!" he shouted. "Less flapping, more gliding!"
Lark's eyes were wide with panic. "I think—I--!" Her feet skimmed the water, and then she was down with a splash.
He circled around and landed on the beach, waiting patiently for her to drag herself out. "Back up to the ridge," he said. "Try again."
Lark was not discouraged in the least. She practically bounded up the ridge, but he stopped her before she could launch herself again. "Don't fight the wind," he said. "Move with it. Feel where it wants to go." He spread his mechanical wings and stood still, swaying slightly as the breeze tried to catch at their sails.
She did the same, spreading her wings as far as they would go. The vanes stretched between them, filling with air. "It wants to push me," she said.
"Then let it push you up," he said. And he leapt, catching air, swooping down and then up again.
Lark cried out behind him. "Uncle Dav, I'm doing it!"
He glanced over his shoulder. She wasn't far behind him, holding her wings out and steady, swaying back and forth on the updraft.
He gave her a thumbs-up.
"Woohoo!" she cried out. "I'm flying!"
He laughed despite himself. Maybe this meant no more solo flights, but…he was okay with that.
Three cycles later, the power source for the wings finally gave out mid-flight. He was within sight of the Starblaster when the wings simply folded up and he dropped. Lark was standing on the deck, mouth agape in horror, too far to reach him but close enough to see him falling. As the ground rushed at him, he wished he'd fallen farther away from the ship, so she wouldn't have to watch him die.
And then the breeze caught him, slowing his fall. For one dizzying moment, it felt like he was being held aloft by phantom wings, flexing with his shoulder muscles. And then he hit the ground, hard enough to bang his knees but not nearly enough to kill him.
He never figured out what happened. Nobody on the crew had fired off a Featherfall spell, and he certainly couldn't feel those ghostly wings after the fact. Sometimes he wondered if it would ever happen again, if he were to fall from a great height.
But Captain Davenport never risked his life for non-crucial experiments, so he never found out.
#
Lark was smart. Like, really smart. So naturally Barry took to teaching her everything he could, about science and physics and mathematics, about how all the pieces of the world fit together into vast and beautiful systems.
He didn't know much about dragons. But every sentient creature had a brain, and it was good to train your brain. That, he could do. He might be a bit soft around the belly, but he knew how to feed and nurture the mind.
On every plane they went to, if there was some sort of written knowledge, he'd study it with her. If there wasn't, then he'd go out into the field with her and study the physical world around them. He taught her how to gather samples, how to check sources, how to test and re-test and check for biases. And when Lup began to join them, they all studied how magic and science fit together, too, all part of this vast and beautiful system that made up the Universe.
"Like us," she said one day. "Like the Starblaster and all of us on it. One system, all of us fitting together into something big and wonderful." She pressed her head against his side.
He set a hand on her head. "Yeah, I--I guess that's one way of looking at it."
"It's called a family, Barry," said Lup, grinning. "That's the word you're looking for."
He blushed.
Lark looked up at him, her molten-brass eyes whirling softly. He didn't know how long he stared into her gaze. But she suddenly blinked, and nudged him hard with her head. Her shoulder just came up to his waist by now, but she was strong, and the force of her push caused him to stumble into Lup.
"Oof, sorry!" he said, stepping away and blushing.
Lup's cheeks were pink, too. "No biggie," she said. She looked down, and saw his hand still on hers. Her blush deepened. "Uh, yeah, why don't we check on that algae sample we've got under the heat lamp?"
"Y-yeah," said Barry. "It's warm."
"It is," she agreed. Their hands were still touching. Barry was suddenly aware that Lark had left the lab.
Well. There were some things she didn't need to learn about till she was older.
He didn't know what, in that one odd moment, had changed. But afterwards, he found ideas coming more frequently and his attention focusing better, even after long hours in the lab.
He told himself it was probably the new coffee Taako had picked up last cycle.
#
The first time Lark breathed fire, she accidentally lit up the common room couch. After the couch was put out, she was immediately handed over to Lup's care for training.
"All right, my girl," she said, leading Lark out to a nearby quarry. "Time for some good old-fashioned target practice!"
When they were well away from anything flammable, she held out her hand. A flame opened up above her palm like a flower blooming. "So, fire is pretty rad!" she said. "It's one of the most amazing forces in the universe, and it's your best friend if you wanna just blast something to rubble." She demonstrated, launching a Scorching Ray at a distant boulder. It shattered with a thunderous crack. Lark leapt back, jaw dropping open in surprise, a little flame licking her teeth as if in sympathetic response.
"Pretty neat, huh?" said Lup. "Of course, if anyone we loved had been standing next to that boulder, they'd be having a pretty bad time right about now. Burn scars can be pretty nasty, even deadly." She pulled back the sleeve of her robe, showing off an old pink scar that stretched over her left forearm.
Lark made a small cry of dismay. Smoke had been trailing out from between her teeth, but she sucked it back in with a hasty, choking swallow. "Oh no…Lup, I…" She lowered her head, eyes wide. "I'm so sorry! I could've really hurt someone…"
"Hey. It's okay!" Lup crouched down so she was at eye level, placing one hand on the dragon's head. "Yeah, it's scary, but it's better for you to know this starting out than learn it the hard way later on. Fire is hella powerful, but it also wants to do its own thing. It'll run rampant if you let it. Which means us fire users, we have to be extra badass. Because we gotta show fire who's boss!" She flicked her wand, releasing a series of fire blasts in quick succession against the distant quarry wall. She topped it off with an arcing Scorching Ray, forming a smiley face.
Lark's eyes grew even wider. "Wow, that's amazing!" she said, skipping in place. "Lup, you're amazing!"
"Well, natch!" She grinned down at Lark. "But you can be just as amazing. Why don't you give it a try? Aim for…that one!" She pointed at a rough pillar of pinkish stone.
Lark squinted at the stone. She took a deep breath, and launched a burst of flame. It fell well short of its target, dissipating in the air.
"Okay, so we need to work on your range," she said. "But that'll come with practice. Wanna give it another try?"
They spent a good hour out in the quarry, before Lark grew tired and needed a nap. They found a sunny spot and curled up together, relaxing on the warm stone. The heat soaked up into their bodies, refreshing them both.
"We can come back here and practice tomorrow," Lup said. "Practicing every day is the best way to get to know and understand fire. Well, that goes for a lot of things in life," she added, thinking suddenly of Barry, and all the time they'd been spending in the lab lately. "But fire especially."
Lark gazed at her, eyes swirling in easy contentment. "Thanks for helping me, Lup," she said. "I was pretty scared when I set that couch on fire, but…I don't think I'm scared anymore. At least, not so scared that I'm afraid to try."
"That's the spirit!" said Lup, curling one arm gently across the young dragon's neck.
The next day, they came back as promised. And to Lup's surprise, her own flames burned hotter and longer than they ever had before. She'd been getting more powerful as the Starblaster's journey had progressed, but this was a sudden jump within 24 hours. As soon as she got back to the ship, she told Barry and started running experiments, to see if she could duplicate the effect, or at least pinpoint its source.
And if Lark noticed Lup giving her long and thoughtful looks, she didn't say.
#
Merle tried his best, he really did. But there were some things even his best healing spells couldn't fix.
So when he realized Magnus wasn't going to pull through, that whatever strange disease he'd picked up on this planet was just going to waste him away to nothing, he told Magnus the truth. They'd been through all this before; there wasn't much point in mincing around the truth. Magnus gave a brief nod. He was too weak to even give Merle his usual brave smile.
Outside the medbay, Merle locked eyes with Dav and shook his head. Dav sighed.
"Lark," he said, turning to the dragon, "Magnus asked to see you."
She perked up, her well-tended brass scales shining. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked, and there was so much desperate hope in her voice.
"No, my girl," he said. "But could you be with him all the same?"
She followed him into the medbay, her steps uncertain. Merle took up his post beside the bed, and held Magnus's thin, cool hand. Lark lay her head on the mattress beside Magnus, eyes dark with sorrow. Magnus lifted his other hand and set it on her head, just between her horns.
The three of them remained like that, as still and quiet as one of Lucretia's paintings. Through the thin skin of Magnus's wrist, Merle felt his fluttering heartbeat slow, and then stop. He said a quick prayer to Pan, and pulled the blanket over Magnus's face.
"Why did he die?" asked Lark, her voice soft and pained.
"His heart gave out," he said. "The illness made it weak, till it could no longer do what it was supposed to."
She was silent a moment, staring at the shape of Magnus's face beneath the sheet. "My chest hurts," she said. "Am I dying too?"
Merle shook his head. "No, my girl. Your heart hurts because you love Magnus, and that's where all your sadness is. That's the thing about hearts; they pump our blood but they also hold all our feelings. We need both, to keep us alive."
Abruptly she turned away from the bed. "Why did he want me in here? I couldn't do anything for him!"
He crossed the room to her side and set a hand on her shoulder. "You did plenty," he said. "He loves you. And it's comforting, to be with people you love. You brought him comfort in his last moments. That's a hell of a lot." He stroked Lark's neck. "That makes all the difference in the world."
She leaned her head against him. Merle just held her head against his chest, running a thumb along her cheek, wiping away her hot dragon tears with his callused fingers.
After what felt like a very long time standing in silence, she said, "I think I understand. Thank you, Merle."
That night, Lark gathered the rest of the crew into a big sleeping pile in the common room. She made sure she could feel all of them nestling close to her, close enough to feel their heartbeats. Merle laid his cheek against her side, listening to the beat of her strong dragon heart, and felt his own heart ease with each beat of hers. He hoped hers was easing, too.
His heart felt lighter after that. Stronger, too. He stopped getting those weird flutters in his chest that left him dizzy whenever he overexerted himself. For all intents and purposes, he could say he had the heart of a dwarf half his age. And despite everything, despite the death and the struggles and the everpresent threat of John, he woke up each day surrounded by the warmth of his family, as if he could feel the love radiating from them.
And with that love holding him up, it was hard not to feel invincible, no matter how many times John killed him.
#
"So, here's the thing," said Taako. "Dragons are hella magic. But lucky for you, there's no one in the multiverse more qualified to teach you how to harness your powerful arcane energies than Taako! So buckle up, because we're gonna start with Lesson one: proper aim."
Lark had not set the couch on fire with her first spell. But she had turned it into a very confused sheep, since this was a world of meager resources and the hunting wasn't that good. She'd at least been able to restrain herself long enough to take it outside before killing it, on Davenport's orders.
"Is this like learning to master my flame?" she asked, mouth full of fresh meat.
Taako snorted. "Listen—anyone can toss off a fancy magic missile." He picked up a pebble from the ground and began to work it between his palms. "Like, tossing fire around is great and all when you wanna blast stuff. But this is—you're taking the very energy of the world around you and shaping it with your will." He opened his hands, and a butterfly with stained-glass wings took off into the sky.
Lark gasped, watching the butterfly sparkle in the air above her.
"See, we see the world with our senses. We touch things, we change them. But magic is speaking directly to the world and saying, 'Hey, let's do things this way instead.'" He tapped his forehead. "So you gotta learn to see things not just with your eyes, but with your imagination. Now, look at that rock over there."
She looked at it. It was a nice boulder, with a sloping, flattish-top. "It's a granite boulder," she said. "Might be a good sunning spot."
Taako shrugged. "Sure, if you wanna lay on a rock. But why not sun yourself on a big fluffy pillow?"
She tilted her head. "That does sound nice…" she admitted.
"Well, then. Give it a try!" He knew that this kind of transmutation was a pretty high-level spell for a newbie wizard. But Lark was a friggin' dragon who'd just polymorphed their couch, so he believed in her. Besides, she had an excellent teacher.
She squinted at the boulder. A soft shimmering light overlaid it like a blanket, and the boulder began to change shape, growing poofier and purple. Finally the light dissipated, leaving behind a big velvet pillow with gold tassels, perfectly sized for Lark to lay on.
Lark tentatively poked the former boulder with one claw. "I—I did it," she said, as if she didn't quite believe herself.
"Looks like ya did, pumkin," he said. It had been ages since he'd taught at the IPRE campus, but man, it was nice to have a magic student again.
She turned and grinned at him, her eyes swirling with wonder. "What else can I do with magic?" she asked.
"Whatever you want," he said, honestly.
A few days later, after another rigorous magic lesson with Lark, Lup dragged him aside and asked him what his secret was. She had a date night lined up with Barry and she wanted to know how Taako got his skin to glow like that.
"What, like I'm phosphorescing?" he asked, honestly not sure what she was talking about. He always liked to insist that he was naturally the more attractive twin, but he'd done nothing to change his makeup routine.
"Well, your skin's definitely got this shimmer to it that it didn't have before," she said. "Is it a new foundation?"
"Same as what I've been using the last five cycles," he insisted. "I mean, it could be something in the water bringing out my natural healthy glow."
Lup made a frustrated noise, which he was more than happy to attribute to envy. It was just the curse of looking so damn good all the time.
But that night, he sat in his room and turned over his hand beneath a reading lamp, wondering at the faint shimmer in his skin. It was the same shimmer that he saw in his spellwork, only now it imbued every inch of him. As if his own magic was bubbling up from beneath him and leaving its imprint on his skin. It even lingered at the reset, months later.
Well. Normally it took a lot of effort to look this damn good. So he wasn't gonna complain.
#
"You know," said Lark one day, her scales lit by the glow of Fisher's tank, "you're the closest to another dragon on this ship."
Lucretia thought this an odd thing to say. "How so?" Her hand didn't stop moving across the page; she was sketching Lark, who lay sprawled out on her floor, head resting on a pile of journals.
"Well, almost every cycle where we meet dragons, we hoard things," she said. "I feel it too, right in my belly. This need to--I dunno, collect."
"You've certainly been doing that," said Lucretia. Lark had decided she liked collecting pillows, and her room down in the hold had become a big, soft nest. It reminded Lucretia of how the dragon had come into the world: her egg kept warm and cushioned on a pillow pile, her tiny squirming body bursting out of the egg and sprawling out on the pillows.
"And I wonder if you are, too," said Lark. "I mean, Taako likes getting new clothes and Merle has his plants. Even Dav has his little collection of star maps. But they don't have that same…look in their eyes. This burning need, like the way you seem to need words." She tapped a journal with one delicate claw.
Lucretia looked around the room at the piles and piles of journals. "Shit," she said, with feeling. "I think you, uh, hit the nail on the head there."
Lark smiled. "See? I knew it! You're like a dragon in human shape!"
Lucretia laughed, then shook her head. "But it's not the words I'm collecting, I think," she said. "Or even the journals. It's…memories, really. The things I see, the things I experience."
Lark tilted her head in curiosity. "Memories?"
Lucretia picked up another journal, this one with a peach-fuzzy cover, and flipped it open. "Cycle 28, Day 13. The sunrises here are amazing. The floating geodes catch and refract the single sun's light, spangling the landscape with rainbow beams and distant flashes."
"I remember that place!"
Lucretia smiled, closing the book as if Lark had just proved her point. "I'm no longer just collecting these for posterity," she said. "We have this rare opportunity to see so much, to experience things that nobody else from our worlds could imagine. Some of those things get lost to the Hunger, and all of them are lost to us after a year, even if we do get the Light. If we don't pay attention, if we don't hold onto all those memories--all these beautiful little moments would be lost forever." She ran her fingers over the cover. "I can't let that happen. I--what are you doing?"
Lark had just licked the back of one claw. "Fisher splashed some water on me. I wanted to know what it tasted like." She grinned. "It tastes like Taako's seafood bisque. Could you write that down for me?"
"Gross. But of course." It wouldn't be the weirdest thing she'd catalogued her family willingly putting in their mouths.
"Hmm. You know that weird constant storm cloud to the east? The one that keeps flashing lightning?"
Lucretia frowned. "You know Dav said you shouldn't fly anywhere near that," she said.
"I know, I'm not gonna get close! But maybe you and I could watch it from a distance and see what it looks like at sunset? You know, for your journals."
Lucretia smiled. "I'd love to," she said. "Now hold still, I wanna draw your eyes."
The next evening, Lucretia rode on Lark's back, just to the point where they could see the giant purple thunderhead parked on the horizon. Pink lightning arched and twisted inside it, like a compact heat storm. Lucretia was surprised at how much detail she could see at this distance, like her vision was suddenly sharpened. Perhaps the atmosphere was so clear? Not that she was complaining. Her gaze roved all over the storm, taking in as many details as she could catch. The way the lightning split and split again like branching rivers, the way the clouds swirled and bunched and roiled. The sun set behind them, and the thunderhead grew to a bright salmon color, then to deep purple, and finally to gray.
Lucretia sighed. She held the image inside her, imagined her heart was a clenching fist that could hold onto this forever. Already her mind was spinning out the words that would try, in some distant, inadequate way, to capture what she had seen.
Beside her, Lark's molten-brass eyes were swirling in concentrated focus, as if she too were trying to pick up every detail. Lucretia leaned against her, and was struck with the sudden wish that she could hoard her family, too. Just wrap them in her arms and hold on forever, shield them from all the suffering and death that this endless journey had doomed them to.
"Lark," she said. "I want to tell you something."
The dragon turned to look at her, and she was so beautiful that Lucretia, for a moment, found all her words sticking in her throat. She wrapped her arms around the dragon's neck. "I've been working on a spell," she said. "One of Merle's, but I've been improving it. Lark, I'm going to save us all."
#
"Welcome, the three of you, to the Bureau of Balance."
Lark peered around Lucretia and looked down the dais steps at Merle, Magnus, and Taako. The Director maintained control of the Bureau, in part, by maintaining an image of untouchable, distant authority. And what radiated "Don't mess with me" more than having a dragon at her side?
But this was different. This was Lark's family, here again. The only family she'd ever needed, the ones who had taught her how to be a dragon. Not all at once, no. But in bits and pieces, by wing and scale and eye, by mind and magic and fire and heart, they had taught her how to be herself.
And now they were here. But they were changed, somehow less than they once were. Merle's heart was weaker, and Taako's bright, sharp magic was dimmed. And Magnus, her Magnus! His protective nature had turned sad and desperate in the ten years since she'd seen him. As if he protected not out of love, but because he thought himself worthless.
She watched them carefully, picking up on every detail she could. Merle took a step back, quailing under her gaze. Her heart cracked at the sight.
Well. She had work to do. It was time to teach them all how to be dragons.