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They were used to seeing their faces through their other faces' eyes. In fact, they had a harder time coordinating when they couldn't see their own faces—when it was storming too hard, when they were blinded, when they had to maintain a 360° field of view, when one of their heads was missing and yet to regrow. Seeing their own faces in their peripheral visions was second-nature, normal, trivial, so common as to be unnoticeable.
But it was impossible for them to not be uncomfortably aware of how hard they were glaring at the right side of First's face.
Second should be watching for assailants on their right wing.
Second was not.
Second should be watching for assailants on their right wing.
Second was not.
Second SHOULD BE—
Well maybe Second didn't need to be when First kept curling up to look back over their right wing himself! First was watching for assailants, right? Or was First checking to ensure that their new little pet was still following them?
An embarrassed heat crept down their spines and up their necks. It was a rare thing for them to feel—even rarer for it to come from the middle. Third shook his head like he could throw off the prickling self-consciousness; Second hissed; First turned to snap at Second's horns. None of them missed how, when First bit at Second, he snuck a quick glimpse back at their "little pet."
Still there.
Their "little pet" was the red sprite, the native creature who roosted in volcanoes and whose body looked like a distant alien echo of their own. The creature who had challenged them to a fight, who had survived their lightning, who had resisted the hypnotism of their siren song only to bow at their feet of his own free will. Some knot had twisted in their body when he'd bowed to them, and it had only gotten tighter as time went on.
But the knot was only choking one of their throats: the one in the middle.
The clouds wheeled and flexed around them as they flew northward. Deep blue skies and the first evening stars shone over their heads one moment; rain poured on their back the next, chill on their scales. They could hear the red sprite grumbling in displeasure every time the rain battered his volcanic rock back; each time he flapped harder to draw closer to them, and each time they shivered from his heat and fought not to twist their tails together. They wanted to twist their tails around him.
No—there was no "they." First wanted him. First was gasping with want for him—a want that their body wasn't designed to ever fulfill—a want that he had snipped at the other heads for every time they felt it, until Second had learned to burn it away and Third had learned to suffocate it. Well, why couldn't First? High and mighty hissing arbiter of emotional asceticism, the one who reminded them over and over that any place they ever landed was only temporary, to be burnt down to ash and left behind as they left for a new star and a new atmosphere—First the commander, First the leader, First who watched them both and chastised every mistake, First who punished Third for so much as wondering what a burnt beast tasted like for fear they'd grow addicted to the flavor and suffer when it was gone—for all his work to ensure that they would not even long for alien ashes, surely he would not long for an alien person! Where was his self control?!
He didn't know!
Second had snapped at First's neck before either one of them realized that it wasn't First, this time, who'd turned to look back at their red sprite; Third was twisted around to peer at him. Curious, of course. Always curious. First almost automatically bit at him for, yet again, getting too intrigued by the local environment; but their back tensed up with Second's rage and he snapped his mouth shut. Hypocrisy.
He knew it was hypocrisy. He knew, he knew, he knew. And he was as horrified with himself for his weakness as Second was disgusted with him. The horror churned low in their abdomen, tying knots in their nerves. First was responsible for getting them through this. All of this. All this terrible ashen life that they had to live. He had to be the strongest of them all.
But they were still looking at the red sprite and he couldn't help himself, damn it, he looked so familiar, like someone he should have had ages and ages ago if they'd been three like they were supposed to be instead of one like they were, if they had been made for more than thunder and ashes, and he wanted to twist him up in their tails and close their wings around him and feel his heat with their faces, and, and—and he didn't know what then! There was nothing they physically could do beyond that! But he wanted it all the same, wanted him, wanted him, wanted to crack the shining black rock on his hide and drink the magma from his heart and tear him up with their teeth, piece by piece, and to swear fealty to him and to tell the world that he owned them—
Second slammed into First hard enough to knock them both into Third. They flailed, plummeting down for a couple of seconds before they got their wings under them again. First and Third looked straight forward. Second howled at the side of First's face.
The red sprite cried out, swooping closer—was he concerned? They couldn't even understand him. Think about that. They'd learned enough of the local creatures' emotions to give basic mental commands—one mental command, to tell them to fear and fight—but they couldn't even understand him. He had mattered for less than a day.
They picked at the knot tied in First's throat as they flew. Something had usurped their siren song, up north; they could hear it bellowing over and over. They were supposed to be focusing on that. First's gaze stayed fixed straight ahead, but they were hyperaware of every beat of the red sprite's wings.
Third didn't see what the big deal was. No. He never had. Never! Every world was temporary and ephemeral, so what was so dangerous about looking at them? How was it going to kill them if they dared turn their gazes toward something without immediately burning it down? What future pleasure were they saving themselves for that they would only receive if they eschewed the petty pleasures of strange scents and the way the light of unfamiliar suns played on oceans? What did it matter if they enjoyed it? Let them enjoy something! Something besides conquest and killing, because they couldn't kill all the time, and they had to have something to stave off the boredom in between massacres! Yes, today they would have the funny-tasting charred ashes of a beast, and tomorrow the world would end and they would not; but tomorrow they would have a new world with new funny-tasting beasts, and what was so wrong with that?! They wouldn’t have to fear the possibility of always longing for past pleasures if they knew there would be future ones. It would mean they would have something to look forward to besides getting a horn bite for daring to look around a little. So, here was a chance to try that out, to see that it wasn't so dangerous for something to matter to them for a few seconds. First could have his red sprite if he wanted, they could coil around him until they crushed him if First wanted, and then the world would end and they would toss aside his remains and move on—
The knot twisted so tight it felt like it was going to snap their spines. Third's thought cut off as, for a moment, despair and grief howled futilely through their minds at the thought of a universe where their red sprite was gone.
First shook his head, trying to clear the thought away.
Second coiled around him, twisting their necks together, and bit him at the very top of his neck, grounding him.
Third looked straight ahead, staring through the rain.
This. This was why it was so dangerous to be fascinated. They had so little. They'd had so little for so long. If they allowed themselves one thing, and lost it, then they lost everything they had.
And the red sprite wasn’t funny-tasting ashes. They couldn't just find a replacement tomorrow. They'd never seen something so like them before. They might never again.
They flew on.
Their necks untwisted.
Rodan was grumbling more constantly now as the rain poured down on him. First raised his head, snapped at Second when Second snapped at him, and twisted back to look directly at the red sprite. They called to him to catch his attention, and when he was focused on them, jerked First's head up toward the sky beyond the patchy cloud cover. They had to do it again before the red sprite understood the gesture, and then he shot up with a gush of air, pumping his wings hard to climb above the clouds.
He'd be more comfortable up there. And far beyond their seeing and hearing. They, the lightning in the storm clouds; and he, the red sprite dancing above it.
They would deal with this. They would. First had always demanded that Second and Third be as strong, as stoic, as detached as him; and even when it chafed, they had always shown that they could be that strong. And so, too, would First be as strong as them. They would destroy this new little pest disrupting their siren song, and then this world; and then, they would deal with... this. Somehow, they would deal with this.
It would hurt; but things had hurt before, and they had dealt with them.
How would they deal with this? They'd figure that out later.
The red sprite had mattered for less than a day. Yes, today they had him—and tomorrow the world would end and they would not.
And they would move on to the next world.
And the next world.
And the next.