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Granite stowed the brand new fiddle in their ship, glad they were the only person in here. They wouldn’t get scolded for their lack of enthusiasm, just… everyone had something. Feldspar had been playing their harmonica for years before Outer Wilds Ventures, Gabbro had picked up the flute while training, Chert had already been learning their drum when they started. And then Hornfels and Gossan agreed with Gneiss, who had insisted after Riebeck hadn’t learned an instrument and still launched with a new banjo, and now Granite, who had never used an instrument that wasn’t a sautering iron or a needle and thread, had gotten to pretend to be excited about the brand new fiddle Gneiss had not very secretly been working on for them. It was beautiful, and as they looked at it sitting in its plain case in their ship, they hoped that’d be enough to protect it.
Riebeck was good with the banjo they’d gotten, the few times they’d been home. Hopefully Granite would be good with the fiddle, after they launched, but tomorrow morning was probably just starting with an easy flight to the Attlerock before they decided where else to go. Brittle Hollow with Riebeck, maybe, to put the translator to good use, and maybe ask for tips with a stringed instrument? Or Ember Twin, to go explore more than Chert would, to poke around the Nomai crash in the southern hemisphere and leave it on the ship where it wouldn’t get sandy. Feldspar hadn’t been on Ember Twin that much, so it’d be a lot of new things, too, and show they were the right choice for Outer Wilds Ventures. Like there had been any other choices, of the hatchlings they’d grown up with two were astronauts and two were tree keepers.
Down the elevator and oh, right, their sleeping bag was staying in the ship. Hal had offered theirs, so Granite could get the launch codes and take off in the morning and not waste time trying to fold it neatly again.
Hal was gonna be near the observatory somewhere, right?
Granite walked back into the village- Slate was probably gonna ‘fix’ one little thing on their ship now that they weren’t there, hopefully it wouldn’t kill them- and wished Hal would be closer. A couple of the adults were obviously worried about them launching and they’d rather not talk to anyone who was gonna make any pre-flight jitters worse. Gneiss specifically acted like it was possible to see if the observatory was active or not from the crater and that was not true, it was a blurry mess of white, and even if Granite lied that they had super Hearthian sight they still seemed worried that they’d get lost or crash into something out in space.
There was someone waving at that house, Granite could see the silhouette. Smaller, one of the hatchlings, but not talking, so… just, one of them. Wearing a hat, so, probably… Arkose or Tephra?
“Hullo, astronaut.” Tephra! Granite could hear the grin in their voice.
“Hey, you little troublemaker.” They were worse than Granite had been, somehow. Or, still was, since the experiment with sap wine last week had gone poorly.
“You’re still gonna go into space, right?”
“Of course I am!” Hm. The grin was gone; they sounded worried. Well, it was early still, they could go find Hal in a bit. Granite sat on the porch next to Tephra.
“I’m…” Tephra looked away and fidgeted. Granite waited for them; the adults weren’t always patient with Tephra and Mica, the two younger hatchlings out of the four. Five, they still counted. “I…” They stopped again, looking up out of the crater. Granite followed the glance- none of the planets were visible right now, so it was just the darkness of space. Chert would watch it so intensely they tripped over things when they were home; but it was featureless blackness until a planet or the Attlerock passed by.
Tephra muttered something, under their breath. Granite looked back at them.
“You wanna come?”
“N- yeah. But I know I can’t, I gotta do all that training you did, but there’s no way Gossan’ll say yes.”
“I didn’t think Gossan would say yes when I asked, they’ll say yes to you. And since I’m gonna launch in the morning, they’re gonna have a bunch of free time.” Granite glanced around quickly. “And they can’t spend all of it flirting with Porphy.” Tephra giggled; the hatchlings weren’t allowed to take the informal bets the village took on everything but they heard about it plenty and everyone knew the smart bet was either ‘neither notices they’re both interested for another year’ or ‘they start dating within a week.’ The giggle stopped pretty quickly, though.
“But, Galena and Arkose might want to, and they’re older than I am. Gossan would train them first.” Granite made a face.
“Galena spends all their time following around Porphy and Spinel, and Arkose is following Tuff and Moraine when they’re not throwing rocks at ghost matter.” And Tephra had been shadowing Marl and Hal and Gneiss; Mica was the only hatchling not debating several paths and had attached themself to Slate.
“Yeah but the adults like them more. They like Galena more,” they corrected themself at Granite’s snort. The amount of lectures Arkose specifically got about the dangers of ghost matter was higher than lectures about anything else to any of the other hatchlings. Galena was shy, and laid back, and that counted for a lot with the adults, and not for the first time Granite thought about figuring out who told Tephra and Galena they were siblings and kicking them. You weren’t supposed to know until you were a few years older than Galena. Not siblings, not parents- Granite still didn’t know who their parents were and just that they weren’t related to Riebeck, Marl, or Hal, but it didn’t matter overall anyway. But someone told Tephra and Galena and now they were closer than hatchlings a few years apart tended to be and also compared themselves to each other, and neither thought they matched up.
“Galena’s just a little more mature. You’ll get there, I promise.” Tephra did not look convinced.
“I’m gonna be a tree keeper and stay on Timber Hearth forever.”
“You can go to space and be a tree keeper, Tephra.” That earned a frown; Granite held up their poncho, covered in embroidery, as an example. “Rutile and Moraine and I are the only people who’re any good at patching and sewing and I’m the best at embroidery and I’m still going into space tomorrow. It just means I’ll have more mending to do when I’m back.” Where- Hal’s bandana was on their belt in the ship. “I’m bringing some of it with me, too, for if I get a free minute.”
“But I can’t be a tree keeper in space. You can’t bring the trees with you.”
“You know part of what I’m bringing are tree seeds, right? So I can set up camp somewhere and have air? Everyone has some. I’m sure there’ll be trees near the others that’ll need care.” Esker’s at least. Moraine said they could see the trees but… they were looking through their signalscope all the time, using the scope part.
“You sure?”
“Positive. You know what you gotta do tomorrow, after I launch?”
“What?”
“You go right up to Gossan and tell them you wanna be an astronaut. And when they say okay and tell you whatever exercises they want you to do, first, you go tell Gneiss you’re gonna be the next traveler so you gotta know how to play something before you launch, okay?”
“Okay, but, why Gneiss right after I ask Gossan? You just got your fiddle an hour ago, I don’t need to get an instrument yet.”
“Cause once I settle somewhere for a bit your signalscopes will be picking up the worst fiddle playing you’ve ever heard and I don’t want that to happen to you.” Granite got up as Tephra laughed again. They had to go find Hal. “Don’t let Gossan be too hard on you, okay? And after you land on the Attlerock, come find me next, I might be passable on the fiddle by then.”
Tephra was still laughing. “I’ll come find you second! Don’t get lost in space, or I’ll get lost looking for you!” Granite grinned.
“You go ask tomorrow morning, right after I launch. Don’t let Gossan think they get to relax. And, uh-“ that wasn’t something to add but too late, Tephra was waiting for the rest of the sentence. “Keep an eye on Hal for me, if you’re sure you wanna be a tree keeper? They’re gonna get all excited about whatever I bring back they’ll get too nauseous to eat.” Tephra grinned in a way that suggested mischief Granite would hopefully avoid.
“Okay, astronaut.” Granite left them looking up at the sky and walked towards the observatory.