Book One: Onnu and Pannu

Onnu Rising

Onnu didn't tell Pannu what she would do. What she must do, as a dragon. She could only hope that hormones would drive him to it.
   The next time he arched his body along hers, she allowed it. She even nipped his shoulder as he passed by.
   His head whipped around. The faintest hint of violet lurked in the back of her eyes. She slithered past him and leapt up onto a spire. She no longer needed to grab hold and pull herself up.
   She paced around the rim of the Bowl, humming softly. The crystals lit as she danced. The melody drifted down, but it took a moment before he recognized the song.
   When she got to the words "I fought desire," he leapt up onto the spires with her. He still wasn't certain in his footing, but he'd lost the war.
   She surged up in one great lunge, climbing for the stars. He was a wingbeat behind her. She was larger, but he was faster. They reached the ether together.
   The backs of his claws raked her belly scales as he drew even with her. She rumbled, low and deep. An answering rumble alerted the nearest Charon. They would have to be quick. She latched onto his paws, front and back, and tucked her wings in.
   A moment of panic had Pannu flapping frantically, trying to hold them both aloft. That was the last thing you wanted to do Above.
   Onnu slid her teeth down his neck, flicked her tail enticingly, and his eyes flared solid amethyst. His jaw clamped on her shoulder, wings tight to his back, and they plummeted back toward the Hold. Their joining was brief, but fierce. The light gravity where she'd taken them slowed their fall enough to reach completion in enough time to separate with loud, simultaneous cracks of their wings. They zoomed across the plains in two different directions, arced up, and arrowed back home before the Charon descended on them.
   Onnu and Pannu dropped into the Bowl well before the Charon could devour them.
   They'd done it!
   Their littles cheered from their sleeping niches, having been warned by the watch gryph. She'd almost missed the Charon because of the spectacle above, but in the end, she'd done her job well. They lost no one that night.

   When Steel heard what they'd done, his pride was pricked. Onnu had to remind him that this was a new world, with new rules. She also stressed the importance of speed, so they didn't end up as food for a Charon.
   The trouble was, every winged kin got it into their heads that this was the way. She tried to dissuade every gryphon, birdkin, and especially gargoyle from attempting it, but there were still several aerial displays per day. Mira had her work cut out for her, for at least a month. Onnu apologized repeatedly, said there just wasn't enough room on the ground for dragons to mate. Eventually, the gargoyles desisted, and some of the gryphons, but many of the feathered kin decided that they must reproduce as eagles do.
   They did, as the years passed, learn that it was true, but that didn't make the healers any happier. Gryphons and birdkin that didn't rise did not produce eggs, but gargoyles did. The tendency for gryphons to be a touch arrogant meant that they were the most frequent mating injuries Mira and the other healers treated. That would be the case for every generation, as the dragons would observe.
   As for the dragons, it didn't seem to matter which method was used. Some who rose laid eggs, some didn't. Some who were grounded laid eggs, and some didn't. They had yet to discover if there was a key element to success. The only thing they had learned was that being on the ground reduced your chances, and in the air increased them, but neither was a guaranteed success or failure.
   Onnu had a theory that she never shared with anyone. She didn't think it would benefit them, whether or not she was correct.
   You see, the little kin continued to have human babies that developed into a kin that rarely matched their parents'.
   But dragons bred true.
   Now, why would that be? If, as she'd deduced (and the dragonkith mostly agreed), the different kin reflected different personality types, why would dragons not continue to do as Onnu had, the first time?
   One of the things that Onnu had noticed about dragons, aside from being protective and wise, was that they were all persons of faith. Steel had been in the military, as she suspected, and that was where he'd found God. The dragonesses had been more traditionally drawn to the faith, or raised in it, as Onnu had been.
   Now, if this was indeed Rapture, one would expect that anyone who was transmogrified would also be a person of faith, so why would dragons be especially spiritual? Or, more aptly, why would their faith be of note?
   If they had to be especially firm believers, that would explain why there were so few dragons, relative to the littles. But if there were so few humans who believed that strongly before transmogrification, there wouldn't be that many who would become dragons.
   The next part hinged on whether or not one believed that every child born on this new world was a soul from Earth-that-was. Every child in the beginning of their existence, anyway, because there would have been a finite number of souls on Earth when the Tribulations would have happened.
   So, if there are a finite number of souls, and not all died believers, but some believed extra hard after their trials, the percentage of souls who would become dragons would be fairly low. And if some of those souls were still in their human bodies when a pair of dragons mated, there would be none to occupy the eggs in their world. Therefore, no eggs would result.
   It was a long way of saying that timing was everything, so it really didn't matter if she kept it to herself. But it did explain why dragon clutches were so very small.
   She let them believe that it was a resource distribution issue, because it was just as likely as her theory. If dragons were highly attuned to the planet, they wouldn't overburden it with their population. She didn't bother asking the Big Guy, either. She wasn't sure it really mattered.
   Besides, everyone got to lay eggs, in the end.