Graphite comes to slowly, body stiff and cold, blinking at shapes in the dark. The scent of bitter wood and varnish bites the back of their throat. They scrabble at nothing. Fingernails against worn flooring, the feel of dirt and dust beneath their scales. There's something over them. Its shadow swallows up any light. They raise up and slam their head into it.
As they sit there rubbing their head, they realize it's a table. A tablecloth drapes down its sides, the kind with crinkly, patterned vinyl on the outside and a scratchy inside.
They are falling through space and time, every possibility at their fingertips, burned apart and stitched together again and again and again, hoping to get it right.
Their breath hitches in their chest. It stings. Uncomfortable warmth floods their face, and they scrub at their eyes, trying to breathe deeper, to think, but they can't. Their lungs are heavy with the weight of screams that will never pass their lips. They can't breathe. Each inhale sticks. Every exhale comes out in a strangled, choking sound.
As tightly as they can, they press their arms to their body, knees drawn up to their chest. They sit there in the dirt and the dark for what feels like forever and an instant and nothing at all, teeth clenched until their neck twinges and all their muscles want to jump out of their skin. Their sleeves are warm and wet. Their face is sticky. Hinges creak behind them, and daylight floods the room.
There are corners only a few feet away. Hand tools line the wall, hanging by nails. Hoes and rakes are slotted between the low rafters. They count them as they hear the footsteps like a heartbeat.
"Graphite?" Comes a voice, and their stomach sinks.
Gossan?
But Gossan is…
"Go out there and make Outer Wild Ventures proud!"
The sky flashbulbs into blue-hot, marshmallow crisp flames. Licking the clouds from sight, seared into their corneas, their brain, their bones. When they blink, they see the light, waiting for them.
No matter how hard they press the throttle, it doesn't change a thing. No matter how hard it digs into the palm of their hand even through their suit's thick gloves, no matter how dark space grows in a graveyard of a billion stars, destiny calls them back to the grass under their feet and the campfire heat hazy right there in the clearing and the sweet golden smell of marshmallows, Slate bent over with a stick in hand, long legs all sprawled out. Grease stains their face. They give Graphite a lazy look when they hear the sleeping bag rustle, and there's some emotion there, a blink and you miss it moment.
Is Slate proud? Or did Graphite imagine it? Were they so desperate to encounter something new every time they woke up under the same dying stars that their brain couldn't help but see something that was never there?
Were any of them proud?
They're trying. They swear it. They're trying so, so very hard. But as the sun swells into a looming ruby-eyed giant, they know it will never be enough.
Pressure squeezes the dip between their shoulders and their neck. It digs into the muscles by their shoulder blades. They feel their body…not shaking, but…oh, nope, they're being shaken.
"-ite! Graphite!"
"Can I help you?" They ask, all big wet eyes and voice rasping in a 'I so wasn't crying' way.
Gossan shakes them once more for good measure.
It was supposed to be silly. They don't smile. They narrow their eyes and swat at Gossan's hands.
"Feel like letting me know why you ran off?"
(I ended the universe. I think. Maybe. I don't know.) Graphite snorts back a laugh and shrugs.
Everything is wrong but impossibly right and shifted fifty degrees to the left. Probably.
Gossan takes off their hat (wasn't that supposed to be a helmet? Not some floppy, fabric-y, patchy thing? Did it even have an original color, all beige like and sloppily stitched behind a wide brim?), and tosses it to the floor. Dust puffs into a tiny cloud, and they sit down beside Graphite.
"You know you can talk to me, right, Hatchling?"
They shrug again. "Sure."
"Everything at home okay?"
Home? What's wrong with their cabin? It's small and cozy and all the lanterns have oil and the fireplace always burns warm through the night. It's not like Slate is ever there to do much more than rearrange some wrenches or write a note about stew left over the fire. Mica never interrupts Graphite's half-hearted tinkering or attempts to read through a history book Hal lugged up from the library. Things were always peaceful, quiet in a relaxed way. Unless Mica got one of their remote-controlled ships stuck on the roof, antenna mangled by the wooden shingles, or if Feldspar stopped by. But those kinds of days were few and far in between.
Feldspar is in space. All the time. Almost always. More often than not. But they bring back the best stories, village gathered round as the campfire begins to roar, sap sizzling and popping inside freshly dried logs. Everyone hangs on their every word. They throw out their arms, shadows flickering long and gray into the twilight, that much more, that much larger than life.
They reach their hands above their head, fingers stretching for the sky. Silvery-white scars shine across their knuckles. If they could just reach a little higher, Graphite knows Feldspar could hold the stars in the palms of their hands, glittering and nebulous and free.
They thought for too long. The lines between Gossan's eyes say so. Even their lower set is trying to scrunch together.
Graphite bites the inside of their cheek. It tastes like metal, the pain copper wire sharp.
They blurt: "I need to go to space!"
Gossan blinks hard. The corner of their mouth twists up into a half smile. "Really now?"
"Really."
"What for?" They sound almost…amused? Entertained by the thought of Graphite trying to fly a ship, floating amongst the stars.
Graphite starts to say. Something. ( The Nomai? Duh? Did you hit your head?) They don't know what a Nomai is. They don't know why their chest aches for weightlessness, why they long for nothingness's cold, velvety embrace. But they do. It pangs sharp and fast under their scales and skin and heart.
They ball up their hands and press their fists hard against their knees. They say nothing.
"Is this about Feldspar?" It's not an accusation, Gossan's voice quiet and level, but it stings like one.
"Space is cool."
"Cool isn't exactly a reason, Hatchling."
Their ears flatten against the side of their head, brow low and chin high. "Yeah, it is."
"What happened to coding? Weren't you making some little…thing?"
"The video game?" (The what? Huh?)
"Is that what they're called?"
Their ears can't go flatter, but the tips twitch trying. "It's dumb. I got the X and Y axes inverted, and Slate won't help me fix it, and Hal won't read any of the coding books I leant them, and Mica won't touch anything that isn't attached to a rocket." Graphite has no idea what the words coming out of their own mouth mean, but they sound right, or at least interesting.
"And that made you want to go to space?" Gossan looks at the wooden bucket and hoe abandoned half under the table.
"What? No? Chert went to space to do astrology, Riebeck's been studying geology to get into the Ventures program ever since the Patchwork Horizon mission brought back those rock samples, and Gabbro wants to do quantum physics in space just for the sake of being in space!"
"Astronomy." Said Gossan.
"Huh?"
"Astronomy is the study of the stars."
"That's what I said."
"Astrology is horoscopes. You'll offend Chert."
A grin worms across their face, their sharp little Hatchling teeth showing. "Ooh, that's good. I like that."
"Graphite." Gossan warns.
"What! They're not even here!"
(They're going to ask Chert about astrology when they come back. How ever many months that takes, if they don't spend all their time back at that dumb university, doing whatever it is they do. Or if that does happen, maybe Graphite will convince Hal to hitch a ride with them into the city and annoy Chert anyways. It'll be funny.)
"Physics is very important for astronauts."
Graphite's ears raise skeptically. "Even quantum physics?"
"Even quantum physics."
They groan. "What if I want to program something super useful for space exploration? I'll never know what I need to make unless I go to space first."
Gossan pats Graphite on the head. They grab their hat and stand up, knees popping. "Come on. Those springbeans aren't going to plant themselves."
Graphite picks up their bucket and gives it a shake. The rocks in the bottom rattle. They balance the hoe on their shoulder and walk out the door with grim determination.
Those beans don't stand a chance.
The wash basin is cloudy as they shove their arms into the lukewarm water, half shaded under the eaves of the shed. They scrub at the dirt on their scales with an old cloth, so faded and threadbare it'd be better to just use their hands. But. Gross.
Hal stands beside them, cupping handfuls of water onto their own arms. Their shirt is stained with mud, and their pants are rolled up to their knees. "I can't believe you did that."
"Eh." They say, smirking. "You deserved it."
(That meant shoving dirt down the back of Hal's shirt.)
Hal's orange eyes go wide. "All I did was ask - hey, wait, no!"
They splutter and stagger back as Graphite splashes water at their face. They dodge too slowly and shriek, bandana soaked. Its edges drip, drooping down their forehead.
"You're awful."
"I know, right!" Graphite sticks their hands on their hips, ears high, positively beaming. "Isn't it great?"
"Did you read that article in yesterday's paper?" They slip off their bandanna, wringing it out onto the grass.
"We don't get the paper. Slate says keeping those around is a fire hazard."
"Don't they keep kerosene in the guest bedroom?" Hal asks, sounding disappointed.
Graphite tilts their head. "Duh? They can't put it in their room. That's where they sleep."
"Oh, Hearth help me ," Hal whispers under their breath, but the excitement creeps back faster than they can stop. "There's a new dig site at the western crater!"
"Ooh, and now there's a dig site in Porphy's field, too!"
"That's called a garden," they say.
Graphite scans the horizon. It's all tilled earth framed by towering clear-sap pines, thick clusters of needles silhouetted in black under the evening sun. Row after row of little dirt mounds stretch out from the shed. In the farthest row, if they squint and crane their neck, the bait-berries are almost ripe, little purple-black dots in clusters up each curling vine. (They wonder when Porphy will make a bait-berry pie. The first pick will be for wine, mixed with honey and sap and left in a barrel somewhere cool and dark. The second picking will maybe be for pie. Hopefully. They can wait. In winter when all the village has is salted fish, canned greens, and dried then rehydrated springbeans, all wrinkly and tough, Graphite thinks about those pies. A lot.)
"Nah, I think Mica's making it a dig site."
Under a young clear-sap pine, Mica sits on their knees, a pile of dirt behind them. They have a trowel. They fling dirt out of the hole and high into the air. It falls like chunky rain.
"Graaaaaph," whines Hal. "You're not listening!"
"No, I'm listening. Tell me about the thing. I'm just gonna be over there real fast," they say.
They take off running. Mica looks up, looks at the hole, and makes a dash for the cabin. They make it halfway to the back door before Graphite tackles them to the ground, wraps their arms around them, and carries them back to the hole like a sack of grain.
They drop Mica hard. "We're filling this hole."
"Jerk."
"Hole. Dirt. Now."
"Can I tell you about my thing?" Asks Hal.
Graphite sits beside Mica, snatching their trowel. They give a thumbs up with their free hand and begin to shovel.
"So, the archeological team over there, they found an entire room of stone tablets!"
"What kind of stone?"
"I…um." Hal rubs the back of their neck. "I don't know. That's not the cool part."
"I bet it's limestone." Says Mica.
Graphite glares. "Shut."
"It's a new language! It's a whole new language, Graph!"
They stop shoveling. "You're kidding!"
"There's all this information on ancient Hearthian life, and we don't even know what it says! Isn't that crazy!?"
Mica stands up and tamps down the dirt in the freshly filled hole with their boots. "What if it's just someone's diary?"
"Just? We've learned about entire wars from people's diaries, Mica!"
Graphite swears they see Mica's eyes light up. The sight makes them shudder.
Wood clanks together as the cabin's front door swings open, and the hatchlings turn towards the noise. On the porch stands Porphy, untying their apron, hands gray with flour.
"Supper's ready!" They shout.
Down in the field, even Marl perks up, wrestling with a bucket full of water. They drop the bucket on their foot. All the water sloshes out. They grab it by the handle and, as nonchalantly as possibly, hightail it towards the cabin.
Graphite grins over their shoulder at Mica and Hal. "Race ya."
Hal grins wider. "Oh, you're on."