CHAPTER 1-2
Phoenix

That evening, everyone was once again arranged around the beach's campfire, but this time it was blazing forth, lighting up the night and casting a comforting warmth. Though the air was pleasantly balmy here - the island was much farther north and therefore closer to the equator than Socracht - night still brought with it a bit of a chill, similar to the climate of the Elemia Desert that Phoenix had gotten to know over the years.

Áthas, who, she explained, kept a few caches of food here and there around the island that she resupplied between tours, had made them all a hearty stew for dinner, and so Phoenix unfastened the upper buttons of his jacket as both his warm meal and proximity to the fire warded off the night's cooler temperatures.

"So," Áthas began. She held up her bowl of stew. "Thoughts?"

"Delicious," Siân replied sincerely, and the others nodded in agreement.

"Lovely! I'm fairly certain I have this particular recipe down to a science, at this point."

"Have you ever had a hiker who didn't like it?" Olwen asked through a mouthful of noodles.

Áthas thought for a moment. "Yes...a six-year-old boy. But he also didn't like anything else I made the entire trip. I know I'm a pretty good cook, so I'm thinking that was a 'him' problem instead of a 'me' one." The triplets giggled. "Anyway. Did anyone have any observations from when we were crossing the channel this afternoon that they'd like to bring up with the group?"

Phoenix wished dearly to have some manner of intelligent comment to make at this juncture, but his mind betrayed him by immediately going blank. The fact was, on their way across the water earlier, he had been keeping a weather eye on his brother, watching for signs of seasickness...and sneaking glances at Áthas, too. There simply hadn't been enough time to notice their surroundings, as it hadn't been a terribly long ride.

"At first, the boulders seemed to be randomly scattered across the channel, but they aren't," Klara said.

"I wouldn't say they were in a straight line, exactly," Fynn added, "but they did seem to be kind of clustered a certain way."

Áthas nodded. "Owain?" One of the triplet boys - Phoenix hadn't been sure which - had been raising and waving his hand with such vigor that he was more or less standing.

"I also noticed the boulder line!" he announced proudly.

"Everyone noticed the boulder line!" Osian groused, poking him hard in the ribs. "You're not special!"

Phoenix had not, in fact, noticed the boulder line.

"I also noticed," Owain continued, loudly enough to drown out his brother, while simultaneously grabbing the hand that was poking him to cease its irritations, "that the water looked a lot shallower near the line!"

"Very good observation, Owain," Áthas said, clearly struggling to keep a straight face. Were those dimples Phoenix spied, too? Goodness, she was pretty. "This is not widely known, but there is actually a land bridge between the Europan coast and Sidereal Isle." Spotting Olwen opening her mouth to ask a question, she went on, "It's mostly only usable at low tide." Olwen closed her mouth again.

To Phoenix's enormous surprise, Heinrich raised his hand.

"Yes, Heinrich?"

"Why are the boulders arranged like that?" he asked, in a voice so quiet the sleepy waves a hundred fifty feet away very nearly rendered him inaudible. "In that - in that line, kind of?"

Áthas seemed to have been withholding her warmest smile yet for just this moment, and Phoenix fleetingly wondered if she already understood what it had taken for Heinrich to be able to bring attention to himself like that. "The truth is, nobody knows for sure. They may have been dragged into position by a rogue glacier tens of thousands of years ago." She pointed across the channel, where the Europan coast was just scarcely visible in the darkness. "Or there may have been a mountain there once, and a planetquake broke it apart and caused the boulders to come tumbling down. One of the many things I like about this place is the mysteries."

She looked around the fire at all of the illuminated faces. "Everyone had enough? We'll be sleeping on the beach tonight, so why don't you go get yourselves set up and then come back for a bit of storytelling. There are no assigned berths, so you can just grab whatever space looks good to you." She cast a glance over her shoulder, and then added in a low, ominous voice, "But I wouldn't get too close to the woods."

One of the triplets squealed.

"I kid," Áthas said. "There's nothing scary in the forest." After a pregnant pause, she added, "That I know of."

Phoenix and Heinrich arranged themselves upwind of the fire a bit, near the others but far enough away to be able to hold a quiet conversation privately. This having been accomplished, they returned to the logs around the fire and waited until everyone else had come back, too.

"Tonight's story," Áthas began, "is the legend of how Sidereal Isle came to be." The triplets moved closer. "Long ago, when our fair planet was very young, the first of her Zoid children to be born was the Ultrasaurus. Now, we all know that Ultrasaurus units helped lift the Republic to many important victories in past military battles, right?" Everyone nodded. "But do you know about the very first one to be born? That Ultrasaurus was a very, very special one." The triplets were all rapt with attention, eyes wide as saucers and shining in the firelight. Phoenix had never seen them so still. "The first Ultrasaurus to have ever existed was also the largest one of them all. Fynn, what's the biggest Zoid you've ever seen?"

He thought a moment. "Probably the Whale Kaiser that brought Mother and me across the Deldaros."

Áthas nodded. "Now imagine, if you will," and here she held her gaze on the triplets, "a Zoid much, much bigger than the Whale Kaiser."

"How - how much bigger?" asked Olwen.

"Big enough to crush a Whale Kaiser beneath one pinky toe!" The triplets recoiled in startlement; one of the boys' mouths fell open. "Yup. Huge, right? Enormous. Long, long ago, before any other Zoids or even Zoidians existed, it is said that that Ultrasaurus - the first one to have ever lived - wandered across Zi's continents and oceans, singing to Zi its songs of creation. And when it was on the eastern coast of Europa, the very place we find ourselves tonight, it was tired. It had been singing, yes, but as it wandered across the planet, it had also been looking for a place to sleep. It needed to find just the right place. But even for a Zoid as tremendous as the Ultrasaurus, Zi is a big planet. It hadn't found a place to sleep just yet, but it was very tired, so it lay down just for a little while, to gather its strength before continuing on." Áthas turned now, to point behind her to the channel separating them from the Europan mainland. "Its long, long neck fell here, right along the coast, with the tip of what was then the Sidereal Peninsula on one side and the rest of Europa on the other, and the weight of its neck pressing the land underneath it down, down, down towards the center of the planet created the Drowned Channel we crossed over earlier today."

"No way," one of the triplets breathed.

"Does the legend account for the land bridge across the channel?" Siân asked. Phoenix smiled when he noticed that it wasn't just the young triplets held in thrall by Áthas' storytelling; the gathered adults were also spellbound.

"Of course," Áthas replied with a grin. She lifted her chin a bit and touched her fingertips to the very top of her throat, between both jawbones. "Everyone touch this spot right here. Do you feel that little hollow, where your neck ends? When the Ultrasaurus lay down, that spot on its neck landed right where the land bridge is now, and didn't push the ground as far down there."

The triplets appeared to be taking all of this in, so Heinrich raised his hand again. "Are the boulders in the legend, too?" Phoenix gave him a discreet little nudge in the ribs, grinning. He didn't always show it, how proud he was of Heinrich when he voluntarily emerged from his shell like this, because he didn't want the attention to embarrass his brother back into hiding. But the truth was, he felt that pride often. For someone like Heinrich, none of this was easy, and yet, in his own way, in his own time, he kept right on trying, didn't he? That took far more courage than it seemed.

Áthas bestowed upon Heinrich that gloriously warm smile once again. "I was hoping someone would ask me that. Some stories say that the boulders are the Ultrasaurus' baby teeth."

This astonishing statement was met by a flurry of horrified shrieks from the triplets, two of whom had simultaneously clapped their hands over their mouths, as though in fear of their own teeth falling right out of their heads at the mere mention. Everyone laughed, and Emyr shushed them.

"I hasten to add," Áthas noted, "that the boulders are just boulders, and not, in fact, a giant Zoid's baby teeth." All three of the triplets appeared visibly relieved by this assurance. "It's only a legend. So anyway, now that I've given the youngsters of the group plenty of nightmare fuel for the evening, I have one more thing to tell you about how this tour is going to work." She grinned a bit predatorily at them all. "You may have noticed there is a large number of dirty dishes from our supper."

"Oh, no!" one of the triplets immediately cried in dismay, which the other two echoed.

"What, did you think there wouldn't be any chores just because we're on vacation?" Emyr scolded good-naturedly.

"Not to worry!" Áthas cut in before there could be any further thoughts of life ruination. "Only one person from this group will have to help me with the dinner dishes."

"So, I assume you'll be the one deciding who that helper is each night?" Emyr asked, drawing laughs as, behind the triplets' backs, he pointed to all three of them with an exaggerated, salesperson-like expression, as if extolling the quality of his wares.

"Not quite." Áthas smiled mysteriously. "The winner gets to decide."

She immediately, once again, had the triplets' full attention. "What winner?" Olwen demanded.

"Oh, didn't I mention?" The triplets looked fit to burst with curiosity and excitement. "Every day, I am going to announce the winner of the day. The winner is someone who has displayed keen intelligence, or perhaps kindness, or perhaps bravery that day. Someone who stands above the others in some way.

"That person receives a pin. And whoever has the most pins by the last night of our week here wins something very, very special."

"Like what?" Fynn wanted to know.

"Nope, can't tell you. But trust me, it's pretty great."

"So who won today?!" Owain yelped, to refrains of "Yes, tell us!" from his siblings.

Áthas gazed keenly around the campfire, studying each of them one by one. She once again lingered on Phoenix, who swallowed as he felt his face flush. The things that gaze made him think of!

Finally, she said, to everyone's surprise, "Heinrich."

"Me?" Heinrich squeaked as the triplets groaned in disappointment. "Why me?"

"Because today, you asked the right questions," Áthas told him. Her eyes cut just briefly to Phoenix's again, and instantly he knew what she was doing. It hadn't been the questions at all: it was courage.

She stood and placed a small metal pin into Heinrich's upturned palm, which he gazed down at in wonder. Phoenix saw that it was shaped like a star. "Wear it with pride, Heinrich," Áthas said. "So, who will be helping me with the dishes this evening?"

Phoenix watched Heinrich look around the circle of faces at the campfire, and when his bright green eyes met Phoenix's own, Heinrich's face split into a mischievous grin.

"My brother."