Town was a bustle of activity as always, those working one of the fields were always arriving or going. Couriers and caravans loading up with fat breather symbiotes ready to replace those in the power canopy hospices. New bottles of sap coming in bundles with the metal waste of the plants just like Ashley.

The traders and travelers, big wide orbs with a girth as wide as Ashley’s arms splayed apart spoke that Town was much like other towns, all along the reef in these parts. And they all named themselves Town or very much close to it.

This did not bother Ashley over much, she did not expect to ever travel further than the periphery of their own belt of solar fields. And every other town was a journey requiring many reserves of symbiotes or a store of air and water and digesters all its own.

Even the outer reaches of the town’s Power canopy was a difficult journey only made possible by hospices and reserve caches carefully tended and maintained by your friends and family working endlessly.

The travelers and traders were as far as Ashley could see of only two kinds of people. The big wide orbs who could survive long waits between restful breaths and resupply and those strange folk like herself that lived mostly tethered to their tuggies.

Ashley could not see the appeal of having only a few dozen symbiotes to share amongst yourself and family. All stuck to some frame or metal net that stored heavy bottles full of what the symbiotes needed to restore themselves to freshness. Some even tugged along the unwieldy mass of digesters and splitters so they could trade for raw sap.

But managing such a bulk was exhausting and required they tether beasts of burden to start and stop their coasting.

Still there was usually one or two drifting clumps of a tuggy at Town ready to trade news and whatever strange wonders had drifted along the reef from Crimson Leaf. And many more of the big spherical traders too of course.

There were also the strange wriggling ones who had to suck up breath so often they could not work the fields. They writhed and wiggled and helped with accounts, organization and whatever tasks were needed in Town.

Smithiner was one of them actually, he had gotten fatter as the two of them grew up. Her from a short armed little larva into the strong and long armed field maiden twice veteran of the power canopy. He from a mostly flat cushion with wiggling appendages, to a more bulbous and overstuffed looking pillow with stubbier appendages that seemed to make his living somehow by trading in sap bottles and metal in exchange for swapping fresh for old symbiotes during the peak rush of returning field workers.

Which is why she was braking herself and her bundle right at his little spot at the corner where he rented a big silo for deliveries.

“Ho Smithiner! Swindled a baby for its mother’s breath lately?”

“Ho Ashley! Nae not I, but have ye plucked a lung off your sister again thinking it was a fruit?”

They both laughed, silly jokes and mistakes in their youth exchanged they got down to business.

“So I pulled a hand-of-hand-of-hands in sap full ripe sap and twice that in iron fruits. Tungsten was slim this harvest though. My usual return in scrip for time in the town?”

“Aye Ashley Aye! Pity on the tungsten, I’d have paid double for it, all the fielders been coming short on it. Star’s breath been less heavy then? Less for the weeds to filter?”

She shrugged a bit and rolled to look past the scramble jutting branches and stalks of Town. like a field all its own it faced the sun with short and stunted shrubs on its roofs to help supplement its needs.

“May be, may be. If so I expect sap to be rich and plenty then, if sun is giving finer star breath. Sap tends rich”

“Oh so? Oh so? Nay seen that either, but can take time to notice. More taps then? More bottles?”

“No, fine-breaths too short to warrant the strain, but we may need to shorten harvest times on the sap fields. I’ll ask around if Glory has seen bottles go plump before their time”

“Just so, tell me if ya hear, I give ya finger-of-hand in scrip discount for the knowing either way”

“Course, course Smithiner! Best friends we are I would, thanks kindly”

With that Smithiner, wrote up a stamp of her accounts with him for her stay in town and a few hands of token ribbons to trade quick and easy. Then it was off to her cousin to trade some metal scrips and then see if she could track down her sister’s aunt Glory for word on the other sap fields and their bottles.

Town was a bustle and Ashley was practiced in it, her Town-Trade was mostly a courier with a bit of news and rumor mongering for Smithiner and his fellow stock keepers. She dabbled in smithing and machining but had never taken as much of a liking to it as her cousin did. She was not much a builder honestly.

Glory by contrast adored construction, and maintenance and whatever great fool works some one with too much scrip or an over rich haul in the fields thought was a splendid idea. Which meant that the easiest way to find her was to drift to wherever the most construction was underway.

Glory was a good field worker too, and had supposedly lived through a full twenty or more tours in the power canopy. Not without taking on some scars though, her arm had been splinted back in place from a bad break and had never healed fully. Stiff and inflexible in a way that should have made her awkward.

But experience and skill had overcome whatever deficiency that Ashley was pretty sure would have left her utterly crippled.

She seemed as fluid and capable as any other of the construction workers, shouting in short light and long instructions and demands of the many different workers assembling the new frame.

“Ho! Glory! What fool thing you working on now?”

“Ho! Ashley! Just a new silo, a few were getting porous and mites and fluffers had gotten into the sap store of one! So we need a new one with proper seals”

“Oh Fluffers? Hope no rounds were about, they take poorly to them”

“Nay only sisters and brothers and uncles about there, we burned them out with proper hard lights and melted the spores then had a proper scrubbing of all involved to be sure. Pity about the mites though, mighty cute be a mite as they say”

“As they say! Oh ho! I be meaning to ask you on if you’ve seen or heard o bottles in the sap fields filling up over fast? Tungsten been sparse, I thinks maybe we are in a fine-breath from o sun, mayhap a time to shorten the harvest cycles? Til the tungsten gets heavier again or the bottles slack”

Glory shouted a loud and bright curse on long light at one of the workers, shocking them into action so that a strut did not end up drifting into a dangerous trajectory with another of their fellows. After the disaster was preempted she turned back to Ashley for a softer long light discussion.

“I have seen the metals on the less heavy side of things. That may have been a wise course afore, but I will be suggesting nay, the silos ain’t much secure with the loss of half a hand worth. And fine-breaths are short, easy to overshoot. No point in risking strain on harvests later on for a bit more sap now. I recommend telling sisters and friends in the fields much the same, I know I will.”

Ashley hummed and chirped affirmative, it was nice to have someone so wise like Glory around. She would be missed when the solar canopy finally claimed its due.

“I see, I see, that does make a lot of sense then Glory, Thanks and be well!”

“Be well! And tell that fat clog Smithiner he owes me on insurance for a silo! I just fini-”

And then a terrible howling roar sprung up in the long light all around them, momentarily drowning out or distorting normal speech. It as attenuated and distant but also from all sides as well. Horrible vast voices that could only be the sound of monsters and predators.

Glory whirled to look out from the reef bed and towards the open void beyond Town’s canopy.

She spoke in tight and sharp light that burned a little to receive but was the only thing that could be heard over the cacophonous roar.

“Dragons”