Seeking out new worlds | Glowfic Constellation

The secrets of Delver technology could not resist decryption forever. While the tools they wielded are deeply weird, jealously guarded, and immensely complicated, living beings built the tools that brought aliens to the dragons' first world. The great calamity left ruins aplenty behind, and once grown the Seeker gathered these old tools as their very favorite sort of treasure. Dragons are not intelligent in quite the same way as a No-Tail, but they are far from stupid. They live forever and can be very determined if they set their mind to it.

The Seeker brought all its tools and treasure along with it when the world was evacuated ahead of the Tailless's relentless growth and hunger for resources. It studied under the great elder Darktooth on the new world, studied together with Darktooth (an arrangement not very common with dragons, as they are not particularly social), for a very long time. And eventually, by application of the hard claws of experiment and calculation and theorizing, the universe revealed its workings, cold and precise and mathematical. Creating more and more tools of the highest sophistication, and teaching others of its kind in exchange for wealth, and even spawning offspring and guiding them to adulthood, was all satisfying for a long while, but eventually... He got bored.

And so, the Seeker wondered if the long sleep for the journey between stars was really necessary, and got to work seeing about making it not. He managed it eventually, and built a starship, and went exploring. Stars come in a beautiful variety of kinds, and the worlds around them do too, but very, very few bear any sign of life. They are mostly barren and empty.

...Oh, this one is emitting curious amounts of low-frequency light. Worth investigating. Pushing a starship faster than light requires a touch of magic (at least for now), which he provides.

In the outer solar system of a certain star, well above the plane of the ecliptic, a black sphere the size of a city block appears and has a look around with powerful telescopes.

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She's a bit nervous about approaching, but she does. Sharp teeth take a small nibble. She tilts her head consideringly and the tail wobbles around, then she takes a slightly larger nibble, and then eats the whole thing.

...It's new and kind of good but not REALLY YUMMY. And it's sticky. Are you here to walk in the forest? It's a nice forest and Tathsei said people do that because it's nice.

"Yeah, we're hiking!"

Have you seen any- Somewhat vague mental image of shelf fungus!

"No - why?"

"Do you eat it?"

Pep studies them and I find more for her!

"Huh. I don't think we've seen any. Is it rare or something?"

Dunno. I look for other kinds too.

"Is that fun?"

Yes! Exploring and finding things is very fun!

"It's like Message Wall."

"Mushroom hunting is not like Message Wall."

"Is too. Exploring, finding things."

She listens as they chat, but looks out over the cliff at the pretty scenery, starting to get a little bored.

"We should keep going if we want to be done before dark."

"Yeah. Hey baby alien, you wanna come?"

She makes a purring noise.

...No, I'm going to look for mushrooms and go home. Goodbye!

"Bye!"

They move on. One pauses to take pictures of her.

When she gets back to the cabin that evening she mentions meeting hikers and only liking fudge a little bit at the end of her mushroom report.

"Oh, you ran into some people? Were they nice?"

I only talked to them a little bit. They didn't do anything mean and one gave me a little bit of fudge. I don't know if that means they're nice. Cake doesn't have meat in it so I probably don't want any.

"You probably don't, yeah. Does telepathy let you tell how things taste to other people?"

Ooh I should try that! Think about cake!

"We do't have any... I can try to just remember it?"

"We do have mousse," says Pep, getting spoons. The two of them split a cherry chocolate mousse.

She studies them very carefully.

I can tell what it tastes like to you but it's, it's 'huh' not 'yum!'.

"I wonder why!" says Tathsei.

Watching other animals eat is not as adaptive as eating other animals?

"Hm, I wouldn't have been surprised if you could enjoy vicarious flavors," says Pep, "but I suppose it wouldn't be strongly selected for - especially in a solitary-ish species."