They were Elytron. They said so as much in a husky voice, almost like insect shells moving across each other, and they stalked forwards on all fours before pulling themselves up even with Aster and Darter. They stood almost a half head shorter than either of them, and the spores covering their face evidenced a youth that their mutations didn't. Their wings, which were insectoid in nature, shot open and buzzed slightly. Bringing themselves far past the bounds of personal space, so that Aster could almost taste their rotten breath, they asked, "Is this yours?"

"When was the last time you were outside?" Aster responded.

Translucent membranes slid across Elytron's eyes. "Where the light is?"
"Not for a while," Darter wagered.

Elytron paused. "Yes." They at last seemed to find the word for it. "You don't look like the old panta."

"We're the new panta," Aster informed Elytron. "This is our house. We moved in."

"Ah," Elytron said. "Did they die?"

"We don't know," Darter said.

"Is there some kind of danger around here?" Aster asked. "Besides us, obviously."

"Are you dangerous?" Elytron's tongue snuck out of their mouth, a long tendril almost as distressing as the mandibles on either side of it. Aster yelled again as the tongue touched their scars, but instead of a fear yell, it was an anger yell. They wished for a stick to brandish in Elytron's face. Elytron backed up. "No. Not dangerous. Not very tasty, either."

"I don't want to be tasty. I'm doing the eating," Aster boasted.

Darter sighed. "We should go back upstairs, Aster."

"There's a panta living in our basement, and they have jars full of dead things and want to eat us!" Aster said. "Aren't you concerned?"

Darter reflected. "Not very."

"Should I be afraid of you?" Elytron probed. They scuttled around the pair of them. "Will you take things? Will you need things? Will you flush me out?"

"Yes, yes, yes, and no." Aster decided. "Consider yourself the first recruit to, uh--" Aster tapped their foot against the ground. Nothing in their immediate proximity jumped out to them as having name-y charisma.

"Aster?" asked Darter.

"--The first recruit to our group. We're going to name ourselves after our first kill."

"You're going to kill someone?" Elytron's voice carried no menace or fear, only the same dull curiosity their other questions had held.

"Yeah," Aster decided.

"No!" Darter said.

"We're going to decide that when we see someone who looks like they should be taking a beating," Aster placed triumphant hands on their hips. "Welcome to the first holdouts of an empire that's going to take over Big Silver."

Elytron blinked. "Do I need to do anything?"
"I'll be the judge of that soon as I see fit," Aster informed Elytron. They reached out to pat their first subject, then clearly thought the better of it, withdrawing their hand from ragged, dirty hair that also happened to be in the vicinity of some nasty pincers. "How do you feel about hard labor?"

Darter pulled Aster by the ear back up the stairs. Aster strained against them, especially as they stubbed their feet against the irregular stone steps. When they got to the top, finally yanking themselves free of Darter, they to launch both themself and Darter against the floor, which was still covered in moss scraps. Aster put one foot on Darter's back. They made no attempt to free themselves. "What was that about?"

"You don't even know them and we started threatening them." Darter shifted under Aster's grip.

"So?" asked Aster.

Darter nudged Aster off with the same force with which a wave sends a small snipper on the shore reeling with the tides. Aster at least managed to remain standing, but looked put out about it. "You can't just tell a stranger we want them to work for us."
"You're right. I shouldn't have told them right away. I should have just gotten them to do things, by force, and then they would have figured it out."
"That's not what I mean."

Aster plugged their ears. "Well I have no idea what you do mean, because you're being-- what's it? Obtuse about it. Yes, Darter, you are being obtuse."

Darter looked down. "I'm not that heavy."

Aster stamped their foot again. Curled up against the wall, they threw their head back to look at the ceiling. "Never mind."
Darter slid towards the window. The light pouring in was beginning to lessen, giving way to a twilight under which the stars could finally be seen. Down in the cellar, Elytron's clicking and pacing was still audible. Aster couldn't believe, in retrospect, that it had taken this long for them to figure out that Elytron had been down there. With another quick twitch of their nose, they picked up their stick and got back to stabbing moss to unceremoniously fling out the window. Darter settled on the "beds", detached, and the two proceeded in silence.

"Are we going to talk about it?"
Aster's stomach prickled. They clenched their shirt tight about themselves, balling it in their fists. "Do we have to talk about it?" They asked, weakly.

A dragonfly flitted in the open window and landed at Darter's shoulder. "You don't want to?"

"It's not my first mutation," Aster said. "I'm getting horns. If we went out and I dunno, conquered something, maybe they'd grow in faster."

"That wasn't your first mutation either."
Aster sighed. "Shouldn't have told you about my ankle."

"You needed to."
Aster took the shirt off and attempted to make the scars glow again. Right now, they were barren little plains down the middle of her body, a meaningless set of thin, small crosses. She concentrated. Nothing. She imagined them alight. They weren't responding. She imagined them filling with water. At first, she thought she felt she might have sensed some heat in the area, but when she looked down there was nothing there but scrapes and her own bruised dignity. "They don't even do anything," Aster complained. "What's the point of all of even mutating in the first place if I can't do anything with it! Even if it did work, all it would do was I don't know, light up or something. At least you can summon bugs and shove them in someone's face while you run away. At least Elytron is creepy. I don't even get to be creepy, Darter! What's the deal with that?"
"I think they're kind of creepy," offered Darter.

"No they aren't!" Aster snapped back. "What do they even mean? What's the big idea?"
Darter asked, "How many are there?"

Aster counted. It wasn't too disfiguring, they figured, now that they were getting a real look at it. They were all clustered up near their rib plate, which meant that the only thing they were really hurting was Aster's pride. "Nine."

"How many panta lived in the Covena with you?"

"Twenty-four," Aster said. They corrected themselves. "Nine I care about. The rest are all dependents."

"I got it."
"What?" Aster's small ears perked.
Darter snuck Aster a furtive glance. "You miss them."

"Do not!"

Darter teased, "You miss them a whole lot. Now you get to carry them around with you."

Aster, whose voice had been rising both in pitch and scratchiness over the course of the conversation, was now verging on being a raw screech. "You're supposed to get wings when you miss someone! Or you know, when you leave them. You escape or you're escaped from. That's the whole point of wings. To make leaving easier."
"I hear growing wings is painful," Darter mused.

"I've got a bunch of stupid scars," Aster complained. "I don't care about pain. What about my diggity, Darter? Do you care about how much pain my diggity is undergoing right now?"
"Diggity?"
Aster slammed a foot on the ground so hard the floorboards whined in alarm. "Dignity!"

Darter smiled.

"Oh, you stop talking or I'll cover your mouth and half your years."
"You're going to half my years?" Darter asked. "And I've been so nice to you."

"Not actually! Why can't you just let me say things I don't mean, Darter? Why've you got to keep correcting me? I came out here to get away from the Covena and their rules and being a dependent, and now I'm right back here, being lectured. I'm in charge. I think I get to say what I do and don't mean, don't I? And I will."

Darter inclined their head. "I don't think anyone thought you weren't going to do exactly what you want to do, Aster."

"Well, I'd best do it, 'cause I have the best judgement." Aster wielded their stick in a large arc which promised force more than good judgement, although it was unclear if Aster was going to see any kind of lapse in logic in using one for the other.

"If only your spores would listen and mutate exactly how you wanted them to," Darter said, idly.

"I know, right?"
"We should put me in charge of nature."
"What do you even want?" asked Darter.

Aster rolled their eyes. "I'd want to be like the Owai, obviously! That was almost my name when I was little. They named us when we were fifteen, right? Stupid Cyspel wouldn't let me be Owai, but I wanted to be Owai. I used to run around and bite panta and pretend that I was an Owai who was protecting my pack. I tried to get the other Owai we had around the house in on it, but I don't think they ever really believed I was one of them." Aster wheeled on Darter, who was humming to themself in an almost purring laugh, soft, deep, low, and only mildly condescending. "You stop that. It was a long time ago."

"It was two years ago."
"That's a long time ago!"
"When did you stop?"

"Two years ago?"

"I used to see you running around and biting Aurant just a few tidal shifts before we left."

"That's--" Aster folded their arms tighter. It was almost impossible for them to think of more ways to voice their incredible displeasure with Darter, the heathen, the fool. "That's not fair, and you should probably get your eyes checked out, because they're lying to you. I bet it was one of the dumb dependents. Anyways, I wanted to be named Owai, because I thought I was gonna be an Owai when I grew up, and then Cyspel said I couldn't, because it was ordinery."

"Ordinary?"

Aster squinted. That didn't sound right, but then again, Cyspel said a lot of things that didn't make much sense, in or out of context. "I think that's what she said."

"I don't know anyone named after the Owai."
Aster asked, "Have you met any Koda? Kinshii? Grinte?"

Darter cast a quick look in their direction. "Only a dozen."

"But Koda and Grinte are dead. Everyone names themselves after the big predators that died out. Mainly just panta you wouldn't want to be around, anyways. Everyone likes Owai, so why wouldn't you want to name yourself after them? Why would you want to be so big, and so scary, and so... unapproachable?"
"You're not that approachable yourself," Darter said.

Aster, livid with offense, asked, "Who said that?"
Darter stared out the window. "We should go outside, Aster."
"Who said that?"

Darter was already heading out the door. Aster bound after on quick feet, scrambling around them and into the delicate night air. It was a singular night, but the last one had been, in its own way, just as spectacular. Aster wondered if they would ever grow used to the splendor of the fresh nights of the warm season before they were over, and feared the thought, knowing that becoming accustomed to it would rob it of all its magic. They wished they could spend every night staring up at the sky as if they had never seen it before.

That was the way Darter looked at the sky, they realized. When he tilted his head back and settled on the ground, resting against the irregular, time-smoothed surface of their new home, they held a sort of quiet reverence that Aster couldn't help but be jealous of-- were they looking at something specific? If so, why couldn't Aster see it? Maybe they were just misinterpreting it, and Darter was just tired.

"What do you want, Darter?"
Darter shrugged. "I think I'm only going to know when I get there, and then I guess I'll get whatever I get, and it'll make me happy enough."
"But you only get to do it, all of it, once--"

"I don't know what I want," Darter muttered. "Are you really sure you do?"

Aster flicked their small ears. "Yeah. I want nice, long ears, maybe a tail, and some horns I can do damage with. Once I get there, I want claws, or big long blades on my arms for good fighting. Before it's over, I wanna get wings. I bet you want wings, right? Maybe dragonfly wings, to go with what you've got already. I bet dragonfly wings would look great on you--" They were quickly running out of things to say. Insistently resting themselves against Darter's side, they asked, "Are you listening?"
"Of course. I didn't want to interrupt."

"What do you think?"
Darter slumped further, until they were practically lying down. They put a hand around Aster to hold them close, which Aster leaned into. "You know."

Aster did know. "You know, it was ornery, not ordinary."

"Was it?" Darter said.

Aster buffeted Darter's leg with their foot. "I guess being named Owai would be ornery-- ya know, creepy, but only when someone died."
"Would you have a mutation that would make you howl whenever anyone got hurt?" Darter asked.

"I can do that right now," Aster said. To demonstrate, they howled, "Owaiiii--" and turned to Darter. "Come on. Come on."
Darter howled halfheartedly.

"Mm-mm. Louder."

Darter cleared their throat and tried again. "Ooooooowww?"
"You got to get the last part in. You know. Oh why, oh why. Like you're sad because someone else you love is gone and will never ever come back."
"But I've never lost anyone."
"You haven't?"
Darter shook their head. "Haven't had anyone."

"Great! Then someday you'll lose me, and you'll get it," Aster said. When Darter responded only with the most violently morose expression Aster had ever seen out of their usually dull, slightly mellow face, they amended, "I'm not actually going to go. Ever. That's a promise."

"You get to control that?"

"I'm in charge of nature," Aster assured them. "I get to control everything."

"Oh. I forgot."

Aster chuckled. It wasn't quite as deep or comforting as Darter's laugh, which they knew, immediately, and which bothered them, but Darter relaxed next to them, and Aster felt a new sensation within them, like the feeling they got when looking at the sky and seeing all the moons ascend together, travelling against the currents of the inky blackness by night. They settled in the grass, which rose in wild points around them, and yet remained, at least for the moment, a comforting bed, a steadfast companion.