Dark space stretched beyond the narwhal, Fondi Epsilon. The supposed emptiness mocked her—mind-numbing distance obfuscated what promises lurked at each far-flung, glittering pinprick of light.
Fondi screeched at the lights. On her left flipper, her uncle’s amulet rattled a reminder—of what? to stay calm?—and beamed an encouraging—pointless—smile. She shifted her single glistening tusk about at the countless possibilities, contemplating what each direction might entail.
I’m supposed to be using my galaxy fly-about to unveil the deep wisdom of the cosmos, but which path through space-time next?
Rocket to that pristine pink star, likely to offer joys to cure my friend? Twist round the shimmering meteor dust clouds smothering that pumpkin posset star; slip beneath their layers to extract untold epiphanies? Chase any random unknown that might offer better solutions than I’d ever expect?
While the cosmos was wise, Fondi wasn’t. Ever since befriending the tragic ogre, Goreck Mrucka, Fondi found that her sense of space only overwhelmed her, bringing on a frustration that crushed her usual excited curiosity.
A luminous rose solar system glowered impatiently behind Fondi. Goreck lingered near death there, by a giant purple gas planet, wallowing in his spaceship, parked in an asteroid belt—what remained of his home.
Several flights past Goreck’s rose system, Fondi’s own family frolicked in their silk jersey chemical streams. But she wasn’t going home until she finished another century of her galaxy-spanning fly-about and graduated into adulthood.
Goreck had constantly moaned over the auto translator channel Fondi opened via tusk-attuned wavelength. “My crushed heart. The weight of this. I’d ask you to end it sooner. I’ll die by morning anyway.”
But what was morning now? Now that Goreck floated along with the rubble of a shattered home. The hunters had destroyed everything, everyone but him, and he’d refused to leave when Fondi begged.
Why would his heart bother pumping if he has no home to look fondly on? No family to love him. Only myself, useless and flighty, to keep him company?
Squeezing her eye shut, Fondi focused on the tip of her tusk. She strove to release the foresight and vast understanding that fully grown narwhals could access from within. But she hadn't matured enough yet.
Goreck had sobbed out stories. His late wife, Lulus Mrucka, had once crafted magnificent crowns from thorny vines for kingdom-wide celebrations. Their five Mrucka daughters refashioned giant crab carapaces into soothing musical instruments that impressed the guilds. His best mud-churning factory buddy, Vugga, often shared homemade fungus beers on seaside cliffs as they admired pterodactyls swooping across foggy skies.
Though she couldn’t bring his family back, she decided to collect everything he missed: the beer, vines, carapaces, and pterodactyls. Deliver a collection to him, thrumming with memories, so maybe he’d recover like she had after losing her uncle to a black hole.
Churning so-called empty space into a froth of agitated dark matter particles, Fondi’s body became a spinning silver disc. The screeching disc spun and spun, reaching for that perfect, randomly-chosen track.
“For Goreck!” Fondi trumpeted, her voice echoing onward into deep space.
In a frenzy of hope, Fondi lashed her tail, and launched into a space-time-bending dive, blasting blindly through the darkness. Electricity pulsed from her tusk. Her black and white mottled skin trembled under pressure few creatures could survive.
A taunting song danced on the staticky wavelengths of sound that crackled against her progress. An uncaring, yet enthralling whistle erupted from tiny creatures lazing in pockets unseen. They sang for her to let go, to sing along, to dip into their realm. Thinking of Goreck, she shrugged off the intergalactic siren-shrimp.
Eventually, Fondi slowed to a drift.
Before her loomed a familiar purple gas giant. Argon surged in sprays of grape juice across lavender flower froth. Storms of magenta murk and lilac slime clashed. Rising above that violence, a hundred bead moons floated in gray and white.
Turning, Fondi found the extensive asteroid field. She started weaving around the gray rocks, searching. Sitting forlorn in the crater where she’d left him, Goreck’s spaceship flashed in the bright yet dismal sunlight.
The tusk’s instinct had failed her. She’d ended up back here with nothing to give.
“Goreck, you okay?” she asked via their linked tusk wavelength.
“Don’t go.” Goreck sounded so rough and lonely, desperate for help.
Fondi peered through the massive windows set into Goreck’s ship. Seeing the bulky, blanket-smothered brute pitifully on the mattress, she thought maybe the tusk instinct had led her right after all.
Fondi had planned to save Goreck with a collection. But why ever leave him alone?
That was the last thing either of them needed.
After securing Goreck’s ship against her upper body, Fondi flapped her tail, shifting onto an unexpected course.
Together, they shot off for the silk jersey chemical stream.
