My family named me Ithriiks—"sturdy heart"—and held me aloft in the shadow of the

Great Machine. My birth name was chosen to extol my strength as a hatchling; my

chosen name would be aspirational. On my third molting, I chose the name Inaaks,
"gentle hands." I would be the greatest weaver our house had ever known. I was so
sure of it.

Then our world ended. Then… I was sure of nothing.

The end of our civilization came from the outside in, like a hand slowly closing
around a throat. At first, it didn't feel real: Riis was gone, and my House was
trapped aboard a Ketch, knowing that there was nothing at our backs. For so long,
we broadcasted distress calls into the dark, hoping for others on the Long Drift to
find us and offer succor. Help never came. Every satellite world we visited, the
story was the same: desolation, death, despair. Weeks of searching turned into
years, and I feared we were the only ship that slipped between those proverbial
fingers of destruction. Were we the last? We had to continue hoping it wasn't so.

As we drifted among the stars, we inevitably lost members of our House along the
way. I wove the finest memorial shrouds for our dead, so that they could rest in
security and peace. Then, as the eggcloth ran out, we could not give them the
dignity of binding. My gentle hands were eventually used to separate dead meat from
carapace. We would not starve in the dark.

My son was brought into a world of isolation, abandonment, and suffering. I should
have crushed his egg and woven it into cloth; a regret I will always carry. My
sentimentality for the old world won out, and bitter hope for the future stayed my
hand. I named him after my father. I did not know if we would carry on our House's
tradition of birth names and chosen names. What purpose did it serve now? What did
it matter?

My son's father died weeks after the birth. He was not missed. It was better that
way. His death was something I did not regret.

It would be years before we encountered another Ketch. It bore the sigil of the
House of Dancers, renowned for their skill with machines and their generosity to
those in need. Their Kell agreed to send an emissary to discuss our needs. I knew
this emissary, Eramis, when we were children. All I knew of her in adulthood was
that she had a wife and hatchlings.

I had hoped the Whirlwind had taken it all from her. I hated myself for wanting
that.

Eramis was no longer the meek child I once knew; that much was certain when I
greeted her aboard my Ketch. She brought two hatchlings with her, just barely old
enough to walk on their own. They were mischievous little things, the round one
constantly trying to tug the taller one's arms off until Eramis disciplined them. I
carried my son, swaddled to my chest, as a show of trust.

Negotiations between us were tense. I quickly realized that the House of Dancers
had no interest in sharing their resources, but rather in assessing our own
vulnerabilities. When it was clear to Eramis that we could not be easily disabled
and stripped of our Ether, we found a "compromise." House of Dancers would be
supplied with materials for repairs and, in turn, we would take on some of their
people, along with a fractional store of Ether. She was sending them to die, with
us, rather than condemn them to the cold and uncaring depths of space where her
people could see. I learned who Eramis had become, and what ideals she lived by:
"Two hands in greeting, two hands concealed."

It was an inequitable deal, and Eramis knew it. "Your alternative is death," she
offered me.
A coward's voice slipped out of my mouth when I declined that choice. I asked her
where her wife was, hoping I would inspire her to feel, for a moment, as hopeless
as I did. She did not so much as flinch, then foisted the two hatchlings onto me.
They were not hers, as I had assumed, but the first of the House of Dancers that we
would take in the exchange.

Too many hands and not enough Ether to go around. The simplest solution was also
the most difficult one. We had to find a way to thin our numbers again.