TYOFT - Lifetimes.

IO86.

Lifetimes Ago. On IO86. Up the side of a mountain. A hill really, as the actual mountains are behind the range of hills.
He opens an eyelid as he lies naked on the hillside in human form. And looks up at the sky to the southeast.
He slightly frowns as he's sure he heard something.
Then he sourly smiles as he spots an atmospheric ship appear in the sky as it comes down out of orbit.
"Great" he mutters in the language that only his kind speaks.
"Of course they turn up here" he adds in a mutter.
He closes his eyes again after shaking his head as he thinks of the folly of mankind.
He snorts as he doubts they'll survive here. As the planet isn't exactly hospitable.
After all, he's the only sentient being on it at the moment. Which is only fair of course, considering he helped to create it lifetimes ago.

He wakes up after his quick nap. Which was about a dozen standard years by his reckoning. He's still in his human form.
Though now wearing clothes, from a time when humans lived somewhere else in the galaxy.
He wryly smiles as he sensed some of the others are here on the world they created.
A planet designated IO86 by humankind, lifetimes ago when they discovered it.
He shakes his head at the lack of imagination of human beings. Never one of his favourite races.
He spots the others walking up the hill, they're in human form too. Wearing various clothings that come from human fashion that spans lifetimes. Thousands of years to be a bit more specific.
He sighs, and closes his eyes and lies on his back in the sunshine of the day. As he waits for the others to make their way up to his spot on the hillside.

"Are you awake?" asks one of them when they get to where he's lying on the side of the hill.
"No I'm asleep, so go away" he replies as he continues to lie there on his back, eyes closed, not bothering to look at them.
"Well get up you lazy so and so" says another of them.
Which causes him to scowl. But he refuses to sit up, or open his eyes and look at them. His brothers and sisters. Not really. But kind of.
"We need to talk" says a third, a female, who he's closest to. Not that they're all that close to one another.
She continues with "It's about them" followed by "We need to make some decisions Kye".
The Greater Dragon Kye sighs, then opens his eyes, and sits up, muttering "It's damn well about them most of the time of late".

He stands there with the others, and looks away to the south in the direction that Ryn points to, after she says "There's their colony".
Kye nods as he sees it a few hundred kilometres away, then he mutters "They breed like rats at times".
Then he looks into the sky, or more precisely, into space. Where beyond the two moons of IO86, he sees an inbound ship.
Kye, who is quite frankly the laziest of the Greater Dragons. They all are to be fair. But he's lazier than the rest.
Frowns as he watches the spaceship, then he asks "Why didn't they FTL jump straight into orbit?".
"They haven't figured that out" replies Lan, who continues with "They've got a jump point on the far side of the system" followed by "They don't know how to jump point to point at will".
Kye looks that way, beyond the trio of stars that make up the IO system. And he spots the stationary point, out of which another FTL spaceship comes out of.
When it's out of the spatial wormhole, he figures it'll be a few months of sub light speed travel to get to this side of the system, where IO86 is located.
"How humans survived beyond living in caves, and discovering fire, I'll never know" sourly says Kye with a shake of his head.
The Greater Dragons may disagree on a lot of things. But that's one thing they all agree on.

"They'll colonise this planet" says Sva, who continues with "They need minimal planoforming" followed by "And with more of their ships showing up every few months, this planet is their's".
Kye grunts, and nods in agreement, then he says "They named it yet?". As anything is better than IO86 in his opinion.
"They have" says Ryn, the most recent one that Kye mated with. Though that was a few thousand years ago.
"Oh?" says Kye, who follows on from that, with "What is it?".
"New Earth" is the reply of Ryn, who like all of them in human form, stands over six foot in height.
"Original" dryly says Kye, who is the largest of them, no matter what form he takes.
"Hope it turns out better than the last one they named that" dryly adds the Greater Dragon, who though the laziest of them. Is definitely the most destructive of them.
The others nod in agreement with Kye, as they think of what happened to Earth. Or as it's known by the humans of this time. Old Earth.

"Beats me why they didn't stay in the Sol system all those years ago" says Kye, who follows on from that with "Plenty of planets and satellite moons for them there".
"They did for a while, but they outgrew it, and expanded out into the galaxy when they first discovered FTL travel" says Aer, who at just six foot tall in human form, she is the most diminutive of the Greater Dragons.
"Though i think that war over one of the planets had something to do with their leaving the Sol system all those years ago" says Lan.
Nodding her head, Ryn says "Yeah the planet Neptune".
"I liked that guy" says Kye as he remembers things from eons ago.
"Fisherman, brewed a pretty good beer i remember rightly" adds the largest, and arguably the most powerful, but definitely the most destructive of the Greater Dragons.
"What was his real name again?" asks Kye.
"Poseain wasn't it?" says Zai, who follows that with "No, that's right, Poseidon was his name".
"That's the one" says Kye with a slight shake of his head, before he continues with "I always liked that god".
The Greater Dragon, who has been living here on IO86 for thousands of years by himself, then murmurs "Wonder if the humans still worship him?".
Looking sideways at Kye, Ryn says "They haven't worshiped those gods in eons".
Nodding his head in agreement, Lau who is usually the quietest of them says "I think some of them still believe in that One god they came up with back on old earth".
Lau pauses, and so do the others. Then they all burst out laughing, at such an idea.
"Humans" dryly says Kye with a chuckle and a shake of his head.
Then the largest of the Greater Dragons wonders what happened to the descendants of Poseidon and the other old gods of Old Earth.
Some of them must of survived, Kye thinks to himself as he realises that amongst humanity who originated on Old Earth.
There's gods that they, and humankind don't know about.

"We've come to a conclusion" states Aer who after she looks at the others, and finally with Kye, she says "And we need to make a decision".
The laziest and largest of the Greater Dragons wonders what hair brained idea the others have come up with now.
Blinks in surpise when Ryn says to him "Time for us to create another world".
"What's wrong with this one?" says Kye as he looks at the others, then at their surrounds.
"Nothing" says Sva who continues in a slightly dry tone with "Except it being a new human colony".
"Well, we live here" says the largest, and most destructive of the Greater Dragons.
"You mean, you live here" dryly says Ryn, as the others haven't lived here in thousands of years.
"Same thing" mutters Kye, who is rather partial to IO86, or New Earth as the humans here are now calling it.
The fact that he's the only one of them who actually lives here, is why he's rather partial to it.
Waving to the south in the direction of the human colony, Zai says "You know what happens when just one race lives on a planet".
Kye grunts, then says "Maybe they'll come across some of the other species in this galaxy".
"Not here in the IO system, or in the neighbouring ones" says Lau who continues with "I don't think humankind will find any other species for eons".
"That might be a good thing really" dryly murmurs Kye, the others all nod in agreement with him on that.
"They're bound to destroy themselves here in the IO system as they've done in numerous other systems" says Ryn, who then tells the laziest of them "Best you leave them to it".
Kye grunts to that, then nods his head and says "You're right about that".
In response to Ste saying to him "The way they breed like vermin, i doubt you'll get any peace and quiet around here".

After a few moments of silence, Kye the Greater Dragon says "What are you proposing?".
He continues on with "And where do you propose to do this?".
"A new world we'll build" says Ryn, who follows that we "On the otherside of the galaxy".
"You said that last time, and here we are in IO" says Kye, who continues with "And before that in 194f, and before that in the Zalm system, and before that Carnin6x, and so on and so on, all the way back to the Sirius system, then before that to Sol".
"Then the next galaxy" says Ryn, who then adds "Beyond the Fallian Cloud out through the Sanus system, at 130.869 North, by 290.461 West".
Kye looks that way into the sky, he blinks a few times, and looks through untold star systems after star systems.
Finally finding the Fallian Cloud, and the star systems beyond it, to northwest in the heavens in that direction.
He grunts, then quietly says "It'll be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of standard years before they get out that way" followed by "Even with FTL point to point travel at will".
Kye looks at the other Greater Dragons, and asks them "Do you all agree to this?".

Greater Dragons do what they want. And normally they do it as individuals.
But certain occasions, such as this one. They must come to a consensus. Where all of them either have to decide to do it, or not.
They have no leader. Though for intensive purposes. Kye is more often than not a defacto leader.
Through share strength and power more than anything else.
Though since he's so lazy, more so than any of the others. He hardly ever actually leads them.
It's also when he's in his true form, he's left alone for the most part. As Greater Dragons can be temperamental at best. Often getting into fights. Where they can kill one another. Though, often is a relative term here.
As Kye hasn't been in a scrap in thousands of years. And he hasn't killed another Greater Dragon in nearly twenty thousand years. Before mankind even left the Sol system.
The largest of the Greater Dragons, in no matter what form he may take.
Rubs his chin as he looks closely at the systems behind the Fallian Cloud.
In particular the Sanus system, he looks at the stars in that particular system, and spots one that for some reason, takes his fancy.
Kye nods his head as he comes to a decision about what they intend to do.

"Fine" says Kye the Greater Dragon, who follows that with "We'll create another world".
He briefly pauses, before continuing on with "But this time, not from scratch". Kye then mutters "I fucking hate doing that".
The others all nod, then Ryn asks him "What do you suggest then?".
"Third star in the Sanus system, that planet at the ecliptic, around 17 degrees at the moment" says Kye, who then adds "That one, we'll make it a new, and planoform it" followed by "It should be easy, it's in that zone".
He looks at Zai who knows the most about humankind, and asks him "What do the humans call that zone again?".
"The Goldilocks zone" replies Zai, who then adds "Think it was named after that blonde demon who stole from the god Ursa, or something like that".
"The bear god wasn't he?" says Ste, Zai nods yes in reply to her question.
"No wonder he didn't kill her" says Ste.
"He did, him and his wife and their minor" says Zai, who follows on from that with "Caught the demon Goldilocks in their home, and ripped her to shreds".
"Strange that humans would name the habitation zone in star systems after her" muses Sva.
"That's humans for you, they're strange" says Zai with a shrug of his shoulders. The others all nod in agreement. As there's no truer statement than that.

"So we're in agreement then? asks the Greater Dragon Ryn, as she looks at each of the others, finally ending up at Kye after the others all nod yes.
He nods yes too, then Ryn, says "Good, we might as well get started".
"I was hoping to get some more sleep" murmurs Kye the Greater Dragon.
Ryn rolls her eyes, then she disappears.
And one by one, the others disappear too. Leaving only Kye remaining on the hillside, here on the world IO86, or New Earth as it's called now.
He sighs, and looks away to the human colony to the south. Then into space where there's two starships on their way across the IO system to New Earth.
Then Kye looks in the direction that he and other Greater Dragons will create a new habitable world.
He disappears, as he does. Kye makes up his mind, that he'll be the one this time to name this new world they're about to create.
The Greater Dragon as he shoots through the cosmos, thinks of the first name that pops into his head.
Volunell, Kye the Greater Dragon thinks to himself, who then silently adds, that's what I'll name it . . . . . .