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Looking back, Pyrite had been spectacularly lucky on their first trip to Dark Bramble.
At the time, they'd been willing to take some credit for it. They'd spent loops circling the planet, taking note of its many worrisome features. Loops cautiously landing near its bright nodes to peer into their inscrutable, foggy depths. Loops shooting their Scout into the crashed Bramble seed at various angles, squinting at its tiny display screen and trying to make out the layout of its landing spot. Fruitlessly looking for a path they could take from the outside into wherever Feldspar was (hopefully still) camping.
They'd hypothesized at length with Gabbro on the workings of the place.
"Do you think there's like, a wormhole in the seed?"
"Uh, no idea. Not really my field of expertise."
They'd strategized extensively.
"The seed has a hole about that big. Do you think I'd fit if I disconnected my oxygen tank?"
"Maybe try one of the many main entrances first?"
They'd even spent a whole loop staring down the little anglerfish in the museum, trying to divine anything about its foreboding lair from its ugly little fish mug. No success here, either.
Pyrite really had to just... go for it, didn't they? With no testimonial, no conclusive visual, no concrete plan. Just faith in their pseudo-immortality, and sheer bravery. Neither of which they lacked! Usually.
Seriously, what was it about Dark Bramble that had them so... disproportionately cautious? Scared, even? They should be past this; they had looked death in the face hundreds of times. They had experienced death hundreds of times, in a wide variety of ways and in often-intimidating locations. What made this place different?
That question got answered very quickly when Pyrite finally took the plunge. Right away upon entry: they couldn't look death in the face in Dark Bramble, because as previously established, it was foggy as shit in there.
Flying in blind was not the issue. It was flying through alarmingly near-sighted.
Still, on that first trip, Pyrite's lucky star must have sent its dying light their way, because they'd followed the harmonica through the haze and arrived at Feldspar's camp with no incident. They had been so, so glad to find the missing pilot alive, and so, so relieved to find out they could make their way to them safely. With concentration and careful maneuvering, of course.
Anyway. Pyrite had nearly ended the next trip with a heart attack.
Focused as they were on their Signalscope, they'd been caught unaware by an anglerfish. Just swallowed straight up into a massive, yawning esophagus, with no time to react – they were probably halfway down the tube when they'd heard the thunderous clap of the beast's jaw clamping shut behind them.
If not for their secured seatbelt, Pyrite would have likely jumped all the way to the back of the ship. As it was, they only whipped their head back on the headrest and painfully smacked both their knees on the dashboard.
It had taken a good thirty seconds to extricate any sort of thought from the pounding heartbeat in their head. Thirty seconds of looking blankly at glistening flesh faintly illuminated by the artificial lights of the control panel. It was wriggling, contracting against the hull. Probably trying to macerate the ship to better digest it, Pyrite thought distantly. With whatever enzymes could be found in the thick mucus that was slowly spreading over the glass in front of them, if they had to guess.
And then there was a loud crack – one landing gear snapped against the hull – which jolted Pyrite back to reality with a kick of adrenaline and a lurch of nausea. They'd immediately hit the thrusters: both horizontal and vertical. Their first instinct had been to try to make the anglerfish regurgitate, with no thought spared on where they would be ejected.
But Pyrite's luck truly had run out; the creature jerked around erratically, let out some sort of whistling screech that reverberated through its whole body, but did not relinquish its hold on the ship.
It had quickly become clear that this fish was not biologically made to throw up. Born with a proper one-way street type of digestive system. And apparently shockingly resilient-to (though definitely inconvenienced-by) the very best of Hearthian thruster technology.
Meaning that, in all likelihood, there was no way out of its stomach once caught.
Which was just fantastic.
Pyrite had ended that loop staring blankly at the barely-discernible ceiling, too grossed out by the mix of digestive fluid and maybe-blood to look at the window it was progressively clouding. Outstanding performance, really. A solid 7/10 on Pyrite's Oopsie Scale.
And yet, despite the lackluster end of that loop, Pyrite started the next one with a good slap on both their cheeks. ("Ah! That's sure one way to get yourself ready to go!") They had to get back on their feet right away; they couldn't let the disappointment settle in their mind.
Or, well. They could, technically – they had an endless supply of loops they could spend marinating in their failures.
But they didn't want to. That would mean letting the fish intimidate them, which would mean letting it win. And while nobody else (least of all the stupid beast itself) would know it had won, Pyrite would.
... and maybe Gabbro, who would likely find Pyrite temporarily forgetting the existence of giant freaking node-dwelling fish more funny than pathetic.
For once, though, reassurance of their relative-competence as an explorer was not the first thing Pyrite sought upon running out of camp ("Stole the code! Tell-Hornfels-I'm-sorry-okay-bye!"), jumping into their ship's pilot seat and leaning to turn on the radio terminal.
They had gathered data on the Bramble itself, but foolishly neglected its inhabitants beyond a brief surface analysis (now supplemented by an impromptu inner analysis, they supposed). They needed more info. And there was precisely one individual they could contact who had encountered an anglerfish in its natural habitat. Or, well, in the vicinity. Close enough.
"Timber Hearth to Ember Twin, come in?"
Used as they were to the radio delay between Timber Hearth and Giant's Deep, Pyrite nearly startled when the response came in a tiny bit quicker.
"Ember Twin, receiving." Chert's voice also came in a tiny bit clearer.
"Hiya Chert! Do you have a moment to spare?" Pyrite said, doing their best to channel their spiteful energy into a more cheerful tone.
"Oh, hey! It's you! Today is your solo launch day, then?"
"Yep! I'm still on the launch pad, though. Just gathering some last-minute info."
Realistic? Not really. But more likely to peak Chert's interest and drag it away from their work.
"Well, I've got important work to do on the charts, but..." (Got 'em!) "I suppose it won't hurt to take a small break. I can't chat for too long, though, I want to keep an eye or three on some interesting phenomena – "
"Haha, thanks! I promise I won't take long!" Pyrite interrupted, hoping the delay in transmission would make it seem accidental. "I'll limit myself to one line of questions!"
"I'll believe that when I stop hearing it," Chert responded wryly, sounding thankfully unbothered. "Ask away, then!"
"So! You've surveyed Dark Bramble, right?"
"I don't like where this is going," Chert replied flatly.
"No worries," Pyrite quickly reassured in a light tone. "I'm not planning on going in there! I'm just interested in the fish."
"... you mean the little hitchhiker in the museum?"
There was a promising glimmer of curiosity in that question.
"Yeah, that one! It latched on your ship during your survey trip around Dark Bramble, right?"
"It sure did. Why the sudden interest?"
"Well." They should probably have prepared an answer to that very predictable question. "I was looking at the one in the museum." Not even a lie! "And, uh. It's real interesting and pretty... cute, right? In an ugly way?"
"I'm... not sure I agree, but alright."
Understandable. Not even close to their best fibbing work.
"And I wanted to know if you'd seen it latch on your ship," Pyrite continued, undaunted. "And if you maybe knew what made it bite?"
"Hatchling." Uh-oh. That was stern, responsible adult Chert. That did not bode well. "Don't tell me you're planning to go fishing on Dark Bramble – "
"Oh no no no, haha!" Ok, ok, steer off to the side a bit. "No need! There's a Bramble seed on Timber Hearth now."
"There's a – come again?"
Oh no. Wrong way.
"A seed from Dark Bramble crashed on Timber Hearth," Pyrite dutifully repeated, nonetheless.
"That doesn't sound good?!"
That conversation was definitely on a collision path, now.
"Oh, it's a just a small one! With a small node." And now they were babbling. "Like, a small hole that apparently leads inside – "
"Hatchling, a small seed will still sprout – " That was definitely not a radio-delay interruption on Chert's part, but once started, the babbling simply could not be stopped.
"And Tektite is keeping an eye on it. And they're probably – um, definitely gonna cut it down or burn it soon, so I figured I'd ask you now, in case I can, you know. Get an anglerfish to bite. Through the node. The small node, so, a small anglerfish. A buddy for the hitchhiker maybe." No response. "... Chert, are you still here?"
"I, um... Yes. I'm sorry, what was the question?" Distracted? Already?
Looking up through the window to the reddening sun, Pyrite confirmed that it was, indeed, already freak-out time on Chert's usual schedule. Those little radio delays really added up, didn't they.
"... did you see the anglerfish latch to your ship?" Pyrite tried to ask. They were unlikely to get any additional information at this point, but perhaps they could divert the astronomer's attention away from –
"No, I didn't, it was just there when I landed," Chert responded, sounding far away. "I – sorry, I've got to go now."
"Ah, yeah, I figured." Pyrite said with only mild disappointment. And a tinge of the usual helplessness that gripped them every time they interacted with Chert this far into the loop. Once they got like this. "Didn't hurt to ask, though."
"Yeah, sorry." They sounded ever further away, now. One eye or three on stars blinking out of existence.
"No worries. I'll figure it out, somehow. Have a nice... time, Chert."
"Yes, um, you too. Ember Twin, out."
"Timber Hearth. Out."
Pyrite leaned over to switch the radio off, then sat back in their seat.
There wasn't time to do much in what was left of the loop. Maybe they could visit the ugly little hitchhiker once again. Try to look at it a bit closer.
Or maybe they could just sit there and watch the sky as it got dark. They could figure out where to go look for answers later. They had an endless supply of laters, after all.