Field notes from Nacreon, where the sky grazes the sea twice a day.

On Nacreon, the mornings begin when the tide lifts into the air and hangs there like a second ocean. Families open their roof gardens to feed the ribbon antelopes, whose antlers glow softly whenever they sense a storm moving beyond the coral hills.

Children are taught to travel with pocketfuls of amber grain because the lantern moths will guide any gentle traveler home if they are fed at dusk. The moths settle on tired shoulders, hum in warm little chords, and light the path between villages with gold dust from their wings.

Not every creature on Nacreon is so kind. The shale crabs wait beside the wells until the hottest hour, then crack the water jars with their stone claws and leave whole camps thirsty before nightfall. Worse still are the nettle hounds, which move in perfect silence and frighten the marsh herons away from their nests.

Even so, the planet keeps inventing reasons to love it. When the cloud whales descend once each long season, they let the smallest gardeners braid flowers through the fringe of their fins before drifting back above the weather. People say the whales remember every careful hand.

The oldest story on Nacreon claims the moon itself hatched from a pearl left behind by a sleeping dune serpent. No one agrees whether that is true, but everyone agrees on this much: a person who speaks gently to strange creatures rarely walks alone for long.