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Chapter One: In Grief's Wake

Sweetgrass Twined knelt before his father's open grave. Rivers Twined's head peeked out from the crimson and violet abbexi boughs piled over his body. His horns had been shorn off, pale stumps on a pallid, wrinkled head. Death robbed his russet hide of its luster.

Sweetgrass reached down and shut his patriarch's glassy eyes. He couldn't help but notice how small his hands seemed compared to his father's face. His padded fingers stroked along the fine fur lining the cold muzzle. He sighed, his heart a boulder in his chest, the weight in his ribs staggering. A shudder worked down his spine, but he managed to stand and face his Hinland kin.

The Clan of Horns Twined had all assembled for the loss. Rivers had been their shaman, and Sweetgrass now inherited a role he only began training for a few years before. The tattoo on his shaved shoulder still stung from its recent inking. He licked his lips and cleared his throat, eyes flicking to the figure that towered over his people, standing away in the back. A dragoness with splotchy, cloud-colored scales hidden in a long dress and too-small burgundy mourning cloak draped awkwardly over her wings and shoulders. The cream hair on her head had tinged yellow and orange in the dying light: it followed along her spinal column to the tip of her tail, where it blossomed like dandelions. A head taller than the tallest Hinland, she stood out no matter how small she tried to make herself in the procession.

Her slitted, yellow eyes met his gaze. She bowed her head immediately. Her long, slender horns cut across the setting sun, splitting its light, lengthening the shadows that climbed towards his father's grave.

Shaping the words on his tongue made Sweetgrass feel like an imposter. The words he watched his father recite half a dozen times in his life, that shouldn't yet be Sweetgrass's words: "Rivers Twined, may your spirit walk with the ancestors. Tonight... we," he had to swallow a knot in his throat, "Tonight we anoint you with flame and remember."

Sweetgrass nodded to his younger siblings. Brother and sister held torches that they now carried to the grave. They dropped them into it. As smoke began to rise behind him, Sweetgrass said, "I remember his wisdom."

His siblings faced the crowd and said, "We remember his spirit, and a life lived for his kin, present, past, and future."

They marched in unison back to the crowd. His mother, Wreaths Twined, waited in her own long, burgundy mourning cloak; she opened her arms wide and hugged her children. "You did great, son."

"I did nothing--" Sweetgrass choked on his words. At the grave, other members of the clan approached and offered stories of Rivers. Each of the two dozen Hinland would tell a story. It all blended into nothing as he held onto his mother, shuddering, sobbing. He could not remember the last time he cried.

His mother held onto him until the voice of the dragoness broke his grief-stricken stupor.

It was husky and deep, and the Hinland tongue slid slow and stumbling from her muzzle: "Rivers taught me so much about your people, made me feel welcome here in ways I never imagined. His generosity helped shape my research--I never meant... we were..."

Sweetgrass stared at her, their eyes met again and Seka'Tor's voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"I am responsible for this loss," she said. "I could give excuses, but I was the one who asked Rivers to accompany me to Haven's Descent. I will do all I can to make reparations for what was lost today."

"Your people will," Chieftess Irons Twined said. She stepped forward, dressed in burgundy as well, wearing a necklace of shorn horns. The people lost under her watch. His father's horns now hung from that necklace, a physical weight, a yoke every chieftess wore till their death. "We must decide whether you will stay here or not."

Seka bowed, wings fanning out neatly. "I will accept whatever you and the other matriarchs decide."

"I would have her scales stripped from her hide," Wreaths muttered.

Sweetgrass winced. "It would not bring father back," he said, watching Seka leave the grave and walk back to the cottage she built out here. A gust of wind tossed her cloak off her wings, and she twisted around to grab it, missing, taking a step, then she noticed him watching again.

Gingerly, she plucked the cloak up and wrapped it in an arm. She bowed once more to Sweetgrass, lips moving, but the words spoken too quietly for anyone at the funeral to hear.

***

Vezlynn'Lahm stared in through the doorway to Seka's home. "How quaint," he said, making the dragoness wince. Rubbing her wrist, she blocked out the sight of plates, cups, and trash piling onto every desk, shelf, table--just focus on sitting your handler. There's no reason for him to think she'd heard the roars--no reason to question her trembling arm as she gestured over to a chair where Vezlynn could sit, and the amethyst dragon dipped his muzzle in a nod, and they needed tea--she meant to prepare drinks but got caught up in work when Vezlynn knocked on her door.

"I'll make tea." She said. She went to her cupboard: no mugs. She turned on the sink: its mounds of neglected mess snarled at her. She needed to smile as she suggested, "Why don't we take a walk and talk?"

"Privacy would be preferred, much as I might relish the scent of fresh air." The prim patrician held his handkerchief to his snout. He made no effort to hide how her room stank. How she stank. How she reeked of ravening--Seka was not in her ravening she was much too young!

Seka gave up on the tea and sat down on the stool next to Vezlynn's chair, legs crossed, posture straight. "What brings you here?"

"You've not responded to the last three letters I've sent."

Seka grimaced. Letters? She read them. She remembered Vezlynn's flowing script, the shape of the letters, but the actual content she could not haul out of her swimming thoughts. She had set them aside--head twisting left then right trying to find where she put them--she meant to respond--

"Seka?"

She gasped and her wings went straight up. "Yes? I'm listening."

"I didn't ask if you were."

Seka grinned with all her teeth, and it felt like she'd pulled too small a mask over her face.

Vezlynn sighed and leaned towards her, head bowed. "Seka, have you heard them?"

"Them?" Seka felt her mask draw too tight.

"The roars, child, don't be daft." Vezlynn said with a scowl. He waved his hands at her messy home, "I meant only to make sure you were alive, but this? You're showing all the signs of ravening."

Seka opened her mouth, and the mask snapped off. Her jaw hung open, and she couldn't lie? Why did lying feel so utterly wrong? This was not some party from the night before--she even had the lie why would it not fly from her lips! When she spoke, she watched herself speak from across the room, her whisper barely heard from there, "Yes. They started a month ago. A-after the incident with Rivers."

"You mean that medicine man they said you killed?"

Seka nodded.

Vezlynn frowned. He dug into the pocket of his coat and retrieved a small notebook and pencil. He opened it on his knee, and started to write as he asked, "So do you think exposure to Archayon's Well caused this?"

From across the room she watched an ugly, patchy scaled dragoness sitting in a stool open her maw and mutter, "I'm not sure."

"Not sure?" Vezlynn scoffed. "You are supposed to be our foremost expert on the well."

"I mean--I can't actually be in my ravening... can I? No one enters their ravening so young."

"Stop gnawing on your claws, dear, it is unbecoming."

Seka flinched, surprised to find her index finger lifted to her teeth. Vezlynn hadn't even looked up from his notebook.

"It is rare, but it happens, sure as cancer might develop in someone at an early age. Unfortunate and tragic, very tragic. Does your family have any history of early onset ravening?"

"No," Seka whispered. She willed herself to just sit in her stool, hands clasped in her lap, wings pulled tight to her back. She fiddled with the ties of her skirt.

"It is still a possibility. You are certain it is not the well that caused it?"

"I don't know!" Seka snapped, then quickly covered her mouth. "I'm sorry, I am not sure. I can't confirm that without testing it on another dragon with my profile."

Vezlynn finally looked at her, brow and face creased with a frown. His wings shrugged, "If we cannot confirm, then we should assume it a coincidence for now." He flipped his notebook close, got up and stuffed it back into his pocket. "I will have a carriage sent for you. You are to pack up your belongings. We will return you to the homeland where you can stay in hospice."

Gawking... why was she gawking? She couldn't expect any less, but, "What about my work?"

"The empire will no doubt send me some other more prudent researcher to collect your notes and continue your research. Nothing for you to worry about."

He made for the door, and Seka watched herself, a desperate dragoness, jump up and cut Vezlynn off. His wings flared in irritation. "Please, you can't. This work is my whole life, sir." She snatched the floral lapels of his coat. "Please, what if it is the well? This will just happen again. Wouldn't it be better for me to stay? To work on this with what little time I have left."

"Let go of your better, Seka'Tor."

She did, feeling winded, backing away till the small of her back bumped into a table. A glass went tumbling off it and shattered across the floor--Seka yelped--she didn't mean to, she saw Vezlynn's earfrills flatten to the side of his head.

"Rattling wings, girl!" Vezlynn snapped as he rose to his full height. Even though he was a little shorter than her, Seka still shrank before him. "Do you actually understand what your ravening means? Have you noticed how much you've been trembling? How often are you even eating, hmm?"

"I make sure to eat..."

"How many times a day?"

"At least once--"

"Without care, ravening dragons starve themselves. You realize if I leave you here you will die, yes? You are incapable of taking care of yourself."

"I can! I can--please let me stay. I would rather die than leave my work here."

Vezlynn stared at her. Seka's throat stung, she'd started crying, felt her throat apple bob as she choked down a sob. She'd sooner walk into Archayon's Well and drown in that inland sea than see herself returned to the empire: left to rot in some hospice ward among dragons more than twice her age. Vezlynn sighed and retrieved his notebook again, saying what he wrote aloud, "Seka'Tor shows signs of obsessive hyperfocus, typical in ravening dragons, and will need to be removed with force at this point."

"No, you don't--"

He snapped his little notebook close. "I am not going to call an armed escort out here, Seka."

Her eyes went wide. What was this emotion he wore? Brow slack, blue eyes softened, wings slouched even as the rest of his posture remained impeccable. "I am going to send a report to the empire: you have entered your ravening because of exposure to the well. Rather than send you home, I will recommend you continue your work here. We will pay one of the locals to be your caretaker, and they will make sure you do not die."

"You... you're serious?"

"Queen Aranda'Chay would throw a thousand of you at Archayon's Well to unlock its secrets. If you're willing to face your ravening here, better to sacrifice a single researcher than dozens of them." Vezlynn's wings squared up and he became stern with her. "Your caretaker I will expect regular reports from."

"But the Hinland are an oral culture--"

"Don't insult their intelligence, they can be taught how to write like any child," Vezlynn said. "You will spare the time to teach them, and they will handle the rest."

"Aren't you worried about them learning about what we're doing here?"

"Psh, they think that great big body of water is the underworld. They likely don't have the intelligence to understand what it is they border."

Seka felt her gut turn, but bit her tongue--Vezlynn could think whatever he wanted of the Hinland if it meant she could stay. "I'm just, why not send for another dragon?"

"And risk them going ravenous out here, too? I'll be frank, dear, I don't even want to stand near you right now. I'm a decade from my ravening, and I plan to enjoy what time I have!" Vezlynn reached for the door to her cottage and opened it. "We'll be in touch."

Seka watched him leave, holding her breath, as if to breathe would make Vezlynn change his mind. He said something to his carriage driver, a Hinland heifer, who nodded and whipped the reins as Vezlynn shut his carriage door behind him. The two, beaked and scaled calvax tossed their heads back with a snort before pulling the carriage out of the village and back to the Hinland capital, which rested deeper in Haven's Cloak: the great forest that spilled out from the eastern shores of Archayon's Well. The Hinland named the sea Haven's Rest, after the first chieftess who ended their history of nomadism by settling around the sea's rocky shores. Just a day's ride south from here.

Someone watched her. The sense made her wince, and she noticed a bull who had been on the other side of Vezlynn's carriage. Sweetgrass, who now offered a gentle wave. Shame flushed Seka's throat and cheeks, and she slammed the door so the boy she made fatherless wouldn't have to see her.

***

A week after Vezlynn visited Seka, he returned to negotiate her care with the Horns Twined Chieftess. He sighed, watching the thick screen of violet barked abbexi trees speed by out his carriage window. A part of him still wished to boot Seka back to the empire, but her highness demanded progress, and of the ten different researchers scattered along Archayon's Well, Seka's research showed the most promise. Corresponding via messenger and telegram, the Queen's Whispered Wing agreed with agent Vezlynn that Seka should remain in the field while he kept a close watch on her.

They cared little if she went ravenous and destroyed this village, but they needed to make sure whatever research she did was collected and returned to the empire before she turned. Assuming hers was a normal ravening, they could still get two years of work out of Seka before she lost herself entirely.

The trees broke for a clearing. There rested a singular longhouse stretching the length of the clearing, with a pasture fenced in with piled stone beside it. Hinland men busied themselves in the field, rotating in seasonal crops, while children played not far away, their horns not yet grown in. At the edge of the clearing was the cottage they built for Seka to reside here privately with her work.

Archay's Chosen provided a fair stipend to the village to pay for Seka's presence, and the clan kept her home stocked with food and fresh water. Adding a caretaker to that list shouldn't be any problem. The carriage rolled to a stop, and the calves and bulls in the field both stared as Vezlynn dismounted. He took a moment to straighten out his vest, retrieving the pocket watch from his coat to note the time.

The navy blue, feathered hide of a skinned calvax covered the doorway to the longhouse, wrenched aside when Irons Twined came to greet him. Vezlynn, with barely an accent to his Hinland, greeted her with a bow. "Honored Matriarch."

"You are here about your pet," Irons said then spat on the grass, which remained flat to the earth from being trampled down by constant traffic.

Vezlynn rose with a curt nod. "We are sorry to ask more of you, especially after the debacle with your shaman--"

"Rivers is still missed." She bundled the burgundy cloak hanging off her side in her fist and held it out to him. "We still grieve."

"Heavy are his horns, I'm sure," Vezlynn said sympathetically before taking a more firm tone, "But we've already settled our debt there. I come for fresh business."

Irons snorted and gestured inside. "Come. The matriarchs have gathered."

Vezlynn appreciated how Irons always made sure his audience was ready and waiting every time he visited; however, he expected Irons did this to get him in and out of her longhouse as quickly as possible. The inside of the longhouse was a floor of softened dirt with animal hides placed about. The occasional wall blocked off rooms, but most of the structure remained open, with thick violet beams that ran down the length of the structure.

Every person they passed watched Vezlynn with a guarded, simmering anger. It had been there ever since Seka got their shaman killed. They moved into a side room, dimly lit with the floor covered in hides. Ten other elder women waited, sitting along the walls. Irons sat with them, and Vezlynn sat down cross legged at the door, folding his tail over his lap.

"Thank you again for meeting with me here."

"Tell us what you want, dragon," one of the women snapped. Vezlynn did not bother to remember the names of the matriarchs, but recognized the red ribbon tied to her horn: Rivers' widow.

"Very well, then, I am here because Seka'Tor needs a caretaker. However, because of her research, we do not want to risk a dragon being exposed to the well--err..." Vezlynn trailed off as several glowers met him at the word "well." "Apologies," he cleared his throat, "I meant Haven's Descent."

"Why would your dragoness need a caretaker? She has had no trouble taking care of herself in the past year," Irons asked.

"Yes, well, while your shaman was tragically killed immediately, Seka is dying more slowly."

"She is ill?"

The whole room started, and Vezlynn twisted around to see a younger bull eavesdropping right outside the door. He wore only a skirt over his waist, most of his slim, light brown coat on display. Small for a Hinland, with a black nose and muzzle that matched his braided mane, long felt ears studded with piercings. A tattoo on his shoulder, in the sickle-shape and brackish green of Archayon's Well, marked him as the clan's current shaman.

"Sweetgrass!" the widow hissed. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Tending the sick is one of my duties," he mumbled, eyes cast down. Then, as if making a decision, he squared his shoulders and sat down beside Vezlynn. "If she is sick, I should know in case it spreads to the longhouse."

"Yes, well," Vezlynn shuffled to the side so he wasn't touching Sweetgrass's shoulder. "It is not a contagious illness. She has entered her ravening--" at the perplexed expressions around the room, Vezlynn added, "It is... a sickness all dragons catch. Normally when we are very old. It kills us slowly... like a..."

"Cancer?" Sweetgrass supplied the word Vezlynn searched for.

"Yes, exactly. Anyways, she is dying, will likely be dead sometime in the next two years." Vezlynn left out the part about her turning into a massive, four-legged beast incapable of speech or rational thought. No sense in them knowing the very real danger she would present when that happened. "She does not wish to return to the empire when her work here is unfinished. I cannot, in good conscience, send another dragon to care for her, lest exposure to Haven's Descent is the reason for her ravening."

"But having one of us killed again is fine," Irons growled.

"No no!" Vezlynn waved his hands. "Absolutely not. All I ask is that someone check in on her, help her keep her home clean, and make sure she is eating."

Everyone except Sweetgrass continued to glare at him.

Vezlynn sighed. He spoke slowly, with his hands, gesturing when he needed to switch from Hinland to Draconic to try and get his meaning across. "Listen, the ravening changes dragons. They become incapable of doing the basic things of living. They can, but if something has their interest they will only do the bare minimum to stay alive. Sometimes not even that. Doing so little, day in and day out, it becomes harder and harder to keep up, to do things like clean up your filth, to prepare yourself food, to simply remember to drink water. If she is not taken care of now, in a few months time Seka will be too withered and ill to even make up for the... deficit in care she's already building."

Sweetgrass, hands holding his knees and staring at the floor, said, "When members of our clan become too old to stand easily, or get maimed on a hunt and become bedridden, it is up to me to make sure they are being cared for. This sounds no different from those duties."

Irons hocked a loogie and spat it out in the middle of the carpet. Vezlynn flinched, revolted as each woman mirrored the gesture of their chieftess. The widow spat last. "None from this clan will help her," Irons said. "Our help already cost us one life, we will not lose another. You may send one of your dragons, even another Hinland from a separate clan. They are welcome to live with her and care for her needs, but as far as our clan is concerned, we will not give her any aid."

After Rivers died, Vezlynn had to pay a hefty sum of leathers, hides, iron tools, and livestock just to convince them to let Seka stay. Far more than a single life was worth, but clearly they did not consider that debt paid.

"Very well, I will return to Haven and see what labor I might find in your capital." Vezlynn stood, brushing some errant hairs off his trousers before he added, "Good day to you all."

Soon as Vezlynn left the room, he heard Sweeetgrass start arguing with the matriarchs. He did not linger, knowing their answer wouldn't magically change because of one boy. He got outside, his carriage driver talking with one of the men from the fields, relaying news from the capital. Vezlynn glanced at Seka's cottage. He should check on her, but the thought of stepping back into that disaster zone of a cottage made him sick.

"Sir!"

Vezlynn turned, surprised to see Sweetgrass had chased him outside. He said, "Tell me what Seka needs."

"You changed their minds?"

He flinched, but stepped closer, looking up at the much taller dragon. "No, but I know my father wouldn't want Seka to rot away, and if she finishes her work he wouldn't have died in vain, right?"

Vezlynn glanced at the carriage driver and his apparent friend. They were the only people nearby. He muttered, "Very well, walk with me boy." They strolled along the stone fence outlining the clan's fields. Once he knew they were not being eavesdropped on, Vezlynn said, "I will be upfront with you, I am suspicious you have another reason for wanting to take care of her."

"Y-you do?" Sweetgrass asked, watching his hooves trudge through the grass.

Vezlynn chuckled. "Yes, especially when you answer like that. At first I suspected you wished to avenge your father--"

"Never! My hands are only for healing--I took an oath."

"Then why do you want to do this? Surely it will anger your clan, and I cannot protect you from the wrath of your kin."

Sweetgrass hugged his arms across his chest and muttered, "She has still not told anyone what happened at Haven's Descent."

"That is your reason? She tapped into the well, lost control, and your father was killed in the rebound."

Sweetgrass frowned. "Rebound?"

"Ah, she tapped into the magic, but it overwhelmed her. When magic overwhelms a mage, it rebounds. The energy is far too volatile, which is what Seka's research is about: how do we tame that volatility."

"Perhaps it is not for us to tame," Sweetgrass mumbled.

"Nonsense boy, we are Archay's Chosen! Since the day our wings took flight we've been destined to master every part of this world," Vezlynn said, his bravado barely an act. The empire had mastered steam, they were mastering electricity, it would only be a matter of time until they mastered magic as well. Vezlynn came to a curt stop and turned on Sweetgrass, jabbing him in the ribs. "That said, you know what happened to your father now, and what Seka's doing with her research. Do you still wish to help her?"

Vezlynn expected a no after sharing all that, but he needed to test the boy, since it would be inevitable he would learn all this by being in proximity to Seka. Another thing ravening dragons would do is babble on endlessly to anyone. They kept secrets as well as a toddler did.

"Why would you telling me this change my decision? She is in need of healing, I am our clan's healer."

"You cannot heal her, boy."

For once, Sweetgrass stood his ground and looked at him like his mother had earlier. "Then you do not understand what healing means."

His defiance told Vezlynn that as long as Seka stayed here Sweetgrass would care for her. The dragon smiled, "Is that so? Very well, I will leave the healing to the expert. You will care for her, then."

Sweetgrass nodded. "Just as the spirits willed it for my father, they have willed that I do the same."

"Spirits?"

"Since I got this mark," Sweetgrass touched the tattoo on his shoulder, "I keep dreaming of her."

"Do you, now?"

Sweetgrass completely missed the tone of Vezlynn's voice. He simply nodded, "I have. Are there any specifics I should know about this ravening?"

***

"And you're sure you have all that, boy?" Vezlynn asked Sweetgrass through the door of his carriage. The young bull stood beside it as Vezlynn readied to depart.

Sweetgrass nodded. "It is known. I will make sure you hear from her."

"Good lad. I'll be in touch." He snapped shut the door and wrapped the front of the carriage. "Let's be off."

Sweetgrass watched the carriage pull down and around the narrow road that cut through their clan's home. The young bull sighed, happy to have that conversation over with. Vezlynn always left him feeling unsettled, like Sweetgrass became nothing more than an axe or plow in his eyes.

He turned and found his mother watching him. Arms folded over her chest, nostrils flared and ears lowered. "You did not even wait a sunrise before choosing to disobey us."

Sweetgrass scratched his hoof across the dirt road and snorted. "Would father ignore her?"

She answered only in glower.

Sweetgrass shrugged, "I will accept any punishment, but to keep me from my work you will have to tie me up and throw me in the root cellar."

"I wish I had counseled Rivers differently, when he asked to invite her to our hearth," Wreaths said before storming inside.

The covering to the longhouse fell close and Sweetgrass staggered backwards. He turned his back on it and looked to Seka's home, whispering, "I'm sorry, mother, but we both know what father would have wanted." Quietly, with the sunset stretching the shadows of the forest across it, Sweetgrass came to Seka's cottage door, knocking.

No answer came.

Sweetgrass knocked again. "Seka'Tor? Vezlynn has sent me to make sure you are being taken care of." This time he pressed his ear to the door, listening for any kind of movement inside.

Light, muffled by the door, he heard singing.

Sweetgrass's brow furrowed. The door opened with a turn of the handle, swung open with almost no sound. Sweetgrass disliked the wooden floors of Seka's cottage. His hooves always sounded so loud clopping across it, even when he tried to step lightly. One footfall into the abode enunciated his whole presence. The dragoness, gayly singing in her native tongue, squawked when she heard him enter, falling backwards against the bookshelf she'd been dusting on the opposite end of her home.

She yelled at him in draconic, and Sweetgrass cupped both palms and held them out to her. "Peace!" he urged. "Vezlynn sent me to look after you."

Seka'Tor froze up, yellow eyes wide and slitted pupils dilated. A single candle and the shutters of her window provided the only light in the one room structure. It was sixteen paces by twelve, built to her height. On one half of the room was tucked a spring mattress bed, wrought iron bed frame, a desk and chair not far from it, a large wooden tub for bathing, and shelves piled with books, closer to Sweetgrass was a dining table, small stove furnace, cupboards, a countertop with a sink, and a chamber pot. Catty corner to the door a space had been cleared with a circle of chalk, four braziers stuffed with chunks of quartz set equidistant around it.

It was a space Sweetgrass rarely saw into, even when Rivers lived. Seka always preferred visiting them at the longhouse. Seka's talons clicked across the floor as she cried out, "Absolutely not! Anyone but you--"

"As the clan's shaman I am--" She cut Sweetgrass off by shoving him out the door. It slammed on his face.

"Tell Vezlynn to send someone else!" Seka said through the door.

"He's already gone. Seka, please, Vezlynn said you need help."

"I do not! He just thinks I'm ravening because I couldn't keep my cottage clean, but I spent all day cleaning it today and it is spotless! If I was ravening I wouldn't be able to do any of that."

Sweetgrass, had noted too, the furnace door opened with no wood, coals, or ash inside it. He leaned close and asked, "Have you eaten today?"

He heard a long, agonized groan. "Must I? I'm so tired from cleaning, and I don't want to make a mess after all that."

"I could make you food," Sweetgrass offered.

"No, I will feed myself. Go find Vezlynn and tell him to just send someone not from your clan."

Leaning his shoulder against the door, horns resting against the wood, Sweetgrass asked, "Why can't it come from me?"

In the distance, Sweetgrass heard the call go out to those in the field that dinner was ready at the longhouse. The clamor of children rushing inside with adults chattering behind them swelled then faded, and quiet crawled through the clearing like the lengthening shadows.

The door opened, and Sweetgrass covered his gasp with a palm as he saw tears running down Seka's muzzle.

"D-don't you hate me?" Seka stuttered.

He wrapped her in his arms and hugged her tight, burying his snout in Seka's collarbone. Her arms hung out to her sides, stunned as he squeezed her. "My father chose to accompany you. You are not responsible for his death."

A tremor wracked through her body, then she fell against him, hugging him back with tail, arms, and wings. Sweetgrass grunted as he fought to keep their balance, Seka clinging to him, her legs limp as she bawled into the dark mane of hair running between his horns and down the back of his neck.

"It's okay," Sweetgrass whispered, struggling to keep his voice free of the strain of holding them both up.

"No! No it's not!" Seka snapped with a shake of her head. Sweetgrass's legs gave out, and they both slid to the ground, Sweetgrass finding the dragoness unwilling to untangle herself from him. "I killed him. Your father, I killed him, Sweetgrass. I took him from you."

Sweetgrass let her say what she needed to say. He had some anger at her at first, then, it evaporated when he remembered what his father asked Wreaths the morning he died. More outpourings flooded through Seka as she conjured all the loathing that she wanted Sweetgrass to fling at her.

All he offered were quiet reassurances, "I forgive you... Do you think he would want you hurt?... I know you miss him, too... You are forgiven, Seka. Forgiven."

And she wept until the sun had completely set, till they became silhouettes in starlight. Sweetgrass, feeling stretched thin by the whole ordeal, felt like he roused from a bleary sleep when she finally pulled away.

"I-I..." she started to say, then scooted away from him and into the cottage. "I still have those abbexi nuts from the solstice gathering. I will just eat that tonight."

"Do you need water? I can fetch some," Sweetgrass said as they both got up awkwardly. He sensed some sort of wall go up between them, as if they became strangers talking at a market.

"The well is right outside, I'll be fine."

"If you boil them they will be easier to eat. I can help--"

"I'm fine, really, Sweetgrass. I can manage myself, please don't worry."

"Candles for your cottage, wood for the stove, I can--"

She shut the door on him again.

Sweetgrass slumped his shoulders and turned back to the longhouse. A lantern had been put out over the entryway, illuminating Wreaths in a sour glow that insects buzzed around. Walking back to the longhouse with her watching only made Seka's rejection sting deeper.

"You understand we want her to leave, yes?" Wreaths asked as he plodded into earshot.

"I do, just like I know father asked your permission to make her a member of our clan."

She glared at him. "Snooping child."

Sweetgrass couldn't meet that glare so stared at his mother's fetlocks as he said, "He loved her, mother. Wanted to marry her, and you told him he should ask her to stay and join our clan."

"Seka made Rivers happy, in a way I've only seen myself make him happy. I told him that because seeing my husband's joy filled my every breath with life, and now that Seka has taken him from me, my every breath yearns to join him in death."

Sweetgrass's head snapped up. "Mother I--"

"You have nothing to fear," Wreaths said. "I will not scorn my duty to my children or the clan by chasing after him, but that dragoness took my greatest gift and returned it burnt and charred. So, too, are our relations. You are right that I will not stop you, but know every time you go to help her, I watch my son care for my husband's murderer, and everything in me aches again like the night of that loss."

He watched her retreat back inside, offering no comfort to the son whose eyes were cloudy with tears. Sweetgrass hoped Seka did as she said and ate something before going off to bed. With his appetite replaced by ashen coals stirring in his sternum, Sweetgrass certainly did not.

Chapter Two: The Work of Our Hands

Knocking woke Seka. Her eyes blinked open, ears ringing with a roar that came from her own head. She'd dreamt of Haven's Descent, a fog-blanketed sea that stretched into the horizon. She remembered soaring over it at speeds her wings could never take her, and the joy of the wind she long forgotten.

It unsettled the Hinland to fly overhead, so she accepted it as something she rarely stretched her wings for. Her wings hugged so tight to her back in sleep that her shoulder blades were sore. Body aches ever since the ravening began. She just needed to stretch and--

The door opened. She forgot about the knocking at her door. She needed a lock, she thought, as in walked Sweetgrass with a fresh pail of water, which he added to a trough over the sink that fed into the faucet below. Seka'Tor watched the bull's paintbrush tail swish back and forth as he stretched to reach the trough. Soft morning light reflected on his glossy hide, glinted off the beads woven into his braided mane. She remembered from River what the beads meant: turquoise for luck, bone for hardiness and health, purple abbexi nuts to honor the land, pebbles from the shore of Haven's Descent to honor the ancestors--Rivers explaining this at her desk with his mane loose, beads before them, leaned close to her, close enough she felt the warmth of his hide and yearned to even brush shoulders, his scent heavy in the air--

The scent of his seared hide as he lay submerged in the ankle deep waters of the shore where the rebound happened.

Fortunately, Sweetgrass had already emptied the bucket when she screamed. It fell clattering across the countertop then floor as he rushed to her bed. Seka sat up, chest hurting like she was in the middle of drowning. Her ribs rattled so rapidly each breath felt shaken out of her before air could get in her body. Sweetgrass knelt onto the bed, saying something, but it came through a wall. Seka saw him, but saw, too, River's face twisted in agony, dead before she even recovered from the rebound.

The magic had overtaken her: she and River tried so hard to contain it, but Archayon's Well surged with energy and life, an intelligence, totally alien yet recognizable at the same time, reached and wrestled control of the channeling from her, overloaded their circuit and sent the energy exploding between Seka and Rivers.

"The ancestors will watch over us," he had said as they sat on their knees together in the chilly water. How that water still steamed with heat when Seka had tried vainly to resuscitate Rivers with magic. She'd almost passed out without success, and had she just a little more control she might have diverted the rebound's blast...

"...with me... your spirit is safe with me..." Sweetgrass crooned as he ran two fingers up and down the length of her snout. She blinked, eyes watering, chest still feeling caved in, as her eyes focused in on those fingers. "That's it, Seka'Tor, your spirit is safe with me..."

It was so ridiculous, a strangled, sobbing laugh tumbled out of her mouth.

"Let yourself walk the red length of your mind, I will watch over you," Sweetgrass continued. But she did not walk anything, her mind had ejected her back to that day in a matter of moments. She thought she purged every memory of Rivers in her cottage, only to have his son waltz in uninvited.

She needed a lock, she thought, as in walked Seka with the fresh corpse of Rivers that day. Irons had taken her aside, asked what happened, as Wreaths bleated and wailed over her husband's corpse. Seka did not remember what she had said, Seka did not remember hauling Rivers back from Haven, but she must have, how else had they gotten there?

How had she gotten here, with a young bull cupping her cheeks, thumbs rubbing gentle circles right beneath her eyes? His hands so soft against the rough scales and plates that ran up her muzzle, masked her face, and wreathed her brow. "Take all the time you need, Seka'Tor. I will watch over you as you journey."

A barb swelled in her throat, collapsing, exhaling through her teeth, "You are the cause of this." The words did not come out, just a hissing, sobbing breath. Rattling wings, she was crying again.

It was as if he knew the exact moment she came back to herself: Sweetgrass took one of her horns and drew her down. He had to stand at her bedside to be tall enough for her to rest her earfrill against his chest. She felt the steady thump of his heart and noticed her own pulse, she heard his lungs suck in air, slow and deliberate. The same way Seka did when she communed with magic. His diaphragm squeezed out the air, and he breathed again. On the third breath, Seka's body matched his.

Sweetgrass rubbed up and down Seka's nape, whispering, "That's it, Seka'Tor. Breathe with me, and I will walk you back."

She did, numbing exhaustion boiling her thoughts into vapors. Empty-headed, breathing in then out. His body so warm and soft against her bare scales--ever since her ravening began any kind of clothing was too much for her to sleep. Her scales would get caught on fabric, it would be too warm, even the most billowy of dresses turned suffocating in her sleep--sleep! He woke her from sleep, and now her sheet lay crumpled across her bare thighs.

Seka pulled the sheet over her chest, but Sweetgrass made no comment. He just continued to breathe until Seka finally put a palm on his waist. He wore nothing but a feathered skirt, his fur so inviting against her palm. She noticed that yearning even as she nudged him away.

Sweetgrass sat down on the side of the bed. "Hey, there," he whispered. "How are you feeling?"

"Like my door needs a lock," she grumbled in her own tongue. Sweetgrass cocked his horned head, the same way Rivers did when she dropped Hinland words in favor of draconic ones.

Sweetgrass glanced at the hand still clutching the sheet to Seka's chest and said, "You don't need to worry about me seeing you nude. I've washed and mended so many of my kin that nakedness is mundane to me."

"Why... why are you here? Didn't I make myself clear?"

Sweetgrass flinched. "It's almost noon. I was worried since no one saw you leave your home."

Seka hung her head in her hands, wings wrapping around to hide her from view. Still, like shadow puppets on a wall, she saw his shape through the pale, pink and white membrane. Seka shut her eyes and growled, "I would rather have died in my bed than go through what I just did again."

"Again? Do you spirit walk often?"

"Spirit walk?" she asked, familiar with the term from Rivers. She hung her face in her hands. "Is that what you thought this was?"

"Did your body not stay here while your spirit went elsewhere?"

"To my fucking death it went." Seka felt tears pressing into her palms and tried to still the stinging that welled up in her throat.

"Spirit walking can be an experience of great joy or pain," Sweetgrass whispered, unmoving beside her. Seka felt his eyes watching her through her wings. "Your body and mind might not be prepared for what it is you must face, but your spirit calls to it still."

Heavy and extended periods of dissociation had become common for Seka in the last month, as they were some of the most readily apparent signs of a dragon in their ravening. What was not a symptom of ravening were her panic attacks. Which she did not want, and she did not want them to be imbibed with any meaning. They were senseless, emotional things she had struggled with in the past. Coming here, they had stopped for a time. One quiet year where she got to build herself a life outside herself, then burnt down as surely as she had laid low Rivers' body with fire.

In Seka's silence, Sweetgrass added, "Pain is as natural as the rains. You are not broken for feeling it."

Her wings lowered a little, nostrils twitching. She noticed his scent. The Hinland always carried a tinge of cut grass to her nose, but his had the sharpness of male sweat laced with a pungent, earthy sweetness. Seka uncovered her face to look at him, and a soft, genuine smile greeted her. The first she had seen since she lost Rivers.

"There's no reason to go through this alone, Seka." He squeezed her knee, and Seka bit back the urge to pull away.

"You are as pushy as your father."

"Hehe, am I?"

"When I first came here, he wouldn't stop checking up on me, asking to have dinner at his hearth."

"He knew you should not be left alone."

"I wasn't ravening, then."

"My mother asked him, and he said, 'I think she only fights me because she can't even imagine herself worthy of our company.'"

Seka muttered, "Rattling wings, Rivers."

"Hmm?"

"Nothing," Seka shook her head. "What else did he say about me?" she asked, her need for comfort surpassing her shame.

Sweetgrass's face darkened. "That day, did he ever... mention anything about the future?"

"Future?"

Sweetgrass eyes watered. "Perhaps it is better you did not know before now. He... he had asked my mother, you see--" Sweetgrass stumbled, and Seka's chest ached, tight from holding her breath. She knew Sweetgrass had no trouble remembering. The Hinland had almost an eidetic memory compared to dragons. Sweetgrass took a deep breath, steeling himself to say, "Wreaths and Rivers planned to ask you to join our clan, he wanted to marry you."

A trapdoor opened inside her and Seka just sank and sank. Marry. To the Hinland, marriage mattered only as a ceremony to create and renew kinship. Just as Wreaths had married Rivers to join him to the Horns Twined clan, he wanted her--even on her nights where she longed for him and nothing else, Seka had refused to believe Rivers would ever want her romantically, that Wreaths would consent for her husband to find warmth with a dragon.

"He loved you, Seka," Sweetgrass said into her silence, pulling her out from the chasm inside her. She blinked, feeling fresh tears rolling down her muzzle. "He had for some time, I think."

So had she. Rivers made Seka feel safe, feel desired in ways she'd never felt as a dragoness.

Sweetgrass said, "You're trembling, do you need to be held?"

Seka worried if she'd let herself be held she would come undone and never stitch herself back together. She shook her head no, throat so sore she could scarce stand to breathe, much less speak.

Sweetgrass got up. "I will give you some time and check on you in the evening."

Something desperate in her reached out and grabbed his wrist. He faced her with a gasp. His arm was so small in her palm. Rivers had been roughly the same size, so delicate seeming, but she knew the strength that hid underneath it. "Stay," she rasped. "Please... I don't... I'm tired of being alone."

She barely recognized she asked it in draconic, but before she might try and ask again in his tongue, Sweetgrass said, "I will make you food and we can have breakfast."

Seka nodded, grateful to have his presence. Just a physical body in the room would help so much in grounding her.

"Hehe, it is good to see your smile again."

Seka touched her muzzle, surprised by the familiar shape of her lips, revealing the points of her fangs. It flickered away soon as she recognized it, but settling in against her grief like two lovers in bed was a relief that Rivers had loved her, and his love lived on in the son that refused to let her grieve alone.

***

They did not speak much after that first day: Sweetgrass returned every morning to help Seka with her day. He made her breakfast, brewed tea from herbs that sprouted along the base of young abbexi trees, set about tidying up the cottage. After getting frustrated she could not find a note where she left it, Sweetgrass learned not to touch all the little pieces of paper Seka tended to scatter across her home.

Again he would come in the afternoon, preparing a dinner, tidying some more. He wished to speak to her, but Seka woke pained from her dreams and grouchy, and in the afternoon he'd find her so absorbed in her work that she resented any interruption.

Her work still perplexed Sweetgrass. She meditated frequently in her little circle of chalk, with a journal and pen nearby. Crosslegged, she'd enter a trance, and occasionally the quartz in their braziers might glow, occasionally she'd come out of her trance with a squawk or groan, sometimes she'd take frantic notes while muttering in draconic. Sweetgrass could enter her cottage, work for quite some time, only for Seka to ask, "Oh, what are you doing here?"

He did everything Vezlynn asked, but felt Seka's isolation deepen despite it. Undeniably, he recognized the ravening had changed Seka, but it unsettled him just how lifeless she'd turned, and how Vezlynn wanted nothing more than Sweetgrass to make that lifelessness as productive as possible.

Three weeks into being Seka's caretaker, Sweetgrass decided to break routine.

He returned in the evening, letting himself in when Seka did not respond. He found her home lit by a single candle at her desk, where she poured over one of her books.

Sweetgrass cleared his throat and asked, "Isn't that difficult with so little light?"

"When did you get in?"

"Just now, I hope I am not disturbing too much."

"You were, but I'm afraid it is not the light that is going to keep me from learning anything more tonight." Seka yawned.

"Too tired?" Sweetgrass said.

"I haven't had quite the energy I had before," Seka said. "You can't really fathom how much harder things become until they do."

Sweetgrass took her conversation as an invitation and said, "Think you're energetic enough to talk?"

Flickering candlelight obscured whatever expression flashed across her face. "D-did I do something wrong?"

"Wrong?"

"You came here unannounced in the middle of the night, asking to talk, did I anger the matriarchs or you or is Vezlynn--"

"You are letting your fears nibble at you again," Sweetgrass said as he grabbed one of the two chairs from the small table Seka took her meals at. He sat it by the desk, offering her a smile. "I came because I wanted to speak with you, not because I had something to speak about."

She stared at him blankly. "Oh."

"Am I asking too much from you?"

"No, no, I'm just--why? I can't be good conversation, and this can't be making your mother happy."

"The ancestors will hold me accountable for my actions." He shrugged and added wryly, "And no doubt the matriarchs once you finish your work."

"You really think I'll finish before it gets too bad?"

"Is that not why you've been working day and night, to finish quickly?"

"You would think! Yet I've made no progress." She waved across the room. "I commune with magic, I take notes, read others' work, take more notes, then look at those notes the next day and think, 'Who in Haven's Cloak wrote this?' Even my handwriting feels illegible sometimes, and I can't tell if it's different or if it's just in my head and--" she snarled and slapped her tail against the floor. "I'm not getting anywhere."

Sweetgrass leaned closer, hooking a finger under the still open book. "Perhaps some time away from your work will help?" Quietly, they both watched him turn the book shut.

"I..." Seka, wings shivering, muttered, "I d-don't... what do I do, then?"

"Whatever you would like."

She patted the book. "This is what I like."

"Clearly. I've seen you give your work more attention than a mother does her newborn. Do you like anything else?"

"Um... well," she shook her head. "Yes? I'm sure I do, but I'm having trouble thinking of it right now. And even then--one break in the evening won't solve my problems."

"Clearly," Sweetgrass said. "I'd say you need at least a few days."

Seka's wings flared out as she recoiled. "Days?" she hissed. "I don't have days to spare!"

"Yet you had weeks to waste doing the same things over and over?" Sweetgrass pointed out, remaining firm even as he kept a lightness to his voice. "My father used to say laughter and pleasure are medicine we all need to take daily. You do not seem to be getting either from this." He tapped the top of the tome with his finger.

"I do enjoy this!" Seka snapped, only to falter when the much bigger dragoness made Sweetgrass flinch. "Sorry... I didn't mean to come across angry. I'm just... defensive."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you not want a break from your work?"

She stared at him, fought with some thought inside her, wrestled it, cleared her throat and straightened her back. "Because it is important and I enjoy it."

He watched her, waiting.

"You think I'm lying?"

"Sometimes," Sweetgrass started, speaking carefully, "when there is something I am avoiding, I will do all the work I can just to keep from whatever it is I don't want to do."

Seka growled low in her throat. "Is that what you think is going on?"

Despite his hackles standing on end, Sweetgrass continued, trying to keep his ears down, "What would happen if you stopped working for a day, Seka?"

"I wouldn't finish my work."

"And?"

"I... I'd have... Rivers! Rivers would have died in vain."

"What else?"

Seka slammed her hands down on the table. "Isn't that enough?"

They were both standing in the next breath. Seka--panting, spittle drooling from one of her exposed fangs--gasped and sat back down.

"You should go."

Sweetgrass didn't move. His whole body fought with how dangerous Seka seemed at that moment, but he thought past that fear and into what else they might do here. He cupped his palms and extended them. "I come with palms empty, in peace, to receive whatever you give me."

Slitted pupils, wide and almost glowing in the near-dark, darted down to his hands. "Your palms are shaking."

"You frightened me."

"We are scared, too."

"We?"

She mumbled her draconic curse. "I, I meant I. I'm scared. Whenever I'm not occupied, I just, I will hunt down any little thing that will make me slip back to that day. Even my own reflection feels dangerous."

"I understand--"

"No, you do not. You do not understand what I'm going through any better than what your mother has gone through," Seka stated flatly, voice a cold iron.

Sweetgrass gnawed on his lip, knowing he would need to speak more carefully. "You are right. I do not know these things, but I have felt similar feelings. It is like an emptiness follows you, and any time you aren't on your guard, it overruns you like fog. There is nothing wrong with wanting to use your work to protect yourself from that, Seka."

"Then why are you here?" She picked up the candle, wagging it between them, "Wasting my valuable wax."

Sweetgrass blew the candle out.

"Why did you do that for?"

"The darkness is not deafening, we can speak in it just the same."

Seka scoffed. "Utter nonsense."

Sweetgrass chose to continue his previous thread, "That emptiness? It is a lot more bearable with companionship, just as sitting in the darkness is more bearable with companionship."

"I'm not afraid of the dark."

"Yet you are terrified of facing what happened."

"It is painful."

"Pain is a part of healing, Seka."

"Not this pain. This is just pointless--I have so much work to do and why did you blow out my light?"

"To sit with you in the dark."

"I cannot just sit here!"

"Why not?"

She barked something at him in her native tongue, her claws digging loud gouges into her desk. Sweetgrass considered the cleanest path to the door, trying to work backwards from his memory of her cottage. If Seka did provoke to violence he certainly would not stay to receive it, but what Sweetgrass sensed was a child fighting to not have her wound looked at because to treat it would make it hurt all over again. You did not just let the child wander away with a gash across her hide.

Seka took a deep, steadying breath and said through teeth clenched, "You know exactly why not. I have just told you."

"You told me earlier that you were not making any progress and were too tired to work."

"I would rather be working than talking to you! I would rather be in bed--just let me sleep."

"If you promise to take tomorrow off from your work."

"And do what?"

"Spend the day with me. I will make sure you are occupied."

"Lovely. Will you bring me reeds and show me how to make a basket?"

"Would you like to learn?"

"I don't have the time!"

"You will have the time. Tomorrow we make baskets, then?"

"I won't."

"We will see," Sweetgrass said before stepping back. "Sleep well, Seka."

"I am incapable of that," she flung back. He picked his way through the cottage and shut the door behind him. Moonlight offered its balm, and he released a breath he didn't know he held. He hoped, with time, not every conversation with Seka would be quite so exhausting.

As he crossed back over to the longhouse, the sound of hooves stepping across grass, soft yet heavy, made Sweetgrass stop. His ears went up and back.

"Way to go heavy hoof," Thorns Twined said.

Sweetgrass spun to find his younger siblings approaching him from the cottage. "Were you two eavesdropping?"

"We wanted to know why you were sneaking out at night," Feathers Twined said. The twins came closer, both already taller than Sweetgrass and still growing. Thorns had her black mane down while Feathers' remained braided. As children, they would switch hairstyles to fool others, but puberty had seen to ending that mischief. Their thick russet coat and grey eyes in the moonlight reminded Sweetgrass of Rivers starting solstice dances. The memory struck his sternum, winding like a stone from a sling. He clenched his fists but only a breath, then yanked the pair into a fierce hug.

It surprised them, but they returned it a second later. Thorns asked, "Oh brother, did she hurt you?"

"No," Sweetgrass struggled to breathe around the lump in his throat. "Father..."

Feathers kissed his temple. "We miss him, too, Sweetie."

"Just cry if you need to, we've got you," Thorns said.

Pain lanced his chest in waves, but not enough of it came to break that dam inside him. Grief had been merciful tonight. Tremors wracked his body as he held on tight to his siblings. Their scent, their softness and warmth in the cool night steadied him. He hated mentioning father around them. Feathers, especially, had been self-conscious of just how much he reminded others in the clan of Rivers

Sweetgrass managed to feel himself breathe again. He pulled away, "Thank you."

The twins smiled, which broke into a giggle from Feathers: "Hehe, we thought you were planning to seduce her."

"You thought that."

"Why in Haven's blood would I do that?" Sweetgrass yelped, surprised at his own panic. Both siblings broke out laughing, and he tried to take it in stride, "I am not sure who that would anger more, mother or father."

"Oh, it would be mother," Thorns said while braying moos fell out of her twin.

"Enough, enough," Sweetgrass said, having to grab Feathers' horn to make him look over. "No more spying."

They each managed to swallow down their mirth and nod.

Feathers cleared his throat. "It sounded pretty rough in there."

"Did it? How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know she was mad at you. All that barking, she sounded like she was about to tear off your head," Thorns said.

"That's when we knew you weren't seducing her."

"When you knew."

Sweetgrass smiled despite himself. "You two are scattered winds."

"Hey! He may be scattered, but I am as sharp as my name," Thorns protested.

Feathers loudly scoffed.

Before more fighting broke between them, Sweetgrass raised his hands. "Easy you two. I have a favor to ask you, for tomorrow. And after this you can't say no."

"Depends on the favor," Thorns said with her ears raised.

"Just some basket weaving."

***

The roars woke Seka at sunrise the next morning. Pains lanced through her skull, emitting from her ringing ears. She squished her pillow onto her head, her groan muffled by her mattress. Her limbs felt leaden, sore. She did not understand why, but chalked it up to the ravening devising new ways to torment her.

It was a few minutes more before she remembered Sweetgrass's visit from last night. Talons clenched in her gut at the thought of having to stop working, so she got up and went to her desk, thinking if she got an early start the day would not be a total waste.

Seka grabbed at the notes she made yesterday evening, head still aching some. The scrawl was her handwriting, but it still seemed foreign:

"Magic different here. Threads more tangible, somehow more resistant to my pulling. As if my palms are coated with grease. It retreats--I do not understand. Need to order more crystal to try and conduct it better."

She glanced at the book left on the desk. Gava'Sen's treatise on magic, which clearly stated energy flowed on various circuits, but once one opened themselves up to being a circuit, their body became conductive, magic flows into the body, could be concentrated with more and more mages working together. That's how Seka entered her first transformation, just a small part of her transition before she left for Haven's Cloak. The other parts she planned to do herself once she finished her work here. Had planned.

Now all she had was this work, and all the promise it held if she could understand what had happened that day with Rivers and herself.

Knock, then enter. Sweetgrass never waited for an answer from her, but neither did she ever answer the door. What she did not expect were three Hinland to come in, Feathers and Thorns carrying the bottoms of baskets they had started, and more reeds bundled under their arms.

"Where do you want this?" one twin asked.

"Just move the table, we can all work on the floor right here."

"What Thorns said," Sweetgrass told them while he went about adding fresh fuel to the furnace.

"W-what is going on?"

"They are helping," Sweetgrass said as the twins dumped their things in the middle of the floor. They pushed her table up against a wall to make room for them all to sit in a circle.

Seka hovered at her desk, jaw hanging open. Not one, but all three of Rivers' children here? Wreaths was going to gore Seka on her horns.

Feathers waved at her. "Hey Seka, we got bullied here."

"Maybe if you stepped a little lighter," Thorns said.

"Both of them are better at weaving than me," Sweetgrass said as he got the furnace lit with one of Seka's matches. "These are so handy," he muttered before blowing into the furnace to help stoke a burgeoning flame.

Burgeoning bile bloomed up Seka's throat. What had he been thinking bringing this pair here? Little reflections of Rivers in her house--impossible to see his likeness, the loss she'd caused all these children...

"I don't deserve your company," Seka muttered.

"Why not?" Feathers asked.

Thorns smacked his shoulder.

"Hey!"

"You ask stupid questions, you know why she feels that way."

Just like Sweetgrass, they didn't hold the hatred she expected. It made her feel a little delirious, like she woke in a world too kind for the one that birthed her. She trembled, sniffled, and watched Sweetgrass's ears raise as he set down her tea kettle on the furnace's stove. He knew what he'd done bringing them here. He knew how much it would hurt her and still he did this.

"You didn't tell me you'd bring them," she hissed.

Sweetgrass stopped, sighed, and finally said to her, "You need more than my company." He checked the trough over the sink, then said, "You are almost out of water. I will get some from the well, and they can get you started on weaving."

He left without another word.

Seka frowned and asked the twins, "Is he mad at me?"

"Frustrated, maybe," Thorns said.

"He woke up really excited about today," Riv--Feathers said to her.

Seka grabbed the base of one of her horns, clenching it to keep from crying.

"Don't worry about Sweetie."

Shock of a hand touching her shoulder. Thorns had crossed the room to her, reached out, and Seka responded to her kindness with a yelping snarl, falling backwards over her chair. She tumbled into one of the braziers, feeling something pop in her wings. Thorns was at her side, grabbing her arm, "Haven's blood, Seka, come here."

Feathers righted the chair, worked on cleaning a knocked over brazier, while Thorns got her up. In a blink, she sat in bed but could not remember walking over. One of the fingers of her wings ached. Thorns waved a hand in front of her snout.

"Come on, look at me, we didn't mean to upset you. If you need us to leave we will."

Sweetgrass came in right as Feathers dropped the last chunk of quartz back in its brazier. He glanced at Seka, and at once put the bucket in his arms on the counter. "Is everything okay?" Sweetgrass asked as he came over.

"Seka tripped, but she doesn't seem hurt," Thorns said.

"My wing," Seka lifted her left up, "I popped a finger out of its joint."

"Sounds simple enough to fix," Sweetgrass said as he came around the bed. He sat on his knees, over her tail, and touched Seka's wing before hesitating. "May I help you?"

Seka's spinal hairs tingled with the sense of how close Sweetgrass came to her back. She felt the urge to swing back and press into him. She remembered how good it felt to be held, but the thought of asking for that-- "I can't do it myself," she said blankly. Not her giving permission, but now she did not need to ask.

"I think I see it," Sweetgrass said before his small, soft hands brushed the out-of-socket joint.

"It just needs to be pressed back in," Seka said, finding it difficult to breathe.

Sweetgrass set his digits against the joint and pinched down with both hands.

Seka hissed through her teeth, the pain a brief thing, soothed by the young bull's thumbs massaging the wing. She bit her tongue to keep from whining when he slipped away.

"How does it feel?" he asked.

"Sore, but good."

"Good," he echoed.

"Now we can work," Feathers said, already sitting on the floor with bundles of reeds and baskets waiting.

Thorns guided Seka over, and Sweetgrass returned to the kitchen to prepare Seka breakfast. It was difficult for her to listen and follow directions and expect to speak to others. It once wasn't, but if she tried to think of things to say, her hands went still. So she focused on just weaving, and the twins chattering washed over her like gentle rain. A tin plate got placed next to her: a fried calvax egg served on a bed of bitter, lavender leafs. She poked the yolk with a claw, pleased at how the fatty and sweet center of the egg spread its warmth around the greens. Once drained, Seka tossed the egg into her maw. She barely chewed, before swallowing and working on her salad.

Then she blinked and realized she held the plate to her snout, licking it clean. She balked and set it down, wings hugged tight to her back as she found her guests smiling at her.

"You must've been hungry," Sweetgrass said as he took the plate.

Seka cleared her throat and admitted, "I... don't know what happened."

Feathers said, "Your stomach took hold of your mind, you do not need to explain it."

"I'm not trying to--" Seka balled her fists in her lap. "I mean, I swallowed the egg, and... and it was like I woke up licking--"

"And biting, we could hear your fangs scraping against it."

"Feathers!" Thorn smacked her brother's shoulder. "It sounds like you spirit walked."

Sweetgrass had left the plate in the sink and sat beside her. He squeezed her fist. "Are you okay?"

Trembling, Seka shook her head. She said, "That has been happening more and more. It feels like someone's possessing me."

"You leave, and another spirit enters?"

Seka's claws began to pinch into her palms. "I... It's the ravening. It is like someone else is growing into my place."

"You sound worried someone will take you over," Sweetgrass said.

"It will--I mean the me I'll be when I turn."

Sweetgrass cocked his head. "Turn?"

Seka frowned. "Did Vezlynn not tell you?"

"Vezlynn said you were dying."

"In some ways, I am," Seka whispered. Sweetgrass scooted closer and hugged her to him.

Feathers covered his mouth to stifle a laugh. At a glare from his siblings, he said, "Sorry--Sweetie is just so small against her. It is like a child comforting his matriarch."

"I'm not that small," Sweetie(?) snapped at his younger but bigger brother. Sweetie... Seka liked that nickname for him... even if it didn't feel right to call Sweetgrass that all the time. He stood on his knees to hug Seka's cheek to his chest again. Seka heard his heartbeat, surprised by the rapid thump thump thump she heard this time.

Feathers leaned over and whispered to his sister, "I still think he will."

Thorns rolled eyes and ears.

"We can hear you," Sweetgrass said. "Ignore them Seka, tell me about the ravening. What is happening to you?"

Mumbling, Seka's answer spilled into the thick fur across his chest: "Our ravening ends when we become ravenous. We grow in size, our spines twist and warp, our haunches thicken with muscle, our tails and wings double their span. We become almost the size of this cottage, Sweetgrass. And... and... we stop being able to speak. We won't remember anything or anyone from our past life. We go from people to beasts."

"Would we be in danger?" Sweetgrass asked--some sort of tension in his voice that made Seka scared to answer.

"I... I cannot say. Most ravenous dragons try to find somewhere isolated to build their nest. If you stayed out of my way, and fled when I started turning, you might be safe."

"Then just as violent as any beast," Thorns said. "Vezlynn hid this from you, Sweetgrass?"

"He hid it from everyone. I listened to his meeting with the matriarchs," Sweetgrass said. A strange hardness in his voice made Seka tense up.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm just a bomb waiting to go off."

"You are not." Sweetgrass reprimanded. She gasped, almost pulling away if it were not for him hugging her tighter. "We will make preparations, we will be careful and make sure you turn somewhere far away from any clan. You will not hurt anyone, so you are no danger, Seka."

She shook her head, unable to say no. Seka could kill and burn the clan and their longhouse in a breath. She could turn in her sleep, with no one watching her. Her condition came from a unique source, and she could turn much earlier. If she turned tomorrow they'd be burying half their kin the next day. He didn't understand, couldn't understand the dangers of the ravening. It hurt to let him believe otherwise. It hurt Seka to try and believe him.

Still, she wanted to believe. Seka wanted so badly to do good for him. At once she recognized but refused what that meant, to need someone to be pleased with her.

Thorns asked, "Do you know how long until she turns?"

"Vezlynn said her ravening would last until at least a year, we have time," Sweetgrass said. "There is no reason to think Seka is dangerous right now."

Feathers said, "How about we let winds blow things where they may? If we don't get moving we are not going to even get half a basket done today."

"Weaving helps build our thoughts as well," Thorns said as she picked up the basket she worked on.

"Do you think you can, Seka?"

Dumbly, numbly, Seka nodded. How could they not know? How could she not even consider how she endangered them? She should just walk into Archayon's Well, drowning would keep them safe. She didn't deserve their trust after what she'd done.

"Seka."

Breaking out of water for air, Seka sucked in a breath, almost coughing. "Rattling wings," she cursed. Sweetgrass still sat beside her, tail draped over hers, their hips touching. He nudged her hand with the basket she'd been working on. Fibers of reeds poked out awkwardly, and hers had only a scrap of it built compared to the others.

"It will get better as you go, but you have to weave your way there," Sweetgrass whispered in her ear.

It was magnetic. She leaned into him, took the basket, working shoulder to shoulder; her whole world reduced to his softness and warmth, the intimacy of his scent, and her fingers twisting and pulling reeds.

***

They worked well into the afternoon. Occasionally Sweetgrass or his siblings would get up, to fetch food, drink, or stretch stiff legs. Seka stayed seated at her basket, working quietly and not speaking much more. Her silence did not worry Sweetgrass, for he knew wherever her thoughts roamed, she was safe with him at her side.

Feathers finished his basket first. He shoved his woven vase into the dwindling remaining reeds. "All done."

"You always rush these, you know," Thorns said. "But done is a good word. We should be done soon, yes, Sweetie?"

"Eager to leave?"

"More like, we have given you the day, if we give you the evening mother will polish her horns with our hides," Feathers said.

"This was... an insightful use of a day," Thorns said as she set her near-finished basket down. She had opted for something with a wider base and lower sides.

"Is it alright with you, Seka?"

"Hmmm?" she grunted, looking between the three. "What's going on?"

"We're going to stop for the day," Sweetgrass said. He touched the half-built basket in her hand. "Is that okay?"

"Oh, mhmm."

"We'll get this cleaned up for you," Sweetgrass said as he got up. He offered her his hand, and her palm dwarfed his as she grasped it, needing no help to get up. Sweetgrass liked the scales on her palm: they were smooth, soft, and cool to the touch. He wanted to warm them--just guide her to hide her digits in the fur on his chest, the scruff their bunching between her fingers--

He let go of her, stepping back, and almost flinched when Seka gave him a concerned look.

"Everything is fine," Sweetgrass said.

"Is it?" Thorns asked.

Seka studied his face a moment longer, then swallowed the knot in her throat. She spoke, and this time not at a distracted whisper, "Leave your things here. I would like to have them, to work on when I need something to do."

Feathers shrugged. "Sure thing." He headed to the door with a wave, "It was strange weaving with you, Seka!"

Thorns stepped up and prodded Sweetgrass in the ribs. "We need to talk--outside. Do not dally here." She turned to the dragoness and dipped her ears forward with her head. "Walk with the land in health, Seka."

She backed outside, and Seka said once the door shut, "I will be fine."

"I would help you make dinner, if you would--"

"Sweetie--" Seka said the name and both their hackles went up. "I-I'm sorry, the twins used it, but that was presumptuous."

"Peace, Seka," Sweetgrass said, surprised by the tightness in his throat. His ears stood straight up, warmth racing down his muzzle and across his cheeks. "I... I would like you to call me that name." Sweetgrass's words almost came out like a question. "It tells me something, welcomes me... to, uh--"

"Your sister is waiting," Seka interjected.

Sweetgrass took the rope she offered and climbed out of the hole he dug himself. "Right! I should get going--today was good. I can tell you feel better."

Her smile came in the slight draw of the lip, fangs just exposed, a softening around her eyes, wings leaned toward where the eyes looked. It made his knee wobble. He needed to grab the handle of the door for support, her hissing giggle making the tips of his ears tingle. "You were right," Seka said, "I did need a break."

Sweetgrass opened the door, dipped his head, "See you tomorrow." Her fingers flickering as she waved the last thing Sweetgrass saw before shutting the door. Thorns snatching up his wrist, dragging him away from Seka, braying something at him.

Sweetgrass didn't mean to spend the whole day touching her. Nothing flirtatious, just the intimacy of two people working next each other. Just glances at her, throughout the day, noticing all the little different shades of grey scales on her throat... His heart would not stop pounding even as his body got limply led back to the longhouse. Thorns grip on him so much smaller than when Seka held him there, earlier today, touch soft as river-smoothed stones.

It wasn't until he heard Feathers say, "Call a council."

"Council?" Sweetgrass asked, finding himself taken back to the present. They stood at the central hearth to the longhouse. Thorns still held his wrist, and only now did Sweetgrass wrench himself free. "Why would we--"

"Stop scattering in the winds," Thorns snapped at him. "We must tell everyone about her ravening."

Her ravening. The thing that would turn her into such a beast that he would be no more than a field mouse to a hawk.

"Right, we must talk about it."

It would happen after dinner. He sat quietly, eating at the edge of the room. Feathers paced on the opposite end of room, most sat around the hearth, talking as if nothing was amiss on this day.

Then he saw Thorns and Chieftess Irons approach the hearth. From a pouch wrapped around her waist, she tossed a bit of powder into the fire. Its coals flashed blue, flaring upwards, before they froze, as if stretched to their limit. Then the flames recoiled, their color returned, but brighter, the fire waving like windswept wheat.

"May our ancestors offer their wisdom and may we listen well for the land's; I call my kin to council," she declared. And all twenty five of her clan closed in around the hearth. They sat, encircling Irons. Sweetgrass did this so habitually that he sat before his dread could even register the council beginning.

He watched Irons describe Seka's ravening. A change that would endanger everyone around her. A change they had no means of predicting, just guesses given to Sweetgrass by Vezlynn, a dragon with lies as long as his wings.

Irons finished with, "This, Thorns has told me, confessed by Seka'Tor today, witnessed by Feathers and Sweetgrass."

At his name Sweetgrass stood up. The heads in the room turned to him, and Irons stared at him a moment.

"You do not need my permission to speak, Sweetgrass," Irons chided.

"Um, that is--I wanted to be sure you were finished speaking."

"I am, go on."

There needed to be a balance. Seka did not need to be treated like a threat. "Seka's condition is one that is natural for dragons. Her people have made it so a ravening never endangers those not changed. Can we not do the same with her here?"

"And what would we keep her here for? What is she doing for our community?" Irons asked, turning stern with him.

He did not answer the obvious: their clan had lived extremely well since Seka came here. Vezlynn's payments made them have a surplus in everything they could need. Anything they wanted from the capital could be sent to them if they wished, even things that had only just been imported into their home: guns, gold, all manner of clockwork devices. They lived in splendor to make taking care of Seka as rewarding as possible.

It was a bribe. They took it knowing they did not need it, something for these strangers to throw their wealth on, but any of the clan would give it up to protect even one life among them.

The only thing Seka offered was Vezlynn's bribe. A bribe Sweetgrass took without knowing the danger Vezlynn put him in.

"Ravenous, Seka might be dangerous, but right now she is not. She is too afraid of her own shadow to hurt any horn here," Sweetgrass insisted, even as it felt like he spoke with a mouthful of ash.

"We heard her yelling at you last night," Thorns said, standing now.

"And you spent the entire day with her today!"

Thorns shook her head, a frown creasing her brow. "And I saw someone fragmented, not always in control of her actions, with a maw and teeth big enough to rip open your throat with a single bite."

"Were you..." Sweetgrass stepped back, "scared to be there today?"

"Not scared, on guard. I do not fear her, but I fear what she might do to you."

"We will not lose another shaman under my watch," Irons growled.

"I'm not in any danger!" Sweetgrass threw up his hands, as if to say, "See, I'm fine!"

"You forget trust is the very reason you wear your father's tattoo," Irons said. "We gave her trust, for a whole year, and she returns this by getting one of our kin killed and then refusing to speak or acknowledge any of us, to hide away and pretend she did nothing? I see that you feel truth in your words, Sweetgrass, but we must not weigh only what she will become, but what she has done."

"She is afraid of our anger. It paralyzes her and she is scared to face us--"

"We do not allow fear to excuse abuse."

Sweetgrass snorted. "Abuse?"

"Abuse of our trust, of her empire to avoid responsibility. If she wanted to do what was right, she would have. She has had ample time to face her fears."

"Rivers would have--"

"Do not dishonor your father's name by speaking it here."

Sweetgrass cowed soon as his mother spoke. Wreaths stood on the opposite end of the hearth, not far from Irons. With a glare alone, mother reduced her son back to a shamed child.

Wreaths waved to follow her and said, "Come." As she left the hearth, she yelled, "That was not a suggestion, child."

Ears flat to his head, tail tucked to his leg, he followed her out. They walked the length of the longhouse before stopping near the entrance, well away from the hearth and voices of the others. By the time Wreaths stopped, Sweetgrass had recovered some of his nerve: "Why can you not just trust me on this?"

"Because your faith in her does not change what she has done," Wreaths said. Her tone gave Sweetgrass pause. This part of the longhouse remained unlit, and in the dark he could not read her body language, but he heard the exasperated ache in her voice. "If you continue defending her, you are going to end up permanently at odds with the clan."

"Has there been talk of banishment?"

"The only reason it has not been brought up is that no one wishes to suggest I lose both father and son to this dragoness."

"Mother..." It hurt to be told that. He stepped closer to her, Wreaths back to him. He touched her elbow, but she did not face him. "I am just trying to do what is right."

Wreaths sat down, leaning against a violet support beam, and Sweetgrass sat beside her. She did not offer any more words, and Sweetgrass reckoned it because the matriarch would not repeat arguments she already made. They were done with arguing.

He touched her knee, running his thumb up and down the knobbly joint. "How is your pain?"

"Manageable," Wreaths said. "My aches are the least of your worries, boy."

"Is it alright if I ask a question, about father?"

"Of course you can, child."

"It is also about Seka."

"Of course it is, child."

"Do you know what it is he saw in her?"

Sweetgrass felt his mother shrug. "He saw someone in need of healing, but there was more to it than that."

Sweetgrass thought back to those early days, to the Seka'Tor that existed before her ravening. She'd always been a little flighty, worried about upsetting others, but she had also been friendly, outgoing, interested in learning their ways of living. When he first overheard his father asking Wreaths to marry Seka, Sweetgrass's only feeling had been excitement at the addition of a new aunt to his clan. He admitted, "I never noticed her hurting."

"Rivers said, there was something rotten with her time among her people. Your father, hmmph, a boy from Haven in the Rosettes Wreathed clan--their longhouse was bursting with young heifers and bulls, so he spent most his time outside his clan, hanging around outsiders to Haven. He knows more about dragons than you or I, than any else in the clan. And he told me Seka was not like other dragonesses. It confused him, at first, because she was much too tall, she had no bust, nor even the right scent."

Sweetgrass put it together: "She is branched?"

"Like the rivers and trees, yes," and Wreaths chuckled, sounding older than she was. "Heh, perhaps that is all it took. You were still suckling my teat when your aunt Thorns passed. She was our only clan's branched for some time, but your father remembered her and put it together just like you did, hmm? He never asked her, but understood her to be an outsider to her own people, and he longed to give her space where she would be seen for what she was."

"I would have never known."

"None of us would have," Wreaths said. "We don't know dragons. Dragons privilege order, structure, to the point of savagery. This is what Rivers told me. He said, 'They treat branched dragons like we treat oathbreakers, as if they made Seka swear some oath when she was born.' A babe, asking to swear an oath and keep it all their lives, can you imagine?"

Quietly, Sweetgrass's fingers bunched into fists, one still resting on his mother's knee. "Even more reason to protect her--"

"Stubborn bull. Her pain is no more an excuse than her fear. We cannot take responsibility for her relations, but we can take responsibility for our safety."

"I will not just stand by--"

"And why won't you?" Wreaths asked. She scooted around to face him, yanking Sweetgrass by the horn so he was face to face with her. "Speak in the darkness the truth you are afraid to name," she invoked.

And Sweetgrass thought of Seka's scales pressing into his palms, the way she said his name, how she hugged with wings and arms and tail, whole body thrown into every gesture of affection--

He gasped.

Wreaths let him go and huffed. "Your heart may hide from you, but it cannot hide from your mother."

Before Sweetgrass could even wrap his horns around this thought, a voice from just outside the longhouse called:

"Um, hello?"

Seka's voice, as if they summoned her. They both got up, not being far from the entrance, and walked over to the flap. They pulled it aside--

Seka's scales glittered in the moonlight, her hair turned to mercury. Her wings hugged her shoulders, as if to protect from the brisk night air, and in her hand she held the finished basket she'd started that day. She backed away a step and bowed. "I did not expect you to answer, Wreaths, but..." she rose and set the basket down at the longhouse entrance. "I know my people paid you for Rivers' death, but those things did not come from my hands."

Wreaths reached down and picked it up, examining it in the dark.

Seka, hands emoting with each word, said, "I know it is not much. I owe a lot more than baskets, but I am ready. I... I am sorry it took so long to come around, your son had to drag me kicking and screaming, but I felt Rivers' presence today, and I know his spirit aches because I have not done anything for you."

Wreaths, Sweetgrass realized, had been stunned into silence. She gestured to Seka with the basket and asked Sweetgrass, "Did you tell her to do this?"

Heart pounding in his throat again, Sweetgrass could only answer by shaking his head no.

"Sweetie--" his ears went up hearing her call him that again, but Seka stopped herself. She said to Wreaths, "Sorry, the twins were just calling him that all day, and--" she flapped her hands, "No excuses, Seka. What I mean is, Sweetgrass did nothing but give me the space I needed to think about what has happened, and what I have done, and what I have done is cower and hide from you. This basket is for that, for the cowering, I mean. For what happened with Rivers..."

"You will pay in much more than baskets," Wreaths said. "You understand, then?"

"'When we hurt something, if we do not mend our relations with our hands, then are we even sorry?'" Seka asked this like she spoke some proverb, then cleared her throat when blank stares greeted her. "Sorry, just something Rivers once told me that has stuck with me."

To the pair of Hinland, what Seka quoted was no more than a rhetorical question.

"And you did this unprompted, without knowledge of what is going on inside?" Wreaths asked.

Seka's wings slouched. "Am I forgetting some holiday you celebrate?"

Wreaths laughed. She shoved Sweetgrass and said, "Looks like your father watches over her still, hmm? I will speak to the council, and we will see about giving your ward a second chance."

As Wreaths headed back inside, Sweetgrass grabbed his mother's shoulder. "Wait, just like that?"

"Hehehe, what you forget, child," Wreaths said, leaning close and speaking in a whisper for only Sweetgrass to hear, "Though I did not love her like your father did, I still loved her enough to want her in our clan. This," she nudged him with the basket, "does not fix all the pain she has caused me, but it does remind me that I feel more than just resentment and grief towards her. I want her to mend relations as badly as you do." She backed up a step, her dark eyes shining, "Perhaps, not as badly as you do, but all the same." She held the basket out to Seka. "This, Seka, is a reason to trust. Do not forget the lesson in this. Just as reeds must be woven, trust is the work of our hands as well."

Wreaths dipped through the doorway, and Sweetgrass glanced between where his mother was and where Seka stood. He cleared his throat and said, "I can walk you back to your home?"

"It is not a long walk. There is no need to."

Swallowing his nerves, Sweetgrass said, "I would like to."

Her strange, hissing giggle made the end of his tail slap against his calves. "I would like that," she said, offering her hand.

He took it, finding it still cool. "Are you always so cold?" Sweetgrass asked as they headed toward her cottage.

"Hinland are just very warm blooded," Seka answered. "That was what surprised me most when I came here. How soft and warm your people were."

"But you like that we are?"

"I do. It makes me feel..."

"Safe?"

"Seen," Seka corrected. "I am only what I say and do here, and sometimes that makes my time growing up feel like a bad memory." She squeezed his hand in hers. "You reminded me of that today."

"I simply wove baskets with you."

Seka clicked her tongue. "You are too humble."

"I am wise enough to know I'm still too young to be wise. I simply wanted to give you a break."

"Mmm," she leaned closer. One of her wings stretched around and hugged him to her. "You are still older than your years."

Sweetgrass leaned into her side, muzzle flush to her dress, to the hard scales beneath. Her scent sweet petrichor, just as inviting as a gentle rain. At the cottage, she untangled herself from him and opened the door. Light from the furnace still illuminated her home, showing where she picked up working on her basket.

And a thought creased Sweetgrass's brow. "Did you ever eat?"

"I needed to finish the basket, clearly."

"I do not like--" she stopped him by setting a finger on his snout.

"We will take care of our vessel."

Sweetgrass's ears folded at the sound of the voice coming from Seka. It rumbled at a much deeper pitch than her husky timbre.

As if Seka did not notice the change, she wrapped him in a hug. Sweetgrass resisted a panicked impulse to pull away as she whispered in his ear, "Thank you for seeing me, Sweetie."

It was her voice, recognizable and warming his ear with her breath. He hugged her tight, enjoying how the scales of her back felt through her dress. Her hands were cold, but her ribs were a hearth radiating heat into Sweetgrass's whole body.

Her giggle broke the moment. "I will see you tomorrow?"

Reluctantly, Sweetgrass let go of her, backing up. "I look forward to it."

"Not sick of me yet?"

Sweetgrass shrugged. "You could be kinder in the mornings."

"Heh, I will try to be, for you."

"For yourself, Seka."

She shook her head. "I like being a grouch, but I like seeing your smile more." And to get the last word, Seka shut the door on him.

Sweetgrass fought not to throw it back open and insist he spend the night with her. He had no excuse, no reason to barge in other than this yearning for her touch. He placed his palm on the door and whispered, "May the spirits in your dreams be kind tonight, Seka'Tor."

Chapter Three: On a Land Living

"Found one!" Feathers pointed up at the thick bough of an abbexi tree where a sapper clung hunched to the violet bark. The rodent was no larger than Seka's fists pressed together. Its shriveled, naked hide was the color of dried blood, dark eyes opened wide. The sapper had its maw clenched down on the bough, fine fangs draining abbexi sap the same way any parasite might drain her blood.

Seka took a step, but Thorns passed her, loading the sling she carried. Sweetgrass came beside her, wearing a cloak against the cold. "Must we kill it?" Seka asked.

"Your dinner will not fetch itself," Sweetgrass said. "Besides, this tree is young and needs protection. If one sapper sees this one, they will assume it safe and swarm it." He loaded the sling he held with a stone from the pouch tied to the belt of his skirt. He asked, "Do you have that one sister?"

She already twirled her sling, circling around the tree for the best angle. "I am a better shot than you have ever been."

Sweetgrass sighed and told Seka, "I am sorry they are here."

"It is understandable," Seka said. The last time she left the village alone with the clan shaman Seka returned with a burnt corpse. The twins insisted on accompanying them. Sweetgrass's apology did make Seka wonder... She bumped his hip with hers. "What would you do if it were just the two of us, hmm, Sweetie?"

A thwack of stone striking skull saved Sweetgrass from responding. The sapper dropped from the tree without even a whimper, promptly caught by Feathers, who took the rodent's tail and tied it to the stave he carried. Tails tied by strips of leather, four already hung on the staff the young bull lugged over his shoulder, his sister's kills swinging in the air behind him.

The stave Seka carried had only one sapper by comparison.

"Come," Thorns said, waving for them to follow, "I think I see another in that old girl over there."

All across the span of Haven's Cloak, similar hunting parties spread out across the great abbexi forest, hunting the sappers that came out in droves to feed before they hibernated for the winter.

It had been two weeks since Wreaths convinced her clan to let Seka stay. As part of that agreement, the clan expected each day for her to perform an act of service to either the clan, land, or ancestors. Today's chore involved hunting sappers. Their meat was filling, their hides good lining to make things waterproof, and their teeth could easily be refashioned into needles. Seka cared little for the violence of the hunt, or the corpse dangling on the stave she walked with. No, her thoughts kept wandering to the little bull who walked a couple paces ahead of her.

"You did not answer my question," Seka whispered as they reached Thorns' tree.

"I just thought... we might speak more openly--"

"Hey Sweetie, there's another on the opposite side. Do you want to handle it?" Feathers asked while Thorns lined up the shot for the one she spotted.

"I can," Sweetgrass said, trotting over.

"Hmmph." Seka knew the young boy's feelings, since he lacked any of Rivers' kind stoicism. He had made his desires apparent the moment he felt them, and Seka tried to make no secret that she returned those feelings. She craved him--she wanted his touch as badly as she wanted to finish her work. Her thoughts only wandered to two places now: untangling the mysteries of Archayon's Well and untangling the knots of Sweetgrass's belt.

She followed him, coming to the other side of the tree just as another thwack enunciated Thorns unerring aim. Sweetgrass watched the sapper, who had gone from quivering against the trunk of this tree to very still. Sweetgrass muttered, "It is trying to decide if what it heard is a threat."

"They seem rather docile," Seka said. Which is why killing them made her stomach curl.

Thunk. Sweetgrass's stone hit the creature in the hip, and it fell out of the tree with a shrill yelp. He cursed and got another stone from his pouch as the sapper landed on the ground, whimpering and trying to stand. As he started to twirl his sling, he took a step towards the sapper. It twisted and shrieked, lunged, Sweetgrass gasped when its fangs punched through his skirt and into his thigh.

Fire surged through Seka, and the next she knew she tasted blood. Snarling, she snarled while her teeth clamped down on shattered bone, the shape of a spine, snapped, running the length of her maw. She was on all fours, wings half flared, the sapper's corpse atwixt her teeth. Seka coughed and yelled, dropping the mauled creature and scrambling away, only for someone to hook their arm in hers.

"Easy Seka," Feathers warned as he caught her.

Seka wretched, sticking out her tongue and trying to wipe it free of blood with her hands.

"What happened?" Thorns asked, standing beside Sweetgrass, who leaned against the abbexi tree.

"The other her," Seka heard Sweetgrass say, panting, "I think it took control to try and protect me."

Feathers released her and went to the corpse she mauled, its back torn open by Seka's teeth, chunks of its flesh still in her mouth. The taste of blood was so sharp it stung. She gagged, wrestled with her stomach, as fire and rage still pounded through her blood. She couldn't stop shaking. Feathers poked it with his stave. "Bit of a mess, but we should still take it back."

"M-must we?" Seka asked.

"We would dishonor its life to leave it, but here," Feathers tied it to his stave and held it out to Seka. "Trade me and carry these back to the longhouse, and take Sweetgrass with you."

Seka hesitated to take it, and Feathers stamped his hoof and turned to Sweetgrass. He did, and Feathers scooped up the stave Seka dropped. Thorns said to Seka, "Just get our brother home."

As the pair headed deeper into the forest, Sweetgrass set the stave against the trunk and hobbled to her side. He fell on his butt beside her and touched her shoulder. "Are you alright, Seka?"

Seka, on all fours again, twisted around to face Sweetgrass. She touched his thigh, spotting two fine holes among the feathers of his skirt, where blood welled up. Fire welled up in Seka's chest again, she wanted to taste Sweetgrass's thigh, his blood, to memorize its texture.

"Um, Seka?"

She gasped, finding she now leaned against his front, panting. Hand trembling it, she gingerly set it on his thigh. "Your leg."

He squeezed three of her fingers, the most Sweetgrass could easily fit in his palm. "It will be fine. As long as it is tended and it does not get infected,

I have nothing to fear."

Seka's eyes flicked up to his. Despite everything, he was smiling.

"It is touching you are worried."

Seka's fingers brushed down the coat of feathers on his skirt and grabbed the hem. "Can I see it?"

Sweetgrass's ears stood up. "You do not need--"

"I can heal it with magic, if you like."

"I am... you are sure?"

"It is a simple thing, a small wound like this."

He pursed his lips, but nodded just the same.

Seka pushed up his skirt, holding her breath as she saw his inner thigh for the first time. His fur softened to a cream color, quickly tangled in blood from the bite. Seka felt a growl rumble through her throat as that fire begged she bury her muzzle there and taste him.

"Rattling wings."

"Are you okay?" Sweetgrass asked. His hackles now stood with his ears.

"My other wants to taste you. It is... distracting me."

"Hehe, and here I hoped you would wait until you were ravenous to eat me."

She grabbed a handful of the fur on his thigh and tugged.

Sweetgrass bared his teeth, ears dropped backwards. "Ouch, why?"

"Do not joke about that," Seka said. Even the fire in her recoiled at the thought of hurting him.

"Your other is the one who wants a bite of me!"

Seka felt her vocal cords constrict, her wings rattle, and the fire expanded into her limbs, heat washing through her as her other spoke through her: "We will only bite if you beg for it, Sweetie."

Sweetgrass's eyes went wide, and laughter shook through Seka. Thick, growling, deeper in her throat than her laugh ever was.

"Does that fluster you, little one?"

"I-is that you, Seka?"

"Mmmm," her throat rumbled, "She is a part of us, yes."

"So, you are her other?" Sweetgrass asked. Seka crawled closer, over him, and Sweetgrass retreated, lying down into the ground so that she dwarfed him.

"You are scared of us."

"I do not know you, and right now you are possessing my friend's body."

"Only a friend?" She tilted her head, in a gesture at once recognizable and distant: this was hers, her body language the fire channeled to soon give Sweetgrass a pout. She said, "We possess nothing. A body is a shared thing with dragons. She has had her turn, mine is coming, and the walls between us are crumbling."

Sweetgrass tried to scoot away, but she planted her palms just above his shoulders.

"Ah-ah, it takes a lot of work to take over, you know. We will say our peace, then be gone."

"You..." Sweetgrass scoffed. "You just want to speak?"

"Despite what you might think, little one, we will not touch you or harm you without her permission."

Sweetgrass gawked, and Seka slapped the ground with her tail hard enough to knock the stave over and startle her little bull.

"Do you see this body?" the fire hissed. "The power packed in it? None in your clan could stop us if we wanted to hurt you." She leaned in, whispering in his ear, "Though, we sense pain would just excite you." Limp to the ground, stunned, ears raised and face flushed, plus that smell--his scent, his musk and the excitement in it.

Seka almost felt vertigo as she watched her body suddenly pitch to the right, slapping the ground, roaring with laughter.

Sweetgrass remained pinned there, as inert as Seka felt watching this play out. She rolled on her side to get off her back, facing him, doodling in the dirt between them with a claw. "We are only here to force a conversation that must happen, worry not."

At some point in all her laughing, Sweetgrass had recovered his composure, earlier arousal completely faded. "Will it be quick? This bite is not bad, but--"

The fire snorted, eyes rolling as the rusty red canopy above twisted into webs and bands of light, pulsing with their energies, circulating as a body rooted into the very soil itself, the soil turning, noticing her, and a chasm, a depth impossible, a mind facing her, not a network circulating like electricity, but a neural one that infused her very being with energy.

The tips of her fingers glowed. "May we?" she asked.

Wide-eyed and silent, Sweetgrass nodded.

"We will solve two problems," the fire said before two of her claws extended. They plunged into Seka's palm like the fangs that punctured Sweetgrass's thigh.

"Seka!"

"Peace, little one," the fire said. She pressed her palm to his thigh, Sweetgrass gasped but did not try to move. His thigh was so soft, filled her palm so nicely, Seka groaned even as her body did not.

"Your hand is very warm," Sweetgrass said.

"Cold no longer, hmm?"

"No," Sweetgrass breathed. "Are you waiting for something?" So far, Seka's fingers still glowed, some cluster of magic and spells bunched there but held like the hammer of a revolver.

"For our blood to intermingle," the fire said before she pressed those two digits into the palm that held his thigh.

"Ha-Haven's blood!" Sweetgrass cursed. He trembled as Seka felt warmth surge into him, but she could not sense what it must have felt like. She only watched Sweetgrass gasp, hips buck upward in some reflex of pleasure. He sat up and grabbed her shoulder, clinging to her as he moaned.

And then it was over. Seka's body, despite how upset it made her, pulled away from Sweetgrass, no longer touching him. She heard herself grinning as the fire said, "Mmmm, we have a spell for that problem as well, little one."

"I... I have had enough magic," Sweetgrass managed, panting. He massaged where the bite once was, feeling for it, searching for a sore spot or tenderness, and finding nothing.

"Very well," the fire said, "We have healed your wound and made it so you will have no trouble understanding her."

"But we already have no trouble understanding her."

"And this will make sure she cannot hide her words from you," the fire said, in draconic.

"I am confused. What would she even hide?" Sweetgrass asked in Hinland. And Seka realized she'd been speaking in draconic since she ended the spell.

"There is nothing now, but it is a precaution, against her own anxieties," the fire said. The Hinland language had no direct translation for anxiety--leave it to dragons to create twenty different words for fear and pain. The academic in Seka wondered what Sweetgrass heard in the word's place.

Dawning realization darkened Sweetgrass's mood. "Should I be concerned?"

"A parent is prudent."

"You are her parent?"

"Guardian, of sorts. Just as you are."

"We are no one's parent."

"Right, you'd rather be her lover."

"We would?" Sweetgrass barked as if that answer surprised him.

Seka's head cocked. "Surely you knew this already?"

"I-I did--or at least, I knew I wanted to be her, um..." Sweetgrass leaned close and whispered, "'lover.'"

And it slid into place for Seka, the fire voicing what she thought, "Why are you ashamed, little one? She pines for you so badly it is making us protective."

Sweetgrass went from wincing at the word "shame" to unable to keep a dopey smile from peeking onto his face. "She... she does?"

"Now I know you are not so--"

"I didn't want to believe she would."

"Why not?"

Sweetgrass's shoulders hunched. "I am scared." He hugged his knees to his chest. "It feels like I am taking something from my father, taking something I've not gotten permission for. And... and Wreaths and Thorns both know, but both have warned me away for different reasons. Wreaths does not want me falling in some doomed love, and Thorns thinks you plan to take advantage of me. And what will the clan think? We managed to convince them not to banish you, but everywhere my wisdom is questioned and..."

"Sweetie."

He gasped.

So did Seka, feeling herself fall back into her limbs, the fire sweeping through her, making a gesture like one dancer swapping with another.

"He is all yours."

And she'd already crawled over, pulling him into her embrace. She raised her wings and blocked out the light. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Seka whispered, trying to swallow down panic. Unsure how she could feel her heart race so quickly but remain so calm. "I've put so much pressure on you. Please, let me know how I can make it easier? I'll do anything you need, Sweetie."

"It is not..." a whimper came from him, her chest ached to hear him choke on tears. "Not your responsibility--I am supposed to take care of you."

She couldn't help but giggle wryly. "Do you hear yourself? Your mother would skin your scales for talking like that." Heart leaping, she kissed his brow. "You are my caretaker, but that does not mean you can't be cared for, too."

"I don't know what we can do to fix things."

"Some things can't be fixed..." Seka said, rubbing circles into the small of his back. "Like our ravening. It does feel selfish to ever want you to want us."

Sweetgrass chuckled, lifting an arm and wrapping it around her neck to try and press their bodies even closer. "The joy I would share with you, however brief, would outweigh any grief. Wreaths might fear it, but I never have."

"Rattling wings, Sweetie, now I'm going to cry."

"Oh." That perplexed sound gave Seka pause.

"What's wrong?"

"That curse, I understood it."

"That is what she meant earlier. We share our tongues now."

"I would like that very much."

Seka straightened up. "Y-you would?"

Sweetgrass looked up at her, eyes still wet with tears, ears still folded, but the twitch of his lip... "Um, I just--" He huffed through his nostrils. "No, I mean, yes! I want to kiss you, Seka'Tor."

"I would like that very much, Sweetgrass Twined." Her hand cupped his face, thumb circling around his horn. He leaned into her touch as she leaned down, guided his muzzle upwards. Her snout brushed his, and they shuddered together, Sweetgrass gasping.

And her lips met his. Soft and warm, like the rest of him, dainty compared to hers, her muzzle tilting, deepening the kiss. Sweetgrass hugged her tighter, telling her not to pull away. His lips opened, and her purr ran the length of her tongue as it slid into his mouth. Hers sinuous, pebbly in its texture while his tastebuds remained smooth, saliva sweet as his name. Her oral muscle filled his maw in moments, and Sweetgrass shivered, groaned, let her lick along the roof of his mouth before she finally let him breathe again.

Looking down at him warmly, Seka asked, "How was that?"

Sweetgrass grinned. "Almost perfect. I could do without the taste of that sapper, though."

Seka covered her muzzle with her palm. "I forgot in all this--"

"Hehehe, hey, it's okay, Seka." He touched her cheek and guided her into another kiss. A brief one before he whispered, "How about we take these sappers back to the longhouse, then we can see about getting you a drink?"

"Mmmm, I can think of something else to get this taste out of my mouth."

"Please do not fuck while we are still in earshot."

Both of them fell apart from each other, scrambling to get up. Thorns and Feathers were not far away, standing by another tree with two more sappers tied to their stave. Thorns had her hip cocked, arms folded across her chest, while Feathers beamed at the both of them.

"I told you he would seduce her, I told you!"

Seka's wing settled against Sweetgrass's shoulder, and she wrapped his hand in hers. "It is cute they think you seduced me."

He leaned against her and joked, "What did you think all those meals I cooked for you were? I was showing you how good things could be if you stuck around."

Feathers' ears flattened. "Sweetie, did you understand her?"

"I have been teaching him draconic," Seka volunteered to spare Sweetgrass an explanation.

"What else have you been filling his head with?" Thorns asked. She scraped her hoof along the forest floor. "What of the counsel we gave you? Does the wisdom of your matriarchs not matter to you--"

"You are far from being a matriarch, sister," Sweetgrass said. "Can you not trust me?"

"We are trying, Sweetie, but you are not making it easy," Thorns said. She turned her back on them and muttered to Feathers, "The hunt calls, brother."

They watched the twins retreat into the violet screen of trees, then Seka quietly asked, "Will they be alright?"

"We should worry more about ourselves." Sweetgrass walked over and grabbed his dropped sling and the stave Seka had carried.

"I can take that." Seka reached for the stave, but Sweetgrass did not let her have it:

"Allow me, as a thank you for healing my wound."

And Seka, caught up in all that happened at once, remembered what she saw earlier. "I need to get back to my cottage."

"Then let us go."

"Sweetie... I think I understand, I know where I was going wrong. Where we all went wrong," she babbled as she tried to walk back to the village, but Sweetgrass caught her wrist.

"It is this way, Seka."

So it was. She swept him into her arms, carrying him against her chest while he squirmed in her grip. "You lead, and I will get us home." She could not wait, her research could not wait, she needed to write all of this down before she forgot. She began running in the direction Sweetgrass pointed.

***

Sweetgrass wanted to ask Seka to put him down before they reached the village, lest they think Sweetgrass had been hurt, but Seka did not slow in the slightest. Sweetgrass clutched the stave in one hand, and hugged her tight with his other, his thigh still tingling. They broke through the screen of trees and leapt across the pasture fence, domesticated calvax shrieking and scrambling away, wings flapping and frantic.

She carried him straight to the longhouse before setting him down and pressing a kiss into Sweetgrass's cheek . "Join me soon as you can, Sweetie," she said.

He touched his cheek, wobbling a little as she rushed off to her cottage. Irons burst through one of the side doorways in the longhouse, yelling, "What is all this commotion--where in Haven's Cloak does that dragoness think she is off to?"

"Hurrying to her research," Sweetgrass answered, getting Irons to wheel around and face him.

She looked him up and down then glared. "Did you have her out there hunting with her teeth? This poor creature." Irons walked up to the stave and started to untie the mauled sapper.

"It bit me, Seka bit it back to get it off me."

Irons clicked her tongue. "That is what the staff is for. One good smack to the skull is much easier for everyone. You say it bit you, child, where?"

Sweetgrass patted his thigh. "Seka already healed it."

Irons, holding the mauled sapper between them by the tail, cocked her head.

"She used magic."

Irons scowled. "If there is one thing she should not be doing it is using magic around us. What if something went wrong again?"

"It did not, so what is there to fear?"

Irons sighed. "You are still young enough to think you are invincible."

"Nothing of the sort," Sweetgrass said. "I would never put myself at risk like father did."

"You swear, boy?"

"On the blood of my mothers," Sweetgrass said.

"Fine. I am old enough to know how much more dangerous it is not to trust my children," Irons said. "Come." Sweetgrass followed Irons around the longhouse. Twenty paces away from Seka's cottage, a table had been set out where Meadows Twined, Sweetgrass's uncle, had the adolescents and children skinning and preserving with salt the kills their clan brought in.

His dark hide had become coated in blood, fur of his arms wreathed in it. He waved at them. "Chieftess, Sweetie, do you know why that dragoness stampeded through here? She almost tore down her door just to get in her home."

"She thinks she has discovered something," Sweetgrass said.

"Good, maybe she will leave tomorrow," Irons said, walking past him to where several wooden poles had been staked and arranged into wracks.

As she tied the sapper she carried there, Meadows said, "You do not look excited about that."

Sweetgrass winced, and hurried along to join Irons in stringing up the sappers. "I will miss her, is all," Sweetgrass mumbled.

"You should not. Once she is gone, you can start your roaming, start looking for fresh blood to join us here."

Hinland matriarchs remained rooted to their clan, but every male carried the expectation of traveling, meeting others of their people, and choosing to either stay with whatever clan they found like his father had, or convince any heifer to return home with him. Before Rivers passed, they had planned for Sweetgrass to begin his roaming this very year.

It was difficult to protest Seka leaving, for no matter what happened she would be leaving him: "The walls between us are crumbling," Seka's other had said. Sweetgrass should have asked just how much time they had.

Irons noticed his silence. "You are scared to roam."

"There is nothing to fear. You know how we welcome roaming bulls, Sweetie," Meadows said. "It is just like that everywhere. I had so much fun with my roaming that I thought I would never settle, then this one begged me to stay."

"Hush you old bull," Irons said. "Furs, come here with that knife and drain these, hmm?"

A young bull with a similar coating to Sweetgrass came over to slice the throats of the sappers now dangling on the racks. As their blood drained into the pit they hung over, Irons pulled Sweetgrass aside, leading him back to the longhouse.

"Hey what happened to this chewed up one?" Meadows called out to them.

"The dragoness got hungry," Irons yelled over her shoulder. Then, to Sweetgrass she said, "What troubles you, Sweetie?"

"The dragoness," he answered wryly before adding, "Is it even safe for me to go roaming. We need a shaman--"

"I will send word to my brother in the Saplings Sewn clan. Both his nephews have finished their training, one can stay here while you are away, and perhaps your replacement will decide to stay, hmm?" She nudged him with an elbow. "Then if you find some handsome bull or heifer you could stay with them if you like."

Sweetgrass made the mistake of glancing back to Seka's cottage. "Chieftess..."

Irons held her hand up. "Do not say it." She turned her head and spat onto the ground. "That is what I think of that. Wreaths warned me you loved her."

That word made Sweetgrass a little lightheaded. Did he? He understood love as it meant to love his kin, his ancestors, the land, but his feelings with Seka were a knot of brambles he still could not untangle. To know he might love her, knowing he would still lose her...

Irons placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. "Remember the oath you made. That is all I ask."

Sweetgrass blinked back tears. "I understand."

"I would give you my blessing, Sweetie, but I think instead I will ask the ancestors to protect you."

Throat stinging, he had not even told her what happened in the forest. How right now he felt himself being tugged towards the cottage, but Irons hold on his shoulder held him in place. Held him, but would not stop him, only slow Sweetgrass down to be sure he stayed safe.

He hugged her, and Irons, despite her age, still crushed him to her chest. "Th-thank you," he wheezed.

"Mmm, no matter what happens, do not forget about us. We are here for you." She released him, stepping back and up to the longhouse entrance. She said, "You go to her now?"

Sweetgrass wiped his eyes clean and nodded.

"I will let your mother know. If we do not see you tonight, we will assume it is good news. If we do not see you in the morning, though, I will gore her on my horns."

Sweetgrass could not help but laugh at the thought. "I never knew sleeping in could be so dangerous."

"Testing the patience of a matriarch always is," Irons said, tapping her horns. "And here, you will not need those."

Sweetgrass handed over his sling and the pouch of stones he carried, whispering, "Thank you again."

She only grunted and took the tools from him, ducking inside.

Sweetgrass hoped he had not kept Seka waiting too long.

Quick as he could walk without running, he crossed back over to the cottage, breath short as he reached for the door. He found Seka at her desk, one moment writing then the next jumping up all grinning teeth and yellow eyes shining. "There you are Sweetie." She hurried over, grabbing his hand, "Come here, there's something I need to show you."

"What is it?"

They came to a stop at her desk where her journal was opened. One page a column of draconic script that Sweetgrass understood at a glance, as easily as the arrangement of beads in another bull's braid. That jarred him even more, feeling like he watched the shoulders of his kin turn on him even as all the books in Seka's cottage opened up to him.

But this is not what Seka pointed at, for on the opposite page was a drawing. A circle in spiraling layers. "That's the planet," Seka said, not realizing Sweetgrass could read the notes on the diagram. "We have known for some time that energy circulates through it, but we thought this was the flow of tectonic plates creating energy, but it's the planet itself. It's a living thing."

Sweetgrass snickered. "It took you dragons this long to learn the land is living?"

Seka shook her head. "No, I mean the planet itself is a sentient being."

Sweetgrass just stared back at her with a wry, half-smile that said, "And?"

Seka tossed her head back in a dramatic groan. "You don't understand."

"I do! Can I ask you something?"

She nodded.

"Do the abbexi think? Are they sentient?"

Seka's brow furrowed. "What are you getting at?"

"We cannot see the ways they speak to each other, but we know they speak, hmm? When sappers swarm a tree and drain it, the others will lift their branches from that tree. It is subtle, but you can see it. Of course the land is living, Seka, just because it does not live the way we do does not make it alive."

Seka sighed. "I'm not sure you do understand."

But Sweetgrass tapped the page with all the writing, "You say it is a mind, not energy circulating in a network, but energy circulating along lines of thought and feeling." Sweetgrass giggled when Seka's jaw dropped. "It seems that spell did more than either of us thought."

"Okay... alright..." Seka cleared her throat and shut her journal, then winced. "Sorry, self-conscious."

"I will not pry. It is your work, Seka, not mine."

Seka touched her throat, clearing it before she continued quietly, "I tried to commune with it, Archayon, soon as I got back inside. And I felt it, but it was like diving into an ocean and hoping to reach the bottom. It is so old and deep... I'm not sure how I communicated with it earlier. I could not call its attention anymore than I could call for a star's."

"Mmm, did you try to simply listen, to sit with it?"

Seka hugged herself and admitted, "I was too scared. I felt... my other started to come in, and I didn't want her taking over."

Sweetgrass touched her elbow. "I think we have seen her enough today."

"It scares me, Sweetie. She's there all the time--what if I'm at the end of my ravening?"

"Do you not know the symptoms?"

Seka shook her head. "I've been to hospice to see my grandparents before they turned. The periods of dissociation last longer, sometimes dragons get stuck thinking they're back in their youth, and often they go nonverbal. But I've never heard of anything like this... she's... so alien."

"You become possessed."

"It feels as though I do. I can recognize her as me, but at the same time she is the me of another world."

"It is like..." Sweetgrass licked his lips, trying to find the words, "Like a dragon's body becomes possessed in their ravening, and the new spirit comes pushing out the old."

"We are not replacing her." Sweetgrass started, backing up as he heard the strange, deep growl coming from Seka. "We are one. We have always been here. She is not being possessed, she is waking up." Seka staggered back, taking a gasp of breath that came out as, "Rattling wings!"

Sweetgrass was at her side, leading her shaky body to her bed. "It is alright, Seka."

"Ugh, I'm sorry, about that."

"It is fine," he cooed, stroking the back of her neck. He kissed her temple, having to sit on his knees to do so. "Your other simply wanted to make clear she is not here to hurt you."

"Chronic pain--another symptom of late ravening," Seka added. She opened her wings and said, "Other than some stiffness in my wings, I'm fine. Though a lot of that just has to do with a lack of exercise."

"I did not know they work," Sweetgrass admitted sheepishly. "I thought you just carried them around until you reached your ravenous form."

"Hehe, no, they work quite well. You should see how we make cities back in the empire. Everything is made with the assumption you can fly."

"What about those who cannot?"

Seka shrugged. "There are ladders, stairs, some of the time."

"Maybe someday you could show me."

"You would hate it there." A strange little, bitter laugh slipped out. "Sorry, I... I thought I would care more about my ravening happening here. I thought I would miss my home, but I am glad."

"You are?" Sweetgrass prompted.

"If I went home, I would just be twice a failure. I..." Seka sniffled, and in her lap she bunched up the hem of the faded yellow dress she wore, "A failure as a son, and as a scholar." She shook, sniffled, eyes squeezed tight. "I-I should have told you--I just--"

"I knew you were branched," Sweetgrass said, squeezing her bicep to get her to look at him. Eyes sparkling with stunned tears made Sweetgrass add, "It... my father knew, and he told my mother, who told me the night you brought her the basket."

"And you never said anything?"

"Why my parents did not I cannot say... but I did not want to mention something that might be painful to speak on unless you brought it up." He chuckled and leaned against her, nuzzling into her shoulder. "You are a dragon, I have no clue what to expect when we have sex, but I do know I want to explore."

"Rattling wings, Sweetie..." she pulled him into a kiss. He gasped, maw being pressed open by that strange, spongy tongue. The sickly iron taste of blood had mellowed on her palette, but he could tell she'd not taken a drink of water since their last kiss. Even as he turned to her to deepen the kiss, a part of him tucked that away: make sure she hydrated--forgotten the moment her tongue slid down his throat. He gagged, and her slimy muscle retreated quickly, Seka pulling away to ask, "Are you okay? I'm sorry, I should have asked."

Sweetgrass coughed, wiping tears from his eyes before he mumbled, "I-I liked it... I just was not prepared for that." He swallowed the phlegm in his throat and noticed her expression. "What is wrong?"

"Are we going too fast?"

"Do you want to slow down?"

"No! I mean--I just..." she scooted away, backing into the wrought iron headboard. The whole frame swayed and squeaked. "I really don't want to pressure you, Sweetie. I know how hard things are with your clan and we don't have to do anything until you feel--"

"Irons knows, Seka."

Despite the chieftess's brow only coming to Seka's shoulder, the dragoness still withered and shrunk like any scared child.

Smiling, Sweetgrass said, "And I have her blessing to be with you. But do you want to slow down?"

Seka hugged her knees to her chest, tail twined around her trimmed taloned feet. "I guess, yeah."

Sweetgrass turned and sat on his side of the bed. He leaned in but didn't scoot closer, "I am nervous, too."

She scowled. "Why would you be nervous?"

"Because I want to please you, and I know nothing about pleasing dragons."

She stared at him like she tried to solve some riddle he spoke.

Sweetgrass laughed. "What?"

"You want to please me?"

He cocked his head.

"I just... no one has ever..."

He straightened up. "Have you never...?"

She clenched up, eyes shut, and mumbled, "Not further than kissing."

"Peace, Seka," Sweetgrass cooed as he crawled towards her. "It is nothing to be ashamed of." He reached out, and she gladly fell against him. He hugged her tight, face crushed so tight to her chest his horns dug into the tough, hardened scales around her collarbone. It did not stop her from shuddering and sobbing against him.

"I'm s-sorry," she whimpered.

"You are not in trouble," Sweetgrass whispered. He managed to press backwards enough to look up and ask her, "Do you want to know what the matriarch that taught me said?"

Her lip trembled, tail twitched, but she grunted assent.

"Shut up and listen to what your partner wants."

"Hehe," she laughed, fleetingly, before another shadow crossed her. "What if I don't know what I want?"

"We will both listen to your body, and it will tell us." Sweetgrass stroked her cheek. "I'm ready to try that kiss again, if you'd like."

Seka pinched her bottom lip with a fang, hesitating a breath before she kissed him. Her lips were lush but firmer than his. A little strange, still, but not unwelcome, just another part of her that could be only her for Sweetgrass to savor. His tongue slid against hers, against the taste of blood. He almost liked it now, but liked more how her tongue touched his mouth. Brought pleasure he never knew kissing could. The tip of her muscle slid under his uvula, almost scratching that spot. A strange, tender warmth that made his whole body heat up. He sucked in a gasp through his nostrils, felt the claws of her thumb stroking sweet circles behind his ear. He relaxed, head tilting up more as that tongue slipped down his throat. Sweetgrass's top half went still, paintbrush tail thump thump thumping on the bed.

Seka's tongue retreated and a shuddering wave of pleasure crashed through him. He moaned into her mouth, shivering, now noticing his member dropped from his sheath, filling up his loincloth. Seka returned his moan with a rumbling purr, licking along the roof of his maw before breaking the kiss.

Eyes alight, Seka asked, "How was that?"

Dumbly, Sweetgrass nodded and choked, "Mhmm. G-good."

Her hissing giggle sent a little tingle down his back.

"What?"

"You... I just... I'm giddy because I love you."

That word again. Drawing Sweetgrass back down into his body, suddenly each place his hide touched her scales felt lit up. "I... I... I love you, too."

Seka misunderstood his hesitation. "I'm sorry--I didn't mean to push--"

"No, you were not pushing. I am just, in awe of what this feels like, what saying that feels like." He quaked and hugged her tight. "I've never felt this way about anyone."

"Oh, Sweetie," she consoled him now, rubbing the small of his back with her tail again. "Is it--are you scared?"

Sweetgrass had ventured to other clans with his father before, knew other Hinland he liked, found attractive. It was how he found himself in the bedroom of the young matriarch, showing him things that awed him then, too. But the love he felt for his kin, for the land, all of that carried a different kind of feeling to it. And Sweetgrass at once understood what his mother meant when she told him, "Now that Seka has taken him from me, my every breath yearns to join him in death." That was why Wreaths did not want him to be with Seka in the first place. And a strange, sweet grief rose into his chest as she held him.

"I said it earlier," he finally answered her, now wrapping his arms around her waist to hug it, "The joy you bring me will outweigh everything. I know it now for certain."

"Sweetie... I love you."

"I love you, Seka."

They rocked against each other for a moment longer, taking solace in the quiet motion of their bodies. Sweetgrass almost felt like laughing again, as he thought of each strange step their dance had taken. All his past sexual partner had been much more straightforward!

When they pulled away again, they both needed to rub tears from their eyes. Seka sniffled and cursed, "Rattling wings! Why do we still have clothes on?"

"Hehehe, did you want us to take them off?"

"I would like that."

Sweetgrass tossed off his cloak, then scooted back and shimmied off his skirt and loincloth off together. He faced her, eyes cast down at her knees, ears raised. "I know I am not much--Seka!" He grabbed her horn, her open maw just out of reach of his cock. Her tongue darted out, slimy tip wrapping around the glans of his member. He gasped, felt her tug on his head with just her tongue. Both Seka and Sweetgrass were panting as he held her there, her eyes trained on his groin, right where his almost cream coat darkened to the coal grey of his sheath. His darker-still cock jutted from his waist, thickest round his medial ring, and bowing under its weight.

His abdomen clenched, precum squirted across Seka's tongue. She moaned and went a little limp as her tongue reeled back to her maw. She squirmed and moaned with her lips still shut.

"Haven's blood," Sweetgrass cursed. "Do you want to--"

"Please Sweetie. Let me," she whined, "It tastes so good, please."

"A-alright." He relaxed his grip on her horns, and she swept forward. Contrary to what he expected, she did not swallow him right away, but ducked under his shaft and into his balls. She huffed, then sucked in a breath against her nostrils, moaning again. Sweetgrass leaned back onto his palms, legs spread for her, more chagrined as he felt her nuzzle then lick him there. That did get him to gasp, which turned into him almost sitting up when her tongue shoved underneath against his perineum, tasting him there.

"S-Seka..." he breathed her name, holding onto it as pleasure wracked his body. He bit down the need to touch himself as she licked and tasted his taint, her purring muffled between bed and balls. He rocked his hips to grind into her licking, that tongue prodding sensitive spots along his skin he didn't know he had. She grabbed his thighs, grip almost encircling it entirely as she leaned him further back.

He gasped as he slid down onto his elbows, finding Seka's yellow eyes watched him, half-lidded, as her tongue prodded his pucker. He clenched it unconsciously. He had not been prepared for this, assuming she would want to receive. Still, he did not fight how the spongy, thick trunk of that muscle pressed into his rim, sliding up his crack, before yanking back down, covering his backside in a coating of her drool. His head fell back, horns hanging off the bed.

Till Seka's snout pushed in under his tail. She nuzzled into his crack and kissed his rim, and Sweetgrass bit his bottom lip. That tongue prodded against his entrance again, wriggled into soft, wrinkled flesh. Teasing, deeper, just like his throat earlier, wedging past his reflexive resistance. Her lips sucked on his entrance, her fangs digging into his skin as she caved him in. Sweetgrass's back arched as her tongue plunged inside his body again.

His cock jumped then flopped against his belly, drooling precum across his navel. His eyes fluttered, and he moaned. Seka licked and lavished his hole with her drool, spreading it more and more, her organ thickening as it wormed deeper inside him. Her maw opened and her teeth pinched into Sweetgrass's fur and flesh. It almost appeared she meant to bite him, but it was just to force more of her oral muscle inside him. He felt the dragoness's throaty growl vibrate through her into him. Her tongue lapped up, then dragged backwards, and Sweetgrass saw stars.

"Fuck, Seka!" he cried, "Right there... Haven's blood..." She responded with a sweet purr and focused her attention on that spot. She had spread him enough that it felt like three of his own fingers had been pushed inside. And all that wriggling length now pressed and prodded against that spot, pressure exploding from it and radiating through his shaft, his glans flaring, nuts drawing tight to his loins.

He never fathomed how good this might feel. His only forrays into anal had not gotten very far before pain outweighed any pursuit of pleasure, but her tongue seemed made for opening him up. His whole body focused on where Seka ate him out, his rim itching for more. It flustered him to be on his back like this. He meant to please her, but as his flare fattened to that full, swollen head, he could not muster the words to stop her.

She must have sensed it: noticed all the tension winding up in his body, how his moans came more ragged and cracked, his balls cinched tight to his groin; for Seka grabbed his shaft under his flare and started stroking it. Sweetgrass had always admired his size, but he still seemed small in her palm, and that made him feel even smaller. Something about that, though, fed into all these submissive impulses inside him. He liked being so little next to her, so vulnerable yet safe at the same time.

Safe enough to bray her name so loud any even walking past the cottage might hear him. That tension snapped and Sweetgrass's hips bucked, almost scraping himself on Seka's teeth, but she darted her muzzle backwards. Tongue slurped out of him, pushed out by Sweetgrass's contractions. Thick ropes of seed shot across his torso. One struck his jaw before Seka's maw enveloped his cock. Her tongue touched his sensitive flare, and Sweetgrass, defensively, grabbed the shock of Seka's white locks and shoved her down his shaft. He groaned as his cock bottomed out in the back of her muzzle, still spilling his load.

Seka did not swallow, but let his cum build up in her mouth, moaning almost as loud as Sweetgrass had. All but her wings had gone very still, which shivered with each pulse of his shaft, till finally his orgasm died down. Seka released a sigh through her nostrils, and slid off him, sitting up. She smiled then opened her maw, showing pearlescent strings of his seed, webs of his essence across her tongue. She shut her maw, swished it round, and swallowed, moaning again as she felt him travel down her throat.

Sweetgrass collapsed backwards on the bed, exhaling, realizing he held his breath when she pulled off him. His cock softened a little, but did not retreat as she began lapping up the gouts of cum that were tangled in his fur. Her grooming him in the afterglow left Sweetgrass in a hazy cloud of pleasure. His every muscle slack, Seka crawling over him as she licked his chest, Sweetgrass whispered, "I thought you were new to this."

Seka's eyes shined as she settled across him, careful so her weight would not be too uncomfortable. "Mmmm, I knew for a long time what I wanted... it was just..." She shuddered and sighed. "So much better than I thought it would be. You taste really good, you know?"

"Still think you won't try to eat me when you become ravenous?"

She paused, and Sweetgrass almost flinched, realizing his mistake. Seka asked, "Does it scare you? That I'll hurt you?"

Sweetgrass stroked her cheek and she leaned into the touch. "It scares me that I'm going to lose you, that there is nothing I can do to stop that," he said. "But I never worried about you hurting me; besides, your other said today she would not do anything like that."

"I felt her, while we were... well, through all of that, even now I can tell she's watching. I think she wants you almost as badly as I do."

Sweetgrass's hackles went up like earlier that day when Seka's other had been over him, flirting. He swallowed and said, "Well, she is going to have to wait her turn. I want you first and foremost." He cupped her chin between finger and thumb. "Now come here."

She gladly kissed him, her tongue finding his again. Sweetgrass had been with other males, so the taste of his cum did not revolt him. The evidence of her need for him just made Sweetgrass's shaft start to fatten up and harden again.

He broke the kiss and growled, "Mmm, it is my turn to pleasure you."

Seka actually shrank backwards. "Are you sure? You don't need--"

"Hush with that," Sweetgrass said as they both sat up. He leaned in, holding her gaze as he said, "You are beautiful, Seka, and I want to see and explore all of you."

Her eyes flicked away, lips pursed, wings huddled to her back. Still, she mumbled, "I... would like you, too, I'm just..."

Sweetgrass rubbed her knee. "We will take it at your pace."

Seka's expression softened. "I can't stand that look on your face."

"Hah, excuse me?"

"Just! So... you make me feel like everything is going to be so safe, which is ridiculous because I'm not safe--and you're so pretty and what am I doing why am I telling you this--"

He cut her off with a kiss. Slow, sweet, just the pressure and warmth of his lips to hers. Then he broke it and whispered, "You are wonderful and have nothing to fear."

She sniffled. "That is not going to make me feel better."

"Hehe, that right? Should I try something sterner?" Sweetgrass puffed up and scowled. "Seka, now listen here you wind scattered seedling, you have nowhere near my wisdom, and as your elder--"

She guffawed. "Elder?"

Sweetgrass broke character long enough to spare her a wink. "That is right! As your elder, I know better than you, and the truth is..." Sweetgrass stopped, standing up on his knees to look down at her, taking her bigger hands in his, "You are wonderful and have nothing to fear." He tilted his head and smiled. "That better?"

"Snrk, Sweetie, hehe," she kissed his snout. "You are ridiculous."

"Would it be ridiculous for me to take off your dress?" Sweetgrass asked, fingers slipping from her grasp to stroke her thigh.

Seka pinched her bottom lip behind her front fangs again, but relented with a simple nod.

Beaming, Sweetgrass got up and swept around behind Seka. He'd been caring for her long enough to know how her clothing worked, and did not bother asking her for guidance, his thumbs finding the hooks to the straps of her dress. Horns, wings, and tail made draconic clothing tailored to be wrapped, buttoned, and tied to the body.

Straps undone, Sweetgrass pulled down the fabric at her shoulders, exposing bare scales not for the first time, but this new light gave him pause. Her shoulders were freckled with almost amber scales amidst the cloudy whites and greys. He kissed one, and Seka gasped, leaning back into his touch, wings pulling to the left to give him more access. He felt his front press against them, and those appendages moved aside easily, soft yet stiff where bone outlined their fingers. He kissed from her shoulder back to the nape of her neck, and Sweetgrass nuzzled into the pristine line of fur that ran down the length of her spine. He scented her, savoring the sweet tinge of petrichor that flavored her body odor.

"You smell good," Sweetgrass whispered in her earfrill.

"I do?"

"Heh, must you always be surprised when I compliment you?"

"I am not used to it!" Seka complained as Sweetgrass settled behind her and started working on the ties along her lower back. "I've never been complimented before."

"It is something only lovers do here," Sweetgrass said. "We were not lovers before today."

" Back home it is something you are supposed to do for dragonesses all the time," Seka said as the last of the ties came undone. "I... It was never a courtesy extended to me."

"Why is it that every time you mention your homeland, I want to visit it less and less?"

Seka scoffed. "I cannot imagine a reason you should see it."

"And if you finish your research here and choose to go home? Would I not be welcome to join you?"

Seka faced him, dress now collected at her hips where a final button under her tail needed freed. "I, um, have not thought that far ahead."

Sweetgrass, with half-hard cock waiting on him, chose to leave things there. He quietly leaned in, reached around, and undid that final button. "There, wanna slip out of that?"

A shy smile as she got off the bed and let her dress fall at her feet. Seka could not look at Sweetgrass as he took her in, head ducked to the side, wings lifting and lowering as if she fought not to cover herself with them. Sweetgrass did not like how thin she appeared, for he already worried Seka did not eat enough, but that thought receded the longer he looked at her. He noticed how the patches of creams and greys mellowed to a single color along her front. The head of a thundercloud that followed down soft rings of scales, navel set above a pouting lip of fat that marked the end of her abdomen. Below it, her hips were wide as any matriarchs, but given her considerable size, they only added a slight curve to her figure. The scales on the sides of her hips were rougher, smoothing into fine beads that seemed shaped to draw the eye down to her slit. It was not like other vulva he'd encountered. All those fine scales met in a tight line, which carried with it a slight blush, a bit of moisture leaking out of it onto her thigh. He watched her slit clench, before her voice finally made him look up:

"I'm... I'm not sure if you are aroused or appalled."

Sweetgrass's ears folded back. "Just... taking you in."

His tone made her relax. She cocked her hip, swaying a little for him. "I thought nudity never affected you?"

"Mmm, I might have exaggerated." He got up and asked, "So where do I start?"

She took his hands, wrapping him in her wings. "Where do you want to start?"

Sweetgrass laughed. "Preferably with something that feels good? I know nothing of your body, like this--"

"Ahn..."

"Oh well that was a reaction," Sweetgrass growled as his fingers pressed into and massaged her mons. "I like the way your scales feel here."

Seka had gone very still, but managed to ask, "H-how do they feel?"

"Like silt: soft, pliant," he kissed her throat, pressing his weight into her, his shaft brushing along her inner thigh. "Maybe even... fertile?"

"R-rattling wings, Sweetie," Seka hissed. "I-I never even mentioned--"

"Wanting little ones? Mmm, I see the way your eyes shine when you watch them."

"It's something..." Seka trailed off as Sweetgrass's exploring digits brushed the lips of her slit. Hot, more slick than he first expected. "S-something I just accepted I would never get--unless I tapped into magic no one has ever seen."

"So if you had the power to," Sweetgrass said as his index and middle finger stroked up and down her slit, teasing it, but not spreading her.

"In a breath," Seka admitted.

Sweetgrass asked, "Is it different for dragons? You seem well equipped for taking me inside you already. That is half the work, is it not?"

She shoved him backwards, and Sweetgrass fell onto the bed with a surprised yelp. Seka must've done it reflexively, because she started with, "Sorry--I did not--"

"It is fine, love," he took her outstretched hand and tugged her into another kiss. He liked having her over him, if she spread out her wings just right Sweetgrass wouldn't be able to see anything but her and the bed.

He almost requested it, but Seka retreated and returned to her shamed posture: arms folded across her chest, tail wrapped around her groin to hide it, wings hugging her shoulders. "I--I should show you." Trembling hands touched her folds before pressing deeper, spreading her slit. Her insides glistened a shining pink, and the pungent musk that hit Sweetgrass almost bowled him over. It was not the scent she wanted him to see, but something inside her passage, a tip too big and positioned too low to be what Sweetgrass usually took for a clitoris.

Then he realized what she meant to show: "You have a cock!"

Seka actually laughed, her hissing quickly replaced with growl. "Don't say it like that!"

Sweetgrass grinned. "Did you expect me to turn tail and run, hmm? I do not have as much experience with others, but I know how to please cock. I have been keeping mine happy for many years now."

Seka held her face in her hands and groaned. "Why do I keep thinking any of this would scare you away?"

"Because you have been rejected before?"

She reacted like he slapped her, but recovered with a sheepish dropping of her wings. "You also keep knowing things about me that I don't share with anyone."

"Your body tells me many things, I just had to listen."

"I wish it would be less of a gossip," Seka pouted before she asked, "What is it telling you right now?"

"I am not sure."

"Now he's not sure."

Sweetgrass stood back up. "You showed me your slit, but I do not know if you are aroused, but..." he squeezed the base of his shaft, "Perhaps it is more subtle than mine, hmm?" He got closer, still hefting his member since Seka stared at it. "I think you want this, but I want to be sure your body does, too."

Seka swallowed a lump in her throat and admitted, "It does--it's just... suffice it to say I did some things with my body before coming here. Preliminary things, but one of those things makes it difficult to, um, evert myself like most dragons."

Like how his cock dropped from his sheath when aroused. Sweetgrass nodded and quietly dropped to his knees in front of her. He rested his palms on her inner thigh and asked, "Is this alright?"

Seka turned her head to stare out the shuttered window, the light through it beginning to dim. "I'll... I'll grab your horns if something is wrong."

"Hehe, how about you tap my head twice? I like to have my horns grabbed."

"Oh... al-alright," Seka mumbled.

Sweetgrass chuckled and turned his attention to the slit before his snout. His nostrils flared, this close her scent was as potent when she exposed herself earlier. He inhaled and repeated, "You smell good."

"Mmmm..." Seka shivered in front of him, still unable to watch.

Sweetgrass fingers climbed up her thighs to her pouting lips. Seka went still as his digits touched her sex, spreading it open. More of that scent slipped out, and Sweetgrass needed to blink back tears. It was so strong, yet still enticing to him. He suspected it would cling to his muzzle for hours after, and that made his cock twitch. Precum dripped down the length of his shaft. He wanted her so badly but had long learned the value of going slow. He kissed the bottom of her slit, arousal gathered there smearing against his lips before Sweetgrass licked up her cleft. His tongue slipped inside her. Earthy with a musky sweetness, her fluids tinged his palate, his tastebuds tingling.

Seka huffed and grabbed his horns, and Sweetgrass almost stopped, but she held him there. Her hips, quaking, rolled into his muzzle. His snout buried inside her, and Sweetgrass took his time lapping up her juices. She moaned when his tongue slipped along the spongy, yet soft cock buried inside her slit. He dug in a little deeper and wrapped his lips around the pointed tip, and Seka humped his face. The grip on his horns got firmer, and Sweetgrass did his best to suckle on her tip, Seka's tail thrashing behind her.

"Rattling wings... Sweetie..." Seka breathed, "I... I--"

Sweetgrass interrupted her by tapping her hip. She released him, and he came up for air gasping and panting. "Sorry... ugh, I just... needed to catch my breath."

"I'm sorry--" Sweetgrass shut her up by thrusting his muzzle back into her slit. She almost doubled over him, groaning as Sweetgrass made out with her groin. Her cock, inert, throbbed and pulsed against his questing lips. His tongue traced her glans, under her shaft, dragging his organ up and down her length. He dropped his muzzle to take a deep breath before digging back in, Seka squirming as he explored her slit more. It was deeper than his sheath, which remained a shallow pouch of flesh whereas--

Seka yanked him away, glaring down at him. "I want to ride you."

"C-can you?"

"I didn't make these changes so I could avoid unwanted erections," Seka said as she helped him up. She shoved him back onto the bed and mounted Sweetgrass before he even recovered. Dwarfing him, Sweetgrass felt a shiver run down his spine. She was panting, mouth open, wings lifting and lowering each labored breath, drool dripping from her tongue as it hung from her maw. She reached down and squeezed the flared head of his cock. She licked her lips as his tip kissed her slit. Eyes wide, Sweetgrass watched her sex split open like a drooling maw that enveloped the broad head of his cock.

Seka sat backwards. His shaft plunged inside her, feeling his length grind against hers. Her spread sex smashed into his sheath, and Seka fell forward, planting her palms on either end of Sweetgrass. "F-fuck..." she breathed.

He touched her cheek. "Are you hurting?"

"Yeah... it's just..." she winced. "I shouldn't have taken all of you like that."

He shifted a little beneath her, trying to pull out, but her hips followed his. They ground against each other, Sweetgrass gasping as he felt her walls clench down. Her abdomen flexed as she worked her pelvic floor, taking ragged breaths. Despite whatever pain she felt, Seka kept gyrating her hips, rubbing her cock up and down along his shaft. It was not the same as his other experiences of penetration: her wet heat hauled along his member, walls soft yet not particularly tight, not meant for squeezing things like she did now. Her cock ran up against him like a lover's tongue, and the more she worked her body the more his cock slipped further out then back into her.

Seka's arousal, hot and less viscous than his, soaked his pubes, ran across his balls, as she began to bounce on him. Seka had shut her eyes, going a little quiet as she took her pleasure. Sweetgrass adored watching her: the concentration, the little whimpers, her wings juddering above them, fully fanned out now. The pink membrane of her wings were just transparent enough he could make out the ceiling above. It was the first time he'd seen her wings outstretched completely, and he remembered what she said earlier.

Later Sweetgrass would ask to see her fly.

Seka's neck craned skyward and she cried out. She slammed her hips down on top of him, soon snarling, claws raking into her mattress. The bedframe swung and squeaked, threatened to come undone as Sweetgrass felt sticky, goey ropes of her cum bloom inside her. He felt it stuff and fill up her sex, pressing up against the base of his shaft before another pulse made it eke out around him. Pearlescent beads formed then spread in little rivulets across their joined groins.

Eyes still closed, Seka blinked them open, panting, expression softening when Sweetgrass cupped her cheek. He pulled her into a kiss, and Seka moaned before their lips even met. Her tongue filled up his maw, still heavy with the taste of him. Her sex, all pulsing heat, throbbed across the length of his shaft, all it took was her kiss to make him join her. He let out a soft whimper, muffled by her lips, as his back arched, trying his best to push up into her. His cock ached, now messy nuts jumping as he came with her.

Her tongue slipped down his throat, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he released inside her. His cum mingled with hers just like their blood before had--this working a different kind of magic. He wrapped his arms around her and Seka collapsed on top of him, both partners still gyrating and smashing their hips together. Cum overflowed from Seka's slit and into the bed, marking the cottage with the aroma of their union.

Sweetgrass became completely reduced to the sweat, warmth, scent, and weight of her. She broke the kiss, muzzle flopping down next to his as she tried to catch her breath. Arms still wrapped around her shoulders, he hooked his calves into the pit of her knees and squeezed tight.

She kissed then licked his ear, nuzzling there. "I love you, Sweetie," Seka whispered, and Sweetgrass shuddered as it felt like he was just hearing his name for the first time.

Blunt nails pinching into her scales as he held her tight, Sweetgrass whispered, "I love you, too, Seka."

A giddy little hissing giggle in his ear made him grin, too. Seka propped herself up on her elbows and touched her nose to his. "So, how was I?"

"You were amazing, hehe."

"Mmm," she wiggled on top of him, slit squeezing his softening shaft. "This is the first time in a long time--maybe the first time ever--anyone's ever made me feel this good. So thank you, Sweetie, for everything."

"Heh, you say it like I have done some great feat."

She kissed him. "You have. Most in their ravening feel completely lost, and I..." she stopped, lip quivering. She buried her face into the bed next to him, cheek to cheek. "I feel like for the first time in my life I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."

Sweetgrass patiently rubbed up and down her nape as he felt her tears fall onto his face. He ached to see her so undone by her own happiness. Perhaps, with the little time they had left, Sweetgrass could make sure she did not fly into her next life thinking she deserved anything less.