Sun Bound

The First Fall

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Chapter Four

The First Fall

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Lune stumbled over to the table, eyes still half glued shut from sleep and his loose tunic tangled over his arms. Damon snorted in amusement, tugging his lovely mate closer and smoothing out the fabric. Without asking, (he never did) Lune climbed into Damon's lap and rested his head against the broad chest.

'Are you alright, precious?' Jason asked warmly, reaching over to tuck back a strand of silver hair.

'Didn't sleep very well... it's going to snow,' Lune slurred. He had tossed and turned all night, his instincts telling him that the snow clouds were growing closer and heavier. He'd been restless and unable to fully slip off into quiet dreams. The morning was dull, pale grey clouds preventing the sun from really warming the stronghold. Jason had stoked the fire before ordering breakfast.

'Logan put in his application to take Amphion and Arrow with the new squires,' Damon said, resting his chin on the top of Lune's head. The little dragon was half dozing in his arms.

'They'll get back to him quickly, I think,' Jason said thoughtfully, adding another log to the fire. It crackled musically, casting more light into the cool space. 'They can't afford to wait. The squires need their riding dragons before the snow comes thick enough to prevent travel.'

'Surely that won't be for a while. The leaf fall has only just ended,' Damon replied with slight grumble in his voice. Jason hummed, his eyes flicking to the window. Something told him that this winter would bring a lot of heavy snow. Jason made his coffee in the pot over the stove as Damon glared moodily out at the clouds, his arms wrapped tight around his mate. A knock woke Lune from his nap.

'Food?' he said, rubbing at his eyes.

'Yes, love. Food's here,' Jason said as he retrieved the platter from a nervous servant. Many of the new servants were still in complete awe of the dragon riders. This girl, maybe sixteen summers or so, gave a curtsey, her face bright red, before she dashed away.

Jason laid their breakfast on the table. It had taken a lot of trial and error to find food that settled well in Lune's stomach. The Kagame had quite a different diet than the Yoru. Damon could eat fatty red meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no ill effect. In the wilds Yoru lived off anything they could get their claws into, deer, goats, bison, even bear, if that was all they could find. Whereas Kagames were primarily fishing dragons. Elegant, long-limbed, and feathered, they just weren't built for swooping down and carrying off enormous prey animals. All dragons were omnivorous, but Jason had since learnt that Lune liked a big portion of his food to have fruit and soft greens whereas Damon loved heavy vegetables like potatoes and pumpkin.

Lune had never tried pumpkin before. It had been amusing to watch the little dragon sniff at the cooked gourd with interest... until Damon ate the entire thing whole, seeds and all. In the fall, it was tradition that after the pumpkins had been used for the harvest festival in the villages, that the vegetables be roasted or charred and fed to the dragons. Some villages left the roast pumpkin by the forests and woods for the wild dragons that lived about. It was supposedly good luck if the pumpkins had all been eaten by the next moon.

Jason smiled as he watched Lune sniff about the plates.

'Here,' Jason said as he extracted a bowl of buttery scrambled eggs and blanched spinach. Lune took it happily, his lilac eyes losing their sleepy appearance. He sat down in the empty seat, much to Damon's displeasure. The Yoru cheered up though as Jason passed him a plate of sausages and boiled eggs. Damon ate heartily as Jason smeared the fresh butter over his bread. They ate for a while, the room cosy with the fire and scent of cooked food.