Searching for Thanksgiving (Dragonlings of Valdier)

Chapter 12

12

M orah squirmed out from under the comfort of her symbiot early the next morning and yawned. Her dragon stretched, wiggling her tail in the air and extending each limb before she looked around. The soft sounds of snores told her the others were still asleep.

Leo was curled up in a ball so tight that she couldn’t tell his head from his bum. Sacha and Pearl were wrapped around Hope with Rainbow acting as a bumper so they couldn’t fall out of the tree. James was lying across the branch above her with his back legs hanging off one side while his front legs and head hung from the other side. His symbiot was wrapped around him and anchored him to the branch.

She looked down at the ground. The woverbear and her cubs were gone. Her eyes widened with delight when a glimmer of gold caught her attention. A happy, excited smile curved her lips. Her dragon launched off the branch and glided to the ground near the rock in the center of the small clearing. Morah shifted and ran over to the golden goddess who was floating slightly above the boulder.

“Arilla!” Morah exclaimed with delight, throwing herself into the goddess’s outstretched arms.

“Hello, Morah,” Arilla greeted with a laugh.

Morah leaned back and grinned up at the goddess. “We’re on a quest. We’re searching for Thanksgiving.”

“I know, and it is a very important quest,” Arilla said.

“I knew it! I knew we was doing the right thing!” she breathed.

“You and the others are very brave to go on such a journey on your own,” Arilla said.

Morah looked up at the tree where the other kids were still sleeping. They didn’t look like brave explorers at the moment. They looked… well, they looked like the Christmas decorations on her mommy and daddy’s tree after Leo and Roam had been wrestling. She turned back to Arilla.

“Are you going to go with us on our quest?” she asked.

Arilla shook her head. “No, this is one that you must make on your own… but, I will give you a little help every once-in-a-while.”

“Help? How?” Morah asked with a confused frown.

Arilla softly chuckled, tilted her head to the side, and looked up at the knapsack hanging by its strap. Morah looked up as well and scowled when she noticed that it was not only next to Leo, but it looked a lot less bulky than it had last night. A grumble of frustration slipped from her.

“Leo’s ate all our food, didn’t he?” she growled.

“He’s a growing cat-shifter,” Arilla chuckled.

Morah shook her head. “He’s always hungry!”

“I think I can help you with this part of your journey,” Arilla replied in a soothing tone.

Arilla waved her hand, and the knapsack appeared on the ground next to them. Morah watched with awe as the knapsack grew pudgy again. She slid off the rock next to Arilla, knelt, and peered inside. Her lips parted with delight when she saw her favorite snack cake. She reached in, pulled it out, and took a huge bite. Her stomach and her dragon rumbled happily.

“Whatever you need for your quest will appear in the bag when you request it,” Arilla said, rising to her feet.

“Anything?” Morah repeated, looking up at Arilla with eyes shining with delight.

Arilla laughed again. “Yes, anything.”

“This is gonna be like having Alice or Adaline with us!” A flash of reluctance swept across Morah’s face, and she looked up at the tree again. “Do I have to tells Leo about this?”

“What would a good leader do?”

Morah turned to answer Arilla, but the goddess had disappeared. She looked at the cake in her hand and took another bite. It tasted yummy, so Arilla’s presence must have been real. She was pushing the last bite of cake into her mouth when she heard movement in the tree above her. Leo’s cat had lifted its head, his eyes still closed, and was sniffing the air.

“I smells food!” Leo purred, his eyes popping open with joy.

Palace gardens:

Spring looked up from where she was planting a new glowing spider lily when she sensed that she wasn’t alone anymore. She had escaped out into the garden early. She loved the peace and quiet of the early mornings and the way the plants reacted to the sun caressing them as it rose.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a blunt tone.

Roam scuffed his foot along the edge of the path and stared down at her with a frown.

“Why are you always mad at me?” he asked.

Spring blinked in surprise. “I’m not always mad at you,” she defended.

“It seems like it. You’re always yelling or scowling at me,” he said.

Spring lifted an eyebrow when he carefully stepped into the garden, taking care not to trample on any of her freshly planted flowers. She was surprised at how light on his feet he could be when he wanted to. She always thought of him as stomping his big feet everywhere and on everything. Her face flushed at the thought that he might be right. Maybe she was a little harsh with him.

But he is always doing things or saying things that make me feel…

She shook her head. She didn’t know what she felt. The only thing she knew was that whenever he was around, her dragon and her symbiot liked it way too much and didn’t seem to mind when he did stupid things.

“You make me mad sometimes…,” she reluctantly agreed.

His lips twitched, and she raised an eyebrow wondering what he found so funny about that. Frustration and annoyance flashed through her .

Not annoyance… fear.

The thought made her frown. What did she have to be afraid of? Roam would never hurt her. She started with surprise when soft fingers traced a line along her cheek. Her face flushed a rosy color when she realized that Roam had squatted down next to her until he was less than a foot away. He was brushing his fingers along her cheek. She couldn’t have looked away from his brilliant blue eyes if she tried.

“I like that you don’t care about getting dirty,” he said.

“Roam…”

“I’m sorry I dug up your garden and took your worms,” he said.

Her blush deepened, and she lowered her eyelids to conceal her confusion. She absently rubbed at a spot of dirt on her thigh. It wasn’t until then that she realized how dirty her nails were. She curled her fingers into a fist to hide them.

“I’m sorry I put the sticky worms in your bed,” she replied.

He dropped his hand and laughed. She looked up at him and saw he was grinning at her. Relief flooded her that he wasn’t mad about that.

“They were pretty nasty… but also cool. Jabir taught me how to handle them. I didn’t realize they were so cool. Jabir explained to me about how important the worms were to your garden. I didn’t know. I just thought that they were… well, I just thought they were worms. I didn’t know what they did. I do now,” he explained.

“Oh… good.”

She didn’t know what else to say. She idly glanced around the garden she was working on. There was still a lot that needed to be done. The feel of Roam’s warm hand wrapping around her clenched one made her look back at him again.

“I’d like to help you… if you don’t mind. I thought maybe you could teach me about gardening,” he said.

“You want…” she paused and stared around the bare, open area again before looking back at him with a confused expression. “You want to learn how to garden?”

He grinned and nodded. “Yeah. Jabir said there are lots of cool bugs and weird plants that if I knew about them, I wouldn’t be so quick to trample on everything. I figured you could show me what he was talking about.”

A shy, pleased smile curved her lips, and her dragon purred with delight.

“Have you ever seen a glowing spider lily before?” she asked, tilting her head.

Roam shook his head. “Nah. What’s that?”

Spring turned her hand under his until she was holding his hand. She lifted it to the bloom she had just planted. Lifting her other hand, she gently stroked the burnt orange stigma. Roam’s lips parted with awe as dozens of tiny, glowing spiders climbed out of the pistil.

“That is so cool!” he breathed.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she promised.

“Will you show me?”

She stared into his eyes, unable to answer for a moment, before she nodded. Her lips parted on a surprised gasp when he leaned forward and gave her a big hug. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him back, a silly grin on her face.

“Thank you,” he said, releasing her, rising to his feet, and holding his hand out to help her up.

“Would you like to see the water vines?” she asked.

Creon paused when a soft but firm hand wrapped around his arm. His dark scowl changed at the expression in his mate’s eyes. She was watching Spring and Roam as they walked along a narrow row in the garden that their oldest daughter was creating. He looked back again, studying Spring’s glowing, happy face as she pointed out a long vine with rich purple flowers on it. Roam squealed with delight when one of the blooms squirted him. Seconds later, Spring and Roam’s laughter filled the garden as they directed the squirting blossoms at each other.

“Do you think they know?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

Carmen snuggled into him when he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him. She leaned her head back, watching the two teenagers laughing, playing, and talking with wild exaggerated movements. Spring’s hands were graceful as she practically danced around from one plant to the next while Roam, all arms, legs, and big feet at this age, followed clumsily behind her.

Carmen chuckled and shook her head. “Not really, but they will… one day.”

He pressed his lips against Carmen’s temple and sighed, his eyes still on the young boy who would one day be king of the Sarafin and his young, beautiful, and strong-willed daughter.

Perhaps Ha’ven and Vox are right. Maybe we should go to war… just for a few years. It doesn’t have to be a real one, just until the kids are grown.

He grunted when Carmen elbowed him in the stomach, chuckled, and turned in his arms. He tried to look down at her with an innocent expression but it came out more… sheepish, he suspected.

“No wars. No interference. No trying to keep them apart. It will only make the kids… and us women… more determined. They’ll figure it out when the time is right.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he murmured with a dry laugh, looking over her head toward the garden again.