Mattúr proved to be homier than I expected. Then again, I jumped in swathed in bias, so my expectation had been low. It was better when a thick layer of moss clumped around the entranceway, cultivated under May's wings. It was better when Seth obtained permission to mold his star charts into the floor so I could see them. It was better when Ronan wanted to play wrestle again.  It was better when we left a mark. 

Mum hung up her tapestries the day it felt like things might be alright.

The sound of laughing echoed dimly down the tunnel, held and amplified by the rock. Wind brushed my scales as I stepped into the sun-soaked ledge, beyond it there was only air, and my siblings. The air cracked and whipped against May's wings as she hovered, giggling.

"Come on! It's fun."

I hesitated, knowing where the entrance to Mattúr was behind me, now knowing what obstacles lay beyond the ledge. A step, another, then the wind nipped at my muzzle and memories of the day atop the mountain came back. There was no mud swamp below. I stepped back.

"Maybe later," I said, slithering back into the den.

It smelled of dewy moisture and slugs hiding under leaves in Mattúr. Mentioned leaves lined the walls, sewed together by May, after Ronan brought piles and piles of them inside to nest with, quickly abandoning the thought after a spider crawled over him in the middle of the night. Mum and Pop were talking in the front room.

"That's a wonderful idea darling, I'm sure they'll love it." Pop praised.

"Perhaps you could have Seth put it together, to help him practice responsibili—oh good morning Longtayle."

"Good morning, mum." I flicked my tail. "What's Seth doing?"

"We're going to put together another festival of sorts, a celebration, to have every fall. To honor Kiri, to celebrate family and life as winter moves in."

My heart skipped a beat, it had been almost a whole year. The pain was still present but it was a dull one. An annual celebration, centered on life and family, I savored the thought like a drop of honey.  Fire-like warmth bloomed in my chest. 

I swallowed, "I would like that, very much."

"I'm going to speak with Gamall Irho now," Pop explained, his tongue flick gently against my forehead. "Tell Seth I'm going to need him when I return."

I nodded and stared looking for my brother. He wasn't in Mattúr, I quickly discovered, no matter. His smell in the exit tunnel among hundreds of older smells was just fresh enough for me to pick up without a headache. It trailed in a straight, determined line, eventually I picked up something else. For a moment the scales on my back stiffened, thinking it was blood. It wasn't, it was too cold, only metal and cave water minerals. There was a stream up ahead. Seth crossed it. I was close.

"Seth?" I called. "Pop's looking to talk to you!"

Shuffling, I followed the sound. I picked up smoke and wildflowers, a campfire. Around the corner was my brother lying in front of a dying fire, startled into a sitting position by my sudden appearance.

"Watch ya doing?" I smirked.

"NOTHING," he coughed. "A dragon is allowed to relax around here, isn't he?"

I tilted my head, "alone?"

"Why not?" The tip of his tail flicked back and forth.

"Seth, I know you're not alone." I snorted, putting my nose to ground around him and taking a deep breath, "or at least you weren't. Let me guess, Tallin?"

"Hehe, guilty." Tallin himself laughed, crawling down from above. "He's good, Moony."

"Moony?" I raised a brow.

Seth coughed loudly, "AHEM, is Pop looking for me?" 

I blinked. "Oh yeah, he needs, something to do with a celebration we're having soon."

He stiffened, "We don't usually celebrate anything this time of year."

"It's new."

Something about the whole thing made Seth uncomfortable. He wasn't saying anything now, at least nothing I could hear. Mum explained to me once how sometimes dragons could talk with just a look, or a glance. That must have been happening now because both of their composures changed, both of them grew a little sadder.

"See you later Moony," Tallin finally said, "I'll clean up here."

Seth stood up and his tail hung low, "you later..." he hesitated, aware of my presence in the room, "...Starlight."

I could feel the heat from his cheeks just walking beside him. Which I let happen in with only the regular cave sounds as conversation for a few moments.

"Starlight, huh?"

"It's just something dumb we say every time." He mumbled.

"You don't really think that."

"Think what?"

I brushed against his shoulder, "that it's dumb."

"Nah," he admitted.

"Then I don't either."

He purred under his breath, "thanks."

I nodded, "Why the secrecy though?"

He shrugged, "It's just nice to have a...friend to be with outside of the family sometimes. Um...Longtayle?"

I looked at him, his voice echoed from below, he was staring at the ground.

"Please don't tell Pop I've been hanging out Tallin. He doesn't exactly...know about every time."

I stopped in my track, chills running down my spine. I didn't know what to say. Yes? No? They both seemed too final, too wide of an answer to cover all of the possibilities from his request.

I opened my mouth and just said the first thing that came to mind. "I used to sneak out."

Seth's ears flipped towards me, "you...did?"

"Yeah, to spend time with, uh," why was my face hot, "with Hailpip. I haven't since we moved, just seen her every so often when we both have free time, anyway, Pop figured it out really quickly. I mean I was still a baby, not a fox or anything but, um, yeah I get you and I'll try but I can't—"

"I get it." Seth interrupted; he'd started to laugh. "Thank you."

I beamed, thankful that somewhere in my rats' nest of information the sentiment had gotten through to him.

Pop was waiting for him when we returned.

"Seth, I have a job for you." He beamed, walking him down the tunnel leading to the Great Hall. "We're putting together a feast and I was hoping you could spread the word..." his voice trailed off.

The breeze from the mouth of the cave died.

"Pop's going off with Seth again, huh?" Ronan sighed.

I nodded.

"He's been off a lot, hasn't he?" May observed.

"What you three doing, sneaking about in the halls?" Mum stuck her head out from around the corner.

May laughed, and it faded into the background.  The afternoon turned to nothing but the cold, wet, bite of fall. We climbed into the nest. Among the dried hay and moss that held in our body heat, something was missing. Seth crept into the nest long after the moon rose, weariness pulled at his limbs the entire way. He did not say a word when his head finally rested against the crackling leaves, but I didn't need to hear it. The satisfaction he felt steeped into the rock far underneath us. The mountain—Mattúr's—heart beat steadily in a duet with it, but it was bitter, lined with worries. As if Seth was a great tree, riddle with worms. My eyes closed far too fast, and opened again too slow.

Pop and Seth were talking again. It was morning, my muzzle was covered in dew. I forgot was I had been doing, I forgot to listen. The voices were fading again, but not because of any dreamlike state settling over me, they were walking away.

I took a deep breath, the air in here, there was a staleness to it. The air had sat here for too long, it needed to move, it needed to break free. All of sudden an unpleasant feeling washed over me, similar to Seth's prickling discomfort from the river cavern. What had been exchanged between the two of them in the dark? What brought that crumbling down? Why could I feel it?

"Where's he going Mum?" I croaked.

She lifted her head from the down, still drowsy. "Seth? Probably off to run errands with Pop—"

"No where's he—he—" The thought slipped away; I shook my head.

She leaned down, chest exuding the warmth of motherhood. "Darling? Is something wrong?"

"I don't know." Her forehead pressed against mine.

"Everything's going be alright," she promised. "Let's look forward to the celebration. In fact," she sucked in a deep breath, nostrils flared, "It's about time."

She rocked the sleeping mounds of May and Ronan awake.

"Come my fledglings, it's time." She draped a shawl around my shoulders—I realized I'd been shivering—and beckoned us down the tunnel.

May yawned, "time for what?"

"Where's Seth?" Ronan asked.

"Waiting for us," she explained without really doing so, "hurry, we must be quick."

We skipped down to the entrance, the ledge overlooking the mountain, and the whole world. It was still cold, and from what little I could see, still dark. Seth was waiting there, just as Mum promised, with a weight on his heart. He said nothing. I wanted to ask him about it but I didn't get the chance.

"Why in Skylark's name are we out here? The sun isn't even up." Ronan muttered.

"He is," Mum corrected. "Look, there he is."

I couldn't look, but as soon as she pointed it out, I could feel it. Like the flowers who have no eyes but who's face always lead to the sky. First as a change in the air, then as the warmth on my face. The whole world, including the five us who seemed so small compared to it, held it's breath.

Very few dragons ever truly experience the sun rise. It's more than being present when it happens, you have to listen to it. When the sun breached the earth it roared, the same noise my lungs made on the exhale, on the release. I didn't know it, but my body, and I suspect the mountain, had waited for this. Every day, every night, the roar that ripped across the ground awakened something, that same thing that lived in Ronan, in Hailpip and—I trembled—in me as well. It came from the earth; it came from the sun. There, are the crest of the light, there he was. A dragon glowed; it was him who called forth that which had slept. He who shook the ground with a growl, he who burned at a glance. I knew him, it was Pop.

Gideon, he who flew the sun into the sky.