Once it became clear that the dragon would be satisfied with a single one of their number, the remainder of the tirox herd retreated, lowing out their anger as they made their way back along the game trail. Aytin waited until the last of the massive beasts were well on their way before jogging over to Faelon.

The red dragon was laying next to his kill, watching the rest of the tirox lope away while the tip of his tail curled protectively around the carcass.

"Damn," Aytin muttered. It was almost a prayer of thanks to whatever god had decided to bless them. And then something occurred to them. In all the confusion, the scale of the task ahead of him had never registered. Until now.

"Oh, damn."

This time it was definitely a curse.

Faelon looked down at him, one eye ridge raised in question.

"I don't suppose you're any good with a knife, are you?"

He raised a massive hand and wiggled the talons. "Not particularly. You're the one with thumbs."

"Then unless you want to eat this raw, I'm going to need to skin and dress the whole thing myself!"

"Ah." Faelon bobbed his head, and then rose slightly to allow access to the carcass. As he did, Aytin caught a glimpse of his left side and winced.

The tirox's horn had gouged a long rip through his already mangled left wing. It ended at the innermost wing bone, and from the look of it the impact had been enough to break it. Splinters of white were visible underneath the trickle of blue blood.

"Are you going to be alright?" Aytin asked, pointing to the wound.

Faelon seemed confused before he followed the dragonette's pointing finger. "I will live," he pronounced after a brief inspection. "Truth be told, I cannot feel much below the joint any longer."

That sounded bad. Aytin wanted to say something, but he couldn't figure out the right way to broach the subject. And Faelon didn't seem eager to talk about his injuries

Instead, he approached the dead tirox.

The more he looked, the more daunting a task it seemed. The body was more than twice as long as he was tall, and when it was standing, the tips of his horns wouldn't have even reached its shoulders.

This was a job for an entire team of dragonettes.

It was just after noon if the sun's position was any judge. The nights weren't anything like cold enough to keep the meat from turning, so unless he wanted to waste most of Faelon's kill, he would have to prepare it today.

Aytin looked between the knife he'd taken from Juniper's corpse and the body. There were a few extra blades and a whetstone at the keep. He figured that he'd need them.

"I need to get some things. Watch the meat?"

Faelon nodded, once more curling protectively around his kill.

It was thankfully a short hike up to the keep, and now that he was getting enough to eat the slope wasn't any trouble for Aytin. In fact, he nearly ran up the hill.

He returned just a few minutes later with the spare hunting knife, a short sword, ax, whetstone, and water bucket. He wasn't quite sure what he would do with all of it, but that was every blade they had.

The skinning was actually a straightforward affair, if slow. Aytin cut a bed of grass for Faleon to move the tirox onto, and then he started in on it just like he was dressing an antelope back home. Only this animal was twenty or thirty times bigger than any antelope he had ever seen.

Faelon proved to be essential, moving the body around so Aytin could do his work. The dragon seemed positively eager to follow every instruction, hovering over his smaller companion as he worked. A little too closely, as they both discovered when something warm and wet fell on the back of Aytin's neck.

At first, he thought that some blood had splattered on him. After all, his arms were covered in the stuff up to his elbows. But when he tried to wipe it off, his hands came away covered in a clear slime.

Aytin turned to see the dragon looming over him. "Sorry," Faelon muttered. He shook his head to dislodge the rest of the line of drool.

"Hungry?"

The dragon nodded, looking chagrined. Aytin had to laugh at the expression. A dragon that would fill half of the great hall back home was hovering over him like a hatchling watching a pie in the oven.

Faelon even managed a laugh of his own; a short, deep rumble of amusement.

"I guess the apples are already getting old?"

The dragon dipped his head in acknowledgement. "They are better than starving, but even when I'm bloated with them I crave something more substantial."

"Well," Aytin said, glancing at his progress and then the slowly descending sun. "If we're lucky, I'll be done by sunset." He wasn't even sure of that, but at least he was pretty sure he could get a haunch roasting by then if it came to that.

'Speaking of which...'

"Can you drag some dead trees over for a fire? And a few green ones for spits. I'll call if I need you."

Faelon's tail nearly cracked like a whip with how fast he spun. There was definitely a slight gust of wind as his passage, and Aytin didn't even bother to hide his grin. But he also got back to work himself. There was no sense in disappointing a hungry dragon.

The tirox skin ended up being enormous. Easily as much as the huntresses would bring in from eight or ten antelope, and worth a pretty silver, even with the inexpert way it had been prepared.

It was a pity that the sum total of Aytin's knowledge about tanning came down to how bad it smelled.

But they were after the meat, first and foremost, and thankfully the tirox wasn't much different than any of the other carcasses he had helped butcher. Just a whole lot bigger.

That did prove to be a problem when it came to the joints. It was nearly impossible to get a good angle on the shoulder to separate it.

"Shhhhhh!"

The hiss ripped through gritted teeth as Aytin lost his grip on the slick meat. He stood there, covered in blood and viscera, staring at the dinner that was taunting him even in death.

"Is something wrong?" Faelon asked, having finished dragging several trees worth of dead wood into a pile. His tone made it clear that it wasn't an idle question.

Taking a deep breath, Aytin got his frustration under control. "Just trying to get this shoulder off. Maybe we can cook it with the shoulder on?" He looked dubiously at the carcass. Even dressed, it was enough to break a spit.

His thoughts were interrupted by the big dragon stepping forward and gently nudging him back with a single claw. "Allow me." And then he dug the claw between the shoulder blade and neck, and tore the entire joint right off.

Aytin blinked, stupidly. It wasn't a clean cut by any means, but neither of them were particularly picky at the moment. "Uh, thanks," he managed to stammer out. "Do you think you can do that again?"

"Just show me where."

With the dragon helping to separate the shoulders and hams, things went faster than Aytin had hoped. The sun was still a hand's breadth above the horizon when they managed to get the last haunch free.

That still left the bulk of the body; the backstrap, ribs, loins, flanks, and everything in between. Gutting it had been an ordeal that required more dexterity than brute force, but Aytin had tackled that early on and Faelon had obligingly buried the offal where it wouldn't attract predators.

"Do you think we can roast it whole?"

Faelon lifted his good wing slightly in a draconic shrug. "My crews rarely did such a thing. Never with something this large. Not that hunting tirox is practical for a crew of traders."

"I've seen whole pigs cooked at feasts. It just takes a while. I guess it's probably the same thing."

"How long is a while? Is there a way to cook it faster?"

"Errr... they spit the pig in the morning and it's ready for dinner. So at least that long."

Faelon took the information as well as a house-sized carnivore subsisting on unripe fruit could. As funny as it was seeing a dragon visibly deflate, Aytin owed him too much to lead him along.

"Don't forget about the haunches. Once we get them over the fire, they should only take a few hours to-"

Before Aytin could say another word, the dragon had snapped his head over to stare at the pile of firewood. A moment later, he was on his feet, nearly sprinting the short distance towards it.

"Faelon, wait!"

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was too late. With a whoosh, the red dragon bathed the wood in flames. It was all good, dry timber and the pile instantly went up in a column of fire.

The heat was so intense that Aytin had to keep Faelon between him and the bonfire. For his part, the red dragon seemed unbothered by the intense heat. He just sat there, looking expectantly towards his companion.

Finally noticing the sour expression on Aytin's face, he cocked his head in silent question.

"It's... a little too big. That fire will just char the meat," he explained.

"Is that all?"

With a nonchalant motion, Faelon swiped a taloned hand through the fire, knocking several burning logs aside. A few more bats and a much smaller, more manageable fire was crackling away nearby. Then he turned to look at Aytin once more.

"That's... better."

But Aytin wasn't thinking about the cookfire anymore. His mind was back to that first night on the island. When Xantha had reached into the fire to grab the glowing knife handle, before plunging it into his wings.

He shivered, the motion going from his ears and crooked horn to the tip of his tail. That particular memory was one he would be happy to do without.

The thump of Faelon's tail tapping his impatience brought Aytin back to the present. Really, it was more slamming the ground than tapping, but with dragons everything was relative.

"Yeah, that's much better," he said, recovering. The heat was also getting more tolerable as the bonfire quickly consumed itself. "Come on, help me with the haunches. By the time we have them cooking, those coals should be perfect for the rest."

Setting up spits for the smaller cuts was easy enough. The brigands had even had a small pot of salt. Aytin sprinkled most of it over the best of the haunches, and then dusted the others with what was left.

Had there been more, he would have considered using it to preserve some of the meat, but at most there was enough to keep a meal or two from spoiling. Seasoning their first real meat in what felt like forever seemed like a much more appropriate use for it.

Each haunch weighed more than an entire antelope. It took some serious effort, but the two managed to get them all on spits above the fire. After some consideration, Aytin had butterflied one of them, just so it would cook faster.

That left the rather daunting task of preparing the remainder of the tirox.

"Can't you spit it like the rest?"

Aytin ruffled his wings and dipped his ears in a shrug. "Sure. But if we shove a tree trunk through it - because that's what it will take to hold it - then what?"

He glanced towards the smaller of the cookfires, where the spits sat on roughly crossed branches that Faelon had driven deep into the ground. It would take more than that to support the rest of the kill.

"We don't have anything to support it. And we can't just drop it on the coals," he continued.

"What can we do, then?"

"Huh?"

Frankly, Aytin was exhausted. He'd been up since sunrise, and even if the morning had been uneventful, the afternoon had made up for it. His scales were covered in blood and other slowly drying fluids, and despite the fires the evening chill was starting to get to him.

So it took him a few moments to process Faelon's words.

"We are not wasting the meat." The red dragon said it like a pronouncement from the gods. Which, for all intents and purposes, it was.

"I wasn't planning on it," Aytin said, mind still trying to catch up.

"Then that is the only thing we cannot do," he explained slowly, although not unkindly. "Do not focus on the problems. Focus on how to solve them. What can we do?"

Almost, Aytin wanted to shout at the dragon. It wasn't like he was helping to figure out how to cook something bigger than an oxen without even an oven.

But he took a breath. Faelon's words echoed ones his mother had once said to him, years ago. "In a council, never be the one to say no."

Of course, as a Lady, she had to say no regularly. She had to say it to those she ruled, to her peers, and even to more important nobles on occasion. But rarely did she do so without an alternative already on the tip of her tongue.

So Aytin took a few moments to think. And to his surprise, he came up with something.

"I guess we could eat it raw," he ventured.

"I could." The dragon's reluctance showed through in just those two words. "Could you?"

"Maybe. Then again, I'd like to keep my guts where they belong."

"It is also far from cold enough to preserve the meat raw."

Aytin had never imagined living anywhere that would be possible. He had never even seen snow, although he had heard of the nasty white stuff. The idea of being able to simply leave meat outdoors was simply insane. So he kept thinking.

"I've heard of dragonettes wrapping meat in leaves, putting it at the bottom of a pit, and burying it in coals."

Faelon just nodded. He had to know wrapping the tirox would take well into the night, even if they had the sort of broad leaves they needed. Which they didn't. But true to his advice, he never said a word against the idea, and Aytin continued.

"We don't have everything we need to do that, but you can dig a pit. And then we rest the ends of three or four spits on the edge of the pit. You can flip it when one side gets too hot."

"A good plan," Faelon agreed. He rose and stretched slightly before padding towards the remains of the bonfire.

All in all, it ended up working fairly well. While Aytin used the ax to put rough points on several thick branches, Faelon dug a long, shallow pit. He filled it with the coals, along with some fresh firewood. Then while the coals were settling, he spitted the tirox, shoving a pair of massive skewers through its length and three across.

When he flipped the whole thing so it rested above the pit, the sound and smell of sizzling meat set them both drooling.

"The fire might be a little hot," Aytin said, wiping his mouth with one hand. "You'll need to flip it soon."

"I can do that."

Soon was still relative with that much meat. And the autumn chill was setting in as the last rays of sunshine started to fade.

A convenient rock sat nearby the smaller cookfire. Aytin wandered over to it and sat down, with Faelon following behind.

They sat there, not saying anything, just staring into the flames. Well, one of them was. Faelon's tail tip flicked back and forth in time with the sound of drippings sizzling on the coals.

Every once in a while, Aytin would stand and prod the roasting meat with a knife. Sometimes he would flip the piece over. Faelon had to help with that. But it didn't require more than a few words, and then it was back to silence.

Soon the sun was long gone, replaced by a half moon high in the sky. Only the heat from the fire kept Aytin awake. That, and the smell of the cooking meat.

He held up a finger and surreptitiously licked the juices from it. He instantly regretted it. The salty, meaty flavor only made his stomach gurgle in protest. It had been hours since he last ate, and that had only been a few apples.

From the distance, a wolf howled. It was quickly joined by the other members of the pack, raising their voices to the rising moon. They were distant, but it was an unfamiliar sound, and that made it all the more discomforting.

They didn't have wolves in the south. They had other predators to deal with. The odd bug that made its way north. Scavengers like coyotes. And he never wanted to meet a Glasmole in the scales.

The six-legged, fire breathing beasts made their homes in the dryer, sandy parts of the island. If they caught a dragonette around their fused glass burrows or water pools, they wouldn't hesitate to make a snack out of them.

Wolves, though, were new to Aytin. He had heard stories about the beasts. How they came up to a dragonette's chest and hunted in packs that moved silently through the night. Worse, there would be no escape for him. Not with his wings in the state that they were.

A fresh round of howls sent a shiver down his neck. But the sound of Faelon shifting nearby kept it from going any further.

'Anything stupid enough to attack a dragon deserves what's coming to it,' he told himself.

With that thought in mind, Aytin stood and checked on the butterflied haunch. Without sunlight, it was hard to tell how done the meat was. At this point, he decided that he didn't care enough to be picky.

"Will you give me a hand with this, Faelon? I think it's ready."

"Of course!" The dragon nearly jumped to help, actually breaking the spit in a rush to get the meat off from over the coals. He did, at least, wait for Aytin to pull out the remains of the wooden support and cut his own chunk before noisily digging in.

It was far from the best thing Aytin had eaten. Even when flying with Reed, Voxin made sure their meat was well prepared. A little salt and woodsmoke didn't compare to what she could put together. The charred exterior and slightly undercooked center didn't help, nor was it a particularly tender cut. He had to work to chew the first bite before swallowing.

None of that stopped him from going back for another bite. And another.

This was meat. Fresh and hot and juicy. It wasn't like dragonettes had the mouths of some grazing animal. They had a set of razor sharp teeth for a reason. And after almost a week and a half of subsisting on whatever scraps that Nyx and the rest of the brigands threw his way, the tough shank might as well have been an expertly prepared tenderloin as he ripped into it.

And from the sounds Faelon was making, the dragon felt exactly the same way.

Neither of them spared a moment for other thoughts as they packed away mouthful after mouthful of the meat. As it dwindled, Aytin began to wish he had taken a bigger share. It had looked like so much when he cut it off, but he was quickly running out of anything but gristle.

A sudden snapping sound jerked his head up, only to find Faelon had finished stripping the bone of meat and proceeded to crack it in half. Noticing the dragonette's gaze, he motioned slightly.

Taking that for an invitation, Aytin retrieved a length of femur longer than his hand and glistening with golden marrow. It was rich with salty fat, and absolutely delicious. He scooped up every bit of the marrow and then licked the bone clean.

Sated in a way he couldn't remember being in a very long time, Aytin leaned back against a rock. As he enjoyed the heat from the fire and the feeling of a belly full of meat, he looked up at the stars.

It was something he hadn't done since the night before his capture. The gods had felt so far away after that. Now, though, with his immediate future secure and the comforting bulk of Faelon settling next to him, he didn't feel quite so abandoned.

`Thank you Naulk, for the gift of this food,' he prayed to the god of the hunt, eyes drawn to one of the shining gates in the sky. 'I hope that- No. I know that we will make good use of it.'

He thought about his family. It wouldn't be long until they learned of his capture. Less than a week. His siblings would have it the worst. Zara had been involved with the decision to send him to the capital. That would eat her up. Stonar would blame himself for not training him more. He'd never been close to Suuie, but he knew she cared in her own way.

And Lin.

'Itova, please be with Lin when she gets the news. Don't let her come after me or fight Xantha or anything. Keep her safe.'

Aytin had never been particularly devout. He never memorized every prayer or all the subdomains of the gods. But there were two more he knew for certain deserved his thanks.

'Tula, god of retribution. Norik, god of Justice. I imagine that the two of you had a hand in Faelon's survival. So for that, I thank you both. And... I hope it's not the end of your plans for Xantha's band.

'They haven't answered for what they did to him. To Reed and Bush. To Vin and Voxin and all the rest. And for what they are going to try and do to my family. For all of that, well, I pray for your help.'

With his prayer complete, Aytin's eyes slipped shut, and exhaustion finally claimed him as he drifted off to sleep.