Chapter 3: Family Dinner

            When everyone finally arrived, the house got noisy very, very quickly. Granted most of it was coming from Casvar, Cazhene scolding Cazvar, and Torre being Torre so maybe it wasn’t so strange. If someone wasn’t making some kind of noise I think it would mean that something is really wrong.

            At any rate, I needed to hurry, before my brother or one of my sisters stole my favorite spot. It was right by the large windows we have at one end of the table where we eat on the other side of the kitchen, looking out on to the forest behind the house. With it I could talk to Gao and the others who would sit outside with their own dinner. Mom didn’t let me sit outside with everyone, she said that all of us ‘little ones’ needed to be in the house where we wouldn’t accidentally get hurt, and to a point I could see what she meant. Doesn’t stop what Gao, Torre, and Rune are talking about to be sometimes much better than what Mom and Dad were. I beat Boron over to the seat I wanted, quickly sitting down so no one could take it and getting ready for when Mom was going to start us off with passing the food around the table. That usually takes just long enough for the others to be ready outside, given that while they’ve already gotten the meat out, getting it to the ones who are going to eat it is often a much bigger task then it looks.

            Between all of us at the table, and the crowd of much-bigger dragons outside with Casvar and now Salem joined in, talking was nearly constant. ‘Do you want this here’ or telling off things like ‘Torre don’t do that, you’ll drop it’ were just a few of the things I heard as dinner began to get underway, and someone managed to rescue half a deer from Torre’s over-enthusiastic handling. While Cazhene was distracted doing that, Casvar bit a chunk of meat off the haunch of his piece of deer, immediately trying to swallow it down before Cazhene turned back around. Mom’s always said that one of these days he’ll choke doing that, I hope it’s not today. Then again, if it’s anything like the icicles it might be funny to watch…

            He did manage to get it down his throat, just in time for Cazhene to turn around and fix him with a look. It only took me a moment to notice why, Shoren and Salem were both staring from Casvar to the meat before quickly looking away, nowhere near fast enough to stop Cazhene from noticing.

            “What? I didn’t do nothing!” Casvar bleated into the lull, and Ayran and Krael began to giggle. Everyone then tried to look like they hadn’t been drawn in by the sudden shout, and I don’t think that went particularly well given how Cazhene let out a gusty sigh before snapping off a huge piece that I’m pretty sure was as big as Ayran in his teeth and swallowing.

            Casvar just stared up at him for a moment after before whipping back to his own, much smaller piece, digging in with exaggerated eating noises as though he were trying to tell Cazhene in his own way that there was no possible way he could have eaten off his meat, his own was plenty good enough.

            I don’t think Cazhene believed him, but it was left at that.

            Not to mention that Torre had decided with Cazhene distracted he was going to give his earlier try at tearing off a piece of deer and catching it in his teeth another go.

            Torre is a lot of things. Graceful is not really one of them, though he does try. Didn’t seem like tonight would be his night though, as Dad had noticed what he was preparing to do and made sure to throw a glare Torre’s way, along with a warning rumble for good measure to make sure he got Torre’s attention.

            None of us were brave enough to argue with that noise, and Torre was immediately quieting down, the difference between his usual self so great I almost wanted to check to see if someone had replaced him when we weren’t looking.

            Granted, Dad, the face. No arguing. I think it was pretty understandable.

            Also, why was Gaotail sniffing at something Runeon was holding up in his paw? I can’t see from the table, it’s being held up too high. Whatever it was though, it didn’t seem to smell bad. At least, Gaotail didn’t shoot back like that time when Ayran held up spoiled meat in his face to show him that it was bad.

            “Sea, feach me…” He suddenly said in Drakkish, and given that I was the closest to the window, I figured I could try my luck at figuring out what it is. Mostly by trying to stay seated so Mom doesn’t look over and see me while stretching myself different ways, which didn’t really help, but it did get Runeon’s attention and his wing nudged Gaotail as his head jerked in my direction.

            “Oh, sorry, Kal, did you need something?” He asked, once he’d turned and noticed that I’m halfway out of my chair trying to get a look at what they’re looking at.

            “What’re you looking at?”

            It took him a moment to figure out what I was talking about.

             “Ah, Rune found a plant out in the woods today. He thinks it could be used for cooking but he’s not sure. It smells fine though.”

            “Let me smell.” I was saying, Rune smiling happily as he maneuvered around Gao to hold out his paw. The thing in his hand looked like a clump of weeds, honestly, and it made me wonder if he’d snatched them out of someone’s garden. The leaves were kind of roundish, and they weren’t shiny, so I knew they weren’t those itchy ones. There’s not much of a smell to them, either, maybe faintly tangy, like that rose stuff Mom likes to put on food.

            “Not to your taste?” Gao teases as Rune takes his paw back, my face probably looks like I smelled something bad.

            “Didn’t smell. Was it supposed to?”

            He shrugs.

            “It smelled, fine. Not nimhe.”

            Not dangerous then, not a make-you-sick kind of plant. Maybe. There’s still some memories about Boron and raw meat that remind me why it might not be a good idea for me to just stick it in my mouth.

            Speaking of my brother, he’s been sitting next to me watching the entire thing.

            “Where did you find it?”

            Runeon tosses his head in the direction of the woods as he quietly tucks the plant into a small (for a dragon) leather pouch. He carries it around constantly in case he finds something interesting. I checked it once when he was over and it was full of rocks. Rocks about as big as my fists, some sharp, some dull. I think Torre mentioned once that Rune keeps a rock collection in his cave, along with a lot of plants. Cazhene had been there, and from the expression on his face he wasn’t exactly happy with the whole thing. Just in that way that says he doesn’t really understand but lets us go along with it anyhow. Like when me, Ayran, Boron, Krael, Casvar, and Salem went rolling down the hill back behind our house last winter, and Torre eventually decided that it looked so fun he’d have to join in. He got so dizzy he ended up shifting in and out of dragon and human form for a good few minutes before managing to settle down, something that both worried and absolutely perplexed Gao and Cazhene, respectively.

            “Casvar, why are you doing that to your meat? Just eat it.” Torre was saying, causing Gaotail and me to turn and notice that Casvar was trying to yank the meat off the bone by pulling at it with his teeth with one foot planted on it to keep it down. I think I remember other incidents where this has not ended well.

            Cazhene’s also probably lectured him on this before too, seeing as he’s just quietly staring at Casvar trying to get the meat with an utterly blank look on his face. Torre’s also quietly watching, opening his mouth a few times like he might want to say something and then realizing that Casvar is well beyond listening to him. Gao’s getting that look too, but even he recognizes when the smaller orange doesn’t want to hear the obvious. I’m just sort of waiting for the inevitable-.

            SNAP

            The meat strips off from the few bones in Casvar’s piece, his head flying backwards with the force and falling right into the dirt. He does have a bit of the meat in his mouth though (and sent a bit flying back a ways), so hey, silver linings?

            He may have knocked himself a bit silly…No wait, he’s getting up. It’s strange how someone can look flustered and proud of themselves all at once. I have learned a new thing today.

            “That was a good one!” Torre said abruptly into the quiet, head turned in the direction of where the projectile flew off to. It did get a fair amount of distance, though I think Cazhene was more of the mind that it was a waste of meat given by how he was looking. Or just exasperated. It’s a bit hard to tell with him sometimes. It was made better by the fact that Aryan, Krael, and Salem all started giggling.

            “Oh be quiet.” Casvar mumbled through his meat-filled mouth.

            “The meat grew wings!” Aryan warbles through her hands, still giggling like there’s no tomorrow. I think that may have been the breaking point for everyone else, as the rest of us sans Cazhene and Rune started laughing. Even Shoren, and not his usual half-laughing, half-trying to hide it either!

            “Children, eat your food.” Mom was saying from further down the table, though from the sound of things she thought it was funny too.

            “Yes’m!” Was Torre’s immediate response right before he dove back into his piece of deer with a ferocity that we’ve only seen following when he was helping us pull up weeds in the garden for the whole day. Cazhene leaned away a bit, and Casvar looked over Cazhene’s front legs to see what Torre was doing for a moment before getting bored and going back to his own dinner.

            It was around then that I noticed Rune wasn’t really paying much attention to Torre ripping his deer piece apart despite sitting right across from them. Instead he was looking over at my dad and making what sounded like clicking noises in the back of his throat, something that I’d only heard him do a few times. Rune can’t talk, can’t speak Drakkish like the rest, though he’s pretty good at finding other ways to get what he’s trying to say across. He kind of does the clicking thing, and gestures a bit and everyone seems to have a better handle on it than me and my littler siblings, which I’m almost sure was on purpose from Dad.