#athenasdragon
Here’s a piece I wrote last winter for the Uprooted holiday fic exchange, finally posted on Tumblr for the Uprooted Harvest Faire! @uprootedficathon
The title is from the poem “A Dream Pang” by Robert Frost. AO3
Autumn was always a busy time in the Dragon’s tower. Over the years, Agnieszka had dragged him out to dance at more and more harvest festivals across the Valley, and then there was the matter of collecting the towns’ tributes. Seven years after Agnieszka was chosen, the people of the Valley lined up their daughters as usual, unsure whether the tradition had truly passed into history; their witch embraced them each and presented them with vials of dust to sprinkle over the earth before the first snowfall in order to ensure a plentiful harvest the following spring. The Dragon Girls were born blessed, now, not cursed.
This year marked the twenty-first since Agnieszka was whisked away from Dvernik and the Dragon smiled in spite of himself when the leaves began to turn. He and Agnieszka were not always together—business had kept him away in [capital] for most of the summer, and she had extended her benevolent reach far into the Wood—but when the apples ripened and the wheat was bound, he could close his eyes and see the flash of the bonfire on her hair and the imprints of her bare feet in the cool grass, hear her laughter like a spell commanding him to dance with her.
He leaned out the library window, spellbook forgotten where it lay open on the table, and breathed deeply of the first cool evening. Soon the mornings would be thick with fog from the Spindle, but today the harvest was barely begun; he could see motion all over the valley as the farmers drove home carts heaping with their first week’s bounty. Farther still, at the edge of the Wood, he could see the lights of torches as a few straggling gatherers emerged from the dusky forest with baskets full of mushrooms and kindling. He scoured the tree line for a trace of smoke from Agnieszka’s cottage, trying to pretend that he didn’t care much whether she had returned to her home—and that he certainly had no intention of paying her a visit if she had.
“If you lean much farther you’ll fall out.”
He whirled around at the familiar voice and had to fight down a grin when he found Agnieszka standing just a few feet behind him. Instead he arched one brow as he pulled a leaf from her hair, taking in the dirt caked onto her dress and bare feet. “You look like you fell out of a tree and into my library.”
She smiled back and reached out to wipe a streak of mud onto his jerkin with one grimy hand. “You look like you haven’t left your library in months.”
He caught her wrist and took half a step closer, bringing them chest to chest. He opened his mouth, closed it absently when he realized he could smell the sun on her skin, and opened it again. “You look like you nested under a log for the summer.”
“And you’re as pale as a grub under a log,” she laughed.
“Oh, you—” He cut himself off as he pulled her against him and caught her mouth with his. She was still laughing into the kiss as she threw her arms around his waist and lifted him off the ground and spun him a little, every touch pouring pure joy into him as real as any magic. He grumbled when she set him down and made a show of dusting himself off, but when she touched his face and whispered his name, there was suddenly nothing he could do besides hold her tight and press his face into her neck and whisper hers back.
