More, Mine
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Sia
Date Posted: 15th March 2026
Characters: K'valas
Description: Sazikoth is starving, and it's K'valas' fault
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 12, day 19 of Turn 12
Notes: Minor cursing. Happens before "Free to Run Around All Day"
Mentioned: M'thos
Hunger made the world small.
For Sazikoth, it narrowed everything to the indignities before her: the bright copper scent of herdbeast blood on the table above her, the scrape of the knife separating bone and sinew. The looming legs of tables and men that separated her from her dinner. At first, when she was too little to reach the table, she sat on his feet and screamed. No words could calm her, nor the presence of the adult dragons, nor the promise that food was coming. Every meal she was determined to prove that she was _starving_. Withering away to _nothing_! Her breakfast was being withheld from her.
She shrieked, thin and furious, because she could. Because if she protested perhaps he'd move faster. If she was scary, he might not keep the meal for himself. She wasn't small enough to dart between his legs anymore but she hopped-scrambled around them anyway, shoving K'valas a half-step if he didn't brace himself.
(Nevermind that he never gave an indication that he would, nor any thought that he would eat a quarter-herdbeast worth of raw meat right in front of her.)
“I’m cutting it smaller,” K’valas said, voice tight but steady. “You’ll choke if I don’t. Easy, Sazikoth. Easy.”
He only said that because Fianwyth's told him to. He didn't do it in the same tone. She didn't know how to _be_ easy, and he didn't make it sound like anything good. Easy sounded like food taken away.
Panic spiked at the thought.
She leapt at his legs, snapping at the air near his thigh before dropping low again, wings flaring wide. She jerked sideways and hit a table leg, jostling the table. She jolted back again and planted herself on his boot, tail lashing against his ankles and head shoved into his hip.
}: Do not take it. It's mine.:{ Sazikoth hissed.
“I’m not taking it,” K'valas insisted. “You think I’d steal your breakfast? I have never tried to take what's yours. Shards, you dramatic little thing--”
Sazikoth remembered when food was taken, though. She knew the terror of an empty belly because he did. She knew with a trusting, complete certainty that waiting meant losing, that if she didn't eat fast she might not eat at all. She remembered those days because K'valas thought of them whenever he filled his plate with too much and snuck extra back to their alcove in the weyrling barracks.
K'valas didn't know how to calm her down. He didn't know how to calm himself down. "I know. I know." He told her. "But I'm not holdless anymore. You will _never_ be holdless. You don't have to fight me."
He had a hard time believing it, and so did she. Her eyes whirled yellow in suspicion.
"I'm almost done. Just a few more minutes." It would have been less, had she not woken angry at his absence and sent him running to collect her. Her eyes whirled faster.
"Believe me or not, just don't fucking bite me." K'valas said. He lifted a strip of meat from the table and Sazikoth raised herself into her back legs, snapping it from his hand and chewing fiercely. The low growl began again.
Luckily, K'valas reached for another piece. She snapped at that, too, narrowly missing K'valas' fingers and making him curse. It took a few painfully long minutes for her to sit calmly enough to get another piece.
The next strip disappeared just as quickly as the last. Sazikoth crushed it between her teeth, head jerking as she swallowed far too fast. The growl never left her throat. It vibrated through the contact where her foreclaws rested on K’valas’ boot, a warning and a plea tangled together.
More. Faster. It wasn't words, wasn't her harsh mindvoice making demands of him, but a mental _shove_ in his mind as inevitable and ever-present as the mountains.
He lifted another strip.
She lunged.
This time her teeth did catch him.
Not deep, just the sharp scrape of dragonet teeth against the side of his finger as she snatched the meat away. But the sting made him jerk his hand back with a hiss. Blood welled immediately along the thin slice.
Sazikoth froze.
The meat hung from her jaws, forgotten for half a breath. Her eyes whirled faster, yellow washing with a sudden flash of uneasy orange.
}: You moved.:{
“You bit me,” K’valas muttered, sucking the cut before wiping it on his trousers. He didn’t sound angry. Mostly tired. “I told you not to bite me.”
Sazikoth swallowed the meat at last, but slower this time. Her head tilted, nostrils flaring as she smelled the blood on him. She shoved her shoulder harder into his leg, crowding closer, wings twitching in agitation as if proximity alone could make the next piece appear faster.
}: Mine.:{ she insisted.
“Yours,” K’valas said.
He didn’t even hesitate anymore between pieces. As soon as she swallowed he gave her another. It was the only way to keep her from spiraling again.Still, her eyes spun yellow and orange.
He hated that she knew about hunger. She had never gone hungry a single day of her short life.
He grabbed another strip and held it out. This time he kept his hand firm when she came for it, forcing her to slow that last inch instead of snapping blindly. Her teeth closed around the meat without touching his skin.
Barely.
He could feel the shape of the panic in her mind, like a tight knot pulled straight from his own chest. The old instinct that said if food existed you had to eat it _now_, because later it might not be there.
He had lived that way for turns.
He swallowed hard.
“You don’t have to fight for it,” he said quietly, already offering the next strip.
Sazikoth devoured it.
}: Mine.:{
“Yeah,” he said.
Another piece.
She gulped it down.
Another.
Her growl softened a fraction, dropping from a furious buzz to a steady rumble as the edge of the hunger began to dull. But she never stopped pressing against him, never stopped watching his hands with frantic focus.
K’valas kept feeding her. He stared at the whirl of yellow in her eyes and felt shame twist deep in his chest.
She should have been better than this. A calm dragon. A patient one. A dragon who could sit beside a table without acting like the world might end if breakfast took an extra minute.
Instead she had him. His fear. His hunger.
Sazikoth swallowed and immediately nudged his hand again.
}: More.:{
There was no accusation in the word. No doubt. Just certainty that he would give it.
K’valas picked up another strip.
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
And fed it to her.
Last updated on the April 1st 2026