Flash Fiction: Prompt - fantasy genre + a trick + 200 words

Plink. Plink. Plinkplinkplinkplink. 

“The rain dragon is out again,” Mother sighs, not looking up.

She will not venture outside - none of us do when the rain comes. Only a wall of waxed and charmed paper separates us from nature and Mother’s gods, but that’s safe enough. I watch as Mother takes out one of the luscious honey cakes that she makes for these divine moments.

“Take this to the offering box,” she commands me, and I take the cake with the reverence that I know she expects. 

I leave the room, my footfalls sticky on the raw wood. I reach the offering box, and glance up through a gap in the wall. Above the tea room, I see my brother hanging out of the window of the second floor. I catch his eye and nod. He releases the last few handfuls of thick rice onto the paper canopy roof. 

Plinkplink, plink.... plink… plink. 

From the hall, I hear our mother exclaim.

“There - the dragon is appeased. Good girl.”

I hide the cake away for later, behind an old cushion in our bedroom, and hope the old gods, if they are real, can forgive us our sweet tooth.