“cool,” you say, picking a bone from your teeth. it’s a power move you saw on VHS, but it actually just makes your gums kind of hurt. feels like ripping a popcorn kernel out.
around you, the abandoned subway is dripping. your horde of slightly-used-but-still-good Items Of Debatable Usage shifts under the scales of your tail.
“so, like, how did you find me, again?” you curl your tail up, around, through the air. the soldier looks bad, but you also don’t want him to die on your rug because you just got that cleaned. it’s really sixty rugs sewn together and to be honest? talk about a cleaning charge. used to be a dragon’s promise was worth something in this world.
you weren’t listening. “then she sent me here to you,” the man is saying.
you curl your tail around a handkerchief and pass it to him to clean up his blood. when it lands on him, you realize you’ve sort of erred. it is not a kerchief. it is a full king-sized sheet that is a replica from the set of the That’s 70′s Show. you’ve never seen an episode.
“she?” you taste the pronoun in your mouth. “let me guess. tall, green-black hair, very like a snake, but like, in a way that feels sort of human. like if a human was being a snake more than if a person was snake-ish.”
the soldier, with his one free arm, is trying to wrap parts of the sheet around his wounds. he barely nods. it’s kind of rude he’s so distracted.
you appraise him. “she didn’t like you,” you say, and hop off the ledge you’re lurking on. you feel graceful usually, but the smallness of this man makes you feel sort of crowded. like if you walk the wrong way you’ll squish him.
he coughs into his hand. the baby is fussing. “she… what? how do you know?”
“sent you the hard way,” you say, “quest and everything.”
you sniff downwards. the baby is absolutely Royalty, capital R. smells like a future princess. smells like hidden-in-a-wood. you smell again. actually, maybe it’s a tower. she smells like a tower princess.
maybe he thinks that you’re gonna eat her, because he wraps her tight against his chest. he smells like not-related, but absolutely sworn-to-protect. ugh.
you swipe your tail. clear off a space, dive in your claw. fish around. pluck out what is not a crib (cribs are useful) but instead a race car bed that has high enough walls it could convince itself to be a crib. “plop her down,” you say, “she’ll be safe here.”
“how do i know?” his voice is scratchy.
“call her,” you say, “call steph.”
he doesn’t move. you roll your eyes. “ugh. is she still going by that name? call The Witch of Night”. a name, which, not that it matters, you suggested to her about six eons ago. now it’s more like “One of the Several Witches Of New York City And Surrounding Boroughs.”
“i trust her,” he says, “i don’t trust you. how do you two even…?”
“she’s punishing me,” you say, because honestly! when is she not! she has no idea what a prank is supposed to look like! “this is to remind me that i belong in a Tale, and i escaped, and it totally ruined a Very Good Spell.”
he’s staring at you. his eyes are glassy. he stumbles. you edge the racecar bed closer. he puts the baby in it and she hushes, which you take to be a good sign. you rock it gently with your tail. if you took care of her (which, you won’t, obviously) you’d have to do some Small Magic and turn human for a while, even though you always feel kind of tiny and weak in human bodies. it would make it easier to hold and carry and take outside this little bundle of joy. no, not joy. Royalty.
“dragons are supposed to die in Tales,” you say, “and i didn’t die, clearly.” you begin to hunt for something that can function as a bottle. “major disappointment for all involved, myself included, trust me.”
the man drops to his knees. you suck in your breath between your teeth. he flinches like he expects flames, which is kind of hurtful. if you had wanted to eat him, you would have just done that already. but really, barbecue in front of a baby? even dragons have morals.
“ugh,” you say, and you pull out your old talking stone you can’t afford (Verizon has great coverage for hidden supernatural beasts, but really, at what cost) “hang on.”
the phone rings about two whole times. your heart always flutters, just a little, because it’s her on the other end. “sophie?” you ask.
“yeah?” her voice holds a smile in it.
“steph sent me another baby,” you say. you meanwhile pull what-is-not-a-rattle out of the pile and shake it for the girl. “the guy who brought it, is, like… toast.”
he looks pale.
“not literal toast,” you amend, “absolutely could be worse.”
“i keep telling her,” sophie sighs, “we’re not ready.”
“she’s just excited,” you say placidly. it’s not good to speak ill of your inlaws.
“how much longer for the guy?”
you sniff. “uh, forty minutes, tops. how fast can you get him to the hospital?”
“oh, twelve with traffic.” in the background, you hear her moving, already on her way, her keys jingling.
“what do we do with … uh Recent Acquisition.” you tickle the baby with a tail. it giggles and it sounds like bells. you roll your eyes. absolutely Royalty, kind-as-kittens, pure-of-heart, some-bullshit-yet-to-be-written. you want to snuggle with her, which is just completely unbecoming of a dragon.
“i’m going to kill her,” sophie says, “what kind of baby?”
“tower princess.” you gently push the man and his blood off your rug. ugh. he’s moaning and groaning, so you tell him, “dude i’m on the phone.”
he’s going to be fine. sophie never met someone she couldn’t heal. she healed up the big old wound that was your heart, after all, cleaned it out and patched it up and made you whole. and she’d done that literally a few times, too. your Day Witch. the dawn star of your heart.
there’s a little laugh. “remember our tower?”
“babe,” you say, “how can i forget.” you look over to the Dying Man on his Final Quest. you offer him a partially-burned cellphone and mouth call who you need to. you need to say it a few times, because he isn’t good at reading dragon lips.
“sorry about steph,” sophie sighs. “she just wants to be an aunt.”
there’s kind of a pause and sophie adds, gently, in a way that your heart breaks to hear, “and maybe …. i kind of told her i wanna be a mom.”
sure, steph is much nicer since six eons ago when she went through a totally-edgy there-can-only-be-one-powerful-twin phase (and really, aren’t we all like that as teenagers), but as an aunt? she’s not like sophie, who is kind and gentle and good and whole and has loved you in any form you choose, who has held your claw when your cried and shined your scales and sorted your Horde and helped you find new bodies and helped you escape a Tale (her Tale too) and who ran off with you and survived, and thrived, and lived in a world that forgot magic, and live, and love, and watch lots of netflix, which, along with vaccines, is your absolute favorite New Era thing.
but anyway. what if steph goes dark again. what if you forget to invite her to the birthday party or it gets lost in the mail and lo and behold, eternal sleep. what if she don’t like how the baby speaks and decides Toads For Tongues. what if she goes through the whole mirror-mirror bullshit. not with your baby.
your baby. is this, like, your baby now?
“i kinda,” the words feel so Right. like Tale kinds of Right. like somehow when he showed up he wasn’t finishing his quest but starting yours. the baby laughs again and you realize: she doesn’t sound like bells. she sounds normal, you just already love her, “i kinda wanna be a mom too.”
