After surviving yet another day of feigning pleasantness for clients and coworkers, the small, pink, pearlescent dragon sitting on Lily’s doorstep felt like one more damn problem.
She sighed at the bleak sky and decided that somehow, this was Will’s fault.
“You’re behind this, aren’t you? This is another one of your half-cocked schemes, isn’t it? Trying to get a rise out of me from beyond the grave? I’m on to you, William Philip Abel, and it’s not gonna work!” She blamed Will for many things, mostly because it was convenient (it’s not like he could argue the point), and because, for a moment, it felt like he wasn’t gone.
The dragon turned and blinked aurora eyes at her. It chirruped, questioning the grey-haired woman yelling at clouds.
“This doesn’t concern you!” Lily responded, then huffed. “Okay, it does concern you, but you’re not the self-righteous … arrogant … cotton ball who’s behind this. Isn’t that right, Will?”
The sky remained silent.
She growled and regarded the dragon. Its color reminded Lily of the trips she and Will had taken to Azalea Gorge, where they’d shared puffs of cotton candy between peals of laughter. Lily figured the dragon must be one of those designer breeds custom-bred for maximum fanciness, between its size (roughly that of a corgi, she guessed) and its feathery, fern-like wings that wouldn’t keep a sparrow aloft. Her phone had been blowing up with ads to “Get your own fantastical companion” and to “Show your wild fire!” for a while now. She half-wished she could break the screen with how hard she mashed them away.
“Okay. Someone’s gotta be out looking for you.” She focused on the black leather looped around its neck. “Easy now…”
The dragon shifted as Lily knelt. For a moment she thought it might bolt, but it stayed still. She found the ring where the little ID tag should belong, and was greeted with a twisted metal loop dangling half-off. Lily groaned.
“Well, bumblecocks. What’re we supposed to do now?” She recalled something about microchipping pets, but that would require a trip to a vet, probably some specialist that dealt with miniature manticores and teacup kelpies. No way they’d be open this late. Part of her considered shooing it away. Maybe it’d find someone who knew a thing or two about dragons.
The wind nipped at her jacket, and she drew her merino scarf closer around her neck, the scent of wool settling her thoughts. The clouds hung heavy, preparing to reward her previous accusations with a heaping helping of snow. The dragon shivered, and Lily’s heart clunked into her stomach. She could almost hear Will’s bemused voice. “C’mon Lil, we can’t just leave it outside. It’s gonna be nasty tonight. What’s the harm?”
“There can be lots of harm,” she muttered to the air. “Harm to my nerves, for starters. I didn’t sign up to play dragon nanny or unicorn herder or any other such nonsense.”
“It’s not forever. You can call a vet in the morning.”
“It’ll be a hassle. I don’t want to deal with it.”
“Do it for me? Please, Lilbil?”
“Son of a—FINE. Come on, then. Can’t heat the whole outside.”
The dragon darted in, twisting and grumbling until it ended up hunched under the end table Lily kept by the door for mail and keys. It knocked the table, wobbling the precarious stack of unopened envelopes and unread knitting magazines. “Fine, stay there for the moment.”
Lily plopped her groceries on the table and shoved cereal boxes and ramen cups into the cabinet. Her gaze caught the blue flowered casserole dish still on the counter. She really needed to return that to Robin.
Oh, who the hell was she kidding. It’d been almost a year, Robin would never get it back at this rate.
She peeked around the corner. The dragon still sat under the end table like an oversized wad of chewing gum. “I suppose you’re gonna want to be fed too.” What did dragons eat anyway? Dragon kibble?
She could ask Melissa—no. She brushed the thought away. Lily had insisted she be left alone and Melissa, to her credit, had (mostly) respected her wishes. Reaching out now would invite her sister to come barging back in with “Lily needs this” and “Lily needs to do that” and “oh Lily you can talk to me anytime, Lily we want to help, tell us what we can do!” Lily did not need help, thank you.
Her laptop sat on the table next to her dried out cereal bowl from breakfast. The internet would provide all the help she needed. One search later, and she had “Dragon Darlene’s Scaly Friends Blog” pulled up in all its pastel, cursive glory. Lily snorted. Any more cutesy and there’d be hearts and rainbows pouring out of her screen. Still, a guide peeked out under all the ads:
Welcome to the wonderful world of dragon ownership! By accepting a dragon into your life you’ve agreed to go on a wild and wondrous journey that will fill your home with joy and nuzzles and dragon guzzles (that’s the sound they make when they’re happy, by the way!).
Lily rolled her eyes and scrolled down.
You might be wondering what to feed your new family member. It’s certainly not maidens like the old stories! There’s many easy-to-find kibble brands to choose from, but to give your dragon friend a real treat, why not try some cooked hamburger? They can’t get enough of it! Why, my little Reggie would eat his own weight in it if given half a chance!
Okay. Hamburger. She could do that. There was a partial package still in the fridge from her half-hearted attempt at Will’s Big Beefy Taco Casserole. One spin in the pan later, and she put a plate of cooled cooked hamburger on the floor.
The dragon poked a long nose out from under the end table, nostrils flaring. It inched out, examining the plate before burying its snout in it, scarfing so fast Lily worried it might choke. A strange sound rumbled up from its chest, like a furnace simultaneously crackling and gargling.
Huh. That must be guzzling.
It wasn’t a bad sort, she decided. She could see why they were popular. When she went out, it seemed there was always someone walking a dragon or three, some big, some small, and in a veritable upturned crayon box of hues, weaving and chirruping and snuffling. Melissa kept dropping hints that they made great companions, but Lily never bit. And yet here we are, at least for the night.
“I guess you’re not as bad as I thought. Alright. We’ll manage as long as you don’t make a mess.”
The dragon promptly started making a mess.
A sound not unlike a retching car engine startled Lily out of staring at her steeping ramen. She got to the living room just in time to see the dragon heave a ball of flaming hamburger onto the rug.
“Assbuckets!”
The dragon dashed for the end table and Lily rushed for the kitchen. Her mind flashed to the extinguisher under the sink. Fumbling with the cylinder, she pulled the pin and sprayed foam at the merrily crackling little hamburger fire. Aim for the top? No, the base, the base!
A few minutes later, adrenaline beating out a brassy tune in her veins and her hands shaking, Lily had, to her amazement, saved her house from burning down, despite the smoke detector’s screeching argument otherwise. She opened the windows to let the smoke out, cringing at the cold. She jammed on a deep green beanie she had knit out of some birthday wool Will gave her several years ago.
“Will. I swear. This is. Your fault. Somehow.”
This was going to be hell to clean up.
Maybe she should ask Melissa—no.
Sometimes our dragony friends get a bit of a tummyache. The ability to shoot flame has mostly been bred out, but they’ve still got that fire in them! It’s part of the excitement of owning a dragon! Baking soda mixed into a paste will help wipe out post-tummy-upset stains.
Lily was still scrubbing at ash when the sound of wood splintering sent her back into an anxious spasm. “I don’t want to know I don’t want to know I don’t want to know.”
She turned to find the dragon worrying at the baseboards, silver-flecked claws scraping gouges into the wood and picking at the heater. The dragon seemed to be alternating between clawing and pressing its body against the boards, like it wanted to meld into the wall itself.
Lily picked up a broom and tried to ease the dragon away from the heater. “Go on, get away! Don’t go tearing the damn house down!”
The dragon hissed.
“Oh come on, I barely nudged you! Don’t be so dramatic!”
The dragon swiped at the broom handle. She tried to herd it towards the kitchen. All the while Will’s gentle laughter followed her. “Lilbil, don’t worry. We can repair the baseboards.”
Repair? Lily wouldn’t know where to begin. Maybe she should’ve paid more attention while Will was alive, but she was too busy bringing in the bulk of their income, and besides, Will liked managing food and maintenance. She had the list Will wrote out for her, landscapers and carpenters, people she could contact for repairs, but. That would mean calling people, and there would be questions and they might want to talk and they’d give her that look. Pity. Her stomach twisted around shame and panic. No. She could manage this on her own.
Lily reasoned that maybe the dragon would get into less trouble in the kitchen, where there were no rugs to set fire to. Then the dragon charged the fridge, body slamming the door and sending it rocking.
Lily wondered if perhaps it had seen its reflection, when motion caught her attention and she looked up just in time to see Will’s recipe box tumble off the top.
The old wooden box hit the counter and the latch popped open, sending a cascade of stained index cards onto the floor.
Will loved those cards. Toasty Toes Bake. Random Crap Soup. Lily’s Favorite Mashed Potatoes. Will always presented a new recipe with a flourish and a loud declaration of its name, like an invocation. Even though she had followed the recipe to the letter, the Big Beefy Taco Casserole didn’t taste the same without it.
“For the love of everything please don’t hock up another fireball on those cards!”
Lily cursed as she struggled to get the cards off the smooth linoleum floor, bending some in her panic. She caught titles of anniversary dinners, birthday cakes, recipes Will meant to try someday, only ‘someday’ never came. Meanwhile the dragon tried to worm under the fridge, getting as far as its nose before it stopped, breathing hard.
She latched the box shut and clutched it to her chest. “I am not going to throw this creature out into the cold I am not going to throw this creature out into the cold I am not going to throw this creature out into the cold…”
“It could always be worse,” Will’s voice said. “It could’ve set fire to your yarn stash.”
“If it had, it would’ve been dragon spam an hour ago,” Lily mumbled into the box.
She checked the time on her phone. The damned thing had been in her house for only a few hours. It was gonna be a long night.
At least the dragon seemed content to huff fridge fumes or whatever for the moment. Still, it’d have to sleep somewhere.
With a delicate tummy, it’s important when making your dragony buddy’s bed to use flame retardant materials. Flame proof is even better, but you get what you can get, right? For the ultimate in luxury, get them a flameproofed silk bed. What decadence!
“Yeah, that ain’t happening. Not on this lady’s budget.” Lily turned to the fridge. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas, do you—?”
The dragon had left the kitchen.
“Oh, tigerfarts. Now what?”
She followed the sound of muffled thumps back to the scorched living room, where the dragon had found her laundry basket and pulled out all the socks, store-bought and hand-knit alike. Seriously. That had to be every dirty sock she owned. It was shoving all the socks under the couch cushions and sandwiching itself on top. She sighed, rubbing her eyes.
“Great. You’re hoarding, aren’t you?”
Remember those old images of the big dragons sitting on piles of gold? Your dragony friend will find something they like more than anything and do everything in their power to steal every last one within reach! Pennies, fake flowers, dice, plushies, panties, anything!”
Lily slapped her laptop closed. Nope. Nope nope nope. No stealing underwear, no nothing. They just had to survive the night. She needed to ask questions and get answers, not divine between the exclamation points of some sugar-encrusted blogger off the internet.
There was that little voice in the back of her head again. It had been there ever since the dragon set the rug on fire. Melissa would know what to do.
She pulled out her phone and stared at the contact for “Sis”.
“I hate this,” she said to no one in particular. She had been putting on a brave face for months. She could figure everything out without degrading herself by accepting help. She didn’t have to open up and talk about her feelings and—
A rumble emanated from the couch that sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of another fireball retch. She tapped the little green phone button.
Melissa picked up on the second ring. “Lily?”
She could already hear the concern in her sister’s voice, the urge to ask all the questions. She spoke before Melissa could get a word in edgewise. “Are you still volunteering at that shelter? I need advice.”
“Wait, what? Yeah, I am. Lil, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Lily said with a little more force than she intended. Before Melissa could ask more, she blurted out “I’ve got a dragon.”
A pause. Then, “You what?! That’s amazing, I’m so happy for you!” Something about Melissa’s joy made Lily’s heart shrink into a ball and harden. “I knew a pet was just the thing for you. You’re all alone there, and—”
“No, you don’t understand,” Lily’s voice was a hand on Melissa’s chest. “It showed up on my doorstep. I’m not planning on keeping it, I just didn’t want to wake up to a dragonsicle.”
“Oh…”
“I’m taking it to the vet in the morning, but in the meantime I’ve got it in the house and I swear one of us won’t survive the night at this rate. It’s buried itself in the couch cushions. I’d be fine leaving it there until tomorrow, but it vomited fire on the rug and I don’t care to wake up to couch en flambé either.”
“Wait. Wait wait.” She could practically hear Melissa revving into animal care mode. “Did you feed it?”
“…Yeah? I cooked up some hamburger for it. That’s what the internet said to do.”
“CRIMINY, you ended up on Dragon Darlene’s site, didn’t you. I swear that search algorithm is out to commit violence. Okay, forget that site. It’s bad info and makes my teeth rot.”
A smile escaped Lily’s lips. “Oh good, it’s not just me.”
“Listen, if you can’t get dragon food, raw meat is best. Cooked meat confuses the hell out of their systems, so they get flaming indigestion.”
“I’ve got some hamburger left I haven’t cooked.”
“Great, that’ll work. The flinging about and hiding in crevices is probably because it’s confused and anxious from being in a strange place. Let it stay in its couch burrow for now. Trying to get it out will just stress you both out more. Usually they only have one or two fireballs to purge their systems and then they should be calmer.”
The couch cushions shuffled behind Lily. Probably the dragon getting more comfortable. “What about the socks?”
“Socks?” Melissa snickered. “It’s hoarding, isn’t it? Sorry, you’ve got yourself a sock thief. Just let it have them for now.” She paused. “What about you, Lil? I haven’t heard from you in weeks. I know you said you wanted to be left alone, but I’ve been worried—”
“I’m fine.” If Lily said it hard enough, maybe she’d believe it herself. “I just need to get us both settled, and—”
More shuffling caught her attention, and Lily turned. She nearly dropped the phone. “OH SH—”
The dragon had its face buried in her long-disused knitting basket.
“Lily, what—”
She barely managed to avoid throwing her phone across the room as she waved her arms. In two steps she reached the basket. “Out! Out out out! Now!”
The dragon shrieked at her sudden approach, shooting out of the basket in a pink blur and beelining for the couch.
Melissa’s voice piped out from the speaker. “I swear if you don’t tell me what’s—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” She wasn’t fine.
“Do you need me to come over?”
“No. I’ll call you later.”
“Lily—”
“I’ll call. You. Later.”
Lily approached the basket like it was a corpse. The only project left, now pulled off its needles thanks to the dragon’s ministrations, was a half-finished sweater in lime green, Will’s favorite color. The dragon’s teeth and claws had caught the yarn, peppering it with rips and holes.
She sunk into her chair cradling the bundle of wool. Everything trembled. Green fuzzed into a cloud behind long-unshed tears.
It was supposed to be his.
I should’ve finished it.
She hadn’t even moved her chair back after hospice took the hospital bed away. She had sat right here, a folding chair with the yarn looped around it in front of her, winding balls with galvanized determination.
From his bed, Will gave her a weak smile. “C’mon, Lilbil, what is this, a race to see if you can finish it before I go? I don’t need any more sweaters.”
Lily swallowed the rock suddenly lodged in her throat. “I want to make it for you.”
He laughed, more of a breathless wheeze. “I’m pretty sure the sweater curse doesn’t work this way. You’re not driving me off any sooner with it.”
“You passed the point where the sweater curse would get you fifteen sweaters and thirty years ago.” She smiled, but inside she was a flickering cinder.
Maybe. Maybe if I make this sweater you’ll live. Maybe somehow you’ll recover. Every single logical part of me knows what’s coming. But maybe. Maybe you can wear it once, twice, even three times. Maybe I can make you warm with my knitting one last time. Maybe I can keep you here a little longer with a length of string.
She had knitted countless pieces for Will over their marriage. He asked for striped scarves in clashing colors, cheerful red mittens, even a weird Christmas sweater with a sword-brandishing Santa. He received each one with delight, from her first lumpy hat to her most elaborate pullover, showing them off with pride. “You know who made this? That’s right, my wife Lily! Isn’t she amazing?”
Even as she knitted frantic rows she could feel him twirling away from her. He stopped speaking. He stopped smiling. She worked on the sweater less, a loose row here, a furtive stitch there, until Will sat in an urn, and her knitting sat quiet.
The mangled half-sweater snapped a knot Lily didn’t know existed. Will was gone. Her best friend. Her partner in everything who made her laugh and calmed her down when work overwhelmed her. Who smelled of lavender soap after a shower and who she still saved her pickles for because he loved them so much. She had a lifetime of love left for him and he could no longer receive it. So much left unfinished. She clutched the sweater as she unraveled, frustration and anger and grief and helplessness and exhaustion sweeping over her anew in sobs and howls.
What could I have done different?
IT’S NOT FAIR.
How can the world keep going when he’s gone?
I can’t do this on my own.
I can’t let them see me cry. Stop crying, Lily.
A whisper of scales brushed against her leg, prompting her to look up. The dragon stared at her.
Irrationally, she wanted to be angry at it. This weird pink thing had invaded her house, wrecked her living room, destroyed her knitting, and to top it all off, had single-handedly deconstructed every façade she had in place that she was Fine. Completely. Fine. People lose the loves of their lives every day, right?
But it wasn’t the dragon’s fault, even if she wanted to toss it out of the house and slam the door behind it. Even if she wanted to tape all her broken pieces back together and go back to presenting a normal face to the world: somebody who worked and bought groceries and wasn’t trying not to break down every time she saw something beautiful and thought “I should tell Will about this” before she could stop herself.
“Fuck.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I should be past this. It’s your damn fault, Will.”
His voice whispered to her. “It’s okay, Lil. It’s okay to be sad. I didn’t want to leave you either. I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
She became aware of scaly feet on hers. The dragon pressed its flank hard against her and trembled, vibrating into her own skin. Not a guzzle, more… a shiver?
The fortress door of her grief cracked just a little, enough to let in curiosity. She reached down and the dragon butted its head against her hand, pressing with the same urgency. The dragon (surprisingly) let her pick it up. It flattened itself against her lap, and only then did the trembling quiet a little.
“Are you cold?” Lily asked, perplexed. The dragon guzzled. Maybe there was more to clawing at baseboard heaters and seeking the warm underside of fridges than anxiety. Melissa once mentioned something about the southern breeds being popular with the rich folks around town, but none of them seemed to get they were built for hot summers, not snow. For all she knew, some asshole who hadn’t done their research had abandoned the poor thing. She looked at its collar again. She was no forensic expert, but the broken tag ring looked less torn and more cut.
Definitely an asshole, then.
Something shifted inside her, and an old, papery memory resurfaced of a college freshman in a too-light jacket shivering in a snow flurry, and a deep-seated, instinctive urge: He looks cold. I should make him something.
She picked up the fallen wool. Her own voice bubbled up from deep within, carrying the urgency she felt when she realized she had unconsciously come to a decision: “It’s good wool. It’s still warm. You can let that yarn languish, or you can put it to good use.”
The dragon had already started the work for her. She unraveled the sweater in long strokes, weeks of work disappearing in a few minutes, stitches undoing themselves with unnerving ease. She spliced frayed ends together, tossed away the pieces too small to use. Soon, she had a pile of what passed as radioactive spaghetti.
She texted Melissa back to assure her she and the dragon hadn’t killed each other, and put her phone on silent. She’d pay for that later, but she had work to do. Once the yarn had been wound back into balls, she found needles and cast on a new project.
It took a few tries to get the right dimensions, and her hands were stiff and awkward as she recalled once-familiar motions, but once her muscle memory reasserted itself, the knitting came easy. Row upon row flew by. She laid it across the dragon to make sure the wing holes lined up and worked increases in the growing fabric to accommodate a wide chest. As she knitted, the dragon curled in her lap, guzzling hard enough to vibrate the chair.
A calm settled over her, and she thought she felt Will somewhere in the stitches she worked, his smile, his weird humor, even his annoying little habits, like leaving half-finished drinks on the table and saving every last paper clip and rubber band. The ever-present static of grief eased. She cried more than a few tears as old memories bubbled up, and the dragon pressed into her harder.
The hours ticked by. She pulled herself away and put the rest of the hamburger down for the dragon, uncooked this time. She checked the internet again (scrolling down a bit, she found the Dragon Lovers’ Society, which had 100% more legitimate references) and determined the dragon would be fine for the night with a nest of blankets.
She eventually fell asleep in the chair just as she had done countless times while keeping vigil over Will. Her back and neck still protested with creaks and cramps when she woke up, and the morning wallop of Will is gone came right on schedule. The grief washed over her, less violent this time, tempered by the softly snoring blanket pile at her feet.
The finished sweater was a fluorescent lime green concoction that would have delighted Will. When the dragon extracted itself from the pile and started shivering, she popped it over its head, easing the delicate wings through the holes. The dragon turned several times as it tried to make sense of the thing on its body and then flopped onto its side, staring at the wall until its shivering stopped.
Lily couldn’t help but laugh. “See? I have good ideas sometimes.”
She couldn’t wait to see how it worked when they went outside.
Outside.
She frowned. The dragon still needed a vet to make sure it was as healthy as it looked. And then what? Leave it there?
It’d get adopted instantly with those candy pink scales, but by who? Would they treat it well? Would they make sure it stayed warm when winter came on and cold drafts creeped into cracks and froze pipes?
She heard Will’s voice, bemused as always. “You could give it a home, Lil.”
“Oh shut up!” she yelled at the ceiling, “This is still your fault.”
“You made a sweater for it. Sounds like true love to me.”
“More like I don’t feel like watching a creature freeze to death.”
His voice was a wagging finger. “You can’t fool me, Lilian Belinda Marks.”
The dragon looked at Lily from where it lay, guzzling. Annoyingly, she realized she missed the comforting sounds that came from having someone else around.
“Son of a—fine. FINE.” She hated it when he was right. She was gonna have to rearrange her whole life for this creature, she just knew it. She would have to take it for walks. She’d have to hide her socks. She would have to probably go out where it could play with others. She’d have to buy dragon kibble. And toys. And there’d be vet bills. And argh.
And she would need to talk to Melissa. Her heart knotted at the prospect. No. She wasn’t ready to talk about everything—but they could talk about dragon care, and maybe that was enough for now.
Movement outside caught her eye, and she saw a chimera and her neighbor three doors down out for a walk.
She considered how a sweater with three neck holes might work.
Amanda Saville lives in North Carolina where she writes odd things, does science, has peculiar cooking adventures (some involving jam), and, yes, knits quite a bit. Her fiction has appeared in Worlds of Possibility, Unidentified Funny Objects Vol. 9, and elsewhere. Find her on Bluesky @acsaville and on Mastodon @acsaville@wandering.shop
Translunar Travelers Lounge 