If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

No one else will give enough thought to help you with what you need done- a rush job, they’ll do. Fix it just to break it. Build it up just to watch it burn…

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•

“Mend me, please- I need you…”

So pick me up. Lay me out on a table. Glue each piece back, Wrap each wound…

Then break me up. Shatter me a million times. Bust every seam and stitch… Choke me out, scream and yell.

Mend me, please- No, no one can.

Glue melts in the flame. Measly holds and broken supports. Hatred leaks and broken hearts.

Hate me- Hate me with all your heart. Because you once loved…

I only have one life motto. “If you want something done right, you do it yourself.” Easy. Simple. To the point. That’s why I killed him and that’s what I told the cops. Look, I’ve told you all before. The chocolate was mine. I bought it and I had big plans for it. On Saturday, I was going to crack open a bottle of wine, turn on reruns of whatever sappy sitcom I could find first, and eat my chocolate. I had told everyone at work about it! They all looked at me like I was crazy. Big plans?! To most that night was just a simple Tuesday. Not for me. Now I’m sitting in the police station on a Friday night with my roommates dried blood on my hands. They tried to get me to wash them, but I need everyone around me to know what happens when you disobey the rules.

“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” Silver said out of nowhere two days after her appearance. Which was, when Aura thought about it, also entirely out of nowhere.

“What are you on about?” Jordan asked, turning to stare at the girl in total bewilderment.

“This journey. Auretta’s claiming she’s heading for Taleria to help the real queen get back on the throne,” she shrugged. “But Queen Callista had no clue what she was doing. And the other Ethera… one’s apparently a former maidservant of the palace and the other has been missing for he past sixteen years!”

“You can’t be suggesting that I rule the kingdom?” Aura frowned.

Silver laughed, her eyes flashing for a moment. “Oh, no, I can absolutely be doing that.”

“I don’t have royal blood, idiot.”

For the next hour, it seemed to have shut the unwelcome addition up. The young girl went so silent Aura could almost forget she was even there.

“The way I see it, Corentin, you’re the oldest of the elemental incarnations. And since those incarnations are directly made from the powers the queen possessed, you count as royalty. Technically speaking, you could take the throne. Assuming Arcadia never returns, of course…”

Aura blocked out the rest of Silver’s speech, trying to work out what she was on about. Directly made from a person’s magic? Did that mean she’d been lied to again when she asked about her powers?

Her ‘parents’ had told her that it was simply something they’d heard, that Aura was destined to pull this kind of stunt one day. No mention of the other incarnations, or that she wasn’t really human at all…

“Wait, does that mean I have… like, sisters?”

Jordan shrugged, though she looked like she thought it was true. Silver didn’t make a move to reply.

“What the…?”

I rubbed my eyes and looked again at the metal cage. It was just like all the other cages in this dirty little animal shelter, which I’d quickly realized was simultaneously underfunded and overpriced. The cage floor was stained with off-color water and strewn with grime, and there was only an empty food bowl for furnishing. I hadn’t so much as seen a blanket or toy for comfort in all the time I was here, but at least all the dogs and cats I’d wandered past had been active and noisy, barking and meowing and running around in circles. The creature in this cage didn’t have enough room to get up and turn around; it was curled up into a little black football, its tail under its chin. Its spiked, scaled tail, under its horned head and lizard-like snout. And I hadn’t imagined it - those were leathery wings folded tightly against its sides. It stared at me with dull yellow eyes, and I knew, even though I’d never seen one in person, that I was looking at a dragon.

Now I really knew this place was sketchy. You couldn’t just find a dragon at an animal shelter, at least not in North America. They’re not meant for Midwestern climates. And I wasn’t any kind of animal expert, but even from movies I knew that they needed more room than this, and more food than you could give in a tiny little bowl like that. This had to be a baby dragon; it was only about the size of a corgi. But there had been corgis elsewhere in the shelter, and they’d had more room to run around and roll over than this little dragon had here.

I took out my cell phone and dialed my sister, glancing over my shoulder in case the one staff member I’d seen came walking by as I quietly explained what I’d found.

“A dragon?” Abby’s voice had a tinge of annoyance to it, which I did my best not to resent. “I asked you to look around and see about getting Mara a kitten, not a dragon.”

“But what if you did get a dragon, though?”

“We can’t take a dragon. Do you know how big they get? I don’t even want a dog. You know I’m the one who’s gonna have to take it on walks and out to the bathroom and everything. That’s why I said cat. They’re self-sufficient.”

“Abby, please. I can’t just leave her here. This place is terrible.”

“Then call the police or something and have them get her. Or pest control.”

I didn’t like the thought of calling the police. Who knew how long it would take them to actually respond, or if there was anything they could do here, legally? If the guy had a dragon here, out in the open, he must be certain he had the right to own it. And all it took was to look into the little dragon’s eyes to know that pest control was out of the question, too. This wasn’t a pest. It was a baby. It needed a home.

I scrolled through my contacts and made a few more calls.

“We don’t have the room for a pet,” my father said, and my mother chimed in from across the room, “I don’t want a forever baby! I like that you’re all grown up and doing your own laundry!”

“Aw man, that would be really cool,” my friend Kevin said, getting my hopes up for a moment before he added, “but I don’t know the first thing about owning a dragon, and anyway, I’m spending the semester in London. No way I could get her on the plane.”

“It’ll just fly away at the first opportunity,” said my cousin Rebecca, and I could practically hear her eyes rolling. “After it destroys all my furniture.”

“I don’t think it can fly yet,” I said to her. “It looks skinny and weak. It needs a home, Bec.”

“Then why don’t you take her? It’s not like your furniture can get any worse for wear.”

I bit my tongue to stop myself from snapping back; she was constantly judging me for “living like a poor person,” or as I called it, frugality.

The little dragon had inched itself closer to the door of its cage, looking up at me. The yellow eyes seemed a bit brighter now. Maybe she was getting used to me standing there.

I put my hand against the cage door, ready to pull back right away if she tried to bite me. She lifted her head and sniffed at my fingers. Then she opened her mouth and let out a high-pitched crooning sound that ended in a soft squeak. And I knew better than to anthropomorphize; it’s the first thing my biopsych professor told his class, not to assume that animals thought and felt like we did. But in that moment, I couldn’t help but read that sound and the expression in her eyes as hopeful.

“Excuse me!” I called over my shoulder. The lone employee at this shelter, a waif of a man, stuck his head around the corner.

I pointed at the cage. “How much to adopt the dragon?”

It took a half-hour in all, between the paperwork, the haggling as he tried to sell me lots of dubious-looking pet-care items and I settled on just getting a secure little carrier, and the process of getting the little dragon out of the cage and into the carrier. She wouldn’t let the guy touch her, flinching and snapping at his hand whenever he came near.

“You’ll have trouble with this one,” he said, shoving the carrier into my hands. “But you signed for her already, so she’s yours.”

I got down on my knees and put the carrier next to the open door of the cage. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m getting you out of here.”

She eyed the carrier suspiciously, still not moving.

“Come on, Coal,” I said, the name escaping my lips before I consciously realized I’d chosen it, after her black scales and the legends in my head of fiery lizards. “Let’s go home.”

Slowly, step by step, she crossed the threshold of the cage and entered the carrier.

Coal spent the whole car ride squeaking and scratching at her carrier door. I kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror, to see her little eyes darting every which way. “It’s okay,” I said more than once, “we’re almost home,” though I knew she couldn’t understand me.

She calmed down quite a bit when the car finally stopped and I got her out, holding her carrier under my arm and up the steps to the porch. I guess she liked traveling by human more than by automobile. I couldn’t blame her.

Once inside, I put the carrier down on the living room floor and opened the little metal door. She didn’t come out right away, and again, I couldn’t blame her. Who knows how long she’d been in that poor excuse for a shelter, and a lot had changed in just a few short hours. So I left her there and went about making dinner, for myself and for her. The latter took some Googling and several more rounds of thinking “oh my god, what have I gotten myself into, I don’t know the first thing about raising a human child let alone a dragon.” But according to the dragon sanctuary websites I found, at this age, a dragon’s diet is a lot like a goat’s or a pig’s. They’ll eat just about anything, and I just had to make sure I didn’t give them anything rotten or diseased. I took out some leftover hamburgers for her, a bowl of microwave pasta for me, and resolved to do more research tomorrow.

I put Coal’s dinner on the floor in front of her carrier and settled on the couch with my macaroni. After a minute or so, the little dragon snout came sniffing out of the open door, and her skinny tongue flicked out at the meat. Then there was a flurry of movement, the rapid-fire snapping of jaws, and the burgers were gone, and so was a chunk of the plastic plate.

“You liked that, huh?” I said. Coal burped and blinked up at me. Then she walked towards me, her claws clacking softly on the hardwood - I’d need to figure out dragon-proofing the house, those claws would do some real damage once they grew a bit; that was another thing for tomorrow’s to-do list. I stayed very still as she approached my feet, afraid of startling her. She paused at the base of the couch for a moment, tilting her head from side to side as though unsure what to do next. Then she gathered herself, wiggling her butt much like a cat about to pounce - and pounce she did, hopping up onto my lap. I managed to set my bowl aside just quickly enough to avoid spilling my pasta, though I wasn’t dexterous enough to keep my fork from clattering down under the couch. Darn it.

But as the little dragon snuggled into my lap, letting out the most contented sigh I’d ever heard, the anxious voice in my head fell silent. In that moment, I knew without a doubt that I’d made the right choice. The moment I’d seen Coal, I’d wanted what was best for her. I’d wanted her to have safety, comfort, a loving home. But if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

"If you want something done right you have to do it yourself," Annabelle said snatching the needle out of my hand and storming down the hall towards the still open operating room. Her blond hair swishing behind her as she strode.

Henry stared down the dingy hall, brown water stains slithered from ceiling to the floor, the damp moldy smell choking the the air with its heaviness. He couldn't believe Annabelle was so bold an confident. He has known her since he was eight years old and always thought she was so meek and mild. He never could have imagined the fire in her.

Annabelle's head popped back out of the operating room down the hall, "Are you coming?"

Henry made his way down the hall, the tiles squeaking under his sneakers.

"Hurry up," Annabelle said turning back into the room and out of Henry's sight.

As Henry got to the room, he edged his head in, Annabelle was standing over a man, the syringe sticking out of his arm.

"You don't have to be scared, he is passed out now, he won't hurt you," Annabelle said with a strange amount of calm and compassion in her voice.

"I am not scared," Henry walked in chest puffed out, his eyes still wide, not hiding the terror that was vibrating through his body.

Annabelle wasn't fooled, walking over to Henry she took his head into her hands. She looked deep into his eyes. He noticed a twinkle of mischief before she kissed him.

Henry stumbled back. He was at a loss for words, they had been friends for so long, and sure he had thought about kissing her before, but the time never seemed right, they were friends. This was not Annabelle, at least not his Annabelle.

She looked at him, a smirk in her eyes, "I have wanted to do that for a long time, and now you're surprised and not scared, now help me get this guy off the table and we can get the next clue and get out of this hell hole."

Henry stared back again, still dumbfounded, watching Annabelle walk back towards the unconscious man on the table. She began to unstrap him from the hospital bed. He rushed over to help her, she was right, they were almost done with this, and then they could talk about that kiss.

Underneath the man was a card, with a small key affixed to it. It looked like it belonged to a door from hundreds of years ago, but miniature. The card was small and blue, and in cursive blue script it said: Find the exit.

Annabelle turned the card over in her hands, "That's it, no clue, just find the damn exit? Isn't that what we have been trying to do this entire time," she said flinging the card across the room, the key clattering to the ground as it slid across the floor away from the card.

Henry grabbed Annabelle by the shoulders and kissed her this time, she was less surprised than he was and leaned in to him kissing him back. As they parted Henry said, "We have this, we made it this far, we will get out of here," he walked over picked up the card and the key, and returned to her. He took her by the hand, and whispered into her ear, "Let's find the exit."

“If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,” Frieda thought as she scraped chicken and barbecue sauce off the plate. It didn’t matter anyway. When Sam came home from his busy physicians assistant job at the emergency clinic, he’d be too tired to help anyway. Lila wrapped her arms around her legs mumbling something incomprehensible in her chipmunk voice. Her wispy blonde hair not so neat, a thick strand hanging in her eyes that were tearing up. What could be wrong. She was looking for her lovey Peter Pan. This dishes would need to wait. Not that her 13-year-old would help...he waits until 2am. Frieda felt she needed a Peter Pan herself to take her on a flight to somewhere new, different. Maybe she could go to a paradise of some sort just her...or with her best friend Jayne. Jayne always knew how to unwind. But now she had to push past the bone-tired feeling and follow the pattering of little feet in patterned pajamas and help stop the tears..what gets her through is looking forward to a sip of her rose wine when she’s almost too tired to open her eyes.

Life is hard. Sometimes it’s rewarding, and other times it’s not. Sometimes cleaning up around the house needs done, but I don’t want to do it. Sometimes something needs fixed but I don’t have the time to do it. Overall, there’s a lot to worry about in life. The important thing to remember is that: if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

TW: attempted sexual assault/rape and killing

I watch over the creatures of this land from up in my tree. Bow in hand and quiver strapped to my back, I sit, perched, on the highest branch that will hold me so I can see as far as possible. My elven eyesight allows me to watch like a hawk.

It is my duty as one of the protectors of this forest to keep everyone and everything safe. I learned my trade from my father who learned it from his aunt. Over the years, my eyesight has become sharper and my hearing keener than other elves. Thinking over how I came to hold this position and my advancements, I get distracted from my duties.

"Help!" Someone cries out.

"Shit," I curse to myself.

I look around tuning my eyes and ears to the same sound. Finally, I find the source of the noise. A young satyr being chased by four older satyrs. She looks terrified and out of her mind as the first of the four finally catches her. I loose an arrow straight through the attackers tail pinning him to a tree. The young female looks up to find me as I start down the tree.

"Leave her alone," I demand nimbly jumping from one branch to the next.

"Why do you care?" One of the pursuers questions stopping cold to stare me down.

The other two keep after the young one as she shakes herself out of her shock and begins running again. I loose two more arrows pinning their shirts to nearby trees while continuing to stare down the fourth.

"I care because I am a protector of Fryndal. Now leave her alone or you won't walk out of here," I scold notching another arrow and pointing it straight at his heart.

"I deserve her. She treated me. Us. Now if you don't mind," he growls moving to walk past me.

"So you think you can take her for your own because you thought you were going to have sex with her and she refused?" I ask moving my arrow down.

He simply scoffs at me and goes to chase the girl. I loose the arrow sending it straight through a tendon in his leg knocking him to the ground. I notice the first one getting loose as he pulls the arrow off his tail.

"Do you have the same mindset as your friend?" I ask him.

"She's my wife and in my family...," he grumbles.

I simply shrug not wanting to hear the rest of his words before loosing another arrow sending it through his pastern just above his hoof. I knock the other two over the head rendering them unconscious before they can get loose. Walking over to the female, I slip my bow across my back signaling that I mean her no harm.

"Are you okay?" I ask kneeling down next to her.

She nods and I finally realize that she is but a child while her pursuers are adults. I ask for her permission before examining her for injuries. Noticing a small bruise on her wrist and a slight swelling in her pastern, I grab my first aid kit from the small bag on my hip.

"Here. Drink this," I say handing her a vibrant purple potion while wrapping a bandage around her hoof.

"What is it?" She asks quietly.

"It's a healing potion. It will make your injuries heal faster. Drink up and I'll take you home," I say watching her closely.

She hesitated looking at the potion suspiciously. I hold out my hand taking it back from her. She watches as I take enough of a sip to ensure her it's not poison or a drug. I hand it back to her and she empties the bottle. Stuffing the empty bottle back into my bag, I stand up helping her up as well.

"She's mine you elven bitch," one of the male satyrs growls from behind me.

"Fine. It's not usually my nature to kill those I protect, but you're threatening harm to one of my protected," I growl back notching an arrow.

I keep the young female between my back and a tree, facing all four adult males ready to charge. I loose four arrows straight into their hearts killing them instantly.

"I need you to understand something young one," I say turning around, "When it comes to protecting yourself, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Now that right there should be the first rule of parenting. (Or at least in the top ten)

I can not even begin to count how many times I have asked the children to tidy their rooms, make their beds, or just pick up a single item off the floor, only to find they have either hidden stuff in the wardrobe, kicked it under the bed, or moan that it’s not fair or that it wasn’t them and they have no idea how it got there...

Also, Apparently, the correct way to make beds is to vaguely straighten the covers, and plop a teddy in the middle, and they are convinced it will hide the fact that the covers are in fact sideways. It really doesn’t. And on correcting the sorry mess, an entire outfit can be found lurking under the covers, along with a few more toys for good measure.

So if you want to save time wasting, save a load of aggro and if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

(Note: It’s not only the children this applies to…)

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. If you want something done correct the first time, then ask your wife how she wants it done.