“I was gone for what, five, six minutes?! What happened here??” Dorcas wailed.

Large, luminous yellow eyes looked at her meltingly over the sharp fangs currently embedded in a splintered chair leg. The REST of the chair was strewn in the chandelier, which was swaying ponderously above their heads, casting a giddy light over what looked, at first glance, to be a massacre.

Smatterings of crushed porcelain glittered among the remains of her dinner, currently adorning the floor like a Jackson Pollock, while hunks of eviscerated roast and bits of the table swirled in a thick tomato stew, making everything look like it was smeared in bloody roadkill.

Sparkly, bloody roadkill.

And swimming luxuriously through it all, leathery tail working like a windshield wiper to spread the apocalypse that once was dinner even further, was the culprit, who, roughly 5 minutes ago had been a hot little egg wrapped in a frayed gypsy shawl nested snugly in her messenger bag.

The Once-Was-An-Egg grinned dotingly at her around the chair leg, which finally gave out with a slivery “CRACK!”, and fell to either side of its narrow little face, as the small creature began stumbling toward her, uttering unearthly shrieks of welcome, flapping stubby wings in an attempt to propel itself faster into her sphere.

Apparently, she was the first person it had seen.

And apparently, she’d been adopted.

She was now, based on its reaction, and if the books were to be believed, (unfortunately, they were) a surrogate mother to a crumpled-looking fledgling of a notably cantankerous, and ridiculously tenacious and grudge-holding species.

You couldn’t simply drop it at the fire station.

It would find you.

And it would be mad.

The tiny tomato-crusted dragon reached her boots and nudged them before winding its way like a vine up and around her legs, leaving a red snail-trail of stew all over her clean black trousers.

She looked down helplessly, meeting its half-closed, blissful little eyes.

Then it began to purr, sending shivery vibrations through her bones.

“WYATT!!” she hollered.

There was a crash and an oath from the oak boards above her head, then a tentative creak on the stairs, heralding the approach of the useless inkeeper, who had repeatedly assured her all would be fine while she was gone.

A curly brown crop of hair poked around the paneled wall at the base of the staircase, followed by the rest of the fellow, and an apologetic, “Well, now, Dorc–“

She threw a handy pot at his face.

The chair fell out of the chandelier with a crash.