When the Stars Aligned
Another school year, started and gone, Evelyn thought as she walked around the schoolhouse one more time.
Evelyn, a 24-year-old second grade teacher, adored her job. She had dreamed from an early age to become a teacher, and five short years ago, it finally became true. Granted, at that time she was only a student teacher still studying in college and this was her first year truly on her own, but to the kids in her pervious classes it made no difference. Five years ago, last year, and next year, it didn't matter: she was Miss Cherubini to all of them just the same.
The elementary school she taught at was connected to the middle school, so it was a very large building. Perfect for her late-night walks. Keeping a very healthy(and proud vegetarian) lifestyle, she walked around the school every night before she went home to get in some light cardio. As today was the last day of school, she stayed a little longer and walked a few more laps since she had no art projects to stay up late grading or an early morning helping the ones who didn't learn as fast.
Taking a deep breath of the cool night air, knowing summer was coming and it would only get hotter, she decided it was time to head home at last. Her cat, Mrs. Muffins, would probably be lonely by now, although when Evelyn got home, she wouldn't admit it. Starting the trek back to her car, Evelyn stopped and curiously smelled the air. Smoke. Something was burning.
She ran in the direction of the supposed fire, phone in hand, ready to report it to the proper authorities. However, when she reached the area in question, there was no fire to be found. Only a tall, muscular woman with smoke rising from her back and nostrils. Evelyn paused in the bushes, out of sight. She had yet to determine whether or not this woman was hostile, but she felt the need to stay put. She had to be hurt, right? Human skin just doesn't smoke like that.
The woman turned around to face Evelyn and sniffed the air. Evelyn tensed every muscle in her body and held her breath. Had she been discovered? Not long after, the woman in the forest turned her attention back to her arm. Evelyn squinted her eyes at the now-visible appendage. It was bleeding profusely! Before Evelyn could react, the woman breathed fire on the gaping wound, attempting to cauterize it. When the fire hit her skin, she let out an unearthly roar, but it seemed to do the trick.
Wait...
Did she just... breathe...
FIRE?!
Evelyn stumbled back in shock, snapping a twig in the process. The woman whipped her head in her direction and released a guttural growl, straight from the pits of Hell. On all fours, she started crawling towards Evelyn, and against her blinding fear(and better judgement), Evelyn spoke up.
"Wait! You're hurt! I can help you!"
The strange woman stopped, inches from Evelyn's face, her eyes glowing an almost radioactive yellow. They turned to a gentle blue as the rest of her body softened and the growling stopped.
Cautiously, Evelyn moved backwards and stood up. She help out her hand to the woman and said, "Come, follow me. I'll take you to my school's health office. It's not the best, but it will do for a quick treatment.”
The woman recoiled and hissed at Evelyn's outstretched hand. Scared out of her mind but determined to help this woman, she stayed strong. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."
She quickly scanned Evelyn with blood-shot eyes, and after what seemed like an eternity, decided she was not a threat and stood up to follow her. For the first time, Evelyn noticed the woman had a tail. And small wings. And was naked.
Embarrassed, Evelyn immediately averted her eyes and fumbled to quickly take off her sweater. "H-here, you might want to cover up. Take this."
The woman furrowed her eyebrows, sniffed the article of clothing, and questioningly accepted it, putting it on how she had seen Evelyn wear it. On Evelyn, the sweater well reached her knees, but it barely covered the top of this woman's thighs. Evelyn cleared her throat and let the way to the office in a silent gay panic.
Once inside the office, Evelyn gave the woman one of those disastrously ugly paper gowns in exchange for her sweater back. She sat her down and started to tend to her wounds using whatever discount products the office had available.
"So," she started, trying to break the awkward silence. "Do you have a name?"
The woman nodded slowly. "Yes. My name is C̶̨̛̘̦̮͔̜͚̖̹͗̽̇̈̆͝ͅh̵̭̠̄̑̀́̇́̒̆͘ǫ̷̛̿̈́̃̕ŗ̵̩̖̘̤̲͑̈́́́͌̕ͅy̸̪̞͎͐͐̿͛͘n̶̡̡̧͍̪̗̞͉̉͗͑̿̕͠t̴̢̥̱̻͖̃̑̐̀̈́͊̚̚h̸̝̭̏͑̃̉͠, but I do not believe your feeble human tongue can speak the language of the dragons, so you may just call me Chorynth."
Evelyn abruptly stopped dabbing the cotton ball covered in salve on Chorynth's shoulder. Had she heard her right? Dragons?! Evelyn knew there was something off about this woman, but she just chalked it up to her being tired and hallucinating. Dragons didn't exist. They couldn't. Right? She stayed frozen for a lot longer than she intended to.
"Girl!" Chorynth snapped at her. "Don't you know it is rude to not introduce oneself after demanding the same of another? Honestly, humans have evolved with no manners. Or common sense for that matter."
She shook her head, deciding that this all was a dream. It had to be. But even if this was a dream, there was no reason she couldn't be nice to the other figure, so she resumed her dabbing and spoke. "Cherubini. My name's Evelyn Cherubini."
Chorynth scratched her chin, confused. "You have two names. How odd..."
Evelyn scrunched her face, choosing to ignore her strange comment and decided to continue with the small-talk. "So. If you don't mind my asking, how did you get these wounds?"
Chorynth had scars down her back that were fresh and still smoking from when she first found her in the woods. Her forehead above her left eye was bleeding from what looked like claw marks, and her entire right arm was burned and bleeding. After closer examination, Evelyn assumed most of the burnt flesh was not from Chorynth's sloppy but effective cauterization, because her fire left a different scarring pattern.
"My mother," Chorynth casually responded.
"Your mother did this to you?!" Evelyn's mouth hung wide open. She had lunch every Sunday with her mother, and could never imaging her saying anything nasty to Evelyn, let alone wounding her to this extent.
Chorynth, however, waved her good hand dismissively. "We got into a small fight, that's all. I expressed my wish to take over Lordship from my mother one day, and not willing to give up her power any time soon, she tried to kill me. When I wouldn't go down and it seemed like she would lose, to save face, she called in her personal guards to finish me off for her. I fled, for even with my strength, twelve against one is a fair fight for none. I vowed as I left to return one day and finish what I started-" her story was abruptly interrupted by Chorynth's earth-shattering roar.
Evelyn winced, realizing what she had done. "Sorry," she squeaked out. She was so shocked my Chorynth's story that she stopped paying attention to what she was doing and dabbed the salve-drenched cotton ball a bit too hard into a deep wound. However, seeing Chorynth roar like that; white fangs out on full display, with a look in her eye so powerful as if she would murder the next person she saw, was kind of hot, Evelyn thought. Man, could she dream them up! Alas, seeing as it was a roar of pain, she made sure to be much more careful from that point on, even if she was nothing but a figment of her imagination; a construct of her dreams.
The conversation dulled a bit after that, and Evelyn finished dressing Chorynth's wounds without any more slip-ups. After she finished bandaging Chorynth's arm, she spoke up again. "There, all done." She stood back, placing her hands on her hips, admiring her handiwork.
Chorynth stood up and gently winced, but the pain was much duller compared to what it had been before. "You have my gratitude, Evelyn Cherubini of the humans."
She giggled at her formal pattern of speech. "Just Evelyn's fine."
"Well, "just Evelyn", you have my thanks either way." Chorynth gave her a grandiose bow. "I must now bid you adieu, my fair lady."
Evelyn's face flushed as Chorynth moved past her, smelling strongly of dusty linen, minty salve, and smoke; a combination Evelyn just discovered she adored.
"W-wait!" Evelyn yelled, grabbing Chorynth's good arm, frantically searching for an excuse to make this woman stay. Even though this was a dream, she didn't want it to be over just yet. "You... you can't go out looking like that. A paper hospital gown looks atrocious on anyone. Come to my house. I'll lend you some of my clothes for the night, and take you shopping in the morning."
Chorynth raised a surprised, if not suspicious, eyebrow at her. "Well, dear lady Evelyn, you just keep surprising me more and more. I would be honored to accept your most generous offer."
Giddily, Evelyn nodded and led her to her car without another word. They drove in silence as Chorynth was enraptured by the city lights flying past the car's window. When they finally reached Evelyn's small house, she was almost ready for this lengthy dream to be over. She was crazy hungry. Breakfast, the best meal of the day, she realized, was waiting. She walked through the door, greeted grumpily by Mrs. Muffins who immediately began asking Chorynth for attention. Wait, Mrs. Muffins was asking a stranger to pet her? Now she really knew this was a dream.
She threw her keys down on the counter and opened up the cat food to feed the little traitor. She laughed and rolled her eyes as Mrs. Muffin jumped up on Chorynth's lap the second she sat down on Evelyn's couch and began to happily purr away.
She set down the cat's bowl, washed her hands, and grabbed the oversized "cats doing yoga" pajama set her grandma had given her last year for Christmas. She loved them, but they were just way too big for her and she didn't have the heart to return or exchange them. Although, she would admit that they were good to put over another set of pajamas when the bitter cold of winter was too much for her small body. At last, she returned to the living room where Chorynth and Mrs. Muffins still sat and gave her the pajamas. Chorynth immediately stood up and ripped off the paper dress, causing Mrs. Muffins to angrily jump off her lap, and started putting the clothes on. Evelyn averted her eyes once more and asked as she cleared her throat, "Do you need anything else before I go to bed?"
Chorynth shook her head, fully dressed once more. "That will do, lady Evelyn. You have been a most gracious host. Sleep well," and with that said, she sank back into the couch and seemed to immediately fall asleep. Not surprising, Evelyn thought, after the day she had.
Evelyn finally retreated to her room, changed into her own pj's, and cozied into her sheets, falling asleep almost as fast as Chorynth.
The sunlight broke through her curtain, waking up a delirious Evelyn. She sat up, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. Man, what a crazy dream she had last night! Good thing it was all over. Not bothering to change out of her pajamas, she stumbled out through the hallway to come into contact with an empty couch. Yep, just a dream, Evelyn confirmed, relived but a bit disappointed.
She wobbled into the kitchen and almost fell down at the sight. Mrs. Muffins was on the kitchen counter, lapping up spilled God-knows-what, and behind a mountain of burnt food and absolutely ruined pajamas was none other than Chorynth herself.
"Ah, good morning, my lady!" Chorynth tried to sound cheerful in her greeting, but she couldn't hide the tone of dismay in her voice as something in the pot in the microwave exploded. "I was wondering when you'd wake up. I thought I'd treat my generous host to a surprise breakfast, but alas, it seems I'm no good with human food."
Evelyn fell back into a chair and placed a hand on her spinning head. Last night... it was real? Dragons, and fire, and evil mothers? Her world would never be the same again, she thought.
What had she gotten herself into?