Emily had had an extremely long day. A day so incredibly long that she was having a hard time believing the warm mug of tea in her hands was real. It was a rather nice blend of ginger and lemon though, so she drank it. Letting the warmth raise her body temperature up to a more comforting level. The office she’s in is a bit cold, and a t-shirt and jeans doesn’t really cut it for warmth. Then she glanced up at the room she’s in, scanning it for the millionth time in all the millions of moments she’d been sitting here in this incredibly comfortable armchair. The room has the countenance of an old college. Like Harvard, probably. At least this is what Emily imagines Harvard is like. Wood paneled walls and extravagant paintings, furniture that’s stupidly extravagant in both material and comfort, and to polish it all off an incredibly ornate wooden desk that Emily has to imagine with secret compartments intact. She would go and check for them but she doesn’t want to break the rules. She doesn’t like what happens when she breaks rules. But breaking rules is what got her here.

  So she sets her mug down on the coffee table (of course sliding a coaster under it) and steps over to the desk. A shiver goes up her spine. She really shouldn’t be doing this. Especially not to the people who saved her from her parents. But she’s been here forever and she’s really bored. And if worse comes to worse she can just act scared and sad again. That seemed to make the winged man with the questions shut up. Maybe if she cries she can get out of even more questions. She really doesn’t want to answer any more questions. All she knows is that she (apparently) cast a spell that made roots grow out of the ground and snare her parents in place. She hadn’t even known she could do it, and after doing it she was completely spent, falling to the ground while her parents screamed at her and berated her about how she would never be a pretty woma-

  She needs to keep better control of her thoughts. She’s checking the desk. She wants to find a secret compartment. So she scrabbles all over it, pressing every turn and detail, twisting every nob, and even taking the fancy pens out of a drawer to see if any hidden magnets would pop open hidden panels. And it was as Emily was sitting at the side of the desk that she heard a voice.

  “Hello child!” Emily whips around to see a man standing in a corner of the room that he could not have possibly appeared from, bar a secret bookshelf door that was so silent Emily couldn’t hear it in dead silence. In any case the man is 5’7, blond with an odd short haircut that seems to swoop around in almost impossible ways. His twin braids of hair coming from where sideburns would go bound around as he walks forward. “My name is Aloice, this is my office, and I think that I am supposed to be meeting with you.” Emily stays completely silent, breathing hard as she looks at the pale man with blood red eyes.

  “W- who are you?” Emily manages to splutter out.

  “Uh I told you, my name is Aloice.” he said, swishing his giant gothic coat dramatically before sitting down. “I don’t really work here, I just help out whenever Samantha needs, and apparently I help enough to have my own office? Which is pretty cool! Although this place could use some anime figures. And a poster there would be cool. What do you think, that wall could do with some anime posters couldn’t it?”

  “What’s anime?” Emily asked shakily, backing away from Aloice and back towards her cup of tea. Maybe she shouldn’t have been touching anything she shouldn’t, especially considering she’d just learned she could do magic. She knows for a fact that magic is real, but never in a million years did she think she’d actually be able to be magic. And that she’d be whisked away somewhere magical. So maybe she should think about that next time she pokes around a desk. Geez she feels like she’s gonna cry, and crying is usually so hard for her. That is until a much kinder face enters the room, this time from the proper door and a warning knock. It’s the woman named Samantha who gave her the tea in the first place.

  “Emily? How are you-” Samantha stops, looking at the man in the desk, “Aloice you weren’t scaring her where you?” Emily felt a little flutter in her chest as Samantha entering the room called her her. Nobody had done that for her yet. And it felt liberating in a way nothing else has.

  “What’s happening?” was all that Emily managed to sputter out though. Too scared, brain too dumb.

  “Magic!” Aloice responds while shaking his hands dramatically.

  “Aloice she’s new!” Samantha closed the door behind her, “we’ve gotta ease her into it a little more gently than that.” Samantha now standing with her hands on her hips could be best described as looking like a witch. She wasn’t wearing a big dramatic pointed hat but she is wearing a big green dress that looks like it spent quite a lot of time in a swamp but then was cleaned very thoroughly. Her skin is moderately pale although she is rather sunkissed across the cheeks and nose. But her hair, despite her youthful appearance, is Flour white. Like fresh snow.

  “She certainly is new,” Aloice starts, “but she has more years behind those eyes than she should. Not in like the she’s secretly an ancient evil way but in the she’s seen some things kind of way.”

  “Aloice, stop it.” Samantha said stalking to the other side of the room, a smooth stick suddenly materializes in her hand and she whaps Aloice on the head with it, “this is my house, you play by my rules, got it?”

  “I don’t wanna.” Aloice pouts, rubbing his head “but your rules are usually fun.”

  “Don’t worry, after you check her I’ll turn you into a rat for a day.” the woman sighs.

  “Yay!” Aloice cheers. When he smiles this is when Emily sees the fangs. This man is a vampire. She can almost feel it in the air. “Emily, can you give me your hand?”

  “No thank you.” Emily squeaks out, almost tripping backwards over the coffee table as she tries to shuffle away.

  “Emily dear, it’s ok. This man won't hurt you, he's just… eccentric. He’s kind at heart.” Samantha assures. Emily can sort of feel her energy too. But in no way does she have the context to know what it means. It’s like someone trying to explain to her what temperature something is in celsius. She has no reference point for it. So all she’s getting is random values and impressions that she can’t interpret. But what she can feel is this sort of motherly aura around Samantha. At least that’s what it seems like? Maybe that’s magical. Both of these people are probably really magical.

  “Do you promise?” Emily asks, slipping into her hurt child persona. Hopefully she’d be treated more gently this way. Although from what she’s seen of Aloice he’s always this unnerving.

  “I promise,” Samantha says sweetly before looking to Aloice, “because if you’re mean to my students again I’ll beat some sense into you.” Her tone quickly turned stern as she growled at Aloice. At the threat of whoever this Lydia is Aloice seems to smarten up and sit a little straighter in his chair.

  “Alright, alright.” he concedes, “I never meant to be mean, I was just asking questions.”

  “You really need to spend some more time around humans, you’re starting to get worse at talking to them.” Samantha sighs, rolling her eyes in what Emily thinks might be affection.

  “I have been exploring the bottom of earth's oceans for the past decade, it’s really salty and cool down there.” Aloice says excitedly.

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  “Aloice this girl has waited enough, just please test her so she can actually get some rest.” Samantha groans, rubbing her face. Emily notices as she blinks her eyes flash from brown to a deep magenta. But in another blink they’re back to normal.

  “Alright, then Emily, please give me your hand?” Aloice extends his own hand. Emily is hesitant for a moment before approaching. This can’t be worse than what her dad did. Aloice, surprisingly gently, takes her hand. He then reaches into a drawer on the desk and pulls out a thin sewing needle and then very carefully pokes the tip of Emily’s index finger. Emily manages not to flinch, but she does wince. Then Aloice looks to the other side of the desk and with his free hand pulls over a bowl of water that had almost certainly not been there before. Very carefully Aloice turns Emilys hand over so a drop of blood goes into the water. Then Aloice lets go of Emily’s hand and stares deeply into it, the blood already beginning to spread, getting thinner and thinner. Emily looks at her finger only to find that there isn’t a wound at all. Magic is awesome.

  “What do you see?” Samantha asks after a while.

  “A lot.” Aloice admits, “there’s not much I can tell you beyond if I tell you it’ll irrevocably change the future. Take care of Emily, she’s going to change things.”

  “Should I check some old dusty books, see if I can find anything?” Samantha hums thoughtfully, also looking at the blood. But as she looks her eyes go wide, “oh wow, I’m not great at divination but even I can see that.” That statement certainly makes Emily’s stomach do a complete flip. When extremely powerfully magical people say that it’s probably almost never good. In fact that’s probably really bad.

  “You won’t find her in any prophecy. This right here might be the first time anyone has ever looked at her future.” Aloice admits, “but this much is clear, she’s meant to be protected by you.”

  “Can you tell me why?” Samantha frowns.

  “No, if I do tell you there’s a few timelines that go really bad. Almost as bad as the dictator timeline.” Aloice admits, “but right now anything is possible, and isn’t that wonderful?”

  “I suppose that is wonderful.” Samantha takes a deep breath, “thank’s for your help, remember a bed is always open for you here.”

  “Thanks Sammy!” Aloice get’s up and hugs Samantha. Before pulling away, smiling, and vanishing in a puff of black smoke. Samantha waves the smoke away, before turning to Emily. Emily is still shaking somewhat from this whole ordeal and is a little less confident in her abilities to look sad enough to not be in danger.

  “So.” Samantha says, “we don’t have a room ready at the moment but I have a spare room at my house. How do you feel about staying there while you get situated?”

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Emily blurts out, “w- what am I?” she looks down at her arms like they might suddenly turn into a million spiders and bite her to death. Maybe she’s some kind of magical nuke that’ll destroy the world if she’s not careful. She doesn’t want that to happen. She doesn’t want to be Dangerous. She just wants to be Emily. The woman she chose to be over what her parents wanted her to be. She’s not dangerous, she's just Emily. She’s not dangerous, she's just Emily. She’s not dangerous, she’s just Em-

  “Emily, look at me.” Samantha is in front of her, hands on her arms in a comforting manner, “I need you to breathe.”

  “I am breathing.” Emily wheezes out.

  “Not enough, breathe with me.” Samantha began to breathe in slowly. And Emily did her best to match Samantha’s rhythm. Even with the kind woman as a guide it took her some time to get any actual air into her lungs and breath evenly. And even when she was breathing evenly Samantha led her to sit back down in the chair she had been sitting in just before investigating the desk. “How are you feeling?”

  “Too much.” Emily replies with a grimace.

  “I know, trust me I know how overwhelming it can be for people. Magic is real, aaa and I’m magic. I’ve had that whole freakout before.” Samantha smiles as she seems to reminisce, far off in some memory. Emily just gives her a confused tilt of the head, prompting Samantha to continue. Samantha just nods and clears her throat before speaking. “A few hundred years ago, when I was… sixteen or seventeen. I stumbled into the magical world. It was amazing and wonderful and kind of frightening. I didn’t really show my apprehension then, but there were parts of it that scared me. And you have more reason than most to be scared of things.”

  “You… you’re hundreds of years old?” Emily squeaks.

  Samantha laughs a little, “why thank you, I do pride myself on my youthful appearance. But yes, I’m 327 years old. Not counting the fifteen years I spent outside of normal time with my parents. But that’s besides the point. I’m really old. And I’ll only keep getting older. How about this, you can ask me a handful of questions, and then I can take you somewhere you can rest. How about that?”

  “Uh… that sounds good.” Emily nods, picking up her cup of tea. At this point she’d expected it to be cold. But no, it’s the same temperature it was when she put it down. She decides she has enough to think about and just takes a sip of the warm drink without questions. “Where am I?”

  “Storimera’s home for children.” Samantha answers.

  Emily nods before asking, “and what is it that this place is exactly?”

  “It’s basically one big foster home. It’s unfortunate but magic is still so rare. So when it pops up in children it tends to scare less… accepting parents away. It could lead to some nasty witch burning esque situations. And given what your parents were freaking out about and the way they treated you your whole life we didn’t want to take a chance.” Samantha answers, sitting down in another of the comfortable armchairs.

  Emily looks completely shocked as she asks, “how do you know so much about me?”

  “That’s an excellent question.” Samantha praises, clapping her hands excitedly, “I have a friend who has a lot of connections. He’s an angel, and quite a powerful one at that. He likes to keep an eye on things, protect who he can. And he happened to notice what was happening in your house. It’s really the spell you cast that drew his attention. And as he listened he knew he had to get you out of there. So he picked you up and brought you here. He doesn’t usually so directly meddle with mortal affairs but he was in the area and happened to be at the right place at the right time. James of course being James, brought a spellcaster to visit your parents. That spellcaster cast a spell that meant your parents could tell only the truth. And they told us the exact truth of what they did to you. And I can assure you while I watch, that will never happen again.” Samantha blows a huff of air in anger and Emily can feel the room get colder. If this woman is friends with gods and angels, and is powerful enough to drop a room a few degrees just by virtue of being angry. She must be powerful too. Incredibly powerful.

  “What are you?” Emily asks.

  Samantha smiles, a big devious smile like she’s been waiting for someone to ask her this. “I’m a dragon.” She says simply.

  “What?” Emily asks, not believing it.

  “You know! Big magical lizard with wings?” Samantha imitates flapping wings with her two very human hands.

  “You don’t… seem like a dragon.” Emily mumbles.

  “Would you like to see my dragon form?” Samantha’s smile somehow gets just a little wider.

  “Ok.” Emily says timidly. Samantha just nods and walks over to one of the windows. She throws it open and jumps, falling below the windowsill. Emily instinctively leaps to her feet and runs to the window. The nicest person she’s ever met just jumped out of a window. But when she reaches the window and looks down into the courtyard. She doesn’t see the splattered body of Samantha three stories below. She sees a 50 foot long mass of silver scales tinged with purple. A head, larger than a truck, lifts up and looks at Emily with regal poise and predatory power. Wings that must stretch out to hundreds of feet rest folded behind her back, all while a tail swishes back and forth. It’s hard for Emily to tell but she thinks the dragon is smiling.