Smoke pours out from my hut on my heels as if urgently shoving me to safety along with it. My insistence otherwise comes out in coughs as I clumsily wave away its concern and presence.

A loud rumbling chuff from my left clears the unnatural roiling fumes to reveal the culprit of their creation: a large reptilian body of rippling red scales fills the clearing of my front yard, wings pulled in tight against its body in futile attempt to make itself smaller, slitted eyes pinned on me apologetically, and a snout full of sharp teeth the length of my forearm that are bared in a sheepish expression.

With hands on hips, I raspily ask Ruby, “And what did we learn?”

She rumbles a purr that visibly rattles the leaves from the freshly broken branches incriminatingly littered around her. Whether the soothing sound is meant for herself or me, I can’t be sure.

I want to be upset that all my painstakingly harvested ingredients are now rendered ash with no conceivable opportunity to get more anytime soon.

Instead, I tut and close the short distance between the overgrown lizard and myself, stretching up to rub Ruby’s impressive snout soothingly.

She leans into the gesture as gently as she can.

“Being allergic to curses means you can’t sniff every spell I make from the front doorway,” I remind her softly.

The dragon I raised from a hatchling grumbles her objections. She’s always taken her supervision of me seriously, but her rapid growth impeded the pursuit of her passion for proximity and my apparent protection more than she’d like.

“Noted,” I relent, the smile on my face both foreign and familiar at once, the feature unused and unprompted before I found her.

Well, _technically, _I stole her.

Around a decade ago, she was set to be some ogre’s breakfast though.

_Wasteful beings._

This was back when I used to bait the creatures actively seeking the bounty on my head, just for fun, but I refused to watch this travesty from the rickety cage where I dangled.

In my panic, a previously unknown incantation escaped my lips, waking Ruby from incubation.

Her shell cracked.

The ogre’s back, hunched over his antiquated wood stove at length, stiffened in instinctual awareness and intelligence he hadn’t previously seemed to possess.

He whirled around in time to witness his last moment before becoming her sustenance instead.

Ruby emits a stilted sneeze now, but despite her belated restraint, I still emerge back to the current moment batting at the freshly singed tips of my hair.

My indignant scowl comes easily aimed at others, but never to her. It twitches at the sides with the smile fighting to be freed.

“What do we do when we need to sneeze?” I coax the giant being.

Ruby ruffles her leathery wings slightly in answer.

“Good!” I praise, confirming in a calm cadence, “We fly to the town and terrorize _them_ with it.”

She chuffs again, straightening in pride, but then seems to note the undoubtedly smoldering remains of my kitchen at my back and deflates once more.

I brace myself, crossing my arms and slowly turning to witness the aftermath.

Both sets of my nails dig deeper into their opposite bicep as the hole in the wooden front of my home seems to widen with the dissipating smoke.

_Really should’ve gone with the stone siding._

Ruby attempts to rest her chin on my shoulder apologetically, our size discrepancy makes the move comparable to a person hinging a fingernail in the same place and expecting our connection to sustain their entire body weight.

I reach up and pat the scaly cheek of the reason I’m in such good shape.

“I’ve always wanted to put a window in that wall there anyway,” I lie consolingly to the big baby.

Her pleased rumble travels through me, bringing back that smile. It widens when we both perk up at the sound of hoofbeats.

_They must’ve seen the smoke._

An intelligent golden eye the size of my head looks down at me expectantly.

“Wait for it,” I breathe playfully.

Ruby’s pupil dilates.

She shifts on her hind legs in a little happy dance.

The thunderous approach draws closer to our property.

“Wait for it,” I draw out once more.

She whines as if the restraint pains her.

One beat, two.

On three, a scream rents the air.

It’s a pretty effeminate sounding one, but my wards only trap those who identify as men.

The ones who demonize my craft and thus provoke the wrath of it.

Both Ruby and I snort as another yell of alarm reaches us, then another, and another.

I clap happily at the symphony of screams.

“Go get ‘em,” I instruct my eager dragon.

She barrels into the brush before I even finish my command.

We do so love when the ingredients come to us.