Crash!

 

Bang!

 

I suddenly whipped around as the sound of something heavy falling over came from my closet.  What the heck…?

 

“Oomph!”

 

A muffled curse came from inside the closed doors.  Was there… a person in there?!

 

Okay, now I was officially freaked out.

 

“What the- ow!  That hurt!”

 

More cursing.  I stood up from my office chair (y’know, the kind that spins and has a softer cushiony seat than the hard plastic ones at school?  That kind) that my Mom had gotten for my bedroom desk, and grabbed my staff from where my bag of kung fu weapons was leaned against the wall.  I didn’t know how somebody had gotten in my closet without me noticing, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.

 

“Oh, eggshells!  Where’s the door?  There’s gotta be one somewhere… aha!”

 

I gripped the staff tighter and tried to ignore the way my hands shook.  I cautiously took a step towards the closet, close enough to hit whoever came out but far enough away to keep them at arm’s length.  The sound of claws scrabbling on wood- like the sound my dog made when he tried to turn tight corners at a high speed on hardwood floor -was heard.  

 

Wait.  Claws on wood?  That most definitely did not sound like fingernails.

 

The sliding door suddenly slid open and a dark grey blur tumbled out.  I shrieked and promptly began to hit it with my staff, certain it was a burglar or something like that.  Though it did take up at least half the room, which I thought was a bit strange.  Maybe they were carrying a lot of stuff.

 

“Ow!  Hey!  Stop it!  That hurts!”

 

I growled and kept whacking it.  “Get.  Out.  Of.  My.  Room!”

 

The burglar was dressed in dark grey and black, but he was moving around so much I couldn’t even see his form clearly.  But he looked kinda big for a person, and his form kept flickering in and out…

 

Um.  What?

 

I stopped hitting him for a moment and actually tried to get a good look at whoever fell out of my closet.  The creature was, as I had seen before, large enough to take up half the room, grey, black, and…

 

Distinctly serpentine.

 

Oh, dear.

 

My eyes widened and I dropped the staff.  It fell with a soft thump to the carpet and rolled for a few inches, coming to rest at the tip of what looked like a long, grey whisker.  My eyes traveled up the whisker and onto the face it was connected to.  My eyes widened even further and my jaw dropped open.

 

Holy s***.  There was a frikin’ dragon in my room.

2: A Long-Awaited Reunion

The dragon was small compared to the stories that I’d read.  It was an Eastern breed (Japanese, if the three toes on each clawed foot were anything to go by) and had grey scales, a soft-looking black mane that ran from its forehead between two long horns to its tail, long, lighter grey whiskers, and slitted emerald-green eyes.  It was sleek and graceful, built more for speed and maneuverability rather than heavy hitting.  In appearance, however, it reminded me a bit of the dragon form of Haku from the movie Spirited Away.  Except in darker tones with a light grey underbelly.

 

The dragon groaned and staggered to its feet, shaking its head slightly.  “Ohh, that hurt.  Yeesh, Claire, I know I don’t ask for much, but I at least expected a warmer welcome.”

 

A feeling of complete and utter joy burst into my chest as I rushed forwards and hugged the dragon’s neck tightly.  “Baka!  I didn’t realize it was you, Nyron!  Why’d you show up in the closet anyway?  A little warning would’ve been nice!  And why’d you make me wait for four frickin’ years?!  I was under the impression that you were just going to stay long enough to learn how to act as a human, then come back and we’d see how things worked out!”

 

Nyron laughed sheepishly, his breath ruffling the hair on top of my head.  “Gomen, Claire.  I told you, we dragons age much more slowly than humans, so we’re less affected by the passage of time.  For us, four years really isn’t that long.  And I see you’re still using Japanese terms,” he teased.

 

I huffed and stepped back, taking in my best friend.  He had filled out a little, and was more muscular than the last time I’d seen him.  But his friendly smile and the happy spark in his eye was the same.  “Yeah, well, anime is the one thing my passion has only grown for in the past few years.  But hey,” I grinned widely.  “I’ve learned even more ways to confuse people by making funny anime references, un!  And when the people who watch the anime laugh, everyone else just feels like they’ve been left out of an inside joke.  It’s funny to see their expressions.  Once, I even got one of my other friends to act out a scene with me and half the people in the class were laughing their heads off while the other half had no idea what was going on.”

 

He just chuckled and shook his head.  “Of course, of course.  Only you would do something like that,” he teased.  

 

I laughed.  It was good to have him back, even if he’d waited four long years to return.  “Anyway, my anime obsession aside, how exactly is this going to work?  Last time you kind of just hid in my closet, but I don’t think that’s going to work long term-”

 

“Claire?  What are you doing up there?  I heard thumping, and it sounds like there’s somebody else in your room!”

 

We both froze.  That was my mom, and it sounded like she was coming up the stairs.

 

“Quick, hide!” I hissed.  Nyron nodded quickly and shrunk down to the size of a housecat, one of his most useful abilities.  Then he quickly leapt back into the closet and hid between a thick winter coat and a rain jacket.

 

“Claire?  Are you okay?”  My mom poked her head in and looked around, taking in the slightly messier than normal appearance of the room.  “What happened?”

 

I grinned sheepishly.  “Oh, nothing.  I accidently dropped my staff and tripped over it, so that was probably the thumping you heard earlier.  There’s nobody else in here, though.  I don’t know how you heard someone else.”  I tried to stay calm on the outside, but inside I was desperately hoping she wouldn’t push for details.  It was hard to make up a good lie on the spot and not give it away by acting nervous.

 

“Hm, okay.  Done with your homework yet?” she asked, looking at the desk that was still covered in papers.  “Though it doesn’t look like it.  After you’re done, come down and practice violin, okay?”

 

“Okay.”

 

Mom nodded and left.  I waited a minute or so just to make sure she was really gone, then breathed a sigh of relief.  “She’s gone, you can come out now,”

 

The closet door slid open and a grey-whiskered and horned head poked out.  “Really?  Good.”  Nyron slid out of the closet and grew to the size of a small pony.  “Anyway, back to what you were saying earlier- why can’t I just stay in the closet like before?  I could shrink down small enough that nobody would notice, and it worked out pretty well last time.”

 

I frowned.  “Yeah, but, how would you eat?  I think my family would notice if I started sneaking food up to my room, not to mention that you eat a lot.  It’s not exactly something we can hide,” I pointed out.

 

The grey dragon frowned, then suddenly smiled deviously.  “Oh, I know!  Okay, so this is an idea that one of my teachers gave me.  So, it’s going to work like this…”

 

Less than a week later, Nyron the foreign exchange student from Japan was living in the guest bedroom of our house, just down the hall from me.  Oh, the wonders of magic.  Just call in a favor from one of his friends specializing in charms from the Dragon World and, well, we were set.

 

Though, half the time, he still preferred to sleep in my closet.  Gah.  At least he was always in dragon form whenever he did that.  Otherwise it would be so awkward.

 

Then again, living with a dragon disguised as a foreign exchange student that spends more time in your closet than his room is just awkward, period.  

Dang, my life just got very weird, very fast.