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Once upon a time, there was an account executive named Diana, who worked at an advertising agency.
In her world owls don’t deliver letters, and wardrobes only hold old coats, not portals to other dimensions. As such, it has taken her great skill to grow her client list to the largest in the company; no magic has helped her do that, just hard work and the occasional box of gourmet chocolates.
Though Diana is no princess, she is fair and kind. And she does have a certain timbre to her voice that might entice songbirds to sew gowns for her if songbirds were wont to do such things.
Regardless, in this world of prospecting, selling, and closing deals, she wonders if she will ever find true love; or if, in fact, that only exists in fairy tales.
…
“I don’t know what you see in that guy!” Cecily exclaims as she and Diana walk down the city sidewalk, on their way back from lunch. “His clothes are way too baggy, he barely talks to anyone, and I’m not even sure what he does. Like, at all.” She takes the last ice-buried slurp of her Dr. Pepper before tossing it into a trash can on the street.
“You’re not wrong.. but I like him anyway, and there’s not too much you can do about that,” Diana says, with a playful smile. Cecily sticks her tongue out at her.
“Speaking of ‘not much I can do about it:’ what’s the deal with this new brief template corporate is pushing? Are they trying to kill us? The customers want to use their own briefs, why is that such a big deal?” Cecily questions.
“Standardizing will pay major dividends in efficiency. They don’t see it now, but when we don’t have to send 20 emails back and forth to clarify what they mean in each brief, they’ll learn to appreciate it.” Dianna checks her phone. Only 40 emails in 30 minutes—slow day, she thinks to herself.
“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say, you don’t have to tell them this stuff, I do.” She sees Diana engrossed in responding to one of the emails. “Ugh, what do you know anyways? You like Deon; clearly, your head isn’t screwed on right.” Diana smiles shaking her head with her eyes still glued to her phone.
“He’s cute, and he’s like a computer wizard or something. He fixes my computer whenever it breaks…” That really does sound lame, doesn’t it? “I dunno, I just like him.”
“Yeah, you told me that ‘computer wizard’ stuff before. Do you know what he did when I asked for help with my busted laptop?”
“No, what?”
“He said that he was ‘really busy, and would I be okay taking it down to IT?’” Cecily exaggerates a punch in the air. “He just fixes yours because he likes you.”
Diana stops walking and looks up from her cell. “Do you really think so?” Cecily just rolls her eyes.
“Come on, let’s get you back to those emails.” Cecily grabs Diana’s wrist and pulls her along.
…
Sitting at her desk, Diana is having a hard time focusing on the usual day-to-day follow-ups, problem-solving, and customer management she excels at.
Does he really like me? She thinks over and over.
No one in the office knows Deon that well, so there’s no-one who can verify or counter Cecily’s opinion. Deon builds financial models and runs some form of analytics with them… which basically means no one knows what he does at all.
So mysterious, she tries…no, that’s not it either.
But despite working in finance, his desk is off by itself in an obscure corner of the design department. That actually is mysterious. Most people have never even spoken with him, but Diana noticed him the very first day his desk had appeared there.
Admittedly his clothes are rather baggy, his collar and sleeves extending farther than is in style, or has ever been in style in recent history, and his hair is perpetually messy. He has the look of someone who was once bigger but lost a lot of weight in a short period of time.
At first, Diana had thought he was intriguing, then his quirky charm and Welsh accent won her over after the second or third visit to his desk—way across the building.
It’s good to get a walk every once in a while, she thinks to herself. Sometimes it’s good several times a day.
Diana usually has strong feelings about dating someone she works with, but in this instance, she doesn’t really work with him, so she feels that it’s okay.
Men in other departments have occasionally dropped by her desk to ask her to lunch, but they usually get the vibe quickly that she’s not interested. Then they stop asking.
Everyone, that is, except for Gill.
Gill is the most persistent, and the least appealing of them all; he’s always given her the creeps. His grey skin, his abyss-black, greasy hair, and his constantly bloodshot eyes aren’t doing him any favors.
It might be a skin condition… but it just seems like poor health and hygiene habits. She tries to be nice to him, but to firmly make it know that she’s not interested. Regardless, he never stops hounding her for a date. He’s been stopping by every day for months and just won’t get the hint.
She types a few words, then deletes them, resting her fist on her chin. I really hope that I’m not Deon’s Gill…
Unlike Gill and most of the other single men at work, Deon has never once stopped by her desk to ask her to lunch or even asked her when she went to his desk. That is a strong enough piece of evidence to refute Cecily’s opinion.
So how do I know?
Diana stands resolutely, mid-email, to go and sort this out; she honestly won’t be productive until something changes, so she might as well go and do something about it. She takes an emboldening gulp of her vitamin water and heads off.
…
Diana walks through the different departments, keeping an eye out for Gill who finds all sorts of opportunities to ‘run into’ her.
Man, I really hope that I’m not Deon’s Gill, she thinks again. She tiptoes past the chief design officer’s door, turns the corner, and sees Deon at his desk as usual.
What is unusual is that in place of the stylus he’s normally twirling around his fingers, he’s using an H5 pencil to add an intricate horn to an already completed horse sketch.
It’s very good.
“Wow, Deon! I didn’t know you draw!” Deon is obviously startled, then embarrassed, probably because of the content of his picture.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just doodle.” He’s already closed the notebook and placed his folded hands on top of it. It’s a deep black leather, nearly purple, and softened from frequent use.
“You don’t need to be modest! It looks great. Could I take a closer look?” She takes a step forward smiling the most alluring smile she can conjure up. He pauses, looking deeply into her eyes for the first real time.
“Um, no, I’d rather not.” He opens his bottom-left drawer an inch and drops the notebook in quickly. Diana deflates. He continues without noticing. “I, uh, have to visit with the CFO in a minute. But did you come to get your computer fixed? I could probably get it sorted quickly if you needed?”
Apparently, the smile didn’t work.
“Oh, no. Uh, well, I was just, you know, in the area, and thought I’d stop by and say hi.” She feels her cheeks getting a little warm, but she does a pretty good job of controlling it.
“Why were you all the way over here? There’s nothing over here,” he asks.
Crap. His stylus, which has appeared from somewhere, twirls around his hand. His previous nervousness now replaced with curiosity.
“Right, well, I was going to drop in on Jacob, the CDO, to ask about how the new brief template is coming.” Despite having received his answer via email before lunch… “so, if you’re heading to a meeting, I guess I should let you go.” She says. He smiles a little smile and shrugs.
Oooh! Why does he have to smile like that!?
“Well, thanks for stopping by. It was nice to see you.” And he gets up, grabs a chart off his corkboard and, with his stylus still whirling furiously, he rushes off.
What was that all supposed to mean? She’s walked all the way across the office and has only managed to embarrass herself. What now? With split-second reasoning, Diana decides to take matters into her own hands.
He seems to like that notebook a heck of a lot… she looks around and finds a small pad of post-it notes. She scribbles a quick message.
I hope this DRAWs
your attention.
-D.
She smirks at her pun and sticks the note on the drawer. She then opens the drawer quickly; she needs to be long gone, back at her desk before Deon returns.
He’ll probably be mad… but I’ve got to do something to break this pattern!
She reaches in to grab the notebook, but the drawer is much deeper than it should be. “Weird…” she pulls the drawer open further to look in.
Suddenly, something red flies out of the open drawer, straight at Diana’s face.
“Ahh!” She jumps up and catches the red thing in her hand. “What in the world?” Taking a closer look, She sees that it has scales, leathery wings, and cat-slit eyes. “Wh-what?”
The miniature, winged reptile squirms a little then sneezes a puff of hot air with a couple of errant sparks, one of which lands on her hair and begins to smolder.
“Ah!” She screams again, letting the dragon go as she tries to extinguish her hair. The dragon flies off, zipping from side to side like a sparrow.
Deon comes running in, holding his stylus like a sword.
“What happened!? What’s wrong?”
“A dragon flew out of your desk and almost lit me on fire!” Deon grabs his hair as his face turns ashen.
“No! This is terrible! Why would you let Cadfael out of my desk?” Diana is somewhat offended that Deon doesn’t seem worried about how she’s doing at all.
“Well, it was an accident!” She glares at him, her hands on her hips. “I could have been incinerated!” Deon looks down at the note she wrote.
“Why did you want my spell—my notebook.” He points the stylus directly at her, with a hardened look in his eye.
Diana shrugs and puts her hands on her thighs. “It was going to be a little joke…” she says.
He sighs, spins the stylus once around the back of his hand and plops it into his front pocket.
“I’m sorry, to frighten you.” He walks to the desk, kneels in front of his drawer. He continues under his breath. “It took too long getting to know you to make you forget who I am, anyway,” and he sticks his head, shoulders, and part of his chest down into the drawer, swiveling around to get a better view.
“That wa-was a dragon… wasn’t it? And how is your drawer so deep?” Diana questions as the reality of what has just happened settles in. Deon removes the top half of his body from the door and closes it, slipping his notebook into his pocket.
“Ok, you deserve an explanation…” He stands up. “That was my dragon, Cadfael, and he wasn’t trying to incinerate you. My full name is Gwydion; and my drawer is magically expanded, because I’m what you might call a wizard, of sorts.”
“A wizard..?” Diana’s eyes get wide. Deon—Gwydion—squints, waiting for her to scream. She draws in a big breath and then: “That is so cool! Do you know Merlin? Or Gandalf? Can you teach me? Is it hard? Do you age backwards or something, like Benjamin Button?”
“Uh, no, sorry, it doesn’t work like that.” He looks relieved. “People can’t do magic. No, I don’t know them personally. And no, I don’t age backward; I don’t really age at all unless I want to.”
‘People’ can’t? She thinks to herself. Oh no…
“Are you not… a person?” He looks taken aback but then realizes what he’s just said.
“Sorry, I mean normal people can’t. I am human; I’m just a different race, you could say.”
“Can you fly? Or turn into animals?” She asks. Gwydion’s expression turns dark.
“No, I can’t fly. And turning into animals isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He shivers, remembering something. She blurts the next thing that comes to mind:
“Would our kids be able to do magic?” She covers her mouth, shocked at herself. “Ah, I—uh, don’t answer that.” She does blush this time. “So what do we have to do about this dragon running rampant through the building?” She asks, changing the subject. He just smiles the same small smile from earlier.
“You don’t have to worry. He’s my dragon, so it’s my problem. You can go and work on that brief template-thing you mentioned.” Gwydion glances around, looking for Cadfael. Diana puts her hands back on her hips.
“Not in a million years. I let it out of the drawer, so I’m helping…” A thought occurs to her: “Also, why would you keep a dragon in your desk, anyway?” Now Gwydion turns a little pink.
“Well, he’s mine, and he gets lonely at home, and he heats my burritos for me…” Diana’s jaw drops.
“He heats your burritos!?”
“Well, the microwave’s all the way across the office.”
“Can’t you just like, do a spell to heat it up instead of using a dragon?” She asks; Gwydion shrugs.
“I didn’t think about that.” He shrugs again.
“Ooo-kay then… so where would a pint-sized dragon go in a big building like this?”
“Pint-sized for now…” he says ominously, heading off further into the building.
“Wait, what do you mean by that?” and she follows right behind him.
…
Most know that dragons collect hoards and that they’re attracted to metal objects, but what they don’t know is that dragons don’t hide them in caves and lay around on them all day. They swallow their shiny, coveted items whole, storing them in a special pouch in their chest.
After swallowing enough treasures, the dragon begins to feel uncomfortable. As this discomfort increases, the dragon grows magically larger to have more available space. Thus, a full-grown dragon is not always 9 inches long: it as small or as large as its collection needs.
More specifically, the longer it takes to find the little dragon, the bigger and bigger he will become.
…
“So… we just wander around until we notice something is missing?”
“More or less.” He looks thoughtfully at the coffee machine in the breakroom. “Wait, look!”
Diana turns to see what has Gwydion excited. The coffee machine is covered with scratch marks where the dragon was apparently trying to fit its little jaws around it. There’s a clear, gelatinous substance in globs on and around the machine.
“What’s that jiggly stuff?” Diana asks, watching as Gwydion wipes it up with a paper towel.
“Oh, it’s just dragon saliva. It helps them swallow their treasures. It’s actually great for your skin; it rejuvenates better than aloe plants. It’s good if they ever accidentally burn you, too.” Diana makes a face.
“You mean you wash with dragon spit?” she asks incredulously.
“…Rarely.”
“Ok then. Where next?”
“Maybe we could check the boiler room? It’s got a lot of metal and it’s warm-”
“And it’s the bottom floor, so we could systematically rule out each floor as we head up.”
“That sounds like it might take a long time to do…”
“But what else do we have to go on?”
“I guess you’re right; let’s do it.” As they turn toward the stairs, Gill steps out from behind a ficus.
“Hello, Diana. I see you aren’t at your desk. Like you usually are at this hour.” He scratches behind his ear vigorously. Diana and Gwydion share a look.
“You’re right, Gill. I’ve been helping Deon with a project deadline. It’s been getting bigger and bigger so we’re trying to lock it down as soon as possible.” She winks at Gwydion as she pretends to fix her hair. “So I’ll have to catch up with you later, okay?” She turns to leave.
“Your new perfume smells like roses, saffron, and an alcoholic carrying agent.” He leans in to smell her hair.
“Okay, buddy. She’s busy. Maybe you should back off a bit.” Gwydion says as he puffs out his little chest in his baggy shirt, twirling his stylus. Gill steps back, startled, eyeing the twirling stylus warily. He growls in the back of his throat. Diana steps forward.
“Hey guys, let’s not do anything that would need HR to get involved, okay? I’ll see you later, Gill.” She turns and lightly shoves Gwydion. “Let’s go.”
They head to the stairwell.
…
“Okay, I thought that he would like the boiler room, but he’s not here… let’s go somewhere else.” Gwydion says after a quick look around.
“So he’ll just, like swallow stuff whole?” She asks, making conversation.
“Yes, and then he grows to stay comfortable.” He mimes the dragon growing from 9 to 12 inches then to 2 feet and then he extends his arms all the way.
“So… how big can he get?”
“I’m not entirely certain, but big enough to make it really hard to hide him. Regular people get pretty antsy when they realize that there is magic, and dragons—”
“And unicorns, right?” Diana asks hopefully.
“Actually, I think they’re just a myth.”
“Seriously? That’s so sad!” She exaggerates a pout but then turns thoughtful. “Then why were you drawing one?”
“I guess I just like the idea that there are things out there that even I don’t know.”
Leaving the red glowing boiler room, they come upon Gill who has apparently been waiting outside to catch them.
“What are you two doing down here, hmm? Doesn’t look like a project to me.” He sneers.
“Geeze, Gill. Why do you always sneak up on me?”
“Don’t you mean, ‘stalk’ up on you?” Gwydion says, stepping slightly in front of Diana. “You should probably get back to your desk.” Gill looks at Gwydion with obvious hatred, then turns his bloodshot eyes toward Diana.
“You choose the magician over me, eh?” He barks out in anger, snarling.
“What are you saying?” Gwydion says, fingering the stylus in his breast pocket.
“Gill, please go away. You’re creeping me out.” Diana shouts, trying to cover her growing fear with feigned confidence. Gill hunches forward. His teeth bared.
Gwydion’s eyes open wide.
“The creeps, eh!? You’ve never seen how creepy I can be!” Gill shouts. Gwydion turns and shoves Diana.
“Run!” Gwydion turns back, pulling out his now glowing stylus.
“Why did you push-” She looks up to see Gill absorbing the darkness around him, morphing into a large black dog with flaming red eyes. “Right.” She spins on her heel and runs down the abandoned hall.
Diana rushes around the corner and along a wall of forgotten lockers before she looks back. The hallway is dark; why do the basements of otherwise normal looking buildings always end up being so creepy?
She waits a moment, but no one seems to be following. Maybe I should’ve stayed to help him? she thinks to herself. But what would I have done against an evil dog-thing? Jumped on its back and rode it? She shakes her head and takes a step back the way she came.
She hears rapid footsteps running toward her. She ducks behind one of the banks of lockers and holds her breath as the steps slow to a stop only a few feet away.
Her lungs start to burn as she hears the unknown figure’s own ragged breathing slow. She wants to risk a glance, but she has no way of knowing if that would be the last thing she ever did.
“Diana..?” Gwydion whispers. And she sighs in relief.
“Yeah, it’s me.” She whispers back. She slowly stands, still staying quiet. “What happened to Gill, or whatever that was?” She asks. Gwydion just scowls.
“That was a ye gwyllgi. They’re like hell hounds, more or less. He must’ve been tracking me. I don’t know why he can turn into a human. That’s not normally what they do.”
“So, what happened to him then?”
“Sorry, I cast a spell that will make his sense of smell basically useless; I made his lip smell like all the strongest scents I could think of.” He smiles, exaggerating a flourish and a bow.
“Why didn’t you just freeze him in a giant block of ice or something?” Gwydion pauses mid-bow with a thoughtful expression.
“I didn’t think about that, I guess.”
“Do you think about anything you do?” She asks as she turns to head down the hall. He shrugs.
“Rarely.”
The two of them hurry to the elevator and take it up to the sales floor to retrace the little-ish dragon’s ‘steps.’
So much for a systematic approach.
Continues in Part 2…