The Dragon Watchers
First day on the job and a little scared. She tells me not to worry, it’s really quite easy. All we do is watch for the dragons that exit and return to the caves. She opens a door behind us to a long corridor stretching in both directions, with matching doors on the other side of the hall. We are in charge of one set of doors and one Dragon. Currently our dragon is out. Dragons enter the caves, go through both sets of doors to their lair beyond. I look down the corridor to the left and see an open door on the far side. Fire licks out from the lair. She takes my arm, “A dragon is coming out. Quickly!” We duck out of the corridor and back to our watch post, a nook in the wall facing out of the cave. She pulls some sort of flame-retardant black curtain down. I hear a monstrous crashing noise, something screaming and spitting fire. It’s suddenly incredibly hot, I feel like the hairs on my arms are singeing. And then it’s gone and the cave’s temperature goes back to normal. We lift the curtain. “Oh, our dragon is coming back.” I can’t see anything but take her word for it, again pulling the curtain down as a shadow fills the cave entrance. Our dragon passes us and enters its lair, slamming the door behind it. Bad day? She shrugs at me and we raise the curtain again.
