In front of me a young girl wearing a hat runs through a sea of grass while she holds it down with one hand. Her black hair barely reaching her shoulders drifting along with the wind as she turns around looking at me grinning from cheek to cheek.

“Mai! Don’t run too far from me. Understand?”

My sister nods and holds her hand out for me to hold hands as we walk. The moment I reach my hands out, they look like claws. Pausing in disbelief for a moment, I look for my sister who has disappeared from my view. I shake awake and look around for a moment in a daze… another dream.

Once in awhile I dream of my siblings who I’ve left behind and wonder how they’re doing… Mai’s grown up now but she still forgets to eat breakfast and leaves home disheveled at times. I snicker remembering how she used to be so dependent on me when she was younger as I fold my arms and rest my head for a moment.

It’s been a while now since I’ve lived here and they’ve at least removed the chains from my body, though they left the annoying clamp around my neck  making it impossible to move around as a human. I open my eyes to a familiar sight. I see the figure of my sister when she was a child wearing her favorite straw hat wearing a green dress running towards me. Unable to believe my eyes I blink a few times and I grin for a moment.

(Lila) “Blackie let’s play!”

Of course Mai wouldn’t be here, it’s just Lila running from that Maid from hell again. Lately Lila comes here without her maid, which is fine for me we still don’t get along one bit.

(Lila) “Did you miss me girl?”

Lila asks as she’s already hugging my head, she’s grown even more attached lately and it’s quite endearing. She eventually jumps on my back and yells.

(Lila) “Giddyup!”

Well I do admit playing horsey when you actually walk on four legs is a lot easier. I make a few laps around the courtyard while Lila is giggling happily. Now that I think about it… I’m a dragon…right? I mean playing horsey with your pet dragon is kind of odd don’t you think?

Or is it just me thinking that dragons are you know disaster causing beasts of legends? And here I am a house pet… again? Well as long as Lila’s happy I guess it doesn’t matter right? Me and my wife always did want a daughter as cute as Lila, it just became impossible for us and we never had children.

(Lila) “Blackie, Blackie! You’ll always be with Lila right!”

I want to tell her of course but I can’t talk and I think it’s best to keep the fact that I can change a secret for now so I simply nod as I continue my rounds.

(Lila) “Even though you probably don’t understand me yet.”

Lila just slouches and hugs my neck for a moment until that maid calls her back for dinner.

Dinner time, probably the second best part of my day lately. Thankfully the chef has the misunderstanding that dragons are purely carnivorous and can only eat meat. He also has a plethora of recipes; I don’t think I’ve eaten the same dish prepared the same way my stay here so far.

There’s also the fact that I always get to eat to the point where I feel like laying down belly up and take a nap.  Today’s dinner looked like some kind of bird, it was as big as a turkey but had a larger wingspan and wasn’t as plump. The outside of the bird looked like it was coated in flour and deep fried with herbs, and was skillfully deboned.

It was a gastronomic encounter as usual… not sure if I can enjoy food elsewhere now being pampered to this point. I’ve also noticed that… The amount of food on my plate is growing and I never have any problems eating all of it. And the next fact is the matter, that I haven’t been getting any fatter?

Have I become one of those black hole for stomachs characters from Anime or something? I continue to ponder on this as I finish up my bird dish. All while ignoring the little girl who’s climbing on my back as I’m eating.

(Melia) “Lila! Don’t climb up on her back while she’s eating she might bite you!”

Ah… She’s still here, that maid… I’ve been here for a while now and she still doesn’t believe I won’t hurt Lila. I can’t help but stare at this stupid maid in awe, if I really wanted to I could have hurt everyone here a while ago you know?

(Melia) “W-w-w-hat…? I’m not tasty you cold blooded beast!”

Clearly shaken up the stupid maid starts to back step farther away from me. I then hear a heavy clunk sound startled I start looking around to see if someone came to hurt Lila and found nothing until I looked under me. My collar was on the ground?

(Lila) “There! A cute ribbon is much better than that ugly thing wrapped around Blackie's neck!”

I can feel her hug my neck softly as she falls asleep hugging me. This little girl does she have no sense of danger! That collar was something to restrain me not a fashion statement, something like this could be potentially dangerous!

Lila woke up from her little nap I’d say an hour or so later, no one dared to approach me to remove her once they saw that my collar was removed by our mischievous little miss. Especially her maid, she didn’t run away per say... But is glaring daggers from the hallway while hiding the bottom half of her body. There was a bit of a fuss about what to do about my collar.

They didn’t try to put it back on… Well that may or may not be attributed to the fact that I had my claws on it and would glare at anyone trying to take it away. I also make sure to take it with me and put it in a place where no one else can find it afterwards.

Well that’s one less thing to worry about now, I can freely change back and forth if I need to finally! Looking forward to the next day I spend the rest of the day playing with Lila until she gets ready for bed. Tonight the fun begins… Just you wait you stupid maid… You’ll regret the day you decided to make an enemy of this lizard!

Time passed, and  I usually  have to sleep outside in the courtyard in my own glorified watch dog house at night. Since the evil maid won’t let me sleep in the house. She’s been growing more and more paranoid lately, she has a feeling that I’m the one that has been playing the pranks. But she can’t make sense of it!

Of course our little miss will sneak out at night sometimes to drag me back in and uses me as a pillow. It’s still a mystery to me why people like to use me as a pillow, I mean I’m an oversized scaled lizard… Nothing about that sounds comfortable! Due to this I’ll have to wait until I’ve confirmed Lila’s asleep before I can wander off just in case… and there she is trying to crawl out her window again.

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I make my way over and once she sees me her eyes light up and I crawl through the window and lay down on the bed as she cuddles up on my stomach. I still don’t understand… maybe a giant lizard plushie or hug pillow would be popular in this world? Once Lila gets comfortable she turns over and faces me like she wants to say something but stops for a moment.

(Lila) “Blackie… do you know what tomorrow is?”

Hmm? Is something important about tomorrow?

(Lila) “It’s Lila’s birthday tomorrow! Mommy and Daddy said they were coming home to celebrate tomorrow as a family, isn’t that great!”

Seeing her smile like that all I can do is nod to her afterwards. Little Lila pauses for a moment and looks at me with a blank look on her face.

(Lila) “Blackie… Can you understand me?”

After I nod again her face breaks out into a smile as she hugs my head.

(Lila) “You’re such a smart girl Blackie!”

She continues to talk deep into the night until she finally falls asleep, and for some reason seeing her peaceful sleeping face I also become sleepy.

The next day Lila wakes up excitedly and she and her maid are running around looking for what she should wear. While doing this of course the maid throws a few glares at me since she thinks I’m sneaking in on my own. She eventually picks a green dress and white ribbons, she proceeds to get dressed and her hair combed then tied into a pair of twin tails. 

Lila quickly jumps off her chair and runs over to me pulling on my tail to get me to follow her to the dining table. She knows I hate it but she always has this devilishly cute smile when she does it so I end up forgiving her. Lila keeps running ahead of me and keeps trying to get me to move faster.

(Lila) “Come on! Hurry up Blackie!”

This little one is just a ball of energy right now. After we get to the dining table she sits down and beckons me to lay at her feet as she happily hums. For some odd reason her maid seems to allow it today? After a while Lila looks rather restless, she's impatiently kicking the table that I'm currently beside fork and knife in hand.

"They said they would be here, where are they Melia! When are mommy and daddy coming home"

As Lila whined her maid had a very solemn face on and told her

(Melia) "My Lady, the Duke and Duchess are very busy people they may not be able to make it today, please be more understanding."

She then throws a mini tantrum I had to nudge her to help calm her down.

(Lila) "Thanks Blackie, I'm going to be a good girl and not cry so don't you worry!"

I could hear her holding back her tears, she was very disappointed that her parents could not make it, cliché I thought. Parents being too busy to spend time with their child to the point she gets a pet dragon! If it wasn't me who knows what kind of trouble could have happened.

Then I hear a loud crashing noise I stand up and growl at the door in reaction.  Heh, I think I got this Guard Dragon thing down now. After looking at the door I can see two individuals out of breath enter the door, dressed very formally but rather disheveled.

(Lila) "Mommy! Daddy! You made it!"

Ah those people are her parents so I lay back down. I'm pretty good at this guard drago-dog thing I think proudly to myself. Her parents apologize for being late as they run up and catch Lila who run to them and jumped into their arms, I could then hear her mother say.

(Duchess) "Honey what was that sound earlier?"

The Duke then avoided eye contact, great the dad knows but the mom doesn't, typical doting father here.

(Lila) "That was Blackie! She keeps me company and keeps me safe from bad monsters!"

The Duchess then looks over at me, thankfully she seemed to be an accepting individual and didn't make too big of a deal. But I did see her give the dreaded look at the Duke. He's in for it now, every man who's ever been in a long relationship knows of "The Look." It usually means you’re in deep… DEEP trouble and you will hear about it in private later. She then walked up to me and reluctantly pets me.

(Duchess) "Thank you...Blackie? For keeping my Darling Lila safe in our absence"

I look at her and give her a nod. Astonished she takes a step back

(Duchess) "Can she understand us already? I've heard female dragons are very docile compared to the more violent males... But can only understand human language after several years..."

She then glares daggers at her Husband.

(Duke) "She's only been here for 10 months! I swear my Love I wouldn't lie about this."

Lila then tugs on her mother’s dress

(Lila)  "Daddy's not lying I've only had Blackie for 10 months I just found out she understands me too!"

Well that solves one mystery for me, I'm assumed a female because I don't attack people. I guess male dragons are a lot more aggressive usually. And I'm sure no one wants to do a sex check on a dragon, just imagine that being your job… That would be horrible!

We then had a very nice dinner and I was served a nice, large steak. But they didn't give me any cake because they were afraid I couldn't digest it. I tried using my "Puppy Eyes" while they were eating the cake but it wasn’t working on them. Damn it, the cake looks like it tastes good judging by the look on their faces.

Afterwards Lila dragged her parents out into the courtyard to play and I thought this is my chance! I quickly change to my human form and grab a piece of cake and take a bite, it was better than it looked. It was  a little too sweet but children usually like sweet food.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had any sweets so I savor every bite until I turn around to grab some more food. At that moment our eyes met, and at that moment it felt like time had stopped. My heartbeat started to race as I watched her drop her tray filled with tea in slow motion… Crap, of all people to see me... It had to be THAT Maid.