Adelie

Adelie paused with her hand on the hallway light switch and looked back towards the stairs. Immaculately bland décor returned her stare. She'd been around the farmhouse checking for signs of vermin and not found anything, which was maybe worse than finding something. Maybe it was ok to leave the light on for now.

She walked into the living room and closed the door behind her. Her laptop was open on the unfolded sofa-bed – there hadn't seemed to be much reason to fold it away the last few days – and a ViewTube video was playing. Had she left it open before going to check on Soot? The video looked like a cute animal compilation, maybe she'd forgotten to close it and it had autoplayed.

She didn't think she'd been watching stuff before going out to the barn, but after another half-hour cleaning up dragon puke it was difficult to remember. Maybe what she'd heard when she came back to the house was just the video and all that checking around had been paranoia. Her arms ached, and her sleeves were damp from hosing down the barn again. She needed to shower, but it would be best to phone Phoebe first.

Feeling like she weighed as much as a dragon, Adelie flopped to sit on the bed, feeling a rush of chill as her legs relaxed. Automatically, she looked around, but the room was empty. Trying to shrug it off, she folded the laptop closed, cutting off the video of a penguin getting its head stroked. Then she pulled out her phone and brought up Phoebe's contact. Hopefully it wouldn't take too many tries to get her to answer.

The dial-tone had barely buzzed twice when the call clicked through. "Hey Adelie, what's up?"

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Caught out by the quick response, Adelie spluttered. "Hey, uh, I mean, Soot's still throwing up. Um. Sorry, to be the bearer of bad news."

"Oh, fuck, it wasn't just bad food?"

"Can't be, at this point. This is four different batches now. And he's not lost his appetite or anything, he's still drinking plenty."

"Will he be ok? Has he eaten anything since- arriving at the barn, I mean?"

Adelie ignored the odd hitch in Phoebe's phrasing. She'd explain when she was ready. "I think so, what he throws up is part-digested at least. And dragons have deep reserves, like, wild drakes sometimes only eat once a month."

"Hmmm. What do we do now? He can't race in this condition, right?"

"Absolutely not." Adelie caught herself slipping into the tone she used with pet owners who balked at whatever she said their pets needed tried to soften a bit. She trusted Phoebe not to risk Soot, even if she could hear the fear in her friend's voice. "I couldn't find anything obvious in the database, it's probably allergic but I dunno to what. Can you come up here and keep an eye on him tomorrow? I need to go to a specialist shop and see if they have any ideas."

"I can, but how are you gonna get there if I'm gonna stay at the ranch?"

"I'll call a Drivr."

"Nah, I'll bring Petunia to watch Soot and drive you down, that'll be cheaper."

"Isn't she in work?"

"Uh, I dunno, I'll check."

"It's just going to be easier for me to call a ride, don't worry about it."

"Nah, this is cheaper, it's fine. We've gotta be careful about money now, Adelie, we're a team, we have a budget."

"This wouldn't be coming out of the budget, I'll pay for it!" Did she not want to spend time with Soot or something? Adelie wanted to take the opportunity to grab some stuff of her stuff from her parents' place to bring up to the farmhouse. Would Phoebe insist that a detour was too expensive?

"At least let me see if Petunia's free. Better to save the money if we can, right?"

Adelie let her shoulders sink. "Well, ok. Tell her not to wear anything too pretty, she might have to mop up another six litres of dragon barf."

Phoebe laughed. "Good point."