Cryptid Counseling | Session Intake: The Dragon

(Edgar)

I looked at my waiting room briefly, blinking a little. There was a tiny man with a blue, edge-torn blanket. The room was overturned. The toy buckets were splayed across the floor, the chairs were crushed, and the receptionist desk…

We weren’t talking about the receptionist’s desk.

Something very large had happened here, but the man was…not it?

He cleared his throat as my assistant Penny let him into my office and sat gingerly on the pink, overstuffed couch. He hesitated, reached toward the candy dish, and looked at me.

I smiled. “Go ahead,” I said. “My name is Kit. Is there something you’d like me to call you?”

“Edgar,” he said, in a rumbling voice that did not match his stature. He reached inside Hello Kitty’s head and took a Jolly Rancher.

“And what brings you here today, Edgar?” I poised my fountain pen over my post-it pad.

He sighed, his chest heaving. I had checked my messages from Penny, and knew he had been here three hours early. He had sat there, out of sight, until she left for lunch. And then Something Had Happened.

“I heard you deal with…people of another persuasion,” he said, tone graveled.

I glanced at the rainbows painted on the walls. “Yes?”

He sighed again. And then he changed.

He was tall, about ten feet. My office was extra tall, extra wide, and extra sparkly. His wings were tucked in against him, as if he were afraid to truly let loose. His tail coiled around his muscled belly.

“Would you like to tell me what species you’d like to be called? Or just a person? Because we’re all just people. Some of us just exist differently than others.”

A small wisp of smoke escaped from his red lips. “I’m a dragon,” he said plainly. As if it were obvious.

Well. In school they teach you about assumptions.

“All right. And that’s what brings you here today?”

He shook his head a little, resting his chin on my couch. “I…have a problem.” He fidgeted with his claws. “It’s not a problem.”

I waited. “A problem or not a problem. Can you tell me what you mean?”

“Kings die. Friends die. Lovers die. Entire civilizations die. And I’m still here,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m still here, and I don’t know what to do.”

I nodded slowly. “So you’re grieving. Is that it?”

He snorted, and another coil of smoke escaped. “I wish,” he muttered. “No. I have a small problem with the authorities.”

I raised a brow. “With the authorities? Like who?”

He looked at me, eyes begging me not to make him say it. His wings fluttered gently in the air conditioning. “I…may have some people. In my hoard. Living with me. I provide housing.”

“Okay?” I said, wanting to be careful. Never assume. “And that’s a problem because…”

He closed his brilliant copper eyes. “It may have to do with kidnapping,” he mumbled. “But it isn’t, I swear!”

“Then what is it?”

“Protection,” he said gruffly. “I rescue people.”

“And then…” I smiled at him. A little encouragement never went amiss.

He knocked a picture frame of a cat off my desk and it shattered beneath his claws. This seemed to be the theme of the month. “And then they stay?” he said. His eyes gleamed hopefully.

I shook my head. “I don’t think that would bring you to therapy, Edgar. Keeping your friends around isn’t a diagnosis.”

His eyes flashed and a curl of actual flame lit the air. “And then I keep them,” he said angrily. “So they don’t leave. So they stay. Because nobody fucking stays.” He clutched the blanket he’d brought in with him.

“Okay…” I said. I picked up my fountain pen and looked into his copper eyes. “And how many bodies did you say there were?”