Page 68 of Dragon Cursed
"Someone whose clothes will not draw attention.A man in a sweater and ordinary trousers.A man in a coat.Not someone in a costume or uniform.Not someone —" her face changed — "not someone whose clothes are particularly distinctive.Do you understand what I'm —"
"I understand."
"Okay.Find someone like that.Look at them.Do the thing."
"Fair."
He turned his head.He looked out the passenger-side window at the street.
There was an old woman in a beige coat.There was a small dog on a leash.There was a young man in a sweater and ordinary trousers — exactly the article Poppy had specified — walking briskly up the pavement.
And then.
Coming the other way.
A man ingreen.
A man in a high-vis green jacket.Bright, almost luminous green.With reflective stripes.Carrying a large gray sack over one shoulder.With a peaked cap on his head.A man on his way to a job that involved doing things ingreen.
As Alsander watched, the man stopped at one of the green doors of the red-brick row houses, opened a small flap in the door, and pushed something through it.
"What is that man?"
"Don't."
"What is he doing?"
"Delivering the post.Alsander, don’t —"
"A modern post boy.Fascinating."
"He is apostman.He delivers mail.We don’t need you to look like a postman.Look at the man in the sweater.Look at the man in the —"
Alsander stared at the postman.
His lips twitched.Then he ‘did the thing’ as Poppy said.
It was, as it always was, almost imperceptible to anyone not watching for it.A small soft folding of the air around him.A subtle shimmer.The linen at his throat became something else.The trousers and boots and everything in between rearranged themselves in a single quiet exhalation of dragon magic.
When the magic released him, he was sitting in the passenger seat of Poppy’s vintage 1978 Mini wearing the full official uniform of a postman.
Bright green high-vis jacket.
Dark trousers.
A peaked cap.
A strap across one shoulder where the gray sack would have hung.
Poppy stared at him.
"Alsander."
"What."With effort, he kept a straight face.Sometimes a dragon needed to tease his mate.She was nervous.He needed to ease her tension, make her laugh.Even if it was at his own expense.
"You are dressed as a postman."
"You said modern."
