Page 70 of Dragon Cursed
"Okay.Okay.I'm sorry,” she said, clearly not sorry at all.“Come on.The house is just here.Just — try to look natural, my love.You are doing wonderfully.Truly.The cap is excellent.The cap is thebestpart."
He was wearing a postman's uniform.
His mate was holding his hand and laughing helplessly.
Despite the indignity of his costume and the slow, mounting dread now ever-present at the back of his mind about what the thing in the Elvish book would say when they finally read it — despite all of it —walking down the street with Poppy’s hand in his and her laughter in the air, he thought he had never been so glad of anything in his life.
The house wastall and narrow and made of red brick — exactly as the others on the street were tall and narrow and made of red brick — and the door was green.
Bright green.A clean, fresh green that caught the sunlight with a heavy brass knocker shaped like a fist.There was a decorative, arched window above the door, featuring colored glass in intricate, fan-like patterns and a small, blue ceramic plaque beside the bell that read17in old, careful lettering.
Poppy stopped at the bottom of the steps.
She straightened her coat.She straightenedhiscoat — which was a postman's coat and didn’t require straightening, but she did it anyway.She tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear with the small unconscious gesture of a woman whose hands had always known what to do.
"Okay.I have not seen her in five years.She is older than she should be.She is sharp.Don’t —"
"What?"
"Don’t be too brooding.Don’t loom.She finds looming funny."
"I do not loom."
"You’re a dragon.You loom.”
"Fair."
"Also —" Poppy bit her lip — "she doesn't know what you are.I haven’t told her.I haven’t told anyone.So, when you meet her, just —"
"I shall be a postman."
"You shall be aman, Alsander.You shall be a man I am bringing to meet my aunt.Please.Just —"
"I understand."He squeezed her hand.
She climbed the steps.He followed.
She lifted the brass hand and let it fall against the door — three slow knocks.
They waited.
Inside the house, footsteps.
Slower than they would have been once.He could hear, even through the door, the faint rhythmic tap of a stick.
The footsteps reached the door.The chain rattled.The latch turned.
The green door opened.
She was small.
That was the first thing he noticed.She was small, compacted with age.Her hair was white and pulled back into a knot at the base of her neck.Her eyes were blue.
Still sharp.
She had wisdom that only came with great age.
She wore a soft gray cardigan over a long blue dress.A thin gold chain at her throat.A wedding ring on her left hand that she hadn’t, evidently, removed when its giver had died.She held a stick in her right hand and leaned on it.
