Total words written so far: 20,049
I felt like I needed a description of the lamp from the post before...
The lamp was made from silver. Probably not real silver, but for the sake of Goldie's imagination, it was silver. It had a couple of knobs at the base and a handle at the top. The lamp part had five glass panels divided in two by a metal bar. She stood on the desk looking around the room. She figured a bird's eye view was the best way to study the room. Seeing as she'd fallen off the desk the last time she was up here, she was careful to brace herself with one hand against the window. The other hand was protecting the lamp against her chest. If she fell, it might break. She didn't want that. (obviously)
The couch might actually be the place the look, since she knew there was no help to be found in the only drawer in the room. She stepped down from the desk, onto the desk chair, and landed lightly on the floor. She placed the lamp on the table. Cat had disappeared. Apparently he'd gone on without her into the dark basement.
Rude.
Goldie straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. If he didn't want to play with her then she didn't want to play with him. "See if I care if you go on an adventure with me. I don't care! You're just a cat. You probably wouldn't be any good at adventures anyway. You're obviously not a team player!" She'd heard the term team player from her Mom. It was a good phrase. She liked it.
She marched over the couch and angrily ripped all of the cushions off.
Beneath the cushions was a hide-a-bed. Nothing on top of it, but she peered around the edges. Maybe something useful had been dropped beneath. She squinted, it was dark, hard to see, but she could make out something in the corner. She thought maybe it was a toy, but she got down on her knees and reached through the bars of the bed. Her fingers stretched as far as they could and she was finally able to grab part of the toy and pull it out. A lizard of some sort. She was holding onto its tail. It's outsides were rubbery, but it's insides had the feeling of bones. She flipped it over in her hands. A very realistic toy. What if the last person who lived in this room forgot their pet lizard? And, it had died here. That's sad. But, it didn't really look like a dead animal. She'd seen dead birds before and when they were dead they got really stiff and dry looking. This guy was floppy. And, she'd never seen a lizard that looked quite like this. It had an orange mohawk of scales running from the top of its head all of the way to its tail. The rest of its body was purple, but each of the larger scales on its chest looked like they'd been dipped in silver. It looked like armor! Cool.
She placed the toy upright on her palm and let go. It stayed in a standing position. She'd expected it to collapse becase it had been so slack before. She studied its face. It didn't seem like a regular toy face, painted on and stiff, it looked relaxed and all rubbery and, wait, was its chest moving? Its chest was rising and falling over and over. Was it breathing? Maybe it was a pet, afterall. But, if it was alive, that meant that someone had probably been here recently. She poked it in the stomach. "Oof," it grunted and put it's little arms over its tiny belly.
Goldie screamed. She tipped her hand over and walked jerkily backwards to the fire rug without taking her eyes off of it. Maybe this was it. Had she found a fairy already? If so, it wasn't anything like she expected a fairy to look.
"Hey, that hurt!" said the little creature. He rubbed his bum. At least she assumed it was a "he." He had landed kind of hard. Goldie was sorry for that. She hadn't meant to toss him. And he talked.
Her own voice was rendered mute. A talking lizard. Lizard? Fairy? Fairy lizard, maybe? She wasn't sure. She was confused. She tried to make the lizard talk just by thinking about what she wanted him to say. It didn't work. Was this the super creative imagination every said she had coming to life? Everyone always said that she was creative and imaginative and good at telling stories, but she'd always know that what she was saying wasn't real. She'd always known what she was pretending wasn't happening in real life, but this was entirely too realistic. And, she couldn't control the lizard guy with her mind. In her imagination, she always knew what the creatures were going to do at each turn in the road. But she was absolutely unprepared for this.
She stood, dazed, staring at the place where the creature had originally landed. Everything beyond a slight circle around that spot was fuzzy, like a fuzzy tunnel leading up to a very small area of clarity. Tunnel vision. She'd heard of it before. She'd never experienced it, though. He was pacing back and forth on his back legs, moving in and out of her line of sight, brushing himself off as he paced, talking up a storm, but not of it was making it through to her brain. She couldn't translate through the shock.
Alright, Goldie. Let's think this through, she thought. You definitely woke up this morning? Yes. Did you take a nap? No. You said you were going to take a nap, but you never laid on the bed. You couldn't be asleep standing up. Mom didn't think you had a concussion, but you did fall earlier today. Maybe you actually damaged your brain and now things are weird. OK. So, what should I do about it? I should accept it. I should accept it? That sounds kind of weird. Because if I see things that no one else can... but I don't know if anyone else can see him because no one else is here. So, maybe he's real. Or, maybe my imagination has taken over. Does it matter right now, or should I continue on my adventure.
I should continue on my adventure. Obviously. It doesn't matter whether it's real or not. I'm going to assume it's not.
Now that that was figured out her tunnel vision slowly cleared and she once again heard more than just the blood rushing through her veins. She heard the birds singing outside the window. Hmm, she should probably shut that.
And, then she finally focused back on the one thing in the room that didn't make sense. The tiny lizard guy.
"Are you even listening to me?" Lizard guy stopped and held out his hands. His shoulders were high and his mouth hung open, like he couldn't believe her indifferent stance.
"I--" Her voice was tired. Her voice wasn't tired. She hadn't talked much. Her voice just didn't want to work.
"So, you actually know how to speak? Alright, let's try more than one syllable this time. Did you hear anything I said?"
"Uh, no?" Goldie tried to think over the last two minutes or so. Flashes of the lizard guy waving his hands, were they hands? Humans had hands. Cats, dogs, and bears had paws. Anyway, waving his hands wildly and moving around a lot, like a real thing. This guy was totally real. She was slowly stepping closer to him. Closer. Closer. And, she was apparently crouching lower and lower as she went because her face was getting closer to his and he wasn't getting in bigger. Yup. Now she was on her hands and knees, crawling toward him. He was talking. She wasn't listening again. She'd just seen his feet. They were just like chicken feet!
"What is wrong with you?" He had been pacing, but he stopped.
"I'm sorry. I wasn't listening. Just start again. I've just never seen a lizard guy like you before." She sat on the floor with her legs criss-crossed.
Lizard guy looked offended. He put his hands on his hips. "I am not, emphasis on 'not', a lizard." He shook his head at her. "Unbelievable," he said.
"Well, what are you, then?"
"Have you never seen a majestic wyvern before?" He was incredulous when she shook her head. "Well, I am a wyvern. Maybe not majestic, though, I'm a little smaller than the usual wyvern due to the fact that my mother was one, but my father was a serpent with legs. And arms. He must have been half something as well, because serpents don't usually have arms and legs. Anyway, so I'm a wyvern serpent with arms and legs."
"A serpent is kind of like a snake, I think. So, you're an unmajestic snake not-lizard wyvern with arms and legs."
"I'm kind of like a dragon. I'm a big deal."
"A dragon? You're tiny." Goldie laughed.
"Don't laugh. I'm still growing!" He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back to her.
"I'm sorry," she said. She poked him in the back. "Hey, I'm still growing, too."
He turned back to her. "What are you, then, a giant?"
"No. I'm just a regular person. I'm a kid. Like, the young version of a person. What's your name?"
"Kiffen."
"Kiffen... Kiffen. I'm Goldie! Wait, a dragon?" She leaned in so she could study his little face. "Can you breathe fire?"
"Yes." Kiffen tipped his head sideways and looked at her with his beady little yellow eyes. He's one colorful dragon. Anyway, "Can't you?" he asked.
"No." Goldie shook her head and looked at her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap.
"That's OK. We can't all be as awesome as I am," he said proudly.
Goldie decided it was the right moment to tell Kiffen about her adventure. She told him of all of her ups and downs so far on the adventure and ended where she found the lamp and lost Cat.
"So, do you want to come on my fairy hunt with me?" Goldie pressed her hands over her heart and smiled.
"Those fairies are hard to find, you know. But just before you came in here, there were a few flitting around, messing with stuff, cleaning up the room and then here you came popping through the cabinet doors again."
Goldie hadn't thought that Kiffen might have been in the room earlier.
"Were you here when I fell?"
Kiffen laughed. "Oh, boy, was I! That was the most hilarious thing I'd seen in a long time."
"It scared me and it hurt. You shouldn't laugh." She crossed her arms and frowned.
Kiffen stifled his laugh with a quick wipe of his mug and a long sniff. "Well, we'd better get going if we're going to get this adventure over with by supper time."
"What do you eat?"
"You're asking too many questions--" He squinted. "What'd you call yourself? Kid?"
"My name is Goldie. And yes, I'm a kid."
"You're asking too many questions, Kid."
"I usually know a lot of stuff and I don't have to ask questions. But, I don't know anything about you." Goldie pouted.
"For now, the only thing you need to know is that your cat went that way." He pointed to the open doorway. "We should get going before he gets too far ahead. And, by the way, his name is Floyd."
"How do you know that? Did you name him?"
"No. He named himself. Don't you know anything about cats?"
"Well, I thought I di--" Goldie's eyes widened. "Do you speak Cat?"
"Again with the questions!"
"But, how do you know that his name is Floyd if you don't speak Cat?"
Kiffen shook his head left to right, his little claw pressed against his forehead.
"Alright!" Goldie threw her arms out in front of her. "I'll try to stop asking questions. But, I'm just going to keep wondering. A kid can't learn things if people won't even answer their questions."
"I think it's safe to say I'm not a people, so I guess that solves things right there."
Goldie sighed. She gave up. There was no talking to this creature. Wyverns weren't very nice. They were too stubborn and easily offended. She didn't know how to talk to someone like that. So, she crossed her arms over her chest and headed toward the open doorway and the stair that would lead her down to heaven knows where. Oh! She almost forgot the lamp! That would be an important tool on her adventure and it'd make no sense to leave it behind. Of course, lighting it was still going to be a problem.
She held the lamp in front of her and remembered something. He'd said he could breathe fire.
She walked carefully up to the doorway where Kiffen was standing there waiting for her. At least he was nicer than Cat, uh, she meant Floyd, in that respect. At least he was waiting on her. Floyd. What a meany.
"I know you said to stop asking you questions, but it's dark down there and I just want to know if you could light this lamp for me?" She set the lamp on the floor next to Kiffen.
"Sure. Hand me the match." He held out his claws.
Goldie stared at him for a moment. "I thought you could breathe fire."
Kiffen grew wide-eyed and put his claws behind his back.
"Well, you see. There's a story behind that. Not a long one, though. I can't necessarily just blow out and get fire. I have to wait for a while for the gasses to build up in my system. After that, I have to wait for it to come out in a burp and then click my teeth together just right to cause a spark. If I work everything correctly, I can usually get a flame to shoot as far as an inch from my face. It's pretty great."
"So--" Goldie frowned.
"I can't light your lamp. At least not right now."
"But you said you could create a spark. If you could get close enough and there's a chance you could light up the lamp and get it going, right?"
"Not with and oil lamp. You're going to have to hold a flame to that thing."
"Alright. Well, keep me posted when one of those burps is getting ready to come up." Goldie sat down on the floor beside the still open doorway. The sun shone into the room just right, so she could see a bit of the way down into the stairwell, but too many shadows blocked the rest of the way. The sun would never find its way in there. Kiffen coiled up his tail and used it as a seat cushion to sit on the floor beside Goldie.
A few minutes later, a scuffing sound came from below them and they heard feet bounding up the stairs. Goldie stood, so she could peek around the corner at whatever it was coming up those stairs, but then a fuzzy gray body came into view. Floyd had come back for her. Or got bored. Or maybe he had so much fun leaving her the first time around, he thought he'd come back up and try it again.
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