The sign (which Peter had not seen as he'd entered) read 'ONLY THOSE IN SOLITUS FORM ARE WELCOME HERE'.
Immediately Peter understood. It wasn't his clothes he was expected to get rid of, it was his human form. Only dragons in their natural state were allowed in the shop, which seemed ironic given that Tank nearly always maintained human form, and more than a little... judgmental. Both shopkeeper and spider glared at him, now that the penny had dropped. Closing his eyes, and more self conscious than ever, he focused on unlocking the dozen or so bonds within his DNA that regulated his human appearance. Recently he'd got into the habit of sticking with his human guise, even when visiting the dragon domain, so he didn't do this very often, but he was always flabbergasted at the ease with which it happened, when he did. Three seconds, that was how long the complete transformation took. Staggering really. It started with a warm tingling feeling all over, that swiftly progressed to a kind of citrusy flavour within, ending with the swirling noise of what felt like a hurricane rushing through his ears. Looking down, the first thing he noticed were his ripped briefs lying on the floor.
'Oops!’ he thought. 'Looks like I'm going home commando tonight.’
"That's better, child," commented the shopkeeper. "Come closer so that I can have a better look at you."
Stepping over his shredded underwear, Peter plodded over to the counter, his comparatively small body and wingspan making him almost look like a dragonling, in the huge space of his surroundings. It was only now that he realised why there was so much space throughout the store. It made perfect sense if only dragons in their natural form were allowed in. Briefly he wondered why his friend had never mentioned all this, and just exactly where he was.
Slipping his square spectacles back on, the shopkeeper made his way around to the shop floor and gave Peter the once over.
"Hmmmm... nothing special," he said, lifting up Peter's wing. Peter tried to pull away, but the old dragon had a grip of steel and would not let him go.
"Ahhh... what's this then?" he remarked, mainly to himself, looking below Peter's left wing at the markings on his belly. Peter's belly was predominantly brown, although on the left hand side there was a strange pattern, made up of matt green scales, that had helped give him his name. It was not unusual to be named after a pattern or bodily marking, and Peter had just come to accept it, as had most dragons, unless of course you had a very rude or stupid characteristic, which sometimes happened, and presented the tors in charge of choosing a young dragon's name with a very difficult set of circumstances. In Peter's case, the matt green scales stood out, looking like a whistle. A whistle where the part that you blow into was crooked or bent. Hence Peter's dragon name was Bentwhistle.
Continuing to poke at Peter's matt green scales that formed the whistle, the old shopkeeper frowned, before going on.
"I know this from somewhere. But I don't seem to know you. Have we met? I don't remember if we have. Hang on a second, it's all coming back to me now. You're Tank's friend. He's told me all about you, you know."
Peter smiled. Finally a mention of his friend.
"Has he really? All good I hope."
"Of course, of course," replied the old dragon.
"Is he about at all? It's just that I wanted a quick chat with him if it’s possible."
Stepping out from underneath Peter's wing, the shopkeeper urged Peter to follow him, adding,
"He's been here all the time, right in plain sight," chuckled the old dragon, wandering back behind the counter and doing the very last thing Peter expected.
He reached up into the big silver web, and retrieved the gargantuan tarantula. At this point, Peter's eyes nearly popped out. What on earth was going on?
Holding his hand out flat, allowing the spider to get comfortable, the shopkeeper then proceeded to rifle through a dusty red book from the pile on the counter, looking for... something.
It didn't take long to find, and so with the book open in one hand, and the spider held steady in the other, the age old dragon closed his eyes. It was then that he noticed.
'It can't be... it just can't,' thought Peter, having spotted the same inane grin on the spider that normally occupied his friend's battered and bruised face.
Muttering a language Peter couldn't recognise, abruptly the old shopkeeper tossed the spider high up into the air, taking a step back as he did so. As the spider reached the highest point of its trajectory, tumbling head over legs, it started to spin uncontrollably, as if caught in a vortex. Peter watched, astonished, barely able to focus in on the spider, it was moving so fast. But he could at least tell something... it was getting bigger, and even changing colour. Still muttering undecipherable tones, the shopkeeper looked up from the book, pushing his glasses as far up his nose as they would go, before finishing the mantra with one word.
CRASH!!! Tank was thrown out of the mini tornado at full speed, rocketing into the nearest bookcase. A hail of books toppled down onto his head as he tried to sit up against its base. None of this prevented him from having his usual stupid inane grin.
"Excellent, excellent!" cried the shopkeeper, appearing in front of Tank. "A morphic mantra from Roman Times," he said to Tank, as he picked himself up from the pile of books.
"Quite a find, even if I do say so myself. You can tidy the books up later. Take your friend into the workshop and have your chat now. Don't be too long though, we have that Aztec flying mantra to test out later," pointed out the old dragon, disappearing off into the depths of the store.
"That was just unbelievable," exclaimed Peter, as Tank came over.
"Just run of the mill here I'm afraid, Pete."
"Really?" asked Peter in total disbelief.
Tank escorted him to the workshop that sat back behind the counter, barely visible from the shop floor. Four dragon sized desks were cluttered up with piles of books, bunches of scrolls, oversized dragon pens, mantra ink, brushes and flimsy rolls of paper. A special dragon sized chair accompanied each desk, and like the monorail, there were holes at the back of each, so that a dragon could slip his or her tail through. Comfy!
Unable to contain his curiosity, Peter blurted,
"What happens here?"
"This is where we repair broken mantras, and sometimes try to create new ones. It's our workshop.”
Peter gazed in wonder.
"I didn't even know it was possible to repair a broken mantra."
"Most dragons don't," replied Tank, matter-of-factly. "It's not something needed very much anymore. A lot of mantras nowadays can be memorised, or can be stored on mobile phones, laptops or tablets. All relatively recent developments, before which mantras would need to be repaired, especially mantras that only had a one-off use. This was where most dragons would have had it done."
"You sound as though they don't come here any more."
"Oh the odd dragon wanders in to have a really rare or old mantra fixed, valued or researched, but sometimes we don't see a customer for weeks on end."
"That's really sad," replied Peter, concerned.
"It's just a change in times, or so Gee Tee says," commented Tank, quietly. "These new dial-a-mantra services haven't helped very much either."
"Uhhh?"
"Trust you," said Tank to his friend. "You must have seen all the adverts in the telepathic papers."
"Nope," replied Peter, shaking his head.
"Well, anyway, it's very much like the dial and download a ringtone the humans use for their mobile phones, you get the mantra of your choice, sent directly to your phone, as either a text message or email, ready and waiting for whenever you need to use it," Tank uttered, disappointingly.
"So it's affecting business then?" queried Peter.