With Kara holding the door, Noah slipped passed her and danced up to the sixth floor, humming an off-key tune as he went. When he got to her floor, he sat down to wait for the woman, claws tapping out the catchy rhythm against the tile floor.
Slowly, Kara followed him up the steps, a perplexed look on her face.
“Come on,” Noah called to her as she climbed the last set of steps. “Sixth floor, right?”
Not waiting for an answer, he stood up and pushed the door open with his shoulder. It opened onto a carpeted lobby. Two plush couches were arranged against one wall, and a high counter was tucked neatly into the far corner. One whole side of the room was made up of the glass-and-metal work seen from the outside of the building.
“Nice,” Noah said as he strolled across the room to look out the glass wall.
“Byrd?” Kara called as she followed him into the room.
Noah turned and looked up at her. If he had had eyebrows, he would have raised them in question, but seeing that he didn’t, he cocked his head instead.
Kara opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted.
“Kara!” A younger woman came rushing from one of the open doors. “God, I’m glad you’re here this morning. Explain this!” She held some papers out towards Kara and shook them.
Letting her question go, Kara turned around to address the woman’s issue.
Noah turned back to the window to take in the amazing view while he waited for Kara to finish. A strange rumbling in his stomach cramped his gut, and he dropped down to the floor, unsure what was going on. It felt like breakfast had finally hit bottom and did not like being there.
“Poop!” the dragon cried as he took control back from Noah. Byrd looked around until his eyes landed on a beautiful ficus tree tucked in the corner near the elevator. Picking himself up from the floor, he started towards the plant.
“No, Byrd!” Noah cried as the dragon closed on the innocent plant. “We can’t do that here!”
Byrd stopped and danced in place. “But, poop!” He started towards the pot again.
“No, Byrd. We can’t poop in the plant!” Noah tried to stop him, but the dragon’s desire to relieve the pressure in his gut overrode anything Noah tried.
Byrd paused and shifted from foot to foot. “But…?” Memories of relieving himself in the pine trees filled Noah.
“That was different,” Noah insisted.
Cocking his head, Byrd looked at the little tree. “How?”
Noah let out a sigh. “Taking a pee outside is nothing like taking a dump in a potted plant. Besides, I think that plant might be fake.”
Byrd eyed the perfectly round top and lack of fallen leaves and agreed with Noah. “Fake. But poop!” The dragon shifted, trying to ease the discomfort in his bowels.
“I’m sure there is a restroom around here somewhere,” Noah reassured him. He looked around until he saw something promising. “Come on.”
Taking control back from Byrd, Noah headed over to a hall leading off the main lobby. Sure enough, there was a door at the end with a small plaque reading “Restroom.” “Here.” Noah leaned on the door and it swung open, letting them in.
The door opened into the middle of a long, thin room. With the door open, Noah could only see the counter and washbasin at one end of the room. Wiggling around, he shut the door and turned to the toilet in the center of the far wall. It was an odd setup for a public restroom, but it would ensure that no one accidently walked in on someone using the facilities.
Byrd looked at the deep bowl filled with cool water and smacked his dry lips. Most of his breakfast juice had been spilled, and that water looked very refreshing.
“No, Byrd,” Noah said, stopping the dragon from dipping his head in the toilet. “We don’t drink out of that.”
“Why not?” Byrd asked, staring at the clear water.
“Because it’s a toilet,” Noah answered. “We don’t drink out of the toilet. We poop in it.”
Byrd cocked his head in thought. “But… that make water taste like poop!” He danced around in distress. “No want poop water!”
Noah laughed out loud at the absurdity of Byrd’s logic. “It’s okay, Byrd,” he reassured the dragon, “just hop up there and poop in the toilet, and we’ll get a drink out of the sink.”
Byrd looked back at the bowl at the other end of the room. It was large with a lever that he could easily manipulate. He glanced back at the water readily available, but on Noah’s insistence, he gave in. “Okay.”
Letting out a sigh of relief, Noah relaxed back and let Byrd do his thing. Life was starting to look up. Now it would be nice if they could just keep things going in that direction.
Kara watched as Byrd wiggled up the steps ahead of her. His butt bounced around in an odd way as he walked. Is he hurt? That slip on the steps hadn’t looked bad, but then again, it had taken a moment for him to get it together enough to get up the steps. The noise he was letting out sounded like he was in pain. Kara opened her mouth to say something, but her breath caught when the tortured noise took on a familiar rhythm. Is that… a beat?
Listening hard, she watched as his back end bounced to the beat of the song he was attempting to hum. He wasn’t hurt, he was dancing! Astounded, Kara followed him up the steps. In the short time she had known Byrd, he had done many odd things, but dancing just didn’t seem like something he would do.
Kara’s head rang as she hit upon an idea. Noah! Her surprise turned to elation. This is fantastic! She knew dragons who had taken years to work through their separation issues. For him to have found some kind of balance so quickly was remarkable, but she had to find a way to verify her assumption. That was the tricky part. Sometimes bringing up separation issues could actually regress a patient’s progress. She didn’t want to complicate his problems further. Kara mulled over the best way to assess him.
A chirp from the top of the steps drew her from her thoughts. “Come on?”
She looked up at the small dragon waiting at the top of the steps. He twitched and swayed in place as his claws rapped out a rhythm on the tile.
“Sixth floor, right?”
Before she could answer, he hopped up and shoved his way through the door. That was definitely not Byrd! The dragon she was coming to know wouldn’t have waited. She caught the door and followed him into the room. The best way to find out what she needed to know was to engage him in some kind of conversation. “Byrd?” she called, drawing his attention from the view out the wall of glass and steel.
He turned and looked at her. The cock of his head held a question in it.
“Kara!” Beth called out from her office.
Kara spun to face the woman before she could say anything to the dragon.
Beth bustled out with a handful of papers. “God, I’m glad you’re here this morning. Explain this!” She shook the stack.
Taking the papers from her, Kara glanced at the Eternity logo on top of the official-looking pages.
“They’re orders,” Beth squeaked before Kara could get into the body of the text. “Honest-to-God orders. You’ve been reassigned!” Beth’s voice was filled with shock.