Another competition post. This one's for Toby, a baby Rune Dragon I've entered for~

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I yawned. Getting up at five-thirty in the morning to do a pancake breakfast for our school's robotics team was not my idea of a great vacation-week Saturday. It didn't help that I'd been standing outside, holding signs in the cold November winds, for nearly an hour. Oh, well. At least I'd avoided being there when they completely ruined the first bunch and filled the entire church basement with smoke. You'd think that, with a group of over thirty high-school kids and almost ten adults, they'd be able to get someone competent running the cooking.

One of the team leaders working the kitchen called me over, passing me a large, syrupy, messily stacked plate of pancakes for some person at the far end of the third table to the left. I could have sworn I'd heard chuckling when I grabbed it, or maybe saw something gleam slightly from within the stack, but who knew?

I'd just gotten to the table when something burst out of the stack. Pancakes flew everywhere, leaving half the nearby room coated in sweet, sticky syrup - Including myself. I blinked a few times, then stared down at the plate. A tiny dragon-creature stared up at me, munching on the remains of one of the pancakes it had broken apart when it jumped out at us. It giggled happily, apparently amused.

Everyone stared at me. The people eating, the people I'd been delivering to, the team leaders, the other students... Everyone. I chuckled nervously, shrugging.

"...I should probably go," I stated, glancing around. Everyone continued staring at me and the creature on the plate, which flapped its wings and growled in a way that sounded almost like how I imagine the Final Fantasy III Chocobos sounding.

I did the only thing I thought to do. I ran like hell, cell phone in one hand, dragon in the other.

'Hey, where did you say your house was?' I sent my friend, still running.

'By the school. Why?'

'I mean, what's your address?'

'Why?'

'It's hard to explain. I need to come over, okay? Is Philip there? If not, I seriously need to gtfo of here and to somewhere where the people at the pancake breakfast won't kill me.'

'?'

'Just trust me.'

She sent me her address, then some directions to her house when I told her I didn't know where the street she lived on was. I got confused, so eventually we just decided to meet at the school and head to her house from there.

"Holy crap, it's cold out. Why did you drag me out here, anyway?" Ashlee asked when I arrived, clearly annoyed at having to get up and out of the house so early. She looked me over. "Wow, you look awful. Is that syrup?"

"Basically? Pancake breakfast. Stack of pancakes on a plate. Covered in syrup. Exploded everywhere, all thanks to this guy." I unzipped my jacket slightly, allowing the dragon's sticky head to pop out and look questioningly at us, as if wondering why we had no pancakes any more.

"...What is that?" she asked.

"Honestly? I'm not sure. I think it might be a Rune Dragon, but-"

She cut me off. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Look, I'll explain it later. For now, I need to get inside and shower or something."

She led me to her house, where I tossed my clothes into her washing machine and showered. After putting on one of her shirts and a pair of jeans (My clothes weren't done at the time), I left the room. I found both her and the dragon sitting at her dining table, where the dragon was eating it's way through a large bowl of cereal.

"That's his third one so far," she mumbled, staring at the thing. "What did you say he was?"

"A Rune Dragon. Let me see your laptop." She handed it over and I opened a new tab on Firefox. I typed in a few words and hit enter. "Rune Dragon, see?" I asked, clicking the first like to show up.

"Okay, sure, I guess. Can you tell what kind he is?"

I glanced through the breed descriptions. "Let's see... No, no, no, maybe... Oh, I think this is it! 'Flapjack Rune'... Sounds about right, and they look about the same. This one's kind of smaller, though."

She shrugged. "I bet he's a baby or something."

The dragon chirped at us, then fluttered over to the counter and knocked over the box of cereal. The puffy, chocolate spheres scattered all over, and the Rune stuck it's head into the box and continued eating.

"Well, if he's a baby, we kind of need to give him a home or something. I mean, he can't exactly stay outside in the middle of winter around here, you know." We both looked at each other.

"Not it!" we exclaimed together.

"I'm not keeping him," Ashlee complained. "He'll eat all our food."

"Yes, but I'm the one whose mother works ten hours a week for seventy-five dollars!" I replied.

"Yeah, but you have pet chickens! You'll be fine with them around!"

"They haven't even been laying recently! They're not machines, you know!"

"Still, when they do lay, you have enough eggs that you give them away!"

Our argument continued for several minutes, by which time the little Rune had finished off the half-empty box of Cocoa Puffs. He flapped back over to the table and stared up at us, chirping.

Ashlee glanced at him, then back at me. "Okay, fine. How about this? We flip a coin. If it's heads, I keep him, if it's tails, you do. Got it?"

"Fine. You should know that  always win these things, though." I pulled out some of the change I'd been given after my Frosty's run earlier that day.

Flip.

The quarter turned several times in the air, then landed on the table with a thud.

...Well, it would have, if it weren't for the Rune, who caught it in it's mouth as it fell.

"...That's not edible, smart one!" I yelled at it. The Rune glanced at me, tilted it's head as if contemplating, then spit the coin out on the table.

Tails.

"Well, he's yours, then."

"That doesn't count! He tried to eat it!"

"No. It does count. What's his name?"

I sighed, giving up. "Well, it's a Flapjack Rune, right?" I asked, thinking.

"Yes, and it's a boy."

I sighed, giving in. The little Rune was a living thing, so calling it an it wasn't exactly normal.

"Fine. He's a Flapjack Rune, right?" She nodded. "Well, then, let's think."

"Well, obviously, there's Pancake."

"Ew, no."

"Flapjack?"

"Hell, no. I hate that show. Cartoon Network sucks."

She shrugged. "Syrup?"

"Nah."

"Maple?"

I shook my head.

"Butter?"

"That's just weird."

"Well, that's all I've got, so unless you've got something..."

"Hmm..." A lightbulb went off. "I've got it! Toby!"

She stared. "What?"

"See, I had this cat once. His name was Toby. We got him at that art in the park thing they do every year. See, his old owner didn't want him any more, so we took him in and named him Toby."

"So?"

"So, his name before that was Pancake!"

"...I see."

The slight rumbling that had served as background noise came to a stop.

"Hey, I think your clothes are done drying. You said you were supposed start going home at eleven, right?"

I nodded.

"...It's eleven thirty."

I stared at the clock. "...Oh. Well, I'm screwed, huh?"

She sighed. "Go change your clothes. I'll have Philip drive us to your house so you get there at the time you normally would have, okay?"

"Got it! Thanks for letting me come over!" I said, running to the dryer and grabbing my stuff to change into.

And as annoyed and slightly irritated as I was, a part of me was still happy to have the little Rune - Even if it did mean I would need to wash all the clothes in my house on a nearly daily basis.