Four years ago, Morgan was found half-dead near the dragon village of Thorsbury Upon Wick.
Morgan cannot remember what happened to her, but the villagers suspect she might be a dragon from their long lost ancestral homeland.
Adopted by the villager...
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M O R G AN
I was in the kitchen at 7 am, preparing trays of sausages to go into the oven for the breakfast service. The snow had started to clear, and the village road was now passable. We usually did a good trade in the morning, selling bacon rolls and sausage baps to tradies and commuters.
Despite last night's events, we still had a pub to run. It didn't matter that Eli's possessed corpse had attacked us, or that Poppy was now a zombie, or that I had a sentient angry blue flame inside me. All that mattered was that we opened at 9 am to serve breakfast with a smile on our faces so we could pay the bills.
Poppy had spent the night locked in her bedroom. India had slept in my bedroom, while Erik had gallantly slept in the hallway, keeping us safe just in case Poppy had gone crazy.
In the morning, I'd opened Poppy's door and found her sitting on the end of her bed, pale-skinned, wide-eyed, and slightly smelling of death.
"Did you sleep much?" I'd asked.
"No, I didn't sleep at all," she replied, never blinking once.
She turned her head and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
"Have you seen my skin? I'm milk bottle white! I look like a trapped miner seeing daylight for the first time in a month," Poppy wailed.
"It's not that bad," I said, picking up her make-up bag and pulling out some bronzing powder. "A little bit of this and some fake tan, and you'll be glowing."
"Fake it until you make it, right?" Poppy sniffed, taking the bronzer from my hands.
"That's the spirit," I said, trying to sound like her un-aliveness was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Poppy took the products and entered the bathroom to baptise herself in fake tan and bronzer. When she came out, she was no longer deathly pale but a strange shade of golden orange. It looked odd, but I wasn't about to tell Poppy that.
Instead, I clapped my hands as she twirled in front of me.
"I'll be able to serve customers now," she said with a grin.
"Ah, well," I hesitated. "I thought you could be helping India with the food in the back."
I didn't have the heart to tell her I was terrified she would lose control and bite a customer, thus starting the zombie apocalypse that would destroy the world.
"My foot is very sore, and I'd do better behind the bar," I lied.
Poppy had reluctantly agreed.
I slid the tray of sausages into the oven and turned on the timer. Erik watched me silently in the background. Dark rings around his eyes suggested he had spent most of the night awake.
