An Ordinary Day in the life of Felicity Roux, dragon-slayer and professional cookie-eater

Her heart was hammering against her rib cage as she stood at the edge of the tall cliff. Her invention was untested and very risky. She had already been standing here for several minutes donning the contraption; the rocks at the tip of the drop-off would begin to crumble away in mere seconds. She wasn’t quite sure why she was waiting; she loved risks and adventures nearly as much as she loved her own mother, and she had a feeling her hesitance wasn’t so much to do with the fact that she might be about to plummet to her death, but more the idea that her newest creation might not work.

 She took a step back from the edge of the cliff, preparing to take a running leap, when she felt a gentle vibration travel throughout her body, centering on her chest. She let out a disappointed sigh, feeling exactly the way she did those times at work when she would poise, ready to spring high into the air and latch onto the wing of the target, just for the job to be given to somebody else. She took hold of the locket just below her collarbone, lifting it up and twisting it in midair so she could see it as she clicked it open. “Yeah, Mom?” she asked, before even glancing at the miniscule hologram of the curly dark-haired, lavender-eyed woman that had appeared in front of her. “Just wanted to let you know we’re on our way home, honey. And I wanted to make sure that you’ll be home in time for dinner, Felicity, or your father will end up making the cookies,” She glanced around surreptitiously before continuing. “And you know he always burns the edges!” she stage-whispered before laughing. Felicity smiled. “Yeah, Mom, I should be. I’m just about to head home now. See you.” The woman smiled, displaying laugh lines from many joyous years of life. “See you in a little bit, Felly.” Felicity shut the locket, running her finger over the words engraved upon it. They read: 

Not only in the deepest depths of but throughout the entirety of a mother’s heart lies her daughter, more loved than she will ever know

Her mother had passed it on to her on her 16th birthday and Felicity hadn’t taken it off since. Her locket clasped tightly in her fist over her chest, she slid her foot back into position. The second her back foot lifted from the ground and she took a running step forwards, another distraction made her falter and stumble, coming in the form of a bloodcurdling roar that made Felicity let go of her locket in surprise. She took off in the direction opposite the cliff, sliding off her contraption and slipping it into her purse as she sprinted. And then there it was: the magnificent beast that she was about to slay. 

As the dragon rose a few feet off the ground, Felicity gripped it’s spiked tail tightly, swinging herself up as the dragon began flying over the water, attempting to shake her off. She held on rigidly, swinging herself upwards spike by spike until she was safely away from the tip of the tail, but still in an area with plenty of spikes. She picked the closest spike and kicked at its flat side repeatedly until the spike dislodged and flew off downwards into oblivion, revealing the raw purple-blue skin underneath. Felicity could only assume it had eventually hit the water so far down below; she didn’t have time to check if she wanted to slay this dragon. She unclasped her emergency pouch and pulled out her homemade flask of poison.  It was a special mixture of two extremely lethal substances her mother (a dimension-jumper) had brought home for her: venom from a Venomous Tentacula and poison from the mythical Egyptian monster, the tjesu heru. Suddenly she felt herself separate from the dragon’s metallic sheet of a hide. She was flying through the air, clutching the flask firmly to her chest; Felicity landed on the beast’s head with a hard impact on her side. She straightened up, dizzy, and wiped the sweat off her brow. She glanced back to the tail but it was impossible to tell where she had been kneeling before she was thrown. There wasn’t time, she knew, to make her way back to the tail of this gargantuan creature and try to locate where she had kicked off the spike; she’d just have to make do. 

She threw herself forward, hanging off the dragon’s head, thrusting the poison-filled dart into its eye. Felicity could see her own flaming red hair and fierce purple eyes reflected back at her in the dragon’s large glassy eyes as they glazed over from the poison. They started losing altitude. Felicity plunged her hand into her purse, rummaging for her invention. The tips of her fingers found it and she grabbed at it, trying to pull it out. It was stuck. Still losing altitude, she tightened her legs around the thrashing dragon and used both hands to yank it out. It came free abruptly and she lost her balance. Her legs slid easily from the slippery hide and she fell.

 She shoved the contraption onto her back and tried to open it, but it refused. Felicity, twisting in midair, caught the tip of the wing that had caught onto her purse. Her fingers fumbled over the knot several times before managing to unhook it. The wings she had designed from the leather hide of a dragon she had slain on her first work assignment burst open, but she was still in freefall. She was falling, falling, falling, and the water was looming ever closer. The water was a few meters away...only a couple more feet...the water was mere inches away, and then...there was a soft splash. The tips of her feet had grazed the water when the gust of wind came, not enough to do more than set off a few ripples, but Felicity splashed the frigid water with her hand as she glided along barely an inch above it, no doubt making herself as wet as she would have been if her wings hadn’t worked. She laughed so joyously you would think she was a small child, so innocent, not a young woman who had stared into the face of death many times in a single day alone.

She saw her house in the distance at the edge of the archipelago, and steered herself in that direction, flying higher to dry herself off. As Felicity landed lightly on the steps in front of her small cozy house, the smell of chocolate wafted out of an open window. She opened the door, calling out. “Hey, Dad, how are the cookies? Don’t burn them!” Her dad walked into the foyer, smiling, with an apron on. “I never do!” Felicity gave a small snort and failed in her attempt to pass it off as clearing her throat. Her father gave her a jokingly reproving look and went back into the kitchen. She jogged up the stairs to her room and grabbed her backpack, carrying it back downstairs to the living room. As she settled in on the sofa and started studying, a doorway appeared in the middle of the room and her mom walked through it into the room, holding a box of brownies. “Hey, Felly,” she said. “You said you would be home in time for good cookies!” Felicity gave a guilty smile as a strand of her red hair fell into her face. “Sorry, Mom. An Oceanic Silver Spiketail sort of derailed me for a little bit. Maybe I can make it up to you by buying you better cookies with the bonus I’ll get from work tomorrow for slaying it after hours?” Her mother stepped forward, setting down the brownies, and gently pushed the strand of hair behind Felicity’s ear, giving her a soft kiss on the forehead before grasping the brownies again. “Don’t worry, honey, it’s all right. I managed to sneak over to Everglen in the Lost Cities-you know, where the Vackers live? Anyways, I snagged some brownies and custard bursts. But I’ll never say no to free cookies!” she said, laughing again. “Remember I like the mint chocolate chip ones!” she called over her shoulder as she left the room into the kitchen. Felicity chuckled. 

She sprawled herself across the sofa, taking a break from her studying. It had been such an ordinary day in the life of Felicity Roux. Why did it feel like such an extraordinarily wonderful one? Smelling the sweet aromas, and lying down comfortably, Felicity realized that anything ordinary could be beautiful if you saw it that way. Looking around herself, she knew that she was an extraordinary dragon-slayer, but most importantly, she was an ordinary daughter to extraordinary parents. These thoughts and thoughts of her adventure swirled through her mind, mixed with the delicious, chocolatey smells drifting in from the kitchen. She smiled to herself as she resumed her homework.

“Hey, Cookie!” a voice called from the kitchen half an hour later. “Come try my cookies!” “I’ll be there in a few minutes, Dad!” Felicity replied. Finishing the last of her notes and organizing her work into her backpack, Felicity relinquished her comfortable and warm spot on the sofa to go eat cookies that, hopefully, weren’t too badly burnt. As she walked into the kitchen, Felicity started coughing. The kitchen was completely bathed in smoke! Still coughing and waving her hand around her head to push the smog away, she called into the void, “Dad? I can’t see you! I can’t see anything, for that matter!” There was an abrupt, deafening noise, and the smoke was quickly pushed out of the room. “Sorry, Cookie, I had to grab this machine of yours from your room. I’m not sure you should eat those cookies after all. I think I might have burned them…” Felicity burst out laughing. “You think?” She grabbed the tray and carried it outside, tossing the blackened cookies into the air one by one and watching the seagulls swoop down and eat them. All of a sudden, she tossed them all into the air at once watching the flock of white birds with yellow beaks fight over the cookies. She noticed that the few who had already taken cookies were still on the sidelines, looking rather ill. She laughed again as she marched back inside. “Alright, Dad, now we’re going to make some real cookies that are actually edible. Felicity grasped her alaskan blue apron and tied it on. She pulled the leftover batter towards her and beckoned her father towards her. 

“Dad!” Felicity shrieked as her father threw flour at her. “Mom! Help!” Her mother ran into the kitchen at full speed and overturned the last bit of flour left in the bag on top of her husband’s head. “Oh, you did not just do that!” he said. And the happy family chased each other around, coating each other with flour until the oven beeped.

 As her father took out the cookies, Felicity went upstairs and took a shower. Twenty minutes later Felicity was downstairs, trying out her hard-earned cookies. She took a bite and gasped. “What?” her parents asked. “This is the best cookie I’ve ever tasted!” And with that, Felicity and her family had a long , sugar high, sugar crash night.