Dragons do not make good customers

It was 9 AM on a Friday. Black Friday to be precise. Ruby was shaking in her boots, ready to be greeted with angry alchemists looking for bottles of immortality for 70% off. She was rummaging around the candlelit shop when she heard the bell of the door ring, signalling someone was there. She popped her heard over the counter slightly, causing a pile of spell books to fall off of the counter. She heard the person scoff, disgusted.

“You should be more careful.” An old looking fairy cast a judgemental eye over at the teenage witch. Beside her was a fairy that must have been around Ruby’s age. Ruby had noticed this girl has been staring at her for quite a while now. A blush had spread across her pale cheeks and the tips of her glistening wings. She watched the fairy she was with walk off, her large, wrinkled wings knocking the books off of the shelves. The flustered fairy rushed and helped the exasperated worker.

“I’m sorry about my grandmother. Sometimes she forgets that she’s not still the queen of the Fairy village.” The way that she spoke held so much elegance, it was clear now to Ruby that she was a princess.

“No offense or anything, but your grandmother needs to learn some manners.” Ruby muttered, forcefully placing the books back on the shelf. She had no time to deal with overly-friendly princesses and stuck-up ex-queens. Nonetheless, the friendly fairy held out her hand which Ruby reluctantly took.

“I’m Lydia.” She squeaked excitably.

“Ruby.” She sighed, frustrated and dropped the hand that was in hers with so much force that hopefully she gets the message and leaves her alone.

“We should go get tea.” The blonde whispered, her voice shaking slightly. Ruby rolled her eyes at this.

“I’m working, idiot!” She snapped, moving behind the counter and escaping down the hatch in the floor.

“I know that. I meant after.” The excitable fairy yelled from the other side of the counter. This caused the red-head to sheepishly poke her head over the counter, blushing slightly.

“Oh.” Was all that her voice could muster.

“So is that a yes?”

“…Sure.” And with that, Lydia cheerfully skipped out of the shop with her grandmother, leaving Ruby to continue with her work.

About 20 minutes went by but it felt like an eternity. The shop has been fairly quiet despite today being a black Friday. She was busy stocking shelves of love potions when she heard the bell of the door ring. She reluctantly looked up and was greeted by a pair of elves arguing loudly.

“Can I help you?” Ruby asked, already tired of these people.

“That depends. Can you improve his attitude?” The woman elf replied, crossing her arms confrontationally. Ruby laughed nervously, not knowing how to deal with the situation. She then ran off to find her manager as the small potions shop was getting crowded.

She ran to and from the stockroom, carrying boxes and boxes of glass bottles containing glittering liquids. Her arms were getting tired and her legs began to shake. She went to go put the heavy box down when she felt a pair of hands remove the box from her slender, over-worked hands.

“I can look after myself.” The witch snapped, crossing her eyes defensively.

“I know.” Ruby lifted her gaze and found herself staring at her best friend, Ryan Paultet

“Busy day?” the teen wizard asked Ruby effortlessly, in high contrast to the amount of struggle that the red-head back onto the shelves where they were taken.

“Seriously, I can take care of this myself.” With that Ruby went running helping those who looked like they needed the help, or people who had been in the store for too long without buying anything.    

Ruby was rushed off her feet. It was hard being the only person working in the best potions store in the magic sector of the south east of England. It was now 6 PM which meant that ruby only had to suffer through another hour of this nightmare. She was meant to go home 3 hours ago but one of her colleagues, Rosa, had to call in sick with Pixie Fever. The store was pretty quiet at the moment so Ruby took the opportunity to slack off on her phone. She decided to see if she could find a social media page of that fairy that Ruby met earlier. She couldn’t remember her name, so she started to type in random things that would sound like something she would say. Fairy.princesses.are.cool. No that’s not it. Im-rich-and-you-should-all-feel-bad-about-yourselves. No that’s not it either. Im-overly-happy-and-annoying. Much to Ruby’s surprise, that wasn’t it either. She was about to type in another search when she heard the bell of the door ring. And the shelves falling over. Luckily that shelf had already been cleared out by mad black Friday shoppers hours ago. When she looked up she was pleased to see it was the town’s friendliest (and clumsiest) dragons, Dingle. He was one of the store’s best customers, coming in almost every other day to buy another bottle of fire extinguishing potion. Unfortunately, all of the potion had already been sold to other dragons and alchemists that have bad fire safety.

“I’m sorry, Dingle. We’ve already sold all of our fire extinguishing potions today.” Ruby informed him apologetically when she saw him frantically searching the shelves for the missing item.

“Buy why? You never normally sell out!” Dingle said, hysterically, flailing his arms around causing more shelves to come shattering to the ground. Unlike the other display that Dingle broke, this shelf was full of anti-hair potions. The purple liquid began to quickly spill out onto the floor.

“It’s black Friday today, Dingle. We always sell out on things like that pretty quick. I told you this last year.” Ruby informed the upset dragon while grabbing a mop to clean up the mess.

“Oh, I’m sorry about the mess. Let me help you clean it.” The purple dragon said, reaching for the mop but missing slightly and knocking Ruby round the head with the mop handle, he screamed out a dramatic cry.

“Please don’t touch this spill. It’s very flammable and you’re really not good at controlling your fire.” She said, hurrying to clean up when she saw Dingle try to repress a sneeze.

“I think you should go home, Dingle.” Ruby said, exhausted. It was now 7:30 PM, the store was meant to close half an hour ago.

“But I want to stay and spend some more time with my best friend.” This time, the noise from the shelves crashing to the ground was loud enough to alert the manager who was working in the office upstairs.

“What is going on here?” His voice bellowed, face turning red with anger when he saw the state of the store. Upset at being yelled at, Dingle ran out of the store crying, sparks and embers flying out of his nose.

“I think you should stay and clean this up.” The stern man informed, handing her the broom. She took it reluctantly. Looks like she’s not going on that date tonight.