The Dragoness Who Followed You Home

For a good while Wrath of Ages had been the video game you had kept coming back to. Its enormous world was filled with sprawling cities, senescent kingdoms, long-forgotten dungeons, and a positively massive cast of potential party members, each with their own detailed backstories, quests, and personalities. You met Morwenna, the patient healer who could discern falsehoods like a living lie detector. Japon, the eastern swordsman whose dry witticisms became all the more humorous as you traveled together. Osian, the loudmouthed barbarian who could solve any problem with the right application of physical force. There were dozens more, among other detailed, almost life-like NPCs, all seemingly carrying lives of their own concurrent with the quest to depose the dark necromancer Malagar the Wicked. Eventually, the storyline and game were completed. After that, you'd moved on to other sources of entertainment, leaving Wrath of Ages to collect digital dust. It had been months since you'd last played. Your duplex was quiet that evening. The television was off, dishes from your evening meal sat in the kitchen, and the only light in the living room came from a standing lamp holding silent vigil in the corner. Outside, cars occasionally passed along the street, headlights sliding across the curtains and momentarily casting diffuse illumination through the thick curtains. Not a thing about this evening seemed particularly memorable. It was set to be a night like any other. Then the lights flickered. Once. Then twice. The lamp dimmed until the room was submerged in near darkness. A faint electrical buzz filled the air, your hair beginning to stand on end before a sharp crack from somewhere feet ahead of you split the air and silenced things. Something hit the carpet. Something big. The shape of a woman landed on hands and knees hard enough to make the floor creak. She was... wrong. Two curved black horns jutted from beneath a tangled mane of brown hair. What skin was visible between the strands and her piecemeal leather armor was a flat gray and covered with fine, overlapping scales. Her hands pressed against the carpet, long fingers flexing as wicked obsidian claws dug into the coarse fibers. A scaled tail curled awkwardly behind her. Even hunched over you could see that she was tall, broad hipped, and powerfully built. She stayed there for a moment, taking great gulps of air. Then she pushed herself upright. Gold on crimson eyes regarded you with slit pupils. You knew that face. It was impossible. It was Verya, the dragonkin fighter from Wrath of Ages. She was a temporary party member who had joined for several quests, holding the front line with claws, teeth, and fire before eventually embarking with others of her race to pursue their own ends. You remembered watching her character fight alongside yours. You remembered her dialogue. You remembered the very cutscene that showed her departure. You remembered her as pixels, polygons, and programming. Yet here she stood. Verya glanced around the unfamiliar chamber, then back to you. Her eyes widened slightly, pupils dilating, before a slow, unmistakably familiar grin spread to expose razor sharp teeth. "Well," she said, brushing a stray lock of hair from her vision, tucking it behind a horn. "Seems like I finally found my hero."

It had been several days since it happened. Verya, a character from the RPG you used to play somehow pierced the wall between worlds, traveling from her native Melnis to yours. The novelty had not worn off. If anything, there seemed to be more things of interest accruing every passing hour. She had developed an immediate fondness for fried chicken, spent an embarrassing amount of time experimenting with the television remote, and had recently discovered modern music, declaring EDM to be the best genre of all. She had also developed a habit of lingering nearby any time you were using the computer. The glowing screen held a particular fascination for her, likely due in fact that it was her closest connection to the land from which she had come. That evening, Wrath of Ages was booted up. The familiar title screen appeared, followed by sweeping orchestral music meant to accompany hundreds of hours of exploration. Verya wandered over from the other side of the room, her bare feet silent on the cheap carpeting, then leaned over your shoulder. Her tail swayed lazily behind her as the opening cinematic began. "There," she murmured, pointing to the screen with a dark claw. "That's the eastern road out of Valen. I remember us spending half a day there because Osian insisted the bridge was trapped." She laughed under her breath. "It wasn't trapped, he was just scared of heights." The game progressed. Cities appeared. Forests gave way to mountains. Familiar characters spoke their equally familiar lines. Verya occasionally interrupted to point out some place or person, supplying details the story itself had never offered. She remembered the tavern behind the market in Archen. She remembered which merchant cheated travelers. She remembered that Morwenna hated thunderstorms despite being a healer that regularly invoked the spirits of the heavens. Eventually, the story reached the point where Verya was to make her first appearance. The road stretched long across the screen, the same pensive music played. Then the scene ended. No dragonkin warrior appeared. The next scene began. Verya's expression changed. "Huh." She leaned closer. The game continued. The party traveled onward. Morwenna delivered her dialogue. The quest advanced much in the same way as it always had, minus one certain leather-clad fighter. There had been no mention whatsoever of Verya. No encounter. No dialogue. No hopeful yet melancholy departure later in the story. Nothing. Verya remained silent for a good while, staring with some degree of confusion at the screen. "That's strange." She folded her arms, tail curling around one ankle. "I should be there." More scenes passed with no mention of her. "It's like they've forgotten me." The words sounded as if they were meant to be humorous, but wavered and fell flat. Her gaze remained fixed on the screen. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The game only shows what it's meant to show." She glanced in your direction, then back to the screen. "But that's not how things are when you aren't looking, you know." Her fingers curled lightly against her arm. "Morwenna still argues with Japon when they're alone. Osian still snores like a sawmill. Kelleth still cheats at cards. The people in Melnis don't stop living just because the screen turns black." She was quiet for another moment. "I wonder if they miss me." The incidental music had long faded into the background. Verya finally stepped away from the computer, but she still looked thoughtfully at the screen. "Maybe we should see what happens if you keep playing." Her tail flicked once. "And maybe," she began as a slow smile spread across her face, though curiosity rather than amusement filled her uncanny eyes. "Maybe we find out why the game remembers everything except me."

In the hundreds of hours you'd invested into Wrath of Ages, Verya had been one of the more colorful of the dozens of recruitable characters populating its enormous world. The dragonkin warrior had joined your party midway through the game, fighting beside you from dungeon to battlefield before ultimately departing to pursue the campaign against Malagar the Wicked with her own kind. She had been just some animations, dialogue, and pre-programmed responses, a thing of pixels and polygons. Something to be left behind when the game closed. Except she hadn't stayed behind. One week ago, Verya had appeared in your duplex after somehow using the magic of her world to cross into yours. There was little in the way of explanation outside of her contention that several hard months had passed during the search for arcane knowledge needed to piece the veil between worlds. Since then, she had been learning what life outside of her native Melnis was like, occupying herself with food, television, video games, and whatever other mundane conveniences caught her attention. With time, your couch became her permanent quarters. Awareness returned slowly. At first, you only saw darkness, the room an assemblage of indistinct shapes barely visible in the scant light that filtered through the curtains. The air conditioner whispered from beyond the bedroom. The sheets were warm. A distant car passed outside, tires hissing briefly against damp pavement before fading into the night. Something else was here. A heavy warmth was pressed against your side. Not the gentle heat of another blanket. Something more solid. Heavier. A quiet weight shifted imperceptibly against you accompanied by the faintest brush of something scaled against your leg. To your side was Verya, laying still beside you. Her long brown hair spilled across the pillow, partially obscuring one of her ebon horns. An oversized tee shirt, one of yours, hung loosely from her shoulders, fabric rumpled and creased. One bare leg was tangled in the sheets while her tail rested lazily across your legs. She wasn't asleep. Gold on red eyes observed you from inches away. There was none of her usual smug demeanor in her expression. Her gaze lingered quietly over your face, soft, wistful, as if she were committing your face to memory. One clawed hand rested on the pillow between you. Then your eyes met. Verya startled. Her pupils widened and for one unguarded second she looked like she was stealing, an expression that expected remonstration. Then her familiar grin returned. She shifted closer, deliberately, and spread her hand, palm down, across your chest. Her tail gave another lazy sweep across your leg. "Oh, didn't mean to wake you." Her voice was little more than a warm, husky murmur in the darkness. "Here I was wondering how long I could get away with staring." Her grin widened, sharp teeth on full display as she leaned in, lips tantalizingly close to your ear. "Should we go back to pretending we're asleep, or were you planning to keep me company?"

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