The Landlord

I

"Um, excuse me?" I stammer. Out of the darkness, my landlord peeks his head. All I can see are his glowing golden eyes and the outline of his face, so enigmatic against the backdrop of blackness.

"What is it?" his voice bellows and I have to steady myself to keep from falling over.

"You know how rent is due tomorrow? With the five day grace period?" I do my best to verbalize meekly, my voice practically squeaking.

"Of course I know that! It's my rule!"

"Yes, I know it's your rule," my voice wobbles and cracks. "So, I know you take your payments seriously, and as you know, I've always been on time with my payments."

As I stop, trying to find more words, I look up to see my landlord's eyes narrowly watching me. It doesn't seem that he liked what I was going to say. I take a deep breath and try my best to gather my confidence.

"As you know, I have always been on time with my payments," I begin with a burst of courage, but as I watch the shape of my landlord shift against the darkness as he listens, the bravery in me seeps out as I feel the panic start to come on. The sweat begins to build up on my brow and in my pits, and I can smell its sour, pungent odor. I know my landlord can smell it, too. He has a keen sense of smell.

"Because of...circumstances that are out of my control," I continue, finding myself stuttering a bit, "I-I will be exactly one day late paying my rent."

"WHAAAAAAT?" he shouts and he takes a step forward.

Soon I can see his large body covered in green and golden scales with huge wings the color of night, webbed like a bat's as he brings the entirety of his body out of the darkness. It's rare that I see the dragon's whole body, so huge and terrible. I back away, holding my hands up over my face, praying to a god that I don't believe in that he doesn't burn me alive where I stand.

"I know, I know," I try to agree, "It's terrible. But the problem is...the problem...you see, the problem is that I have to leave town for three days. I don't get paid until the fourth of this month, and you know I would pay you then, but I won't be back until the sixth."

A deep growl echoed from my landlord's chest as he took another step forward. The black and golden horns that adorned his head, a part of him that I always found to be quite beautiful, looked more menacing than they usually did.

"You know I have to pay that wizard every month!"

"Surely one slightly lower payment wouldn't be worth making a fuss over."

My landlord's expression changes as his glowing eyes soften and he lowers his head to my level.

"Do you know what they do to my kind out there?" he states, his deep voice beginning to crack as I watch the tears form in his large, golden eyes. "Every year, more of us are slain for our horns and our hearts and our skins."

I sigh. I don't know what sort of deal this dragon has with the town wizard, but clearly it's important to him, and probably has something to do with protecting him from poachers.

"What if I talked to this wizard?" I ask in earnest. "What if I explained the situation to him? And you can even tell him I've always been on time before. This time is just...different."

"What's different?" my landlord asks, curiously.

"I...am going to a music festival."

With that, my landlord draws back in anger, staring down at me as if I had just deeply offended him.

"How is that an emergency?" he demands.

"Look, I never said it was an emergency. I just said circumstances outside of my control."