The Dragonseller

"There is no such thing as a bad dragon." A woman spoke, spinning Amber around again to face herself, reflected in a full-length mirror. The reflection was wearing her wedding dress, layers of lime chiffon thickly embroidered in silver, wild white roses woven into her braided chestnut hair, holding down the veil which misted her face. Looking down, Amber saw that the mirror her didn't match the dream her, still dressed for an early autumn picnic in copper sweater and blue jeans. It didn't match the real wedding day her either, she'd been just turned sixteen then and suffering a dreadful outbreak of nerve induced acne, this ideal vision was a perfect twenty-five.

No matter why her unknown correspondent chose this face, their message hadn't changed. "There's no such thing as a bad dragon," Amber repeated obediently.

"Any dragon will ease your burdens," the mirror bride nodded reassuringly, "but the best is coy and shy."

Amber had never heard of dragons being either coy or shy, but that hardly mattered when there was only one person in the world you could buy one from. "I understand," she lied. She would need to travel to the raffle, on the other side of the world, and try her luck.