Necessary Monsters

Chapter 6

A/N: Well, as of recent game updates, my story is now AU. I considered rewriting this chapter, and I do reserve the right to go back and change it later to keep to canon. But for now, I'd like this chapter to stand in memory of a character that had no business dying (looking at you, JC).

Summary: "I need a favor."
"You what?"
"Don't be a prick."
"Oh, off to a champion start, you are."

The only thing worse than an alarm clock is an enchanted alarm clock. Felix is sure the squat, tin object takes malicious pleasure stabbing in him to consciousness with its incessant brrrring. He groans and slaps a hand in the direction of the trunk currently serving as a bedside table, but the clock dances away from Felix's outstretched fingers, its shrill ring sounding suspiciously like laughter. Groping about in the dark for his wand, Felix waves it at the clock, now doing an ungainly jig beside the bed, and it falls forward onto its flat face in disgruntled silence.

Stumbling to the wardrobe, Felix pulls out shirt, jumper, and trousers without looking, then stares about him in the darkness for his boots. The outline of one peeks from under the foot of his camp bed, and he trips over the other on his way toward it. Sprawled across the floor, all sense of urgency knocked from him, Felix fumbles for the treacherous shoes and tugs them on with heavy fingers. He reminds himself he's only 22, which is far too young to be this ornery about his turn at night-shift. He knows the one week a month of reversed sleep cycle, and the impish alarm clock that comes with it, aren't the real reason his nerves are on tenterhooks. But they certainly don't help.

Still spread-eagle on the cold, rough wood, Felix allows his eyes to fall closed as he sends up a silent prayer to whatever entity is responsible for managing his cosmic affairs: Please, please let it come today, he thinks, over and over again, until he feels sleep begin to trickle back through his veins.

As the breathing of its current master becomes slow and deep, the alarm clock rights itself and toddles across the floor towards his ear. It rubs its hands together in undisguised glee.

The Romanian Reserve is not at all what Felix had expected. It reminds him of what he always imagined work in an office would be like: shifts and staff meetings and performance reviews. In Peru, Felix's schedule was set by the sun or the activity of the dragons he tracked. Here, he flicks his wand over a time card in the main building and marches past the hall of tiny rooms to the cramped office where the equipment is stored, and which he has to share with the Senior Dragonologist for the Peruvian Vipertooth.

Luis Rashbold takes up almost the entire closet-sized room. Leaning back in the only chair with his feet propped on the small desk, both pieces of furniture creaking in distress, he dictates his report to a typewriter clicking away on its own. He's only a decade older than Felix, and full of the self-assurance that comes with being one of the youngest researchers to achieve a senior position.

Felix reaches across the desk and snatches the paper from the typewriter, glancing over the events of the day.

"Any change?" he asks Rashbold without looking up from the parchment.

"None. She's still hell-bent on getting to Alicanto. But it's got to end soon, surely. The summer's half gone."

Sharp pangs constrict Felix's chest at the reminder, but he breathes through them.

"The rotation started over today, didn't it? Who do we have this month?"

Rashbold flicks his dark ponytail back over his shoulder. "Lambton. And do try and go easy on the lad, the healer quit this morning. "

"You're joking. He hasn't been here a fortnight!"

"I've known shorter." Rashbold shrugs unconcernedly.