dragon
Susie

1
To the ordinary villagers of Oakhaven, October meant crisp leaves, carved pumpkins, and the comforting scent of cinnamon. To Susie, October meant haute couture. Susie was not your average scaled, cave-dwelling beast of burden. While her sisters spent their centuries hoarding gold and terrorizing knights, Susie hoarded vintage velvet corsets and specialized in setting moods. And by moods, she meant absolute, jaw-dropping, smoke-billowing pyrotechnics. She was, by every metric known to myth and mortal, a terribly hot dragon. And no, that wasn’t just a reference to her internal magma-core, which currently hummed at a delightful 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. It was an aesthetic.It was October 31st, the Holy Grail of the calendar year, and Susie was currently looking herself over in a reflective shield she’d polished to a mirror finish. Her scales—a gradient of midnight black and smoldering copper—had been buffed with beeswax until they gleamed like wet obsidian. Today’s ensemble? A billowing cape woven from spun shadow-silk, accessorized with a custom-fit witch’s hat that thoughtfully accommodated her left horn. "Perfection," she purred, a low rumble that vibrated the stained-glass windows of her cavern and caused a minor rockslide three miles away.
Susie loved Halloween because it was the one night of the year she didn’t have to hide her flair for the dramatic. The rest of the year, if she flared her nostrils or draped her tail casually over a cottage roof, people panicked, rang church bells, and called the local guild of exterminators.But tonight? Tonight, she was just "committed to the bit."
With a flick of her tail—which swept aside a pile of discarded plastic skeletons she’d bought in bulk at the post-season clearance sale—Susie vaulted out of her cavern mouth and into the autumn night sky.
She soared silently over the valley, her massive wings catching the chill October wind. Below her, the village of Oakhaven twinkled with jack-o'-lanterns.