Sean E. Britten

All There in the (Monster) Manual are stories based on creatures from the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Over 2022 I released a different story fitting the theme every single week and I’ve now expanded to Dungeons & Dragons’ Monsters of the Multiverse and even the Pathfinder Bestiary. Could be fantasy, science fiction, horror, or something else entirely! Check them out on the main page of the website.

This Week’s Inspiration: Faerie Dragon

Things are going missing in Miranda’s house. Mysterious lights are moving behind the windows of the old dollhouse in the corner of her room. Ignored by the adults around her, a little girl finds a friend in an unexpected place.

======

“Honey, where is my watch? Have you seen it?” Miranda’s father shouted through the house.

“Which one?”

“The Swordmaster Series Three, I was going to wear it tonight. It goes with the suit.”

Miranda’s mother emerged from their bedroom, threading an earring through one ear. A stunning emerald dress clung to her former model’s frame. Her hair was tied back in a complex sort of braid.

“Last time I saw it was on the dresser,” she said.

“That’s where I thought, but now I can’t find it.”

“Well, wear one of the others! Hurry or we’ll be late.”

“We’re not late, the babysitter isn’t even here yet. And it’s hardly fashionable to be early.”

Miranda’s father stomped forcefully into the room. He was a tall and well formed man whose presence filled any space that he entered. His suit looked grey as steel or sharkskin, shirt black and open at the throat. Threads of silver climbed through his perfectly groomed beard and hair, which he believed made him look distinguished.

“That’s right, where is Miranda?” her mother said. “Miranda? Miranda?”

Beneath the dining room table, six-year-old Miranda sat with her legs crossed. She balanced an oversized plastic headset over her eyes. Lenses on the front of the goggles, supposed to be night vision, shaded everything green. She heard her mother calling but she couldn’t answer while she was busy being a spy. Carefully, she looked down and jotted what she’d overhead in her spy book, which was covered in cartoon unicorns, with a pencil topped with a unicorn eraser. It was difficult to do as the night vision goggles kept slipping down her nose and covering her eyes.

“Miranda? Miranda, where are you? The babysitter will be here soon and you’d better be ready!”

“I suppose I could wear the Storm Catcher Series Eight,” Miranda’s father said.

Miranda watched her parents’ legs pass to and fro. Looking down, she continued to record the details carefully.

“I swear I had some of my earrings go missing as well. Maybe we should get some cameras to keep an eye on that cleaning woman,” Miranda’s mother said. “Miranda, where are you? I’m not joking.”

Spies stayed quiet and didn’t reveal themselves so Miranda said nothing. As she was writing in her spy book, however, the goggles slid most of the way down her face. She tossed her head back and bumped one of the dining room chairs. Hearing the movement, her mother bent at the waist and peered under the table.

“Miranda, out from under there! Are you dressed and ready for the babysitter?”

Miranda crawled from between the chairs, struggling to keep the goggles on her head. She pushed her spy book and pencil out in front of her. Her mother swiped imaginary specks of dust off her dark blue dress.

“I don’t want to stay here with Shaylee,” Miranda said. “I want to go with you!”

“No chance of that, young lady, now go tidy the living room. I don’t want to hear anything about you misbehaving tonight!”

Ten minutes later, the babysitter, Shaylee, arrived. Her voice was diabetic sweet as she cooed over how good Miranda’s parents looked. Miranda, in the living room, couldn’t hear the words but even she felt patronised by the tone. She anticipated a goodbye from her parents but instead she heard the door close and Shaylee appeared in the living room alone.

“How are you doing, kid? You hungry or anything?” Shaylee asked.

“I’m a spy, I’m invisible, you can’t see me,” Miranda said.

“Works for me.”

Shaylee settled on the other end of the couch with her phone. Still wearing her headset, Miranda carefully reviewed the squiggles and words scratched with agonising care into her spy book. A missing watch. Missing earrings. Her parents dressed up to go somewhere and they couldn’t be late. It sounded like spy work to her.

“Shaylee, can we play Spies?” Miranda asked.

Shaylee glanced up. “I can see you now, can I?”

“Yes, if you’re going to be a spy too.”

“Here, watch something on this.”

The babysitter picked up Miranda’s tablet, protected by a pink unicorn case, and tossed it carelessly across the couch. Her eyes remained on her phone the whole time. Miranda picked up the tablet and fiddled with it but it wouldn’t turn on.

“It needs a charger,” Miranda said.

“So, go play in your room.” Shaylee dismissed her with a wave. “Don’t make me tell your parents you were being a brat again.”

Taking her goggles and spy book, Miranda wandered off to her room. She wasn’t happy about it but there was no one for her to tell. Her mother and father wouldn’t care, they only listened to Shaylee.

Shutting the door behind her, Miranda decided to test just how good her night vision goggles were. She turned off her bedroom light, standing on tiptoes to reach the switch, and felt for the goggles in the dark. They didn’t do a very good job. If anything, the plastic goggles with their narrow field of vision and green lenses made things worse. The six-year-old stumbled around her room, bumping into things, and fell into a heap of stuffed animals.

Laying there for a few moments, Miranda glimpsed a soft glow across the room. It was dim enough, and shielded enough, that she might have missed it with the overhead light on. It came from the windows of her dollhouse in the opposite corner of the bedroom. It wasn’t just one window in fact, it moved around as if someone was going from room to room holding a burning candle or a lantern. She pulled the night vision goggles off and watched. Gradually, the soft red glow made its way up through the house and disappeared.

“Hello?” Miranda said.

After some exploration, Miranda managed to find her bedside light. Switching it on gave her at least enough light to see by, with or without her spy goggles. Going to the dollhouse, she hesitated.

The dollhouse had been a present from Miranda’s grandmother, and sitting on the ground it rose nearly as high as her shoulder. Doors large and small opened up on rooms filled with miniature Victorian furniture and primly dressed dolls with cloth faces. It was very big and very detailed and very expensive, and her mother worried about her breaking it so in spite of the amount of space it took up in Miranda’s room it was too special to play with.

Miranda reached for one of the dollhouse’s handles but hesitated. Living toys were fun in TV shows and movies but confronting one of them in real life would open up a whole lot of implications that Miranda wasn’t sure she was ready for. As a compromise, she bent over and peered through the windows. Dolls lay in beds the size of juice boxes or sat around on miniature chairs, unmoving. Miranda glimpsed that same soft glow flaring and fading in one of the upper windows but couldn’t see what it was attached to. Steeling herself, Miranda opened the side of the house.

Three stories tall plus an attic, the dollhouse had dozens of rooms with little sense of order. Bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen and dining room, library, and studies. Since Miranda didn’t really play with it, the dollhouse was usually neat and tidy and each room perfectly arranged. She noticed though that some of the furniture had been pushed around or knocked over. Sniffing, she picked up a slightly burnt smell, like a birthday candle.

“Hello, I’m just having a little look,” Miranda said to the dolls. “I’d rather that you didn’t move around, okay?”

None of the dolls answered but from the corner of the house’s upper level she caught sight of the glow. It came from a little stairway that led to the small and forgotten fourth level of the dollhouse, the attic. It was accessed only by a drawer-sized door on the other side of the house. That red glow, like a fire, filled the stairwell and then faded.

Miranda crossed to the side of the dollhouse and eased the door open. Tail flicking, something scuttled across the miniature attic and made her jump. It was about the size of a rat, and for a moment that’s exactly what Miranda thought it was. But rats didn’t have scales, or fluttery wings, and they didn’t glow. She leaned in to study it.

The animal looked like a lizard, like an iguana or something, but it held its head and the front of its body curiously upright. The red glow came from its breast, flaring from inside, lighting its ribcage, and fading. Its scales were a bright blue colour that darkened to purple in places, and Miranda had never seen a lizard that looked like that. Its tail coiled around its feet. On its back were what appeared to be wings which beat in short, buzzy spurts.

“What are you?” Miranda said.

In the low light, the lizard’s eyes gleamed red as well. It let out a low hiss. Across the room, Miranda kept a flashlight beside her lamp for when she needed to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water in the middle of the night. She hurried over and fetched it. Turning it on, she kept the beam pointed down rather than aiming it straight at the animal.

With the extra light, the animal’s features came into focus. Its blue and purple scales were otherworldly. Its eyes softened. Even with its blunt snout there was something catlike about the lizard’s face. Miranda peered closer to get a better look at its wings. Layered in two pairs like dragonfly wings, they were partly transparent but had patterns across their surface like those of a butterfly.

The lizard made a small coughing sound. Smoke puffed from its open mouth and Miranda jerked backward. The glow in its chest blazed brighter.

“You’re a dragon!” Miranda said. “A really little one.”

The dragon wasn’t much more than Miranda’s handspan, including its tail. Wings buzzing, it backed up and Miranda noticed something shining behind it. A bunch of somethings, actually. She turned the light toward them. Gathered at the back of the dollhouse attic was a haphazard pile of random stuff. At the front of the pile, she spotted one of her father’s watches, silver and black. Probably the one he’d been looking for earlier that evening. She was such a good spy she’d found it without really looking. Mixed into the pile was also some of her mother’s jewellery, earrings and a necklace, as well as a pair of sunglasses, a couple of forks and spoons which to the dragon must have been just as shiny as anything else, and a few bits of money. There were even some of Miranda’s toys, all either shiny or glittery, piled in amongst the miniature horde.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be taking those!”

Miranda reached inside the dollhouse attic but yanked her hand out when the dragon hissed. Smoke seeped from the corners of its mouth. She didn’t want to risk getting burned. As soon as the little girl’s hand was clear, the dragon settled.

Miranda eased the attic door closed again. Still carrying the flashlight, she hurried to her bedroom door, throwing it open, and scurried back to the living room.

“Shaylee! Shaylee, there’s a dragon in my room!”

Shaylee leaned back on the side of the couch, her feet kicked up. She was on a video call as Miranda entered the room. The look she gave the girl was absolutely withering but Miranda failed to notice.

“What are you talking about?” Shaylee asked.

“There’s a dragon, it’s living in my dollhouse!”

“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something? Go play like a normal kid!”

Dejected, Miranda returned to her room. She knew Shaylee didn’t believe her but her indifference had Miranda doubting herself. Maybe it was better if Shaylee didn’t believe her though. The dragon wasn’t just a dragon but a little thief. And she was pretty sure dragons weren’t supposed to be real, big or little or at any size. It was hard to say what Shaylee or her parents or the police or somebody else in charge might do with something that wasn’t meant to be real that turned out to be real. They might kill it, or do experiments.

Miranda gently shut the door behind her and eased herself back over to the dollhouse. Opening the side of the attic, she saw the dragon had settled. Its face rested on top of its paws, curled up in front of the stolen goods.

“You can’t take things that don’t belong to you,” Miranda said. “You’ll get in trouble.”

The dragon didn’t do much to react. Its eyes raised momentarily with a red gleam and then it settled again.

“My mum and dad will definitely notice their things are missing. My dad loves his watches, he talks about them all the time.”

Miranda sat with her back against the wall next to the dollhouse. The red glow from the dragon’s chest filtered out of the open attic.

“I’ve never had a pet. My mum said they would ruin the furniture and pee on the floor, so no cats and no dogs, and no goldfish. I’m not sure why no goldfish, they can’t really pee on the floor, can they? But they didn’t say no dragons. I’m not sure if I want a pet dragon though, maybe you could be a unicorn instead?”

The dragon resolutely continued to be a dragon, but Miranda found it very easy to talk to. Leaning against the wall, she talked all about her parents and her friends from school, and what she knew about other animals that were or weren’t pets. She talked for so long she forgot about bedtime and eventually heard her parents get home. Half-asleep, she jolted upright and got to her feet. Glancing into the attic, she saw the blue and purple dragon already sleeping on top of its miniature horde. She shut the dollhouse quietly and then went to her bedroom door, cracking it open.

“Oh, no, she’s been fine, thanks,” Shaylee said from the other room, putting a little sigh into her voice. “Yeah, yeah, she took herself to bed a little while ago.”

Miranda raced back across the room, switching off the flashlight. She changed into her pyjamas and scrambled into bed so she wouldn’t get in trouble. It occurred to her that she hadn’t brushed her teeth.

A few minutes later, Miranda’s door cracked open. The silhouette of her father looked in on her. She pretended to be asleep, stifling a little smile. Without saying anything, he left again.

For a while, Miranda could hear her parents banging around. She was pretty tired but still excited after finding the dragon. When the lights were all shut off and she heard them go to bed, she was still awake.

A buzzing sound came from the dollhouse. Miranda looked up and saw the dragon’s red glow moving from window to window, knocking bits of furniture and dolls out of the way. When it reached the bottom level, it squeezed through one of the dollhouse windows. Wings flexing, they started beating and lifted the small dragon off the ground. The buzz filled the room but wasn’t as loud as she would have expected. Circling through the air, the dragon headed for her ajar bedroom door.

“Hey, where are you going?” Miranda said quietly.

Taking the flashlight from her bedside table, Miranda hopped out of bed and padded after the dragon. It flew into the hallway and toward the living room. Her parents’ room was on the other side of the house, past the living room and kitchen. It hovered for a moment outside their doorway.

“Hey, you can’t go in there!” Miranda said.

From inside, Miranda could hear both of her parents snoring. Ignoring her, if it could understand her at all, the dragon flew through the opening. Miranda kept her flashlight low as she followed it into the bedroom.

The dragon circuited the room, wings buzzing. By the reflected light of her flashlight, Miranda could see her mother stir but she didn’t wake. Her father slept on his stomach, breathing deeply. The dragon scanned then settled on her parents’ dresser. Some of the clothing her parents had been wearing that night was splashed around the room. The dragon rose off the dresser with something shiny clutched in its tiny feet and Miranda recognised the necklace her mother had been wearing earlier, with its links of wrought silver and heavy chunks of jade.

“Hey, no, no!” Miranda whisper-shouted. “You can’t take that, put it back!”

The dragon ignored her as it continued out of the room and back across the house. Miranda jumped and grabbed for the necklace a couple of times but the dragon flew too high. Giving up, she followed it to her room. The dragon dived and crawled back inside the dollhouse. She stood over it and heard the clunking sounds of the dragon dragging the jade necklace through the house. By its glow, it reached the top level and she heard it go up the attic stairs. She opened the door on the side of the house and peered inside.

“She’d better not notice that’s gone, or you’re going to get in trouble!” Miranda said.

The dragon dropped the necklace on top of its horde with the watch and toys and forks and spoons. Eyes slitted at Miranda, its glow pulsed in its chest. The dragon then crossed its paws and set its head down to sleep again. Giving up, Miranda shut the dollhouse’s attic and returned to bed where, expecting no more from the dragon, she quickly fell asleep.

xXx

“We need to get a camera,” Miranda’s mother complained.

The next morning, Miranda had gotten up and found the dragon still sleeping. After talking to it again for a little while longer, she went and fixed herself some cereal for breakfast. It was while she ate that her parents emerged from their room. Both of them looked a little dishevelled, as they usually did the next morning after leaving Miranda with the babysitter. Their hair stuck out, askew, and they struggled with the belts of their dressing gowns.

“What do you mean?” Miranda’s father asked.

“My necklace! The necklace I was wearing last night is gone, I think that little-, the babysitter, I think she must have taken it!”

Nervously, Miranda raised a spoonful of cereal to her mouth. She didn’t say anything and kept her eyes trained on the table.

“I’m sure Shaylee wouldn’t do that!” her father said.

“Oh, yes, you would think so.”

“Wait, when did you take it off?”

“I took it off and put it on the dresser, right on the dresser, and now it’s gone!”

“But when? When did you take it off?”

Miranda’s mother took a moment to think. “I suppose when I was getting ready for bed.”

“After Shaylee had already left. I’m sure you were wearing it until then, so it couldn’t have been her.”

“So where could it have gone?”

The two of them gradually turned to look at Miranda, silent, eyes averted. Guilt wafted off of her in waves. She raised another spoon of soggy cereal to her mouth but couldn’t even taste it.

“Miranda, do you know something about your mother’s necklace going missing?”

Miranda shook her head without saying anything. Her father shot a look toward her mother.

“Miranda? What about my watch?”

“I had some other bits of jewellery go missing as well,” her mother said.

“I don’t know.” Even to her own ears, Miranda didn’t sound convincing.

“Miranda? Alright, come with me.”

Miranda’s father forced her up and marched her down the hall to her bedroom. Sitting her down on the bed, he loomed. Miranda’s mother followed, tucking her dressing gown around her waist.

“Miranda, have you been taking things?” her father asked.

“No,” she said, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

“My watch? Your mother’s necklace? You don’t know where they are?”

Miranda hesitated. She could honestly say she hadn’t taken her father’s watch or her mother’s necklace, but she couldn’t deny knowing where they were without lying. Without meaning to, Miranda’s eyes slid to the dragon’s lair. Her father stepped back and followed her line of sight. As soon as he’d identified it, he stomped toward the dollhouse.

“Daddy, no!” Miranda said.

Miranda’s father picked up the dollhouse and casually thrust it forward. Dolls and tiny furniture, and the dragon’s horde, rattled around inside. Miranda was more worried about the dragon than anything else. She ran forward to stop him but he casually pushed her backward.

“Where are they, huh?” Miranda’s father began tearing the dollhouse open. “Where?”

“Honey, be careful,” her mother said.

Miranda’s father opened and slammed doors, and raked through the dollhouse furniture. He reached the attic last. Miranda froze as he pulled it open, unsure of what to expect. Jewellery, her father’s watch, and other bits and pieces rattled across the miniature room.

“What do we have here?”

“Oh, Miranda, no,” her mother said.

Confused, Miranda peered into the dollhouse. Her father clawed through the horde, separating his watch and her mother’s necklace from the toys and other stuff. However, Miranda couldn’t see the dragon. Other than the horde, there wasn’t a trace of it.

“What have you got to say for yourself? Stealing and lying?” her father asked.

“I-, I didn’t,” Miranda said.

“Oh really? Who else, Miranda? You’re only making it worse.”

Miranda broke, between the guilt, confusion, and indignation. “It wasn’t me! There was a dragon! A little dragon was living in there, it took those things!”

“That’s enough!”

Grabbing her by the shoulder, Miranda’s father manhandled Miranda to the bed. Sitting on the mattress, he picked her up and bent her over his knees. Not understanding what he was doing, she thrashed to get free.

“We’ve been too easy on you, it’s time you grew up a bit! Stop being a baby!”

“The books said not to spank,” her mother said.

“Nonsense, actions have consequences, it’s about time she learned. I was spanked and I turned out fine.”

Miranda’s father raised one open hand, holding her down with the other. Before he could use it, an angry buzz filled the room. Miranda craned her neck around to see. Her parents looked confused. From Miranda’s pile of soft toys, the dragon squirmed free and beat its wings. They lifted it off the ground, bringing it to headheight.

“What is that thing?” Miranda’s mother yelled. “Honey, get it!”

Dropping Miranda, her father got to his feet. His hand was still raised and he aimed as if to swat the dragon out of the air. The glow in the dragon’s chest turned incandescent, spreading to the rest of its scales. It looked mad. Opening its mouth, it unleashed a small but powerful stream of fire.

Miranda’s mother screamed. Flame wrapped around her father’s arm and sent him staggering back. He yelled and waved his arm, only fanning the fire. Smoke began to fill the room. Ripping the dressing gown off, leaving him in his boxers and undershirt, he tossed it away. The burning gown landed on Miranda’s bed and she scrambled to get clear.

The dragon turned, still glowing, and spat another stream of flame at Miranda’s mother. She ducked and the flames struck the wall behind her, grabbing hold and climbing to consume a framed picture. The fire on the dressing gown rapidly spread to Miranda’s bedding and started climbing that wall as well.

“Get out!” Miranda’s father said. “Get out!”

xXx

Twenty minutes later, Miranda stood on the street and stared back at her house in amazement. Orange flames filled every window and climbed the roof. Her parents yelled at the firefighters who aimed pumping hoses at the house, begging them to rush in and save this or that.

Miranda felt strangely calm watching the fire swallow her home. It was only stuff after all, and none of it had ever felt like hers. Over the crackling flames and chaos of sirens, her yelling parents, and chattering bystanders, she heard a buzzing of wings from behind her. The dragon, they’d lost track of it as they fled from the house. Circling, it landed on her shoulder and she adjusted to its weight.

“I’m mad at you,” Miranda said matter-of-factly.

The dragon felt quite dense and heavy for its size, and very warm. Purring, it nuzzled into the side of Miranda’s neck and she softened.

“Okay, I won’t be mad for very long,” Miranda said. “But we’re going to have to make some rules. I still think I would have preferred a pet unicorn.”

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Sean: I have two nieces, who I’m pretty sure I have mentioned several times before. They’re just turned eight and six, like, literally one turned eight last month and the other turned six this week. Watching kids grow up is really fascinating. Before them I really had nothing to do with kids and I had no idea how to write about them. But playing with them, talking to them, you really get a sense for how their weird little minds work. This one goes out to them I guess, they shouldn’t really be reading too many of my stories just yet. I don’t know if they should read this one if it’s going to encourage them to burn things.

It’s DRACTOBERFEST, all dragons, all the time! I feel like this year’s stories are a little bit more straightforward than last year’s stories though. I mean, the first one was pretty weird. But like, all of last year’s dragon stories were pretty weird except for one that was pretty normal but also the longest thing I released all year.

One more dragon story next week and then it’s back to your regularly scheduled programming of other weird or fantastical or horrible or science fiction-y stories that involve other monsters that are not dragons.

Next Week’s Inspiration: Copper Dragon