A Prelude to Friendship
The house was quiet at this time of day; quiet except for the methodical "shenk" noise that came from the dragongirl sitting at the kitchen table, running a whetstone across the edge of her knife in an effort to properly hone and sharpen it into something of a respectable state. The last owner of it hadn't taken all that good of care with his stuff and it was in serious need of some care right now.
She wasn't small for her age, nor was she big for her age. Unlike so many other dragons she lacked wings and an impressive beak, just as she lacked imposing horns on her head. Her scales were a mottled mix of shades of browns and greens and a few minute traces of blue if one looked closely enough. And to look at her face would suggest that somewhere along the line some human DNA had gotten mixed into her family tree. But that was simply who she was, just a plain (very plain) dragongirl that looked more like a mutt than anything resembling a type of purebred dragon; not that she really cared any. They didn't need to know about the rows of horns that lay just beneath her brown hairline, just as they didn't need to know anything else about her. It was nobody's business but her own what she did or what she was and that was the long and the short of it!
She stopped what she was doing to examine the knife blade, feeling the edge with the side of her thumb, before going back to the whet stone. She'd been at this for the better part of a week and it was still not sharp enough to suit her tastes. Anybody else at 15 years old wouldn't have the patience to invest so much time into something devoid of a connection to the internet, but fortunately for her she had lots of patience. She just wished she had a KA-BAR to go along with that patience. But beggars really couldn't be choosers. She had been damn lucky to find the beat up old Buck 119 in the pawn shop when she did, for as little as she did, and that she had her father with her so he could acquire it for her since she was still too young to get it herself, even if the shop owner had known her since she was a little girl. Of course now that she had it and had to put the work into it she wasn't entirely sure she was so lucky afterall; this was turning out to be a lot of work for just a knife.
The sound of the front door being opened was enough to break her focus on her project and make her whirl around to see who was coming in. Thankfully it was the tall frame of her father, Henry Briggs, arriving home from work rather than some home invader. He looked tired from the long day at the construction site where he was employed, and ready to collapse on the first comfortable piece of furniture he could find. In other words he looked pretty much normal.
"Hey dad," she called and waved with the hand that held the knife.
"Hey Charlie," he called back and weakly returned the wave as he sank into the recliner in the living room to kick off his work boots and rest his aching feet. It'd been a hard day and all he was in the mood to do was relax and unwind, and look forward to the coming weekend and some much deserved rest and the chance to sleep in.
"Dinner's going to be a little late tonight. Homework was a real bitch and took longer than I was planning. Damned Shakespeare."
"Never changes it seems," Henry replied, not even raising an eyebrow at the language his daughter used as he'd heard it so many times before. Being a bachelor meant raising a daughter involved certain challenges, and gender balancing was one such challenge. He'd tried his best to raise Charlie the way she should've been raised, but ultimately it hadn't exactly worked out like that and she more or less took to being a tomboy like a fish took to water. She was rough, crude, hotheaded and not a bit opposed to the concept of physical violence if it were needed to settle a matter. And he loved her just the way she was, "so what's on the menu tonight?"
"Meatloaf and fried potatoes," she stated simply and went back to working on her knife, "this thing has gotta be the most worthless piece of shit knife that's ever gone through that shop. Whoever owned it previously should be shot for abusing the thing like they did."
He couldn't help but chuckle at his daughter's hot attitude over the quality of her knife. She was that way when it came to weaponry, had been for as long as she'd been interested in them. Back when she was 10 years old she'd started asking questions about the guns used in the movies they watched, wanted to learn everything she could about them for one reason or another. Today she knew what make and model was used in most movies, and in some cases she even knew the first appearance of a particular model. She knew far more about the subject than any kid her age should have reason to know, but he didn't begrudge her that. It was an interest of hers and if she wanted to learn about them she was going to, with his help or without it.
"So how was work today? Any of the dumbasses working up top piss off the high rise and hit the foreman?"
"No not this week," he laughed, "just more of the same old same old, you know how it is," he replied.
"Ernesto still unmarried and hitting on any woman that moves?" Charlie asked.
"The same as always. One of these days the women are gonna hit him right back," Henry stated.
"Wouldn't surprise me one bit, I never did like that guy. Is Matt still engaged to that redhead?"
"Just like always. And after three years of being engaged I doubt they'll ever be getting married," he replied. Thankfully after that it was silence other than the sound of Charlie sharpening her knife, that gave him time to think without being interrupted, "so how was school today?" he asked.
"You know, same shit, different day," she replied and shrugged her shoulders.
"No not really I don't," he muttered to himself as he thought about the matter. Most of the conversations that were had dealt primarily with his work and what went on where he was, almost nothing involved her daily events unless it was something that required him to be there for a parent/teacher issue. Outside of those issues he didn't know much of anything about what went on when she was away, "have you been making any friends at school?" he asked.
"Not really, none of them seem like they're worth the effort of getting to know them. Everybody's nothing but emotionally charged juveniles more interested in perversion than anything else," she explained.
"Well what about your teachers? What're they like?"
"I dunno, they do their job I guess. Not very good though, half the time they have no answers anytime the other students ask questions about the work material. Besides I've got more important things to try and focus on really," she replied, "why all the questions about school anyway?"
"Because I know almost noting about your schooling. We always talk about my work but never about yours. I can't even recall the last time you mentioned the names of any other students you go to class with," he explained.
"I don't know any of their names, I've got no reason to talk to them, and none of them want to talk to me, unless it's to harass me and then they're got plenty of reason to come around," she stated simply.
"Charlie how can you not know any of the names of your classmates, or interact with them on something at least resembling a daily basis?" Henry asked, bewildered by his daughter's statement. And why was he just hearing about this now?
"You told me I needed to stay out of trouble because we couldn't afford to have any issues. If I interact with them then I get in trouble, but if I keep to myself, keep my head down and focus on getting through the day there's no trouble. I go to school, I do the work that I can there, I bring home what I can't get done in the allotted time, I get the hell outta there," she explained.
It was true, he had told Charlie that she needed to stay out of trouble, but that was years ago, long before now when he was still trying to fully recover from the divorce from his wife, back when they were less financially stable. However he'd never meant for his statement to suggest that she shouldn't interact with other people under any circumstances. Sometimes her adherence to what he said proved to be frightening. Perhaps the whole situation was his fault to some degree. Maybe he should've seen it coming back when she was more interested in hearing about the details of what went on in his workplace than she was in talking about her days at school, when she was more caught up in the day to day lives of his coworkers than in the happenings at school and which celebrity was the latest fad event that was drawing in the most teen focus. She wasn't interested in the trends of other kids her age, he should've been aware of that beforehand.
But maybe the situation could be rectified somewhat. If she was willing to listen to him to such an extent in one area then maybe she would be willing to do the same in another. It was worth a try at least.
"Charlie, I want you to do something for me," Henry said as he stood up from his chair to better face his daughter, who was now giving him her full attention rather than dividing it between him and her knife, "I want you to make some friends."
"I've already got friends," she objected and jumped up from her spot at the kitchen table, "Johnathon, Winters, Abrams, Step-" she listed off, but was quickly silenced by her father.
"The guys from work don't count, Charlie, I'm talking about friends your own age. I want you to go out and associate with others, learn how to make some real friends. Talk to people, bring somebody over for dinner sometime. Get to know your classmates."
"Nobody at school is worth getting to know. Every single one of them is hormonally charged and yiff nutty. Most of the time you can't walk through the halls without being overwhelmed by the smell of musk coming off of them," she stated, completely dissatisfied with the idea of what her father was asking her to do.
"You don't need to limit your area of focus to the school, Charlie, there's plenty of kids your age in the neighborhood. Start with the neighbors, see if anybody has similar interests to you. Go to the movies, do something," he told her, "you're young and have your whole life ahead of you. You should be thinking about dating boys, looking forward to learning how to drive, getting curious and trying to sneak a peek at adult websites behind my back and planning slumber parties with other girls. You shouldn't be so worried about trying to stay out of trouble to the extent that you're shirking interaction with other people and keeping your head down all through life, you're going to wind up gray and old before your time and missing out on a lot of great stuff. So I want you to try and experience life for yourself, understand?"
"Alright..." she replied and nodded, although it was easy to tell that she was less than thrilled about it.
"That's a good girl," he stated and smiled, "I'm going to change out of these sweaty clothes and take a nice hot shower and unwind before dinner. Lemme know when dinner's ready."
"Will do," Charlie replied and sat back down at the kitchen table. She waited for her father to leave and waited until she heard the bathroom door shut, before turning back around and focusing on her knife again, all the while muttering to herself about how she really felt about this change of developments, "fuck...dad why did you have to do and do this? I was happy enough spending time with you, I wasn't missing out on anything in life. So what if they're the guys from work, they're still friends, they're still my friends. Now I gotta try and get involved with teenagers who've got nothing but drugs and yiffing on the brain and aren't worth their weight in fertilizer? Oh man this is so going to suck ass," she moaned, "why me?"
