Too Late, She's Here.

The air over New Cairo shimmered—not with heat, but magic. At least that’s what Zayn kept telling himself as he stared out the cracked windshield of his taxi. Hovering just above the city skyline was a silhouette that absolutely should not have existed in this century: massive wings, glittering scales, smoke curling lazily from nostrils the size of espresso mugs.

“You can’t bring a dragon into the city!” came a shriek over his headset.

“Too late,” Zayn muttered, “she’s here.”

The dispatcher, an AI named Samira, buzzed in his earpiece. “Zayn, you were supposed to relocate the dragon to the southern dunes. Discreetly. Like we agreed.”

“She refused,” he replied, slamming the door of his beat-up Honda. “Said the desert was boring.”

High above, the dragon dipped lower, casting a long shadow over downtown like a floating cathedral of danger.

Zayn adjusted his coat and glanced up at the shimmering green eyes now visible between clouds. Nyxa was not just a dragon. She was a centuries-old sentient being with the stubbornness of a toddler and the vocabulary of a Shakespearean villain.

As if on cue, her voice echoed in his mind. Zayn, darling. This city… it smells like fire and ambition. I love it.

“You promised we’d stay under the radar,” he hissed.

You promised me shawarma. And jazz.

The crowd on the street hadn’t noticed her yet; chalk it up to the glamour she wove like perfume. Most humans saw a rare airship with some aggressive design choices. But to anyone attuned to the arcane? That was clearly a 40-foot flying lizard with attitude.

“Okay,” Zayn mumbled, dodging a vendor cart, “we have twenty minutes before someone important sees through her veil. Maybe less.”

As if summoned, a portal cracked open mid-air with a sound like thunder in a fish tank. Out stepped a woman in a pinstriped blazer and no-nonsense heels. Her hair shimmered like oil on water. Magic Enforcement Bureau. Of course.

“Zayn Saeed?” she asked, pulling out a tablet. “Agent Arwa, MEB. Is that your dragon currently hovering over the city’s protected airspace?”

He winced. “Define ‘my.’”

She flicked a manicured nail and the screen displayed Nyxa in full, glorious, unfiltered HD.

“Right,” he sighed. “Yes. Technically. But she’s very polite—relatively speaking—and we were just on our way out.”

Liar, Nyxa hummed in his mind. You said we could get coffee. From that place near the museum.

“Please,” he whispered. “Stop talking.”

“I’ll need her registered and relocated immediately,” Agent Arwa said, her tone flat as steel. “Before the glamour fails and the mayor finds out a Class-A mythical creature is circling the opera house.”

Opera! Nyxa crooned. Can we go? I could be very quiet. For me.

Zayn rubbed his temples. “We have a situation.”

Arwa crossed her arms. “You think?”

***

Ten minutes later, Zayn stood in the center of Al-Nasr Square, trying to bribe a dragon with coconut baklava.

“Just land gently,” he pleaded, holding up the sticky bag. “Don’t crush the plaza. I’ll get you tickets to the opera.”

Nyxa spiraled down in wide, lazy loops, clearly enjoying the drama. Her wings sent hats flying and shook windows, but she landed without damage, tail curling around a statue of an old general she didn’t like.

By now, the enchantment was fraying. A few people rubbed their eyes and gasped. Someone dropped their phone. A child screamed, then cheered.

“I knew dragons were real!” shouted a teenage boy.

Zayn looked at Arwa, whose fingers danced over her tablet, likely alerting every magical division within five kilometers.

“This isn’t going away quietly,” she said.

“She's harmless,” Zayn offered weakly. “Mostly.”

Nyxa, meanwhile, had discovered pigeons and was chasing them in slow, gleeful circles.

“I was assigned this gig as a relocation specialist,” Zayn muttered, “not a babysitter.”

Arwa raised an eyebrow. “Relocation? How does one even ‘relocate’ a dragon?”

“She was in a ruin outside Siwa. I found her sleeping in a collapsed temple and woke her up by accident.”

“By accident?”

“I sneezed.”

Nyxa gave a dramatic sigh and lowered her head beside them, her breath hot and spicy from whatever magical herbs she ate in the desert.

“I don’t want to go back,” she said out loud, her voice a low, rumbling purr. “The city is alive. The dunes whisper too slowly.”

Zayn crouched. “I get it. I do. But if you stay, we’ll have every enchanter, reporter, and politician on our backs.”

She snorted a puff of smoke. “Let them come. I will sing the rooftops into gold and make the stray cats my court.”

Arwa blinked. “Did she say sing rooftops into gold?”

“Yes,” Zayn groaned. “She did that to a radio tower in Giza.”

“You mean that shimmering hazard they quarantined?”

He nodded. “Yep.”

Arwa stared at him for a long moment. “We’re going to need a containment zone.”

***

By nightfall, the plaza was lit with arcane wards and temporary security towers. Nyxa had agreed to perch on top of the Museum of Magical Heritage—mostly because it was warm, and partially because Zayn told her it was full of lost things.

“She’s treating it like a throne,” Arwa noted from the observation tent.

“She thinks she’s queen of the city now.”

“Is she?”

“She’s a 300-year-old apex predator with reality-bending breath and a love of jazz,” Zayn said. “I wouldn’t argue.”

A distant saxophone echoed from an alley. Nyxa’s tail swayed in time.

“So what’s the plan?” Arwa asked.

Zayn leaned on the table, eyes tired. “I figure we let her stay.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s not going to the dunes. We tried that. Best-case scenario: she gets bored and flies to Riyadh. Worst-case? She pouts and turns the Burj Khalifa into a harp.”

Arwa stared. “That’s not even—”

“She tried it once. Don’t ask.”

They sat in silence. Nyxa hummed above them, glowing softly under the moon.

Arwa sighed. “We make her an official magical resident. With conditions.”

Zayn perked up. “Really?”

“She’ll need a handler. Someone who understands her. Keeps her calm.”

He frowned. “Wait—”

“That’s you, Zayn.”

“No, no, no. I have a life. I drive a taxi!”

“Not anymore. Congratulations, you’re now the first official Dragon Liaison of the New Cairo Magical Integration Program.”

***

By the following week, Nyxa had become a sensation.

She didn’t breathe fire on anyone. She didn’t destroy buildings. She posed for photos, started a nightly storytelling circle near the Corniche, and appointed a group of buskers as her royal musicians. Tourists arrived in droves. Street vendors started naming dishes after her.

Zayn got a new uniform: enchanted Kevlar with scales embroidered in gold thread. Itched like hell.

“Your city has promise,” Nyxa told him one evening, curling around the top of the library. “But your coffee is weak.”

“I’m working on it,” he muttered, sipping from a paper cup beside her.

“And the opera?”

“Next Thursday. You can wear that amulet that makes you look like a famous actress.”

She bared her teeth. “Which one?”

He grinned. “The one with the sunglasses and mysterious smile. I think the mayor has a crush.”

Nyxa preened.

And just like that, the dragon stayed.

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This story is based on the prompt: “You can’t bring a dragon into the city!” “Too late. She’s here.” You can find more free prompts here.

I’ve also published Elara’s Pocket Prompts #1 – May Edition, featuring 30 prompts to spark your imagination. Check it out here.