Lugubrious Death Cookies

I have been challenged! XD This is a response to Lady Emily's story writing challenge. In a short story you had to include
1. A basket of cookies
2. A character who can breathe fire
3. An object that can talk (say, a clock, a sword, a carousel horse)
4. A death scene
5. The word "lugubrious"

My story turned out to be about a page and a half long. Hope you like it! :D

•       •       •

"AUGH! Hot hot hot hot!" I snap my lips closed to quench the fire burning my throat. I feel the flames extinguish in my mouth, and I spit out the Fire Stone that had been resting on my tongue. Fortunately, I had the foresight to leave a large glass of milk sitting on the stone table nearby. I snatch up the glass and drain it, the milk soothing the residual fire in my throat.

Learning to breath fire from a dragon master is difficult enough, but when you actually try to breathe fire, it's not unlike the experience of eating chili that has been spiced five hundred degrees too hot. My dragon master has told me to train every day with fire breathing, using the Fire Stone only as a helper. So far... close, but no embers.

"Draconian lessons hardly worth their weight in silver?" A wooden voice comes from the other room. Bernardo is hardly ever smug, but this is a rare occasion. He had warned me that Draconian lessons were not for me, but of course I didn't listen.

I finish the milk completely and wipe droplets from my lips, still warm from the attempted fire. "Don't need your opinion, thanks, Bernardo," I call mock-cheerfully to him. I start wrapping the Fire Stone in its silk fireproof wrapping. I'll practice more with my fire later ... probably.

"My dear, I remain stolidly under the impression that my opinion is indeed worthy. Whoever else could you depend on to tell you that a quick individual has just deposited a basket before your door?"

"By the stars, I really hope it's not another witch orphan," I say with a crinkle in my brow, creeping quietly toward the door. "They're so common these days and it's really hard to keep them from making spells. You would definitely remember the last one I had to raise – Greta. She was a disaster – and you know I couldn't control her sentient spells."

"The product of Greta's childhood was a sound one, wouldn't you say?" Bernardo watches me creep toward the door. He stands seven feet, literally a grandfather clock, up against the northernmost wall of the house.

You might have guessed, but the whole orphan-witch incident was the reason I now have a talking sentient grandfather clock who sits in my living room and who can judge my life decisions.

Fortunately, I open the door to reveal not another squirming green orphan (whew) but instead a wicker basket filled with cookies. Sugar-scented steam winds lazily upwards into the rainy afternoon.

"Cool!" I pick up the basket and whisk it inside out of the rain.

"A cheap attempt to inject sunshine into an otherwise lugubrious morning, I'm sure," Bernardo states matter-of-factly. He does so love being right.

I grin. I do love teasing the old clock. "Mmmm!" I hum loudly, licking cookie crumbs from my lips. "Oh man, these cookies are SO GOOD. I'm so glad that I have a MOUTH and a TONGUE to eat cookies. YUM."

"A timekeeper of my position and status hardly needs sweets to keep my cogs running, beg your ruffian pardon," he says, pulling himself haughtily up so his wood creaks against the legs of the clock.

"No," I swing my legs over the side of the chair and look and the old clock with, for once, a serious considering expression. "But you do need oiling and a regular checkup, and the Clock Doc hasn't been in for over a moon."

"I do wish you wouldn't address Dr. Flint with such coarse slang," he says. "Clock Doc indeed." He continues to mutter lowly, the sound falling into the steady grind of his gears.

His old-timey rant falls to a stutter, however, when his cogs begin to churn to a halt. His 2 and 10 digits, that act as his eyes, widen and enlarge. "I – I-n-n-n –"
I brush crumbs off my fingers and leap up form the chair. The large golden pendulum swinging in his glass chest cavity is slowing to an unsteady wobble – a sad, but temporary, death for a clock. The Clock Doc will have to rewind him.

I fondly pat the top of the clock, my hand puffing up some dust. "Don't you worry about it, old friend. The Clock D – Doctor Flint will help you."

In the meantime – I look toward the lump of silk that hides the Fire Stone and sigh.

Bernardo would probably tell me to practice.