Harnessing Dragon Ghosts

20251116

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“So…” Lois paused to push his hair, the curls now limp with sweat, out of his eyes. “Dare I ask what we’re doing out here?”
With a flourish I unfurled the paper from my pocket and relished how his eyes widened.
“Oh no.” He said.
“Oh no is right.” I grinned.
“Charlie, you know how dangerous feral trains are!”
“Duuuh, that’s why the reward is so high!”
Lois dramatically sagged against a tree trunk, muttering inarticulate reproaches. Were they directed at me, for coming up with this? Himself, for getting caught up in another of my hijinks? The universe in general, for not having taught me a lesson yet?
Frankly I didn’t care. I needed another pair of hands and - despite all his whining - I knew Lois wasn’t going to miss out on wrangling a genuine living steam train.
I folded up the poster and breezily assured him “Relax, it’s a small train. Besides - you’ve got a metal affinity, I’ve got a fire affinity, we’re the perfect team for this!”
“Even a small train is easily big enough to flatten us, dumbass!” Lois huffed. Already pouting. He knew he wasn’t going to win this, but his pride demanded a token resistance. Otherwise he can’t keep calling himself ‘the sensible one’. “You really think we can take on two dozen tons of skittish steel and magic?”
“I know we can.”
“Uggggh.” Lois rolled his eyes skyward.
“C’mon, we’ve got to at least get a look at it!”
“…Fine.”
Of course he took that bait. “We’ll just…” followed by something reasonable and sensible sounding was the way to get Lois engaged. It let him convince himself that he was coming along to make sure I didn’t go on to do something unreasonable.
I bobbed my head enthusiastically, keeping my grin within sensible limits.
My fingers already itched, an eager warmth flooding them. This was going to be an adventure. Possibly our best yet.
As we set off once more, headed for the area where wheel tracks had been reported, Lois asked “Is it true the trains are brought to life by summoning dragon ghosts into them?”
“Eh, close enough.”
“So… we’re trying to find a ghost dragon. In a giant metal body. Fuelled by fire.”
“Mm-hm.”
Was he trying to talk himself out of this, or just thinking out loud? Given his conflicted expression I doubted even he knew.
“And… do we have a plan for if we find it?”
“While it’s alive, it’s still a train. Once we’re inside and have access to the controls we can just wait for it to tire out then get it back to the station. Easy!”
“It’s never easy, Chri-”
Lois faltered as a shrill whistle cuts the air from somewhere ahead. I grinned and punched his arm, excitement burning in my chest - then I froze as a second, deeper whistle boomed.
From behind us.
“Ok, quick change of plan-”

Prompt was “Write a story containing the dialogue “Oh no,” he said.
“Oh no is right,” I grinned.”