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You might think that snakes generally aren't a natural predator of dragons. And you'd be right, it's just that this snake is so terribly unnatural. For instance, having consumed her, instead of moving on to a leisurely digestion as is customary for snakes, it causes her to appear - still in scaly blue fullform - on top of a red Honda stopped at an intersection in downtown Chicago, claws scrabbling on the paint with an awful screech, wings flapping to keep her balance. Shift? No shift? If she doesn't shift she has a shot at flying away, getting out of sight, shifting then, and appearing unconnected to the spontaneous draconic appearance that is now causing passerby to holler and point and take phone pictures. Balance first, she isn't that good at flying yet and needs to start from something like a solid stance, she can't flap right while she's actively overbalancing. There, okay, with considerable paint job casualties she can line up for a takeoff -
(A dragon having just appeared before his very eyes, Harry Dresden is now having a moderately unusual day.
Until and unless it starts eating people, however, the dragon is Not His Problem. He doesn't want it to become his problem, either. He stays in his car.)
The dragon takes off.
This is the United States, so someone shoots at her.
She is not that good at flying. It's not a horrible wound but she drops.
Harry gets out of his car in a substantial hurry. "What the fuck?" he yells in the general direction of the idiot with the gun, and then he runs toward the fallen dragon. (Conveniently, most people are running away from the fallen dragon.)
"Are you okay?" he asks when he reaches her.
(Molly gets out of the car and hurries after him, because she suspects someone who can make things invisible may be more useful here than someone who can set things on fire.)
"Do you want me to dull the pain?" Molly asks.
"Excuse me? What? Who are you? You don't look like a paramedic, let alone a dragon paramedic."
"I'm not a paramedic," she says calmly. "I'm a wizard. I can make your wound hurt less until someone can treat it properly."
"Speaking of paramedics, we're probably going to start seeing cops in a minute," Harry says uncomfortably. "Can you turn human and/or invisible? Because I don't think we want cops trying to handle a dragon situation."
"I was hoping to fly away before I turned human so I wouldn't have a problem with people knowing I was a dragon. Uh, yeah, go ahead, dull the pain. You just tell random people on the street you're a wizard?" She presents her left hind foot. "Uh, invisible takes prep."
"Hell, Harry's in the Yellow Pages," Molly comments. After a moment, the pain does indeed recede.
"Uh, I think everybody ran away but valid point on not wanting people to connect your human form with the dragon, we don't know that nobody's watching out a window... Molly can make you invisible first and then you can turn human? And you can get in the car, and we can get you some medical care for the bullet, and we can try to get you back to the Nevernever or wherever you came from. And the cops won't have to get involved with either a dragon or a mysterious gunshot victim who may or may not be a dragon."
"Thanks," she says to Molly, and "Can do," to Harry. "What's the Nevernever?"
Molly turns her invisible, with a couple of muttered Japanese syllables.
"The Nevernever is... where dragons come from. Usually. I guess it isn't where you come from, though it's very, very strange that you don't know about it. It's kind of, uh, 'magical creatures 101' material. How old are you?"
"Seventeen," says May, shifting. "Ow ow ow I don't have my wheelchair and I have been shot in the foot where is your car."
Harry winces. "It's the particolored Beetle. Do you want me to carry you?"
He scoops her up with little trouble and carries her to the car. Molly opens the door, and he places May in the backseat. "Don't worry about bleeding on the seats, they've seen worse. Mostly from me."
Molly takes shotgun. Harry gets in the driver's seat and starts driving. "So, how did you end up here? It didn't look voluntary."
"Wasn't. Snake monster of some kind ate me and then next thing I know I'm in traffic. Where am I?" In human form she has her backpack; she rummages in it, though it is invisible, and finds the binder divider for invisibility scrolls by feel and whispers in French. She doesn't know how long the other spell lasts.
"Snake monster. That's very weird. Uh, you're in Chicago. And we're driving to get that medical attention I mentioned."
"A... healing spell? Is it rated for gunshot wounds?"
"Not really but I have like a dozen." And if she needs to she can cheat but probably not while she can't see what she's doing, that'd be a bit much even for her.
"Huh. I guess that works. I'll still want to get you to Butters so he can check you over, if that's okay."
"What's a butters?" She flips to her healing spell and starts muttering in French.
"Butters is a guy I know - he's a mortician, but he knows how to treat gunshot wounds and he won't tell the police if you show up with one." He pauses. "I feel like I'm coming off as really preoccupied with the police. They're perfectly nice people, they're just not situationally appropriate right now, is all."
"Fine by me, American cops are terrifying. This is America, right?" French muttering. She probes at her foot, and feels like she's made enough progress that she can take off her shoe. Poke poke. "I'm making good progress, I'm not sure there'll be anything for him to look at."
"This is America, yes. Are you... Canadian? I kind of thought you were from some kind of dragon society."