May giggles again. "I think I'm pretty scaly. Do I need to, I don't know, polish myself, I wonder."
"Find a pet store with a reptile section and ask? 'Help, I have to babysit this pet, what do I do' or something?"
"Ha. When I've looked through some kind of book of lizards and picked one to pretend I 'have' I may just do that."
May wakes up in the morning with no tail, no wings, no blue scales, and - hmmm, she wonders if she can breathe fire, but she hasn't done that overnight either.
The hotel has an old computer in their 'business center' (a generous title if ever Alli's seen one) with a functional albeit slow internet connection. If May wishes to go researching, it's a good place to start.
She is pretty sure she can maintain human shape by lunchtime, and rejoins her group and succeeds at exactly that for the rest of the field trip, being cagey about the disposition of her indisposition.
She remains resolutely human the entire trip to France. She takes in French things. She speaks as much French as she can manage. And then they haul all the way home.
And so, as she continues to be well disposed towards her new apparently-not-mythical friend, once she's back in Toronto... well, first she spends some time having 'quality family time' with her mother, and the weekend with her sister. But then, a week or so after their return, May's phone rings. Alli has an excursion in mind!
"All right so far. I have not yet had an opportunity to try to breathe fire in a safe environment. Do you know if I can breathe fire?"
"Hah, your guess is as good as mine. I know critter stuff, but up till France I thought dragons were as mythical as you did."
"Well, I was gonna say we should go to Avalon this weekend. But if you wanna try to set things on fire we could go north to the forest instead?"
"As your highly flammable friend, I approve this plan. Sooo! Saturday at one work for you?"
"I do not actually know where you live, but it's downtown. Not far from the church on Church Street, if that helps?"
Alli's hanging out as promised, chatting with a couple guys whom she shoos once she spots May. "Hey, you made it. Adventure time?"