As the title said, this came out more as a teaser than a story.

Dragons Next Door has a landing page here.

“I see you are participating in the annual sacrifice of a tree.” Zizny puffed smoke at me over the wall between our properties.

It might have been unusual to some to have a dragon talking over the fence at one, as it were, but after the last neighbors – the ogres – I was more than willing to take the far-more-polite and far-less-smelly Smiths.

But I confess, as used to Zizny and thez* ways as I was, I still stiffened. “We don’t use dryad trees.” It had been done, once upon a time, sometimes by the ignorant and sometimes by the cruel. But this pine tree had never been anything but a pine tree. “We’re not really… Christian, hard to be. But with Junie’s friends, it’s easier to just celebrate the holiday…”

The dragon next door puffed another harmless steam-cloud at me. “You are, I believe, under a great deal of stress right now.”

“I…” I realized Zizny was, in a draconic manner, laughing at me. “Yeah. Yes, I have been. You were teasing me. I admit, I did not know that dragons teased.”

“You are very clever about races not your own, Audrey. But you do not know everything.” Zizny dropped-jaw in a way I had learned was the draconic version of a human smile.

I smiled back, cautiously. “Well, then. What do dragons do for the winter holidays?”

* http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/181376.html#cutid2

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