Night Academy

- First Sight (Marissa's POV)

A/N: Roll call! Who's here today?

Touch my dog again and I'll fucking kill you.

That's what I wanted to say to the stewardess who dared to tug at my dog's collar. It was a shaggy, worn-down, dark brown colour—the collar, I mean. The dog was worse. Shaggier, old to the point nearing archaic, and her coat was much darker and dirtier—overgrown, meaning that she had minimal vision. Not that it mattered, really. She was half blind anyway. Molly barked loudly at the young stewardess, who's name tag read 'Karen,' and she jumped back in surprise, nearly knocking into the man behind her.

"That animal can't be seated like that."

"That animal is my emotional support companion, so she can sit however she wants."

"Do you have the correct documentation to prove that?"

I glared. "Obviously. How do you think I got her onto the plane? Telekinesis?"

"Right, well, she still needs to be harnessed for the flight."

"It's a twenty-four-hour flight and she's going on ninety." I pointed toward my panting dog, who just wanted to stretch out.

Molly barked loudly in response.

"You still need to harness her," Karen told me. "If you can't keep your dog behaved during the entire flight then she should've travelled with the cargo."

"Behaved?" I snorted. "She's just fucking sitting here."

"She's not harnessed and she's disrupting the flight."

My eyebrows plucked together as I glanced around the flight, staring down the aisle—no one else seemed to be bothered. Molly sat on the seat, staring into blank space, and panting with a single string of drool spilling from her pink tongue. She was sitting still and keeping to herself. Then she waggled her tail and barked.

"Please keep her quiet."

I squinted. "It's been hours. She's old...she has arthritis and is partly deaf and blind, so she barks sometimes. It's called senior barking. If she can lay down comfortably without the harness, she'll go to sleep and be quiet."

"If she's too old to travel, then maybe you shouldn't have dragged her onto the flight," Karen bit back. "If you can't keep her harnessed and quiet, we can provide a muzzle."

"Really?" My eyebrows perked. "Any chance you'll wear it?"

Karen leered, muttering something I didn't quite hear, and then she went to force Molly back into her harness. Molly yelped in response—clearly scared by the feeling of some stranger grabbing her, which caused my teeth to grit. I knew the dramatic, loud noise was more her being startled than anything else, but I didn't appreciate this woman manhandling my dog.

She was making the situation worse.

Much worse.

Now Molly was panicked and unsettled as she tried to crawl onto my lap for safety. Meanwhile, Karen tried to pull her away from me by her collar, choking her. Most succubi had a natural charisma—a way of handling situations such as these with grace and subtle manipulation, I didn't, but I did know how to curl my fist and slam it into her nose.

A/N: What's your favourite animal? Let me know with an emoji! 🐈‍⬛