That's just ridiculous...

~ Aiden paced the room compulsively. The dragon watched him. Adrasteia watched the dragon. Aiden knew well and good that he'd never had control of his life, lately though he could feel the tenuous resemblance of a grasp that he did have slipping out of his hands at an alarming rate. He halted suddenly, directly in front of the dragon.
"Why are you here? Why did you speak to me? Am I going crazy? Who sent you?" The dragon gazed at him seriously.
"You're a very lucky man you know."
"Lucky? Are you insane? Every bad thing that could possibly happen to me has!" The dragon raised one green, delicately feathered eyebrow."You're alive aren't you? Do you want to know why?"
Without a hint of sarcasm or bitterness Aiden guessed, "Because I'm to stupid to do myself in?" The dragon gave him a scathing look.
"No. You have survived thus far because, and only because I might add, Luck decided to mediate on your behalf. How could you not know this?"
If Aiden were not the type of man in possession of a good amount of seriously well-honed will power he would have rejoined with, "I don't believe in luck." or something else as deeply sacrilegious. It would have been honest, yes, but somehow he got the impression that it would also have been extraordinarily offensive to at least one individual present. That being the case, he kept his thoughts to himself. He'd never found the concept of luck all that compelling. The very foundation of it all insinuated that one would likely have good luck at some point in their life. That threw Aiden off right there.
"So luck mediated for me ey? How so exactly?"Aiden had always wondered if dragons could roll their eyes and for a second he thought he'd find out.
"Think Aiden! You were not in your house when it was razed. You were not is your last car when those two desperate bank robbers requisitioned it. You were not in the one before that when it was jerked into that wormhole." Aiden blinked. "You're family went on vacation the week the daycare had their gas leak. Mt St. Helens erupted one day, five hours and 13 minutes after you left the North face. You left early because you broke your leg remember? You had to wait 14 seconds for a urinal and consequently that power line fell on the car four places in front of yours. That was a plastic knife you stuck in the electrical outlet when you were two. That flight that you were bumped off of because it was full, causing you to spend Christmas in the airport, that flight was hijacked. Yes Aiden, all these years you've thought that the Universe was out to get you. Well you were right. But all these years Luck has been working night and day to keep you from shuffling off this mortal coil and you've not given him a second thought. What have you got to say about that?"
The dragon waited. Aiden simply stared at it, his expression as unreadable as bicycle assembly instructions to a sleep deprived drunk man. The moment stretched long. Suddenly Aiden began to laugh. Not a pleasant, friendly chuckle either, this was an abrupt, twisted, edging-towards-hysteria kind of laugh.
Aiden laughed for a very long time. He stopped, composed his features, wiped his eyes and said, "I understand now. It has all been made perfectly clear to me." The dragon looked pleased for just a moment. "I have finally gone off the deep end and you, my fine jade friend, are a figment of my imagination." The dragon looked hurt and scandalized.
"That's not true. I'm afraid mental illness would be the easy way out."
"Nevertheless I'm going to take it. It's about time I got to go the "easy way". I'm going to eat dinner now and I sincerely hope that when I get back you'll be gone. I've had enough."
Adrasteia and the dragon watched silently as Aiden gathered keys, coat and wallet and left the room without giving either a second glance. ~
~ I made this!