Dragon Father and Dragon Little were pinned down behind a huge rock on the planet of the Laser Pirates of Chinchilla. The pirates were firing lasers from atop the castle they had overtaken, and Dragon Little and Dragon had nothing to do but cower down behind the rock. They had nowhere to go.
“Dad,” my sweet Dragon Little said. “You can’t be hurt by lasers! Get up and storm them!”
Dragon Little was referring to what had happened only a month earlier, when she had played with her father’s sword and accidentally cut his eye. The first pain and blood had vanished only to have him fully recover within minutes. When he calmed her down, he told her, and he was right, that he could not be hurt, that he could not die. And he was absolutely right. In the Dream, as far as I know, the Dreamers cannot die and can only be hurt as long as they believe they can be.
It seems that Dragon Little did not forget that her father was an ubermensch, as I remember it ist called.
Dragon Father looked at her as if he did not know what she was talking about. “What do you mean?”
Dragon Little looked at him as if she did not know what he was talking about. “The lasers can’t hurt you. Nothing can happen to you.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You’re being ridiculous!”
“Dad! Don’t you remember? Put your hand out, get lasered, and watch how you get better.”
He looked at her, not seeming to accept it, but also not willing to accept that she would say something so wrong.
“Do it!”
He exhaled with resolve. “Okay.”
He looked at his hands. “Left hand.”
He raised it, and the middle of his hand was immediately hit with a laser. “Gaaaaah!” He held it back. It bled and he hugged it close.
“Okay. Now wait a few seconds. It will get better.”
He looked at her with disbelief. “Okay… I trusted you here.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t you remember I hit you with the sword?”
“The sword?”
“In the eye!”
“In my eye?” he did not seem to be lying. He seemed to truly not remember. “That’s ridiculous. I would have remembered that.”
Now it was Dragon Little turn to seem to doubt herself. “Okay…”
He looked at his hand. The hole and wound were still there. “Jeez, it smarts!”
Her forehead crinkled. “Huh.”
They waited another minute, but his wound did not get better.
They began talking about other options to take the day.
Dragon Father’s wound would not heal completely for a week. From that point on until I decided to leave them, she would not suggest again that her father could not be hurt.
—Told by The Red Dragon