“Defend yourself!” Dragon Father slammed his right leg forward on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge, his right arm gripping his sword tightly in front of him.
“Defend yourself!” Dragon Little, now only 2 years old, slammed her right leg forward , and gripped her own sword (a much smaller sword) in a fighting position against her father.
Dragon Father swung his sword quite slowly, allowing Dragon Little to hit his sword and defend herself.
“Good! But I’m swinging around!” He swung around himself, and again brought his sword down slowly on his daughter.
She protected herself, but at this age clearly needed him to go slowly.
“Ha ha!” She shouted. “Now you!”
She swung her sword at him, but too slowly, and he jumped back.
“Nice! Next time, don’t announce you’re doing it!”
Dragon Little swung again, but the sword was a bit too heavy and it fell out of her hand.
“You need to grip it with both hands! You’ve left yourself open!”
As she bent down to pick up the sword, he touched her shoulder with his sword.
Dragon Little raised her head and gave him a deathly stare.
“You cheated!” She said harshly.
“Bad guys cheat. You have to take that into account.”
“You cheated!” She shouted.
“I understand it’s hard to lose,” he answered softly, putting his hand to his heart. “You always want to win. But you can’t. That’s why we practice. And even if we practice a lot, we’ll lose sometimes. That’s life.”
“You cheated!” She screamed at him as loudly as she could. Then she threw her sword to the ground and marched into her cabin.
Dragon Father sighed and walked towards the cabin door which Dragon Little had closed behind her. He put his hands on it, moving it only slightly, before she yelled: “Don’t come in!”
He pushed the door open and came in.
“Joy. You have to learn to lose.”
“Go away!” She screamed.
“I understand you’re upset,” he said, still with a soft voice. “But you have to understand that a villain will not be as nice as I am.”
“GO AWAAAAAY!”
Although I could not see him through the window of the cabin, my sharp dragon ears heard him inhale a quick breath. “Okay. It seems that more than you need to learn to fight, you need to learn to lose, young lady!”
“GO AWAAAAAY!”
“From now on, that’s what we’re going to practice: You losing!”
“GO AWAAAAAY!”
“I’m going away, and when you calm down, we’re going to practice losing to me!”
“GO AWAAAAAY!”
Dragon Father stormed out of the cabin, clearly upset. “I’m waiting for you to calm down!” he shouted into the cabin. He walked around aimlessly, then sat beside the helm and stared into space.
—Told by The Red Dragon