It was only an hour after her father had disappeared. As always, when he vanished, most of the world went with him.
Most of the stars blinked out. The winds stopped. The cities in the clouds disappeared. The villains they had fought had all vanished with him. Only a few things remained: The ocean, Bonny’s Revenge, the moon, Mars, the two suns, and a few other stars and planets. And, of course, Dragon Little, who was only a 3 and a half year old girl at the time.
I looked down at her from my hiding place, a hiding place that does not disappear either, when her father wakes up and leaves his dream.
Dragon Little occupied herself by playing on the deck of their pirate ship.
Then, suddenly, the sky lit up again and the winds returned.
Dragon Little looked up immediately. Then she looked behind, to check the spot on the deck where her father always appears.
“Dad?”
But her father wasn’t there.
She looked up at the sky. There were no cities in the clouds, but the stars were back and the wind was back.
She stood up. “Dad? Are you here?”
There was no answer.
She started looking around the cabin, in hiding spots, “Dad, are you hiding?”
She found nothing.
She looked down the stairs and peered into the Infinite Corridor. ““Dad! Where are you?”
There was no answer. There was not a breath. There was not a sound.
Her father wasn’t there.
She stared at the sky, squinting her eyes to see if she could sense something.
I tensed up. If she found a reason to fly towards the sky, towards the other presence in the dream, I would have to stop her.
She squinted at the sky, then shrugged. She did not notice that the stars were aligned differently than usual.
Dragon Little returned to play by herself and occasionally looked up.
The skies twinkled out and the wind stopped only when she was asleep in her cot and did not notice.
—Told by The Red Dragon