Dragon Little, only 3 years old, grabbed the giant robot’s finger. “You’re not going to win!” she said through her teeth and roared.

The robot glowed for an instant, and the glow went away. I noticed it, for I knew what it was, but Dragon Little, Dragon Father, and the Robot King did not.

“You’re not going to win!” the giant robot echoed.

“I will fight you till I die!” Dragon Little let go of the robot’s finger and looked up at it fiercely.

“I will fight you till I die!” the giant robot looked down at her, mirroring her fierce face.

“I will fight you till I die!”

“I will fight you till I die!”

Dragon Father sat down on the stairs leading up to the king’s throne, and grabbed his head. “I hate this! I hate this! I hated this since I was a kid!”

The evil Robot King sat next to Dragon Father, while Dragon Little and the giant robot continued to echo each other. “It is… a paradox… I cannot comprehend. It is giving me a headache.”

“Me, too!” whined Dragon Father. “Aaargh!”

With his scream, he was gone. Awakened and gone from the dream.

When he disappeared, the Robot King disappeared and all other creatures on the planet vanished as well. The planet vanished, in fact, leaving only the palace. And outside it, Bonny’s Revenge waited for passengers.

Dragon Little was still in the palace, face to face with the giant robot who did not vanish.

“I will fight you till I die!”

“I will fight you till I die!”

“I will fight you till I die!”

“I will fight you till I die!”

“I will fight you till I die!”

“I will fight you till I die!”

And so they continued, each repeating the other, for hours. Dragon Little was fierce in her determination. She did not grow bored. She did not stray from her task to defeat the robot through words.

But after a few hours, she grew tired.

She stopped talking and decided to lie on the floor. “I’ll defeat you in a second,” she said.

“I’ll defeat you in a second,” the giant robot said.

But within seconds, her eyes were closed, and she was asleep, breathing heavily and snoring just slightly.

The giant robot lay down on the ground beside her and echoed her snores.

Snoring together, they lay there until hours later, when Dragon Father would return to the Dream.

—Told by The Red Dragon

See how I came up with the idea for this post: