Dragon Father was gone, awake, and in a world that neither I, nor Dragon Little, knew anything about. Dragon Little, now 5 years old, was left alone on Bonny’s Revenge, as usual. 

And, as happened more and more often, she came down the steps into the Infinite Corridor in the belly of their pirate ship, to talk with her friends. In this case, her best friend: General Hawk. 

Today General Hawk, the villain she and Dragon Father had imprisoned a few years past, was telling her about his children.

“Where are they?” My sharp ears heard Dragon Little’s voice even though I could not see her. “Are they back on your planet?”

General Hawk ist a figment of Dragon Father’s imagination, as all persons and creatures in Dragon Father’s dream except Dragon Little. Oh, and myself, for I come from outside his dream as well. Like most villains in Dragon Father’s dream, General Hawk remained behind, forever. Imprisoned by Dragon Little and Dragon Father who had defeated him. 

But because Dragon Little talks to General Hawk when her father ist away, her father did not know the two have formed a friendship.

“No, no,” General Hawk said in a somber voice. “They are no longer with us. They have both died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Do not be sorry, Nestling,” he told her. “It was a glorious death.”

“Really?” She was excited.

“Oh, yes. They died in the most famous battle of our people.”

“Few against many?”

“Indeed.”

“Fighting villains?”

“The greatest villains. A warrior race we had thought destroyed. They were now out do destroy us. They had ambushed all of our forces. It was only my two children against a force of a thousand.”

“Whoa!”

“They held them off at the border, fighting to the last feather. They held them off for the fifteen minutes we needed to regather our forces and to join the battle. By then they had died. But they had given their lives so that we all may live. They are heroes. A father cannot ask more than for his children than to die in battle as they did.”

“Wow…” Dragon Little sounded speechless and awed. 

Then, after a short silence, she said, “I want to die in battle.”

“I hope you do, little Nestling. Your ferocity reminds me of my sons.”

“Thank you, General Hawk.” 

Another silence. To be broken by Dragon Little’s question: “Do you miss them?”

“Every day. But I warm at the thought that they are legends.”

“I want to be a legend.”

“Maybe one day you will be, Nestling. When you are older.”

—Told by The Red Dragon