Dragon Father reappeared on Bonny’s Revenge. It was the third day that Dragon Little was missing.
He had searched for her for two days all across the forest in the Land of the Giants, but fruitlessly. Unknown to him, she had been waiting for him on a leaf at the top of one of the trees in the forest, not moving from place as he had instructed her long ago.
When Dragon Father appeared, the wind returned. The wind moved Dragon Little’s long hair, and she woke with a start once again.
She looked up.
He looked down from a great height.
I saw him make a face. He walked around himself in circles.
“What would she do, what would she do, what would she do,” he whispered to himself endlessly.
“Oh, god, I hope she’s okay,” he sighed after a minute.
He looked down again, and suddenly his eyes lit up.
He held both hands in front of him.
A swarm of thousands of butterflies rose suddenly from every crevice of the forest.
They were beautiful and colorful.
They rose slowly.
Dragon Little, only 4 and a half years old, looked around herself, as three different giant butterflies rose next to her slowly, and then moved past her.
The butterflies flew towards Bonny’s Revenge and gathered around Dragon Father.
“Go find her,” he told them. “Go find her. Repeat until you found her.”
The butterflies swept down into all corners of the forest, creating a blanket that covered the forest in its entirety.
They disappeared into the forest, settled on the ground, blanketing the ground almost entirely. After a few minutes, they rose slowly, rose past the shrubs, the trees, the greenery. Ever so slowly, they rose to the top of the trees.
Dragon Little gasped. She understood.
She walked to the edge of the leaf, but too slowly. She had been too exhausted. She missed the butterflies and they flew past her.
Now she stood with strength. She seemed revitalized.
She stood on the edge of the leaf and waited.
The butterflies flew to Bonny’s Revenge, then, after a few minutes, returned to blanket the forest floor.
After a minute or two they rose again slowly as one.
Dragon Little looked over the leaf and waited for them. When a butterfly was near enough, she jumped on its wings, then to its back.
The giant butterflies continued upwards in the same pace, taking the same route.
Soon Dragon Little jumped off the butterfly and was back on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge.
“Joy! Joy!” Dragon Father ran to her and hugged her, crying. “Oh my god, thank god you’re okay.”
Feeling his touch, Dragon Little fell to the ground with no strength. “Water,” she said hoarsely.
And that is the story of Dragon Little’s bravery and determination at such a young age and how Dragon Father saved her before it was too late.
—Told by The Red Dragon