I cried while my sweet Dragon Little caressed my nose. The four-and-a-half-year-old human girl was standing on the railing of the pirate ship Bonny’s Revenge, as it floated in space, and caressed me, her friend, who nearly attacked her father in a way that would never repair our relationship. 

I felt all the pain of the last hundreds of years of my existence come out as I cried. All the cruelty, all the abuse. But more than that: The childhood they had stolen from me, the life of joy I had never experienced until I met Joy Shelley and her father. 

I have lived for hundreds of years and I have never felt the love of a parent or a friend, not really, not until I felt Dragon Little caress me.

I whimpered and stopped crying. 

I could not look at her.

I could not look at Dragon Father and what I had done. 

It was only his dream, after all. It would have disappeared even I had not gotten involved. 

I felt so ashamed. I shouldn’t be loved, I told myself, not the way she loved me. 

“Dragon Little… Joy… I am sorry for the way I behaved.” 

“Shhh, shhh,” Dragon Little said. 

“I am sorry, Justin… Slavery… for me… ist…” 

“I understand.” I heard the sigh of relief in his voice. His young daughter had brought down a dangerous dragon with love, while he couldn’t do it with the force of a dreamer. At least not in the time he had. 

I flapped my wings harder. I had to leave. I had to lick my inner wounds again and get over my shame and pain. 

“You don’t wanna stay, Red?” she asked as I turned my head away. 

“I have to go,” I said, almost crying again. “I hope you will invite me back for a fun adventure in a few months.” 

“Of course we will!” she said immediately and happily. “Won’t we, Dad?” 

He hesitated. I heard the hesitation. “Of course,” he said then. “We will.” 

“See you soon!” My face was turned away and I was already flying away from them and towards the suns. And yet my sharp dragon ears heard her hand flap in the air as she waved to me. 

“You are a wondrous, lovely creature,” I whispered to her, allowing the space wind to carry my voice to her ears. “I’ll see you soon.” 

And I flew to my hiding place, away from their sight, and in the next few months continued to look at my Dragon Little growing up day by day. I continued to watch, and they did call me again, as if nothing had happened. 

—Told by The Red Dragon