All tagged The red Dragon
The first batch of kids walk in with their parents and I notice that the kids are all wearing pirate costumes.
“Oh, right,” Charlie says, and suddenly he’s in pirate costume as well.
“Charlie,” Joy grabs his hand and whispers. “You know pirates?!”
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“Yeah, uh, I’m, uh, Justin,” Justin shakes Kate’s hand. “Do parents shake hands when they meet? I really don’t know.” Charlie’s mother looks at him strangely. “I’m, uh, Joy’s dad. We’re, uh…Wow, I just realized I never met any parents at all as part of, uh, being a father, uh, Kate.”
“She’s not Kate, don’t call her Kate,” Charlie says. “Her name’s Catori.”
“It’s Kate,” Kate corrects her son.
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We are back on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge.
Joy and Justin are both clearly shaken by their conversation with the First Prisoner or The Guardian Spirit, or whoever he really is.
Justin stares at the horizon from behind the wheel, as he takes the ship out. Joy stands by his side, staring forward as well.
After a couple of minutes, as we fly past the clouds and into outer space, Joy hugs Justin. Justin stops the ship in mid-space and hugs her back.
“Red is not dead,” Joy says.
“No, she’s not.” He hugs her and doesn’t let go.
“She’s not a creature of the Dream.”
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“Stop, stop, stop!” Justin raises his hands. “We can’t believe this Guardian that he knows where Red is or that he’s a dream creature from outside my dream like the Fairy Flies. He’s a villain. He’s lying.”
Amahle clicks her tongue to indicate ‘No’. “Justin, you do not understand. Tell them what you told me,” she tells the Guardian.
The Guardian looks at Amahle in anger, then looks away. Amahe can’t see his expression, but she notes the silence. “All right,” she says. “Justin. He has told me he is of the Adroazni, a guardian spirit, and a child of the god Adroa.”
“So?” Justin says.
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Justin shakes his head immediately after the initial surprise. “He’s lying to us, Joy. He’s a villain and he knows we care about Red.”
Joy nods vigorously. “Lying. Red’s not dead and he wouldn’t know it!”
Justin takes her hand. “Shame on you,” he tells the Guardian. “It’s a good thing we never talked all these years. You are evil.”
“My friend is dead!” the Guardian yells at them as Justin and Joy turn their backs to him. “And it is your fault!”
“Shut up!” Joy whirls around. She takes off her necklace and throws it into the Guardian’s cell, where it lands on the floor. “I don’t want it! I don’t want anything from you!”
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“You,” he says. “What did you say to my daughter!”
I stretch my neck and see a man approach the bars. I have seen him before, but I did not pay him much attention, since Joy and Justin both pointedly ignore him every time they walk into the Infinite Prison. Now that Amahle says he comes from legends in the Congo, that gives more context to his black skin and his black hair that’s cut very short. The right half of his face is almost entirely covered by a metal mask, with room for an eye to peek through. But there is no eye behind that hole, but a soft yellow glow. Anything that is not covered by the mask looks human, including the other eye. He is tall, thin, and wiry.
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He crooks his head. “Amahle, which of the villains could possibly convince you that Joy is an honorary Zulu when you were very clear on the point that she wasn’t?”
“It was–” Amahle begins, when Joy cuts her off.
“No, Amahle!”
“He is your father, Joy. We do not keep secrets from him and there is no reason this should be a secret. It was the Guardian Spirit in your prison.”
“I have a Guardian Spirit in prison?”
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Joy is crying into my chest and doesn’t stop. I hug her with one hand, but awkwardly. I don’t know how to comfort a child who feels responsible for two deaths. I don’t know how to comfort a child who survived a slave camp for a day while figuring out how to save the other children.
What did happen there? I wish she would stop. My shoulder still hurts.
“Little Pirate, if you keep crying, you will make me cry,” says Master Mind. “I do not wish to cry at this time.”
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At Charley’s question, Joy’s expression becomes serious.
“Where is Red, Dad?”
I’ve been here long enough to hear about Joy’s legendary friend, the Red Dragon. She hadn’t been heard of or seen since Suzy and I were summoned, since Joy first left Justin’s dream.
“I don’t know,” he shrugs. Then his expression turns more serious as well. “Why would you think I know?”
“I just realized,” Joy says. “That in all the adventures I had with her, in all the times I rode her, there is no way I wouldn’t have made her real. Red didn’t just disappear because you woke up, Dad. Red is permanent. No one killed her. So she’s still alive. Where did she go?”
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“She saw us!” Joy yells. “She looked right at us and saw us!”
Justin nods. “I think she saw us, too.”
“Was that a dragon?” Charlie whispers. “An actual dragon?!”
“Why’d you do that? What’s the danger?” Joy is upset with her father. “We could have talked to her! We could have played with her! We could have asked about Red’s sister dragons!”
Justin shakes his head. “We can’t be seen, Joy.”
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“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to bring back General Hawk.”
“Hmmm…”
I step back and give him space. He has his eyes closed and he looks like he’s trying to summon up a mystical force.
He opens his eyes and looks around.
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“Son, what’s the matter?”
His face is worried and his voice is full of concern, when he says, “I want to do something for Joy. But I’m afraid of something Red said.”
“Who’s Red?”
“Red - I mean, the Red Dragon. She warned us about this a few years ago and we didn’t understand. I’m afraid that… Yeah. She warned us back when I couldn’t bring Mary back. That’s why she warned us.”
“Son, what are you talking about?”
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“Ha ha!” Joy yells out. “Adventure with my grandparents! Let’s go!”
My granddaughter, the one I just found out about yesterday, is taking us out in Bonny’s Revenge, hers and Justin’s flying pirate warship. She is showing us Justin’s world, Justin’s dream, the world she lives in, the dangerous, crazy, adventure-filled place she lives in. But a few seconds ago she pointed to Mars and spotted the Martian Space Pirates (I guess that’s what they’re called) heading towards us.
Oh, boy. I’ve been with Justin in other people’s dreams. I was with him fighting the most frightening dark monster in the streets of London. I was with him stuck in a dream where he couldn’t find the way out. I knew by this time their life was not easy.
“Let’s get them!” Joy runs to the wheel. “You’ll watch me in action!”
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Joy pulls on the wheel and the ship begins to move.
I look around. We’re picking up speed. She pulls back more and the ship begins to rise into the air.
Suzy grabs my hand. “Should she be driving?” she whispers to me.
Good point. “Uh… Do you want to drive?”
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“Come here,” she said. “Give me your ear.”
I turned my ear to Dragon Little. Dragon Father, who was atop my head, took the opportunity to jump aboard.
Dragon Little began to scratch my ear and suddenly I felt something I have never felt before. This brought so much pleasure to my entire body, it felt so nice, like true love. I immediately purred. I have never purred in my life.
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“The dragons have been taken away,” the robot dragon rasped.
His voice sounded broken because his body had been broken by the fight. One of his wings an done of his legs were disjointed and broken. His neck was in my mouth, under my sharp teeth, which had already cut into his neck a bit.
He would not live long, and Dragon Father, standing atop my head, knew it.
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We knew we were being led into a trap.
I flew low, following my fake father, a robot made to look like a dragon. Dragon Father, riding on top of me, seemed calm rather than tense. It was his adventure. He had created it in his subconscious. This ist what he had wanted. This ist what he enjoyed.
My fake father looked back and motioned at a volcano ahead of us.
He flew up, then coasted down, gliding into a dark cave entrance at the bottom of that volcano.
For a second, I hesitated. I remembered that sometimes when Dragon Father knows I am part of the adventure, he creates weapons that can cause me great harm, in order to make things harder for me.
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“Tell us where they took all the dragons,” Dragon Father said. “It must be a big place.”
“It is not far,” my fake father said. “Two minutes’ flight in that direction will lead us to an island with another volcano. Underneath that volcano is a cavern big enough to hold a thousand dragons. Our enemies have taken all the dragons there!”
Dragon Father shook his head. “Oh no! Then we have to go!”
I smiled inwardly. Dragon Father was clearly acting and acting badly.
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“My daughter,” the so-called dragon who was my so-called father said to me. “I have missed you!”
I nodded, keeping it to myself what I now knew about this dragon.
“Look!” Dragon Little pointed at Dragon Father. “Dragon Father!” Then she pointed at the elderly fake dragon, “Dragon Father!” She pointed from one to the other as she said: “Dragon Father, Dragon Father, Dragon Father, Dragon Father!”
Dragon Little laughed. Dragon Father laughed. I did not laugh.
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