All tagged fear
As soon as Joy falls in the dark and says “Ow” Suzy’s hand, which I’m still holding, tightens.
Another bump is heard and Charlie calls out in pain and that’s it for Suzy.
She lets go of my hand and I hear her walk forward with determination even though none of us can see anything. “Justin! Stop that right now!”
“Mom! I’m teaching her a lesson!”
“Justin! You’re a father! You may never ever hurt your child! Never!”
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We all go down the ramp to the peer on the Night Planet.
I must admit, even to myself it is unsettling standing, walking, handling myself in a completely new place where I can’t see anything, not even a sliver of light.
Suzy holds my hand. “I don’t like this place,” she tells me.
“Me neither.”
I hear everyone getting further down the dock. We stay standing.
“Do you want to leave?” I ask her.
“Do you?”
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Justin guides Bonny’s Revenge into complete darkness.
One huge planet hides the suns and in its shadow, somewhere, is the Night Planet, a planet of perpetual night.
Joy holds Charlie’s hand.
Suzy stands next to me. But when darkness comes, I can’t see her or anything else.
There is silence, now. Not a yelp. Not a scream. Not a whisper.
“Joy?” Justin says after a few seconds. “Are you all right?”
“Mmmm-hmmmm,” she says. But her tone is forced. She is not all right.
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By this time, Charlie has arrived and landed on the deck of Bonny’s Revenge with his jetpack. He has been filled in.
“All right,” Justin takes a big breath. He’s taken us into outer space, and Bonny’s Revenge rests in front of a big patch of empty space. “Ready for the Night Planet, Joy?”
She braces herself and nods.
“Mom?” Justin asks.
Suzy looks at me. This is her first official time going on an adventure. This is not her life. It is not what our lives have been up to this point.
Master Mind has rejoined us on the deck while the two have been arguing. He is ready. He does not need to be asked.
“All right,” Justin says. “Just let’s be clear on the rules, okay? I’m going to bring back the Night Planet. There are not going to be villains on it. The whole point is to get Joy used to darkness and maybe get over the fear. That’s it. Whenever you want, Joy, Charlie and I can create light. Okay?”
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“Joy, I don’t want to hear it!”
Joy is pestering Justin again about why there’s a dream he says she can’t go to, a dream with no way out.
“Dad! There’s no such thing as a dream you can’t leave!”
“I was there. I saw it!” He’s short with her. He knows she’ll never give up, and he knows she can’t ever go there or we’ll lose her forever.
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“What does it want? What does it want?” the tiny 3-year-old asked, head buried deep in her father’s chest.
“I don’t know,” her father said calmly. “What do you think it wants?”
“It wants to eat my pajamas!”
“Really?”
She nodded.
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High above the mountains of Mars, Dragon Little stood on the railing of Bonny’s Revenge holding her hang glider. Keeping her balance perfectly, she looked down.
Dragon Father looked at her from the wooden deck, holding his own hand glider. He had an amused smile on his face.
“Are you sure you’re okay doing this, Dad?” he asked his daughter.
She tried to hold her hang glider correctly, but it was awkward.
“I’ve done this maaaaany times, Joy,” she said. “Trust me.”
She held on to it correctly. “Are you coming, slowpoke?” she said.
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With both Dragon Little and Dragon Father carrying torches on the Night Planet and the two of them working together, they defeated the three Wicked Wizards.
Dragon Little’s fingers and legs were shaking all the way through. But she said nothing to her father and did not complain.
Her fingers turned white holding on to the torch and would never release it.
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“Wow, you were so brave!” Dragon Father told Dragon Little, still hiding her face in his chest, still clinging as hard as she can to her after.
Inwardly, I nodded, agreeing with Dragon Father. She had shown bravery I have never seen in all the centuries I have lived.
“I’m scared,” she whined into his chest. “I’m not brave!”
“You were brave because you were scared, Joy! You’re brave because you still did something that was frightening. You saved yourself! You saved yourself until I got there!”
Dragon Little whimpered, not showing her face.
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Dragon Father jumped to the dock quickly, a fire torch in his hand, looking around.
“Joy!” he whispered.
He was trying not to get the attention of the Wicked Wizards, but he needed to find his daughter. “Joy!”
Just a few moments ago he had disappeared, leaving her, a girl who had never known what night is, without light on the lightless Night Planet. But it had been just the beginning of his dream. He had woken up for a few minutes, then returned to his dreams moments later.
But things have changed since he had vanished.
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The Wicked Wizards were getting closer to my Dragon Little. I heard her scamper quickly, feel with her hands in complete darkness.
From the sound she was feeling the wooden crates.
My sharp dragon ears heard the soft squeak of a crate being opened from a few planets away.
I heard her drop into a soft something (fruit, perhaps?) and then close the crate above her.
A few seconds later, the Wicked Wizards walked into the room.
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Once Dragon Father had disappeared, and his burning torches with him, I could not see Dragon Little on the Night Planet.
My wings opened as I crouched in my new vantage point, automatically about to leap to her help and light the planet sky with the fire of my breath. But I stopped myself.
Whatever the trouble, she would need to toughen up. She was growing up. She was almost six. She would no doubt soon find the right place to explore in her father’s dream and find the way to other dreams, where real danger lurked for every every day.
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“Dad, how can we fight guys like this?”
Dragon Little’s voice was losing some of its panic and fear in the total darkness of the Night Planet.
Dragon Father had led Dragon Little into a warehouse a bit off the pier. I remember the warehouse from the small glow that covered the planet when Joy had first stepped on it. But I could not see the warehouse now, not even with my sharp eyes. The darkness was complete on that planet in Dragon Father’s dream.
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I could not see what happened next. Even though I had changed my vantage point, the darkness of the Night Planet was awesome. I have never seen such darkness in Dragon Father’s dreams in the three and a half years I have been here.
I heard Dragon Little try very hard and unsuccessfully not to squeal.
I heard Dragon Father’s breathing.
I heard him move the wheel of Bonny’s Revenge.
And I heard the sound of things appearing - it ist a soft sound of things that appear out of nowhere in the dream.
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