There was silence for a long moment on the floor of the biggest bank in the galaxy.
Dragon Father had just confessed to being a villain and doing something awful to his former friend, who had trapped him now in the bank.
Three and a half year old Dragon Little stared at her father in disbelief. They had been fighting villains all her life. She had always seen him as the hero. And now he was a villain.
Then Dragon Little began to laugh. “You’re very funny, Dad!”
Sam and the King of the Galaxy took a step back, surprised.
Dragon Father, on the ground, nursing broken legs from an injury years old, told his daughter simply, “Joy, it’s not a joke.”
Dragon Little shook her head. “That didn’t happen.”
“It did.”
Dragon Little shook her head and folded her arms. “That didn’t happen, Dad!”
“Joy. I was there. It did.”
Dragon Little laughed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
I have seen this side of Dragon Little, as had Dragon Father. When she refused to believe something, she would claim that the laws of reality itself do not exist.
“I was there, Joy!”
“You weren’t there!”
“Joy! Listen to me! I deserve to be--”
But he trailed off as his daughter walked over to him and slapped both of his cheeks. He was sitting up, so she was looking down at him a bit. Each of her hands grabbed a cheek and squished them together with love. She put her eyes right in front of his while squishing his cheeks and mouth together and said through gritted teeth. “You… are… good!”
Dragon Father laughed at the gesture, even as his mouth could not make a proper sound.
But Dragon Little did not relent. She kept squeezing harder and harder. “You...are… good!” She said through her teeth again. “You… are… good!”
Dragon Father stopped laughing, and his demeanor changed.
His back straightened.
She released his cheeks.
“Yeah... “ he said. “I am good!”
She nodded.
He looked at her, confused. “Why did I think I was the villain?”
She shook her head.
Dragon Father moved his legs for the first time in a long while and stood up. He looked at Sam. “Why did I think I did anything bad to you?”
Dragon Little grabbed his hand. “He put bad memories in you.”
Dragon Father’s eyes widened. “He did!”
Sam’s eyes darted around, “Oh, no, that wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to remember!”
Dragon Father drew his sword with one hand and his laser pistol with the other.
“You almost had me!” he said.
And a fight ensued. And Dragon Father and Dragon Little won. And Dragon Father’s pain was gone. And the memory I was sure happened, either in the waking world or in the dream, seemed forgotten by Dragon Father.
When Dragon Father woke up and disappeared, Sam disappeared as well and was not led to the Infinite Prison in Bonny’s Revenge.
For Dragon Father and Dragon Little this had been just an adventure.
But as for me… I was not sure that was the case.
—Told by The Red Dragon