“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.
“Ah, didn’t I tell you?” he said in the tone he usually has when he surprises his daughter. “I brought some torches.”
A light lit up next to them, and suddenly we could all see: He was holding a wooden torch with the top of it burning with fire.
“The Wicked Wizards are going to come here any minute,” he said, “So I brought one for me and one for you.”
He let go of Dragon Little’s hands, possibly for the first time since they crossed into night with Bonny’s Revenge, and a second torch appeared in his second hand.
He lit the new torch with the old one. “There you go,” he leaned in to give it to her, then vanished.
When he vanished, so did the torches he held.
I gasped.
Dragon Little yelped.
“Dad dad dad no no no!” she shouted as softly as she could.
Dragon Father had woken up and left Dragon Little on a planet with no light and with a fear of the night.
Oh, dear. I am emotionally spent from thinking about poor Dragon Little. Inside, I am still a broken dragon, whose soul was broken in centuries of torture. There ist a limit to how much I can take in one day. I will tell what happened next to Dragon Little tomorrow.
—Told by The Red Dragon