My name ist not The Red Dragon. I have never met my parents and they never named me. They had never spoken my name to me.
I had been born into slavery and only my slavers gave me a name. That name will not be repeated by me for as long as I live.
I have been named The Red Dragon by the 2-year-old Joy Shelley when I met her and when she and her father rescued me from my enslavers. Now she calls me ‘Red’ and I call her ‘Dragon Little’.
The Red Dragon ist the name I love. It ist the name I use. But it ist not my real name.
I have sat here, in my hiding place, alone and fearful. I miss my friends, who are still slaves. I miss… I miss my one true friend that I have not seen since the day I was rescued.
And sometimes… sometimes missing him ist too much for me.
So it was just before Dragon Little’s sixth birthday.
She had had a hard day of adventure and had fallen asleep in her cabin. She had exerted herself so much, I knew that she would sleep through anything.
Do I dare talk to him?
Do I dare make noise?
Do I dare reveal him to… to the ears of the villains in the belly of Bonny’s Revenge? After all, they never sleep.
Do I dare… expose my emotions?
I missed him so much and I did not… I thought I could not bear it anymore.
I opened my mouth many times and stopped myself. I tried and thought better of it, tried and thought better of it.
And then I could not bear it anymore.
I opened my mouth and wailed.
My wail filled every crevice of the dream, from the farthest planet to the depths of the infinite corridor in the belly of Bonny’s Revenge, to the deepest ocean crevice underneath it.
I wailed my pain and my longing and my love.
And when I stopped, a wail came back. So much softer than mine, a male voice not a female. But my dragon ears heard him as if he was next to me.
I am crippled by my emotions at the moment. I will gather myself and tomorrow I will tell you what happened.
—Told by The Red Dragon