Dragon Father was feeling bad after he had exploded angrily at Dragon Little and Dragon Little had stormed to her cabin and closed the door.
He took a couple of breaths, then went to the cabin and opened it.
“Go away!” she yelled at him from the inside.
He stepped in. “Don’t yell at me,” he was immediately angry again. “I’m your father. That’s disrespectful.”
“You’re disrespectful!”
“Joy. Stop. Yelling. At me. I’m trying to talk.”
“You’re disrespectful! Disrespectful! DISRESPECTFULLLLLLL!” the last one she yelled as loud as she could.
“Joy!” I could not see him but I heard the temper rise in his voice. “It looks to me like you’re not respecting me and you’re not respecting what you have! Look at this! Look at all this! You don’t really need all this! You don’t need a flying ship. You don’t need the toys you have here. You don’t need to go on adventure! You don’t need to be able to fly the ship. I can take all that away from you! And then you’ll learn that every single thing you have here is something you should be thankful for! Got it!”
Dragon Little stormed out of the cabin, jumped on the plank, and ran to the edge, where she stopped. “I don’t need this ship!” she yelled. “I’ll live in the ocean!”
Dragon Father followed her out and looked at her with crossed arms.
Dragon Little bent down and was about to jump. Dragon Father raised his eyebrows, as if wondering what would happen. I wondered as well.
Dragon Little froze, then turned around. “Are you going to take the ship from me?”
Dragon Father’s tone softened. “All I’m saying is that you should respect what you have. Your life is not boring. Your life is fantastic. I would have loved to have that life when I was a kid. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
She looked around. Her mouth tightened as if she didn’t want to say something. But she said it anyway. “Yes.”
Dragon Father breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”
“But I’m bored, Dad.”
“Okay. What do you want to do that’s not boring?”
She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “Let’s do something dangerous!”
He thought about it as well, then said, “Okay. Let’s do something dangerous!”
And off they flew to do something dangerous.
—Told by The Red Dragon