“Nestling, let me tell you what it is like to kill,” I heard General Hawk’s voice deep inside the Infinite Prison in the infinite corridor in the belly of Bonny’s Revenge.
Dragon Little had come to him after her father had taught her to kill. Actually, he had taught her by forcing her to kill, but she did not know that she had been manipulated, only that she had saved lives.
“Mmmmm?” I heard Dragon Little’s concerned voice.
“For many days, now, and perhaps weeks or even months, your mind will return to that moment when you killed the Goblin Monster. It will return to it and try to find another way, another solution, another path. Maybe it will succeed, maybe it won’t.”
“There was no other path, General Hawk.”
“Maybe it will succeed, maybe it won’t,” the general repeated, not conceding her point. “It would not matter, for it is done. Your mind will return to the terrible emotions you are feeling now again and again and again. For weeks and even months. And perhaps… Perhaps your feelings will turn to hate of self, hating what you did. And then… in the future, the next time you kill, it will be easier. And the time after that, easier still.”
“I don’t want it to be easier! I’ll never kill again!”
“Regardless, if you kill, what I say will happen. And in your sleep… your sleep will be haunted by memories of the killing. You will see it again and again, and perhaps even played with different circumstances and different results.”
“Nothing happens when I sleep,” Dragon Little said quickly.
“Yes. I have heard your conversations with your father about your sleep… and even with Mary, long ago. Nonetheless, that may change now that you have killed.”
“General Hawk?”
“Yes.”
“I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”
“You deserve a warrior’s sleep, Nestling.”
“I don’t want to go to my room. Can you hold me until I sleep?”
“It would be my honor, Nestling.”
I heard a rustle of feathers, and assumed that General Hawk had reached out of his cell as much as he could with one burnt wing, and held Dragon Little, as she lay down to sleep.
For a moment, I panicked, remembering General Hawk ist a vicious killer. But there was no scuffle, no violence, no break in Dragon Little’s breathing.
I could hear her breathing slow down. Within seconds, she was asleep.
During all the time she slept I listened to her breathing, ready to leap into action if General Hawk tried something. But during the long hours she had slept, the breathing did not stop and there was not even a single rustling of feathers. In all that time, General Hawk provided rest for her and did not move. Not even a little.
—Told by The Red Dragon