“My daughter,” the so-called dragon who was my so-called father said to me. “I have missed you!”
I nodded, keeping it to myself what I now knew about this dragon.
“Look!” Dragon Little pointed at Dragon Father. “Dragon Father!” Then she pointed at the elderly fake dragon, “Dragon Father!” She pointed from one to the other as she said: “Dragon Father, Dragon Father, Dragon Father, Dragon Father!”
Dragon Little laughed. Dragon Father laughed. My fake father laughed. I did not laugh.
“There is a great dragon emergency,” the fake dragon said. “All the dragons have been taken away and are held prisoners! Only I escaped capture!”
“Red, did you know about that?” Dragon Little said.
“The little one calls you Red?” My fake father said. “Does she know your real name?”
I tensed up again. I have never met my parents and I do not know what name they would have given me. But I have sworn to never utter the name I was given by my enslavers.
“What’s her real name?” Dragon Little’s voice went up in excitement.
“Are you ready?” he whispered conspiratorially. “She is called…”
I felt all my muscles tensing up.
“...Shamblila!”
I almost laughed. I kept forgetting that this was not a dragon, but a creation of Dragon Father who knew nothing about my past, my name, and where I come from. This was his imagination talking.
“Shamblila?” Dragon Little echoed. She looked at me then at my fake father.
I knew I had to correct her understanding of this but I did not yet know how.
“Dad?” Dragon Little went to Dragon Father and motioned that she wanted to whisper something to him.
Dragon Father bent down and she whispered. Dragon Father did not know I could hear a whisper across the universe in his dreams. And so I heard what Dragon Little said, but the fake dragon did not.
“Dad, that’s not her dad. I saw on her face. That’s not Red’s real name.”
Dragon Father nodded and whispered back. “I know,” he said. “I spotted it. It’s a robot. He has a trap for us. Keep it secret. We’ll let him think he fooled us.”
Inwardly, I smiled and relaxed. When I insisted he was not a real dragon, Dragon Father’s subconscious fought to make sure the dragon was ‘real’. But when Dragon Little noticed a problem, Dragon Father’s subconscious changed the nature of the dragon to a robot.
The adventure would go well now. It was time to have some fun.
Tomorrow I will tell you of our adventure together.
—Told by The Red Dragon