I Found You

“Tell.”

Her hair flies up.

“Me.”

Strands of red hair fling across her face.

“The.”

Tiny flowers on her night shirt wrap around her knees.

“Story.”

Each word expelled as her feet touch the mattress.

“Of.”

She spins in the air.

“How.”

Pillows slide off the bed.

“You.”

With each bounce the blanket inches closer toward the ground.

“Found.”

Her arms flap as she bounds up again, almost flying.

“Me.”

Eyes sparkling, cheeks flushed red, she crashes to her knees.

She plops down: “Again”.

She folds forward and fishes the pillow back onto the bed and hugs it tight. The space is suddenly quiet.

“Tell me how you found me again.”

It is dark. A dim lantern casts warm sparkles across the cavern walls, makes the posts of her bed glow warm honey, and reflects on her hair and eyes.

“Please?”

Way past bed time.

The dragon sighs. Warm breath rolls across her face and a hint of tiredness tugs at her eyelids.

“Please,” she sighs in return.

He rests his chin on the ground and blinks slowly considering her small form and how perfectly she matched the name that he had chosen for her: Alina, bearer of light.

“Once upon a time”, he starts.

Alina reaches out and caresses the tip of his nose.

“A time not too long ago, it was a cold and windy night. The wind howled and flung small snowflakes almost horizontal to the ground. I had flown too far, too high, in a quest to see the most beautiful golden leaves and was suddenly trapped in the space between autumn and winter. I was desperately trying to get back home. Each flap of the wings was hard, my chest ached, and I struggled to stay aloft. The snow squall obstructing everything around me. A particularly hard, small snowflake flew right into my eye and in that moment the wind caught my wings and I was blown out of the sky.”

Her eyes open wide in feigned surprise. “The wind blew you out of the sky?”, she giggles. This is a well-rehearsed story. To her he is big and strong and practically invincible. He regularly takes her up beyond the treetops, the mountains, the clouds.

“I tumbled, spun and landed hard with a thud.”

She weakly slaps the surface of her pillow, thud, and then slips her thumb into her mouth. She pulls the blanket under her chin and settles in. Waiting.

“It was hard to see anything at all, but I finally made out the shapes of trees. I crawled towards them to find shelter from the wind. I pushed my way through dense lower branches until I found an open space. There was less wind, less snow, and I curled up to wait out the storm.”

He yawns. She yawns.

“I must have fallen asleep because I woke suddenly to a faint small cry”.

“That was me”, she whispers.

He pauses and wonders.

“When I opened my eyes, the sky was a brilliant blue and the snow a blinding white. It was disorienting and quiet. So very quiet. And then I heard you again: a small faint cry. The cold had practically paralyzed me, and I moved slowly, the snow sliding of my scales. I squinted at the clearing. Faint grey shadows started to take shape out of the snow and I realized that I had not been alone. I still was not alone.”

“There was the remnant of a fire. The ring of rocks raised from the forest floor. The canvas of a covered wagon dingy against the white. I had seen many of these, and as I passed high above in the sky, caught snippets of the hopes and dreams that drove men westward. They came for land, for opportunity, and gold.”

“The horses were gone. The drivers seat empty. The tarp sinched down, but tattered and torn. Snow blown into all but the deepest corners of the wagon and there you were. Nested tight, wrapped in blankets and furs, lovingly tucked into a woven basket. Your cheeks glowed red, just like they are now, and little tips of red hair were just visible under the edge of a knitted woolen hat.”

“I panicked. I backed up against the trees and all the snow dumped onto me.”

A faint smile passes across Alina’s face.

“If anyone else was around they would surely have noticed me by now. I looked but there was no other human. I paced a circle through the snow, to the bare ground, trying to decide what to do. I flapped my wings and warmed myself enough to fly. I took off. I did. But then I heard you calling. The sound tugged me back to you.”

Barely audible she whispers: “You came back for me”.

“I came back for you. The handles of the basket hooked over a tooth I flew with you and brought you home”.

Her eyes are closed and her breathing deep and steady. Asleep.

He curls himself around the bed. He breaths out the lantern and waits for her silhouette to take shape in the dark. He wonders when she will ask the obvious questions. The ones that are harder and sadder to answer. Under his watch, Alina had grown from a wobbling toddler to an energetic, happy, smart little girl.

Every night she asks for this story. Each time she falls asleep before the end. He ponders if there is an end. “Once upon a time,” he thinks, “a time not so long-ago people abandoned their ordinary predictable lives to venture into the unknown on a promise of riches. Many ventured out, most were disappointed, some lost all that is most precious, a few discovered what they desired was with them all along, and I found you.”

He closes his eyes.

It is all true, and for now, that will have to do.

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