The Lamb and the Gray Battle

Circa 1354

BoBo, Laoshi, the Egyptian gods, Yueme, they all told Diyiren that he had to take good care of Aoibh, that she needed him to protect her and be with her.

Aoibh's little hand reached up to him, her mop of dark red curls bunched up, shivering on top of her head.

"I had a scary dream. I dreamt that monsters came and took you away."

And a world of sobs spilled from Aoibh's lips.

When Diyiren had been young, several years before Aoibh had been born, he went to his mother, crying, because he'd dreamt that tigers had been chasing him, but then all the tigers had combined into one gigantic beast and had risen up into the monstrous form of Satan.

Niang said, "What are you doing here? Don't cry. You mustn't cry. Go back to bed. It was a bad dream. Go, now! Before someone catches you."

It seemed like eons ago that his mother banished him from her chamber and cursed his tears. The little blue eyes gazing up at him brought it all back, the spitting, the swearing, the terror of that dream.

Diyiren reached over the side of his bed wooden bed and dragged Aoibh up with him.

"I'm never going to leave you. You don't have to worry about that."

Aoibh sniffed a particularly large teardrop up her nose.

Diyiren said, "Do you know what I do when I have a bad dream?"

She shook her head, slow and earnest.

"I tell that dream to go away. I'm not going to put up with it. I'm too busy for it. Then I roll over to my side and I go back to sleep."

"Does that work?"

Diyiren swore most earnestly that it did. He lifted his sheet. "Snuggle in. You can sleep with me tonight."

"Your bed is hard."

"My life is hard. So I have to have a hard bed. But I'm never going to let your life be hard. I will always make sure you have everything. You know why?"

"Because you're Zhangfu and I'm Qizi."

"That's right."

Her little eyes sparkled at him. The storm clouds cleared and they were the bright, fiery blue they usually were.