"Blue? Why would you want to be blue? Dragons aren't BLUE!"
"No. Not the colour, my little friend. I mean 'blue' as in unhappy, down in the mouth, all that kind of sad puff 'n stuff."
Timmy tilted his head and stopped licking his lollipop to pull his chin down and say, "WH-A-A-T?" and "WH-Y-Y-Y??"
He scratched his head some, like he'd seen Grandpa do when he was muddled and befuddled. Timmy had never seen a sniffling snuffling dragon before and wasn't sure what he should do. His mum always came with the tissue box when he cried - but a dragon with the waterworks would probably need a whole roll of paper towels... Best nip that one in the bud, he thought. Maybe give Kaida a lick of lollipop? That could work. And Timmy held up his red and white swirly lollipop as high as he could reach. It was a super-generous gift - Timmy's favourite - raspberry and vanilla.
Kaida's large and grateful lick threatened to knock Timmy over, but he braced his legs. He'd been getting dragon licks since he was small, when Kaida blew warm breaths over his baby body to tickle him ever so slightly and post him off to Dreamland. He'd actually learned to walk by holding on to the pointy bits up her spine, becoming excellent at keeping his balance around her.
********
It all started with Farmer Grandpa, once upon a long time ago. Farmers can fix most anything, always living up to the title - 'Jack of all trades, Master of none'. This was never more useful than the day Grandpa met a dragonette in his far paddock. A dragonette, you ask? That's a youngster, only about 60 something years old, trying hard to be a grown-up. This one was Kaida and she had become separated from her mother [who was about two thousand years old, although she liked to say she'd lost track, and forget a few hundred years here and there... seems to be a female kind of thing.]
First came a severe cramp in one wing as Kaida tried to keep up with her mother, flying against a buffety wind, and that had caused the crash landing - luckily into a forest of extremely leafy trees. After she slowly fell through the branches onto a forest floor covered in ivy and mushrooms and a mountain of crackly fallen leaves, Kaida managed to stand up. BUT, to her dismay, she not only couldn't fly [having damaged her wing] but her fiery, whooshing huff 'n puff wouldn't work at all. Instead it came out as a warm and gentle breeze. Her green cheeks turned a brightish pink with embarrassment, imagining how the other dragonettes would laugh and make fun of her. Maybe even her parents would be ashamed of her? She knew they loved her and would pretend it didn't matter, but it would hurt them terribly when all the other dragonettes were playing their fire-bug games and she couldn't join in.
Kaida begged Grandpa to help make her better - and being an excellent handyman, always ready to try anything, he wanted to... BUT this day it was his job to babysit Timmy, and he couldn't possibly do both. Kaida convinced him she could let the babe lay on her tail between the pointy bits and sway him ever so slowly, while humming as she curled around him and did some warm-air-blowing. She promised faithfully [and crossed her heart and hoped to die if she lied], she would NOT eat Timmy, even though he looked perfectly scrumptious.
She said, "It's only fair! PLEASE! I beg you..." Her plaintive tone and tear-filled eyes convinced Grandpa to trust her. With a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Timmy's mother wasn't anywhere near to see the risk he was taking, he found the coast was clear [and the paddock too], all the way to the barn where he placed small Timmy in a nest of hay he'd made, beckoning Kaida to lay her head close to the babe. Soon Timmy was sleeping happily in the soft ebb and flow of her loving breath. Kaida couldn't believe the unsuspected well of love she found deep inside herself.
After several hours of concentrated binding with the strongest silver packaging tape - because band-aids were too wimpy, and gauzy-type bandages likewise - Grandpa was able to patch Kaida up 'darn-fine-splendid' as he liked to say when he did a good job. But reviving the fire and brimstone blasts of breath was impossible. [To tell the truth, Grandpa didn't try TOO hard. He loved that Kaida could only blow gentle warm breezes, no matter how hard she huffed and puffed.] He pretended much grief as he shared the bad news, but when she broke down and sobbed her great dragon heart out, he did feel truly sorry for her.
"I won't belong anywhere in Dragonville any more. Even dragonettes have to fire up daily to survive there." Kaida sniffed so hard the hay around Timmy was nearly sucked up. He murmured and wriggled, but thankfully never woke. "Once upon a long time ago, dragons were the only things flying really high in the sky - even more than twice as high as eagles and the like. And then you human beans started crowding us out with your flying dragon-things; more and more of them, flying ever higher, until some went right off into the darkest sky and never returned. These are powers we don't understand. So we crept into the deepest caves and hid... or risk perishing if we showed ourselves to you."
Grandpa was deeply moved. Clearly he'd decided to make this dragon a friend. After all, he murmured quietly to himself, anyone who purrs like Kaida and makes my precious grandson giggle and laugh out loud when he's awake, and then sleep like a... well-ll-ll... baby - MUST be trustworthy. And as always, gruff old Grandpa's heart went out to the homeless, even such as this young dragon of almost sixty six.
Turned out it was a wonderful choice Grandpa made. Kaida never ever let him down. Not. One. Single. Time. Even when tiny Timmy was teething and brought to Kaida screaming, she'd calm him down in a moment. Grandpa made sure she had the best of care and a diet rich in banana skins. He'd discovered orange peels were OK, although a bit ho-hum. BUT banana skins? They were a special treat for dragons, and he gratefully and regularly rewarded her with well-deserved treaties. And Timmy grew and flourished and grew some more, until even his mother lost all fear and came to depend on Kaida's special care.
********
But now, out of the blue, here was Kaida feeling blue. "But why??" said Timmy, when Kaida lay her head alongside her shoulder and her mouth turned down at the corners. He'd been so sure the lollipop would do it. Why, he was even ready to sacrifice the whole stickful, if worst came to worst.
"Because I can't make fire, I can't see the brightest yellows and oranges and reds of flames. My soft huff'n puff stuff is all quiet colours, like lemon and apricot and kind of pinkish." And Kaida sighed so hard Timmy's best-loved cap blew off and rolled far away before he could catch it. But despite his loss and before he had time to miss it too much, he started smiling as a super thought popped into his mind.
"It's OK," he said. "Think about sunrise colours. They're all those soft huff'n puff colours, and they are the beginning of a new day... a new chance for each one of us to follow a dream, or be our own new bestiest person [or dragon] we can be. Isn't that a super-dooper thought?"
"Well-ll yes. I guess so... " Kaida didn't sound overly convinced. "But the bright colours? I miss them SO badly."
"Easy peasy. They're the colours of sunset - the END of each day. It's like all your dreams are over, all bridges burned—" and Timmy interrupted himself, putting up his hand like a STOP sign. "BUT that is NOT sad. It just means you can go to bed and dream about all the tomorrows, all the 'might be gonna happen' stuff."
And Timmy stretched out his hand to stroke the soft part of the front of her nose, where it was velvety, just like a horse's. And Kaida smiled and made an almost whinnying sound... and decided green was the nicest colour a dragon could possibly be.
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