the stolen dreaming.

   Once upon a time, there lived a little girl with the dragon-knowing. Not many people knew this, and she preferred to keep it that way. See, with a dragon-knowing to have, there must be a dragon that gave, and lo she saw him nigh twice or thrice, twice in dreaming and once out of sky.

   Come night the girlchild was restless in sleep and strove abed, fighting demons. Swift and sharp they came at her, black shadows on the walls of her mind, shifting and changing and leering and taking away the good dreaming.

      Terrible to behold and monstrous to hear, they whisper illicit things to madden the soul and kill the human heart. They latch on to souls for eternity, and only something truly good will break them, same as only something truly evil will bid them come sow seed.

   Ah! Girlchild, what doth you for to hearkensay these demons of night? So passed the dragon-lord in the sky, and so saw he the blood running sightlessly, and so he strove and fought and spoke and barred his teeth, and so they departed, wailing and clutching their stolen dreamings. And he marked the place of her resting that their blemish would never return.

   Now still the girlchild strove sightless in her sleep, and rumbling so did he settle down beside, to have and to hear and to watch over this little one who had the dragon-eyes. He breathed upon her, and so did the tremble die away, and so did she sleep without cry at last. 

   When she took her waking he spirited her away, asking her where her heart lay, and she gave him answer, and he brought her there, and told her dragon-secrets to her heart’s content. 

And nigh to now never did she know why the nightmares stopped of their own accord.