She seemed unaware of his displeasure as she mused, “I think there is in the heart of a man a place made for wonder. It sleeps inside, awaiting fulfillment. All one's life, one gathers treasures to fill it. Sometimes they are tiny glistening jewels: a flower blooming in the shelter of a fallen tree, the arch of a small child's brow combined with the curve of her cheek. Sometimes, however, a trove falls into your hands all at once, as if some greedy pirate's chest spilled before an unsuspecting beholder. Such were the dragons on the wing. They were every gem color I know, and every possible shape one could imagine. Some were dragons such as I knew from childhood tales, but others had shapes whimsical and still others were terrifying in their strangeness. There were proper dragons, some with long serpentine tails, some four-legged, some two, red and green and gold and sable. Flying amongst them were winged stags, a formidable boar who swept his tusks from side to side as he flew, and one like a great winged serpent and even a great striped cat, with striped wings. . . .” Her voice died away, subsiding in awe.

“They weren't real dragons, then,” Paragon observed snidely.

“I tell you, I saw them,” she insisted.

“You saw something. Or some things, some of which had stolen the shapes of dragons. Nevertheless, they were not real dragons. As well to say that you saw green, blue, and purple horses, some of which had six legs and some shaped like cats. Such things would not be horses at all. Whatever it was you saw, they were not dragons.”

“Well ... but .. .”

It pleased him to hear her flounder for words, she who was usually so glib. He didn't help her.

“Some were dragons,” she finally defended herself. “Some were shaped and colored just as the dragons I have seen in ancient scrolls and tapestries.”

“Some of your flying things were shaped like dragons and some like cats. As well to say that flying cats are real, and sometimes they are shaped like dragons.”

She was silent for a long time. When she spoke, he knew she had been thinking and that her chain of thought had dragged her back to his personal history. “Why,” she asked in a deceptively courteous tone, “is it so essential to your happiness that there be no such thing as dragons? Why are you so intent on crushing the wonder I felt at the sight of those creatures winging?”

“It isn't. I don't. I simply believe that one should say what one means. I don't care that you wondered at them. I just don't think you should call such things dragons.”

“Why? If there are no such things as dragons, what does it matter what I call the creatures I saw? Why should not I name them dragons if that name pleases me?”

“Because,” he declared, suddenly nettled beyond all reason. “Because if there were any such thing as dragons still, it would demean them to be grouped with such grotesques.”

Suddenly, she sat up straight. He felt her shift away from him. He could almost feel her prying stare trying to pierce the darkness and see what little the hatchet had left of his face. “You know something,” she accused him. “You know something about dragons, and you know something about my dream and what it means. Don't you?”

“I don't even know what you dreamed,” he stated. He tried to make his voice reasonable, but it climbed up the scale and cracked. It always chose the worst times to do that. “And I've never seen any dragons.”

“Not even in your dreams?” Her soft question was as insidious as drifting fog.

“Don't touch me,” he warned her suddenly.

“I wasn't going to,” she said, but he did not believe her. If she touched him, skin to wood, and reached hard enough, she would know if he were lying. That was not fair. He couldn't do that to her.

“Do you ever dream of dragons?” she asked him. It was a direct question, asked in a casual voice. He did not fall for it.

“No,” he replied succinctly.

“Are you sure? I thought you had spoken to me about such dreams, once...”

He shrugged, an elaborate charade. “Well, perhaps I did. I don't recall. Maybe I did dream such a dream, but it wasn't important to me. Not all dreams are important, you know. In fact, I wonder if any dreams are important or significant.”

“Mine are,” said Amber defeatedly. “I know they are. That is why it is so distressing when I cannot grasp what they mean. Oh, Paragon, I fear I've made an error. I pray it is not a grievous one.”

He smiled in the darkness. “Well, how grievous an error can a bead maker commit? I am sure you are troubling yourself over nothing. Dragons and sea serpents indeed. What do such fantastic creatures have to do with you and me?”