"The first one," Anaya continued, in the focused tone she used when she was being serious. "Gerald. Gerald the rabbit who thought he was brave. Who marched up to a scary dragon to prove he was tough. And the dragon wasn't scary at all. He was just alone, eating his soup, wishing someone would be his friend." She looked up at him. "Gerald was me. Wasn't he."
It wasn't really a question.
"I was the rabbit," she said softly. "Small and acting brave when I was scared. Marching up to you like I wasn't terrified. And you were the dragon." A small smile. "Big and grumpy on the outside. But really you were just... eating your soup. All alone. Wishing someone would stay."
Evan's throat had done something complicated. He kept his face neutral with considerable effort.
"Gerald is a rabbit's name," he said. "Not an elf's name."
"Papa."
"I'm just saying, the naming system was not—"
"Papa."
He stopped. She waited. He looked at the upturned roots above them, at the last pale light coming through the leaves, at anywhere except the small, far-too-perceptive face watching him.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Okay. Maybe."
Anaya nodded, like she'd expected that. Like she'd known all along and had just needed him to say it. She settled back against his side and kept going.
"Dragon Gerald," she said. "The one who was afraid of fire. Who went to Dr. Scalebottom."
Despite everything, Evan felt his mouth twitch. "Dr. Scalebottom was a very qualified therapist."
"He was you," Anaya said simply. "A dragon who's supposed to breathe fire — who's supposed to be dangerous and scary — but he's afraid of the thing he's made of. Afraid of what he is." She paused. "You were afraid of caring about me. Because caring meant getting hurt. And you'd been hurt before. So you kept trying not to — not to let yourself breathe fire — even though it was just part of who you are."
The birds had gone quiet. The forest held its breath.
"Gerald ate the candle," Evan said, after a moment.
"Because he panicked." She nodded solemnly. "Which is also very you."
"That's—" He started to object, stopped. "That's unfortunately accurate."
She was quiet for a small moment, then continued. Her voice had taken on a gentle rhythm, like she'd been saving this up for a long time and it felt good to finally let it out.
"Sir Reginald," she said. "The knight who was scared of horses and rode a chicken instead. Who got laughed at by all the other knights." A pause. "That was you too. But different. The you who kept doing the right thing even when everyone thought you were doing it wrong. Even when Morrison thought you were weak for protecting me. Even when you were supposed to be a hunter and you chose to be—" She searched for the word. "To be a Papa instead."
Evan didn't say anything.
He wasn't capable of saying anything.
"Henrietta was very brave," Anaya added seriously. "I liked Henrietta."
"Henrietta was the best part of that story."
"She really was." Anaya smiled. Then it softened into something quieter. "And Goo."
Goo. The purple-spotted dragon in the cheese cave. The one who'd been trying to nap when a tiny lost elf girl wandered in asking for help finding her Papa.
"Goo didn't want to go," Anaya said softly. "He was comfortable. Safe. He had his cave and his cheese and his nap schedule. He didn't ask for a lost little girl with big eyes. But she said please help me find my Papa and he couldn't say no." She looked up at Evan. "Because she had very big eyes and it was very inconvenient but some things you just can't say no to."
Her voice was so matter-of-fact about it. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Like of course you couldn't say no to that. Like of course a grumpy, solitary dragon in a cheese cave would upend his entire existence for a lost child who looked at him with those eyes. What other possible outcome was there?
Evan's chest hurt. And not from the fever.
"They crossed rivers made of hot chocolate," he managed.
"Which made no sense."
"Storytelling is about vision, not sense."
"And they fought evil wizards."
"The boring kind."
"And eventually," Anaya said, very quietly, "Goo brought her home. Because he'd said he would. And Goo never broke his promises." She tilted her head up. "Even when it cost him everything. Even when it meant giving up his cave and his cheese and his nap schedule forever."
The light had gone golden through the trees. Late afternoon bleeding toward evening.
Evan cleared his throat. Once. Twice.
"You know," he said, "most kids just enjoy the story. They don't deconstruct it."
"I'm not most kids."
"No," he agreed. "You really aren't."
She was quiet for a moment. Then, almost shyly: "And Bob."
He looked down at her. "Bob the cloud?"
"Bob the cloud." She nodded. "Afraid of heights. Even though he was height. Even though being up high was exactly what he was made for." She considered it. "I thought about Bob a lot, after you told me. Because I think Bob was both of us. Me, afraid of the human world even though I had to learn to survive in it. And you—" She paused. "Afraid of how high you'd have to go. How much you'd have to care. Because caring is scary when you've been high up before and you've fallen."
Evan looked at her for a long moment.
She looked back. Patient. Certain.
"How," he said at last, very quietly, "did my kid get this smart?"
A small, pleased smile. "I pay attention."
"You pay terrifying attention."
"You told the stories," she pointed out. "I just listened. Properly." She snuggled deeper into his good side. "I think you knew, even when you were making them up. I think some part of you was always telling me the truth, just... wrapped up in terrible names and soup-eating dragons and chickens named Henrietta. So I'd know without being scared. So you'd know without being scared."
He thought about Gerald the rabbit, marching up to a dragon he was afraid of, because something in him refused to be turned away by fear. He thought about a purple spotted dragon in a cheese cave who couldn't say no to big eyes and a small plea for help. He thought about a cloud named Bob, living low to the treetops his whole life, discovering too late that being afraid of height was the same as being afraid of himself.
He thought about a little girl beside a road in the rain, amber eyes blinking up at him.
Take me to my Mama.
"Yeah," he said, after a long time. "Maybe I did know."
Anaya made a small satisfied sound, like a puzzle piece clicking into place.
"Your stories are still terrible," she said.
"They are deeply, profoundly terrible."
"But they're mine."
Something locked into place in Evan's chest. Quiet and permanent and utterly beyond his ability to argue with.
"Yeah, little light," he said. "They're yours."
She yawned enormously, her small jaw dropping open like a cat's, eyes squeezing shut. "When we get home — I mean when we get to my home — will you still tell me stories? Even bad ones?"
She stopped.
"I'll tell you stories whenever you want," Evan said. And didn't think about the rest of it. Not right now. Not in this particular moment, tucked under a fallen tree with the forest going soft around them and a fever-soaked shoulder that didn't matter as much as it should because she was here and warm and real.
"Okay," she said, satisfied. "Good."
Her breathing slowed. Deepened. Her head grew heavy against his side.
"Papa?"
"Mm."
"Gerald and Goo and Sir Reginald and Bob." A sleepy murmur, barely words anymore. "They all got their happy endings. Didn't they."
"Yeah," Evan said softly. "They did."
"Then so do we."
He didn't answer. Just tipped his head back against the bark, looking up through the knotted roots at a darkening slice of sky. The first star was coming out. Small and distant and stubbornly there.
A little light, holding its place in all that dark.
Beside him, Anaya's breathing evened into the deep, trusting rhythm of a child who believed completely that the person next to her would keep them safe.
He didn't know when his own eyes closed.
He didn't feel himself drift.
Only later — much later — would he realize that they had both simply stopped fighting the exhaustion at the same moment, quietly, without deciding to. As if the forest had finally, gently, told them they were allowed to rest.
Two shapes curled under a fallen oak.
A dragon and his rabbit.
Asleep.