Why are you crying?

I watched the other children walk around, subtly peering into boxes and behind corners. Hands behind their backs. Eyes slowly growing more frustrated as time flowed by. The fact that they didn't want the adults to realise what they were doing meant that they knew they were in the wrong. One of them approached the steps outside our shop where I was sitting.

“Hey,” said a particularly burly boy with a nest of coppery curls atop his head and a threadbare grey sleeveless tunic with brown trousers. “Did you see anyone weird-looking around here?”

I tucked my hands into my sleeves and tilted my head to the left. There were even more hay bales than usual stacked against the wall, forming a solid square.

“Weird-looking?” I asked.

“He was wearing some funny clothes and his hair looks like my grandpas,” he replied.

“Hmm.” I tilted my head to the right, eyes narrowed against the sunlight reflecting off dull gold plated wares hanging off a nearby stand around the equally worn out vendor to whom they belonged. “Why are you looking for someone like that?”

“He's my friend,” he said quickly.

“Your friend?” I asked. He nodded. “What's his name?”

Panic froze his expression for a moment, then his face reddened.

“Kei'ichi,” he said.

“Kei'ichi, hm?” I murmured. He nodded, slower this time. “Is he their friend too?”

He followed the direction of my chin jerk towards the two other boys who seemed to be consulting each other.

“Why – Why are you asking that?” he said.

“Oh, I was just wondering why none of you were calling your friend's name,” I replied, standing up and cupping my hands around my mouth. “Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you can't find someone?”

“No wait!” exclaimed the first boy, reaching out to silence me.

“Kei'ichi!” I called as loud as I could. “Hey, Kei'ichi!”

“Yeah?” One of the other children turned around, frowning. “Who are you?”

“Don't you know your friend's name?” I asked, shaking off the rough hand on my arm. “Should I ask my mother to help you find him?”

“No, that's okay,” said the boy, faltering as his hazel eyes found the faded sign above the shop entrance. “Wait – your mother?”

“Uchi.” I smiled sweetly at him. The blood drained from his skin as quickly as it had rushed to stain it. “She's good at finding people. And finding out who they are.”

“Forget it!” He ran away in the other direction.

His friends looked at each other and then at me before following him out of sight, calling his name over and over again. They way they were supposed to. I chuckled into my sleeve and turned left.

“You can come out now,” I said, keeping an eye on the road. “If you hurry, you might be able to get back home without bumping into them again.”

I waited but there was no other movement besides the flapping of a grey crow as it leapt off the roof of Uchi's shop.

“They're gone,” I said, a little louder, before descending and walking around the hay bales. “Did you fall asleep in there?”

It was a comfy space to sleep, being relatively soft and a shelter from the unforgiving noon sun. A place that was rarely disturbed and hardly ever occupied by anyone besides me. I crouched in front of the small opening and heard the child with white hair whimpering even before I saw him.

“Oh no,” I murmured. “Did they scare you?”

The little boy shook his head, pawing tears off his blotchy face. Hay stalks poked through his otherwise clean white training outfit and I picked one off his head. He stiffened and peeked at me from between his small fingers, his eyes like blue river sprites glistening in between soft brown tree trunks.

“Sorry.” I smiled and withdrew my hand. “Did I scare you?”

Uchi always warned me not to touch people so easily, especially those who came from Inner Town. It wouldn't matter to some of them whether or not I meant well.

“Nu-uh,” he mumbled.

“Is it because you're lost?” I asked. “I can show you the way back, if you want.”

I still had a little time before we had to pack away the herbs and close up the shop.

“I'm not lost,” he said.

His perfect pronunciation was easier to hear without his hands blocking his mouth. Even Uchi didn't speak as eloquently as he could.

“Hmm.” I framed my chin with the edges of my thumb and forefinger. “Then why are you crying?”

He squeezed the overflowing fabric of his shirt and creased the black dragon symbol sewn into it. His eyes drifted back down the hay padding the ground between us and filled with fresh tears.

“You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to,” I assured him, raising my hands as I started to stand. “You don't have to tell me anything. I can go if you want.”

“It's because –” His clear voice shook and I crouched back down again.

“Hm?”

“– because they called me a lizard.” He covered his eyes with his arms.

“Why would they call you that?” I asked, angling my head but still unable to make eye contact with him.

“Because I'm not big enough.” His lips trembled and he clenched his fists.

“Big enough?” I repeated. “For what?”

He sniffed, clearing his nose and the hurt thickening his voice at the same time.

“For a –”

– Dragon.

Tatsuya had just pulled himself out of the metal wagon and started free-falling when the dragon spawned in the centre of my vision, covering him and a large patch of the sky in an instant like a huge black hole with wings and a tail. Even the cold wind dragging at my clothes and the expanse of the forest growing at the edge of my sight concerned me less than the appearance of yet another strange thing in this world that had been nothing but a constant stream of surprises. A sharp contrast to the predictability of my previous lifetime.

If this was a coma dream, two things would happen the second I hit the ground. I would die for good and not have to worry about the dragon. Or I would wake up in the real world and curse my luck. If this wasn't a coma dream, only one of those things would happen and, despite everything, I started to count my blessings.

But the dragon folded its wings like a peregrine falcon and dropped down towards me faster than a falling boulder. I crossed my arms in front of me by reflex but it flew past me. I had a split second to feel like a lucky pigeon before its scaly back brushed against mine, gently angling me upright mid air before it unfurled its wings. It spun around me with the grace of a dancer until we were chest to chest, then grabbed me with its huge claws so I couldn't move.

It was the last straw on the back of a camel that had been silent for too long.

I screamed for the first time in my life.

 A raw sound stifled by smooth scales and the rush of air against my face.