NILVIIVLIN

NILVIIVLIN




It was a dragon. A baby, but still a dragon. Nilvi was looking at it hatching before her very eyes. The stranger thing was that this creature of myth and legends was emerging from what she believed to be a farm-fresh chicken egg. She got it from the chicken coop and rather than cook it, Nil decided to hatch the poor creature only to be heartily surprised.

The process took no extreme measures, no blazing pyre like in the books. One heating blub and time was all it took. The creature was almost entirely out of the shell, but a few bits still stuck to surprisingly smooth lavender skin. In the books, dragons were said to be scaly and reptilian in nature, but here was an example of a different outcome. It had a pair of horns already atop a rather reptilian head, but the eyes were as those of a mammal.

“You need a name,” Nil said as the little dragon turned to her as if she didn’t even exist before. The little maw opened to produce a tiny squeak. “Oh, but are you a boy dragon or a girl dragon? Since I don’t know yet, it has to be something that would work with either. Hmm…” Nil inspected the little creature as it tried to walk. It had four legs, along with a pair of wings and a tail. When it stumbled, Nil reached out to help, receiving a tiny squeak of gratitude.

“I know,” she said. “How about you take my name, but upside down. Ivlin. Iv for short.” The dragon squeaked again and Nil took that as a sign of agreement. There was no real way to communicate with Iv right now, but other things took priority. Nil’s stomach grumbled at the thought of food, but what could the little dragon eat? Did they only eat meat and fish like in the books? No, it couldn’t be. They never spoke of dragons hatched from chicken eggs. Nil could no longer believe anything they said as fact. She had to test Iv for herself.

“Stay here, Iv,” Nil said and left her barn coop. Other than her room in the house, the coop was her favorite place. It was her version of a treehouse that boys had. “Don’t go anywhere, ok?” She glanced at the little purple baby dragon again before descending the ladder to the barn floor. A thought of Iv eating hay crossed her mind, but she ran to the house to get more options.

Nilvi’s parents weren’t home. She almost cheered at the thought. They wanted her to apply herself to things beyond the fantasy books that she absolutely adored. It was those books after all that led her to try and hatch a baby chicken, and the reason she now had a dragon baby. After loading up with many food items, Nil ran back to the barn to find Iv no longer there.

After a thorough look around, the little dragon was clinging to the wooden beam of the ceiling, having likely just realized it had wings and could fly. Nil reached her hand out with a piece of cheese, but Iv looked too terrified up there. She put the food items down and held her hands out.

“Jump down, Iv!” she called out, but Iv just clung on with his little claws. “Can you understand? I will catch you. I promise.” After a few minutes of looking up, Nil was about to give it a rest, but Iv gave out another squeak and fell. She jumped to catch it and landed on her back in the process. The soft bundle of legend was now in her arms, still shivering. Nil draped a blanket around it and put her forehead up against Iv’s head.

“See? You’re alright now,” she said as he made a happy squeak. She had no idea how she suddenly knew that Iv was a boy dragon, but it was in her mind already. “Oh! The food!” Iv hid in the blanket at her change of tone.

“It’s ok, silly,” Nil said and stood up slowly. The smooth lavender head poked out of the bundle to inspect what she was doing. It would be best to start with non-meat products. Nil was still hoping that this little dragon was a vegetarian like her. It was difficult learning where meat came from, especially after finding it so delicious. She didn’t want to think about it. Maybe Iv could eat seeds like chickens.

She brought some cheese closer, and put it out on her palm. Iv extended his neck to sniff at the cube, but as his maw opened to reveal an array of little sharp teeth, it was too obvious he was meant to eat meat. Nil wasn’t about to give up just yet. The little mouth bit into the cube of cheese and closed, but he spat it out with a tiny bit of black smoke. Nilvi put the bundle down and waited to see if he would make the black smoke again, but he did not.

“Well, alright,” she said. “So cheese is out. You can’t blame me for trying. You’re no bigger than a rat right now. Ok, this next.” Nil held up an apple and brought it close for Iv to sniff. Before he could bite it, she cut the fruit open so he could smell the crisp sweet scent of the juice. Perhaps that would persuade him to turn from what he was geared toward.

Ivlin took a bite of the apple, but spat it out all the same, with some smoke and sparks. There was still hope. Nil tried a few more items next: hay, carrot, banana, seeds, peanuts, dried fruit, and bread. None of it remained in the little dragon’s mouth for long, but each developed the smoke and sparks further. By the bread stage, Iv spat out a cloud of black smoke, and when the sparks flew out after it, what was believed to be smoke, burst into a fireball only to dissipate in the air. It wasn’t exactly a breath of fire just yet, but Iv was just a baby.

“Alright, fine,” Nil said and found the packaged meat she brought. It was bologna, the most over-processed meat possible. Iv liked the scent, but once he bit into the soft pink mass, the same tiny gout of flame burst out. Nilvi almost cheered at his rejection of meat, but if nothing worked, how would Iv ever grow big and strong?

All of a sudden, Iv focused on something until Nil’s eyes followed his. There was a bug in the pile of discarded food and Nil remembered her parents telling her not to leave food lying around. Before she could do anything, the dragon shed his blanket bundle and pounced onto the pile with his mouth open. After devouring the little bug, he turned and squeaked happily. Nil made a grimace at the thought of Iv being happy to eat bugs, but it was still better than him eating meat.

“Alright, Ivlin,” Nil said. “It’s good that you found something to eat, but that’s pretty gross.” Iv gave out a squeak and jumped atop the pile until he spotted something above her. With a careful slow walk, Iv pounced to consume a spider descending onto Nil’s hair. He almost danced with joy after his two snacks which gave Nil an idea.

She rushed to find the right disc and put it into a small portable DVD player with a screen. It was a recording of her mom dancing with her dad. They were both dressed nice and moved to the music playing. Nil often played that video to remember her mother from before.

“Come on, Iv,” Nil said getting up to dance to the music. “Feel the song. Dance to it.” Iv moved to the beat on his four legs, but only looked as if he was wriggling around. Nil came up and helped him stand on two feet as the tail acted to brace his standing position. At first, Iv was stunned to see the world from a different perspective, but then he moved to the music with Nil till the song ended with applause. It was nice to see mom dancing again. Just as that thought occurred to her, a car drove into the barn. It was just Daddy this time. He stepped out of the truck slowly with a smile on his face that had no real happiness behind it.

“Hey, munchkin,” he said and met her eyes.

“Daddy!” Nil said. “What about Mommy?” Daddy’s smile waned.

“She had to stay in hospital a while longer,” he said and sought a change of topic. “So, how goes the hatching process? Do we now own a baby chicken?”

“Oh!” Nilvi exclaimed. “No! You would not believe what hatched! It was a dragon! Sure, he’s not like the classic ones in the books, but he’s all mine!” Daddy narrowed his eyes and tried to understand what she meant by that. His parental mind ran the sentence again and re-oriented itself. A smile returned to his face. His conclusion: nothing hatched, and Nilvi let her imagination run wild again.

“Does this dragon of yours have a name yet?” He asked playing along with what he believed to be a game of imaginary friends.

“Ivlin,” Nil said. “My name, but upside down. Iv for short.”

“Backward,” Daddy corrected. “That’s great, sweetie. Are you hungry?”

“No, I had something already,” Nil replied and looked to Iv who just now noticed he had a tail and was running in a circle trying to catch it.

“That’s good, Liv,” Daddy said. “I need to get some sleep. It’s been a day and a half. Don’t stay in the coop all night, alright? You need your rest, too.”

“Ok, Daddy,” she replied. “Can Iv come sleep in my room?” Daddy nodded, still believing the imaginary dragon a figment of her mind. Nil cheered at the thought.

“Did you hear that, Iv?” she asked behind her. “You can come stay with me.”

Daddy closed the car and left the barn. Nil had been acting that way ever since Mommy got sick. He had to wonder whether his daughter understood more than she let on, but was glad that she found an outlet that only used her imagination. It was hard to believe that her own mind would try to hurt her. Daddy breathed a sigh of relief as he barely got out of his clothes before falling to bed already asleep.

Back in the barn coop, Nil was struggling to catch Iv and bring him over to the house. The little dragon was quick, and still plenty small. The shell of his egg was still in the box made to hatch him. When he first started hatching, it looked just like a chicken, pecking holes from inside to get free of it. Only later did Nil realize that those pecks were actually his tiny horns.

At last Iv was in her grasp. Nil threw a blanket on him to block out his sight. She feared that if he saw the outside, the small dragon would escape. Various other pets have done so in the past, but this was a dragon. Nil decided to make a record of the things she found out about him, to correct those other books she had read to her at bedtime. She had dreams of dragons often, making connections to reptiles of present day, and dinosaurs of old.

“Calmly now,” she said with a tight grip on Iv in a blanket bundle. I’ll show you to my room. Just stay in the blanket for now.” Iv shifted a bit in her hold, already much bigger than the egg he came out of a few hours ago. His head almost made it out of the blankets to see where he was, but Nil skipped into the house before he looked beyond. Iv gave off a tiny squeak and met Nilvi’s eyes. They were not the eyes of a reptile or a chicken. Those were the eyes of a dragon and she felt a sudden need to draw them.

Once up in her room, Nil walked Iv around showing him pictures of other dragon depictions from myth and legend. Each looked ferocious and scary, but they never showed them as babies, freshly hatched. They were meant to be feared, not tamed and admired like Nilvi wanted.

Some of the dragons in the pictures had wings for arms, and a few were just snakes with wings. Horns appeared on a few, but others had only scales. By this understanding, Ivlin was a dragon meant for a liquid environment. The smooth skin had to be some indication of it, but Nilvi wondered if baby dragons developed scales later or if they were born with them already on. Unlike snakes, dragons didn’t shed skins, top layers of their bodies. Most were known to be cold-blooded, but Nil felt Iv’s warmth as she carried him in.

The blanket came off as Iv got to his feet and took a stroll around the room. Meanwhile, Nilvi got her sketchbook out and tried to draw from memory what the eye looked like. After a few minutes of roaming, Iv struggled to try and jump onto the bed where Nil was sketching. She paused to pick him up and place him on the soft surface layered with open books of dragons. At first, Iv just walked on the soft surface inspecting how it squished under his weight. When he braced a bit to jump over an item on the bed, the bounce took him visibly by surprise. When Nil looked over at him again, he was bouncing on the bed happily, in turn throwing items off the side to the floor with a clatter.

“Shh!” Nilvi said to stop his bouncing. “Daddy’s asleep. We have to be quiet.” Iv looked into her eyes again and made a low squeak. Nil imagined he was saying sorry. If she spent enough time around the little dragon, she believed that she’d be able to understand what he meant by different squeaks.

After a few more minutes of sketching, Nilvi felt the call to rest. She cradled Iv who was already snoozing in her bed and put the covers over them both. As she fell asleep, Nil only pleaded to herself that Ivlin was not just another dream, that he was real and thanks to him, she’d be able to explore the world by the sky.

It was much clearer in the morning what Daddy needed to do. Spending time away from his crops during harvest would hurt him, but Mommy’s sickness already did that. If he didn’t tend to their fragile way of life, Nilvi would be affected, and he could not let that happen. She was still too young to help out with all the daily tasks, still lost in her innocent imagination to let reality spoil her thoughts. It didn’t help that she didn’t have many friends, but that would change when she went back to school.

Daddy walked up the stairs to check on his little munchkin before he started his rounds. It was still dark outside, and Nilvi slept soundly in her bed. He half-expected to find some wild animal in her room, but the mention of a dragon had to be her imagination going the extra mile based on fantasy interests. Often, Liv brought wild animals into the house, be they stray dogs, rabbits, snakes, or lizards. She sought companionship nearby as the nearest neighbor was a farm away. Mommy loved that seclusion, but having come from a large city and having a family to be with made it easier on her.

With a kiss to Liv’s forehead, Daddy was gone from her room and the house. If not harvested soon, the crops would be devoured by wildlife. He needed to salvage all he could, for Nilvi, and for Nirona recuperating far of in the city.

Nilvi woke for a brief moment when Daddy smooched her forehead, but didn’t open her eyes. Did he see Iv? Nil figured it was still too dark in the room. When she woke up next, the sun was out and the day had started. With a smile on her face, she went around the room in search of her baby dragon, but he was nowhere to be found. Since the door to her room was open, Nilvi decided that he must have gone to explore the rest of the house. She threw something on and went looking. Daddy wouldn’t be back for a couple more hours since he left early in the morning. She needed to find the purple dragon before then to introduce them. Just in case he came back into the room, Nil closed the door before setting out to search the rest of the house.

“Iv?” She called out, but got no response. Even he wouldn’t be caught on that, but Nil heard sounds from downstairs and rushed into the kitchen to find Daddy. She reoriented herself and ran up to hug him.

“Morning, munchkin,” he said. “Eggs?” He pointed to a box of potential dragons while cracking one onto a skillet to fry. Did he forget the whole egg talk that led to hatching Ivlin? His face grimaced remembering.

“Oh, Livvy, I’m sorry,” he said. “But I need to eat eggs to be big and strong. I’m sorry. How about a PB&J? Only… We seem to be missing the necessary ingredients for it. I’ll make a run to the store after my rounds.” Nil left him to fry up his baby dragons. It was unfair that they were never allowed to be born like Iv. Where could that dragon be? Sure, he wasn’t big, and could fly, and cling to ceilings with his claws. Nil looked up for a moment, but there were no marks on the ceiling to indicate his presence. He had to be somewhere in the house.

Daddy left the house after breakfast and Nilvi really buckled down to search the rooms.

#Prove me right, Iv,# she thought. #It wasn’t just a dream. You’re real and you’re here to take me to new place. Please, be real!#

She checked all the rooms of the house, but found nothing. Ivlin wasn’t big enough to leave a visible trace of where he’d been. If only his talons left scratches on the floor, she could track him down. After many sweeps of the house, each more thorough then the last, Nil fell to her knees in defeat. She questioned why there was no trace of Iv even though she could clearly remember him. That smooth lavender skin stuck in her mind as she re-dreamed all that happened last night. Was it just that?

All doubts vanished from her mind when she entered her room again to find a familiar purple tail extend from underneath her bed. Nil’s heart leapt for joy a as she threw herself onto the bed to go over the edge of the other side to meet Iv’s eyes once more. He was real. The sudden impact on top of the bed scared him into a leap forward. Nilvi felt his horns connect with a strike to her forehead.

All of a sudden, Nil was no longer in her house, no longer on her bed, and Ivlin was nowhere to be found. The space was dark purple, but somehow pleasant. It felt warm and soft, but there was nothing around her, even ground. In a moment, a brighter spot appeared nearby, lavender in the purple surroundings. It moved around at will while Nil felt suspended and weightless. It paused right in front of her, but evaded her touch when she reached out.

“Hello,” Nilvi said into a space that absorbed her words. She could only hear the words spoken as they emerged. “I’m Nilvi. And you are?” She studied the blob as it neared her again. She reached again, but carefully as not to frighten it away.

“Nilvi,” a voice repeated around her in a voice just like hers. “Friend. Mommy. Dragon. Home. Egg. Daddy.” Nil was confused at the few random words of her own voice, but smiled.

“Ivlin?” she asked the bright spot and reached out to it. “Is that you, Iv? Where are we?” She reached slowly until her hand could touch the surface that felt like Iv’s skin. With that, her body tumbled through the purple space as it got brighter and brighter. When she blinked, she was back in her own room, bleeding from her forehead where Ivlin impacted with his horns. His eyes were locked to hers, studying if she was ok. He opened his maw and gave off a squeak of apology. How did she know it was an apology? This was no regular dragon she hatched. She needed to explore further, but the injury took priority. Daddy would worry at her injury, but maybe she would at least get to see Mommy.

#No,# she thought. #She’ll be back soon. I need to wash the cut.# Before she could get up, Iv scrambled out from underneath the bed and licked her wounds sealed as if he heard her thoughts. For some reason, Nil was not shocked by the fact that he healed her wounds, but grimaced at the thought of there once being bugs in his mouth. There was some sort of connection still lingering between them.

Ivlin was larger than yesterday. When he hatched, his size was that of a chicken, but that evening he was already the size of a puppy. This morning, his body was bigger, like a dog she once had that ran away. She wondered if he was big enough to ride on his back, but first he’d need to learn to fly. The worrying thought was whether he’d keep growing at that rate and if so, how would she hide him? Nilvi wondered why she wanted to have him hidden as he bounced on her bed again in the morning sun, this time throwing all the items to the floor with added weight.

His skin was light purple in the sun, but legs had a darker hue, just as the wings. The neck brightened to an almost pink color by the mouth and horns. His tongue was lavender like most of his body. Nil took out her sketchbook to try and draw Iv’s eye again. There was something so familiar in it, but she couldn’t understand what it was. After another failed attempt at the sketch, Nil studied the no-longer-little dragon as he went on the hunt to consume another spider. She wondered if his eating of bugs was temporary or if this dragon really only ate insects. She shivered at the thought of seeking a large portion for him, a swarm.

“Let’s go see the house, Iv,” Nilvi said shaking off the gross thoughts. He leapt from the bed and almost landed on top of her. After trying to lift him by hind legs, Nil surmised that he could no longer be carried. Instead, he lowered his neck and waited, but Nilvi didn’t catch on. He met her eyes again and just like that a vision appeared in her mind of her atop his neck as they walked around. The next time he knelt down and lowered his neck, Nilvi took a large step over the lavender smooth skin and sat down. Iv stood up with a bit of effort, but he held Nil up and walked out into the corridor. “This is amazing, Ivlin!”

They ventured to the open window at the end of the corridor. Nil looked outside and fear returned into her mind. What if he saw the open world and left her just like her other pets have? What if she’d be alone again? She didn’t want that, but his walking paused a few feet from the window and lurched backward to have Nilvi grab hold of the horns. When she did, Nil felt a voice inside her mind.

#Never alone,# it said into her head. #Never again.# The voice had to be him, but it was difficult to imagine a person speaking that way. It was as if a whisper was threaded with a human voice and a growl. It was a deep whisper. Nilvi took a hand away from one horn and petted the smooth skin on top of his head.

“Let’s go outside, Iv,” Nil said as he stood back up. Before she could ask him to stop, the dragon charged the window ahead and tackled the glass. Nilvi panicked, but there was no impact. When she opened her eyes, they were outside in the sun and the window behind them was still intact. “How did you do that?” Her hands touched the horns as the voice replied.

#New,# he thought. #Thought. Past.#

“Past?” she asked. “Yesterday?”

#Far. Before.# She wondered what he meant by that, but shrugged it off as Iv started running. At first, he struggled to hold her up, but after a minute, Nil realized that her feet no longer touched the ground. Iv grew further all the while carrying her around in the sun. Before she knew, the dragon flapped his wings at the top of a small hill sending them both airborne for a brief moment. Nilvi felt that sensation of flight in that few seconds and hugged Iv’s neck in happiness as they touched down.

“Amazing!” She exclaimed right as the sudden stop threw her forward into a tumble. Iv found her laughing on her back, looking up to the blue sky. She reached her hands up to the horns of what now looked fully draconic. “What else can you do? Can you breathe underwater? Will you have scales?”

#Fuzzy. Thoughts.# He thought in the deep whisper within her mind.

“Don’t worry,” Nilvi said. “It will come back. You were just hatched yesterday, but you’re one amazing dragon, Ivlin.” He squeaked rather than use the internal voice and Nil smiled. It was better to learn of his squeaks rather than rely on the horns that connected their minds. Iv squeaked again, but she couldn’t understand him yet. He didn’t seem to be a big fan of the sun and wanted to be in the shade. Nilvi walked with him to a nearby tree and climbed onto his back to find a hot surface.

“I’m sorry, Iv,” she said touching the heated surface. “I don’t think you’re a day dragon. I think you might be one that takes flight under the cover of night. Let’s get some ice to cool your back off. Wait here.” Nil ran to the house and loaded ice from the freezer into a plastic bag. When she ran back to the shaded spot underneath an old oak, Ivlin was nowhere to be found.

She stood there in the spot as the ice melted in the plastic becoming a leaking mess. Where could he have gone? The sun hurt him and there was no escape from it now around noon. Where could a dragon go in this heat? Nilvi thought back to when they didn’t crash through the window and looked down to the grass. Did he sink into the ground to hide?

#Ivlin!# Nil thought intensely toward the surface of the shaded spot hoping some connection still remained between them. If he went too deep, Iv would reach more heat below. Nil had seen the diagrams for how their planet looked in books. Just below a thin crust on top there was a hot core that would be really bad for him.

“Ivlin!” She shouted with her hands to the ground. “Don’t go too deep! Please, hear me!” A squeak emanated from above her to find Iv up in the tree consuming a cicada. Nil dropped the bag of ice water with relief. He didn’t go into the ground. She was about to climb up, but he jumped down instead. She let go of the bark ending up on his back. It cooled down a bit, but was still very heated up compared to her temperature. She gathered what she could from the dropped bag to cool him down, but when she put the remnants of ice on his skin, Iv shook it off. He squeaked too, but Nil was at a loss. In desperation, she grabbed the horns and listened to his mind.

#Sun. Burn. Ice. Burn.#

“How about water?” Nil asked and scooped some water from the melted ice in the bag. She poured the small amount onto the back with hopes of helping. Iv squeaked at the contrast, but didn’t shake it off. When Nil’s wet hand touched the horn again, his voice was different, clearer. It only sounded like a whisper now.

#Water’s better,# he said as Nil took her hand away in surprise. Did water make a better connection to her mind in some way? If Iv didn’t like the sun, didn’t like the ice, but water helped him communicate, his ideal climate must have been somewhere near the ocean in warm weather.

Nil thought back to her grandparents who lived in Florida and wondered if she could visit them before summer was over. The only difficulty would be transporting him, or could he grow large enough to fly her there instead? Nilvi let her imagination run wild in the scenario, but Mommy showed up in her mind and saddened her a bit. Nil hoped she was alright and would come back soon, but while Nil was with Daddy, she’d only be in the way of his work.

It was decided in that moment. She’d go visit her grandparents and let Iv be in a climate perfect for him. Nil just hoped he was ok with salt in the ocean, otherwise he’d have to be a Loch Ness dragon like that one elusive dinosaur smart enough to avoid notice. There was just Daddy to convince now, and a decision of which grandparents’ home to go to. Not to mention how to transport Ivlin without getting him in the sun. Could he just run underneath the ground? No. That was a bad idea. Maybe it was a better idea to show Daddy the no-longer-little dragon and introduce them. If she did that, he’d react to protect Nil and attack Iv. The dragon had to remain secret, for now.

“Come on, Ivlin,” Nil said and reached her hands out. “I want to show you a place where we should go.” The horns touched her hands and threw her into the purple space, but the bright blob swooped under her like a beanbag seat and moved her into a new environment, this one grey rather than dark purple.

“This is your mind, Nilvi,” Iv said in the whisper-growl voice of his mind. “Think of it and it will appear.” Nil smiled, but realized she had no body. She was just a white blob on the endless grey space where Iv was the purple blob that felt out of place. The first step had to be a way to feel real. Nilvi created a form for herself and made Iv into his dragon body. Next, she thought back to the past summer when Mommy was still healthy. They went together to visit all grandparents, but only slept at Mommy’s parents because of some issues Daddy’s ones had with Mommy.

“Mommy,” Nil said and reached out to the recollection, but this was just a memory. “You’ll be alright. I’ll see you soon.” With that taken care of, Nil changed the scene to the beach in the evening and stopped time for Iv to give it a try. He walked in and dropped his body to the water. Nil observed the waves as they held frozen in time. She’d try to sketch them later just like that.

“Most of this planet is water,” Nil said. “So if you like it, then Florida may be the place for you. Even if there is a lot of sun, you can spend the days underwater. If you can hold your breath.” The scene changed to daylight and Iv cowered until he realized that it was just an imaginary sun. He looked so majestic in the rays of this light. It was a shame that it hurt him to be out in the sun.

“What’s a breath?” He asked while leaping into the air and hovering on his wings.

“Oh, it’s umm…” Nilvi replied. “People have these things called lungs in them, and they use them to breathe so they can live. Fish have gills, something that lets them breathe water, but people don’t have gills, so we need to hold our breath and can’t do that for long. How about you?” Iv landed on the sad beside her.

“No lungs,” he said. “No breath. Just Veil.”

“Veil?” Nil asked. Iv breathed out a black cloud of something resembling smoke, but behaved more like clouds, bunching up rather than dispersing. Nil dug her hand in the fluff that was already proven to be flammable when she tested foods in the coop, but she felt safe in her imagination. “Why does it stay clumped up, not thin out?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe it doesn’t belong in this world.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nil said. “You were born here, so you belong here. That’s what Mommy always says.”

“I’m not sure I was-.”

“OH!” Nil exclaimed. “I forgot! The sun keeps moving, so we need to get back before the shadow exposes you to the sun! Come on!”

Nil imagined herself in the shade under the tree with hands on the horns and let go. The sun skipped to a new position, and she pushed Iv back into the shade. He squeaked in thanks, but the sound was developing into more of a growl.

“Can you go out of phase like you did with the window?” Nil asked. Iv blinked slowly and nodded. “Alright, so phase underground and come up in the house. The sun’s going to be out for a few more hours and I can’t let Daddy see you.” Nil watched as Ivlin touched his tail to his body and sank into the ground. Without doubt, Nil ran into the house expecting Iv to arrive, but found Daddy in the kitchen making a sandwich.

#Abort!# Nilvi thought and hoped Iv heard her. #Go to the barn!#

“Hey, kiddo,” Daddy said. “Want some lunch?” Nil shook her head and watched the ground for Iv, but he didn’t arrive. She sighed in relief. “You alright? Are you feeling sick?”

“No, I’m fine,” Nil replied. “But I was wondering if I could go visit grandpa’s and grandma’s again this summer. There is only a few weeks left.”

“That sounds great, but I can’t drive you down,” Daddy said. “And you remember why sending you by plane won’t work. So unless you can find a driver, it’s a no-go.”

“How about aunty?” Nil asked.

“She’s at the hospital helping Mommy,” Daddy said and cut his sandwich in half. Nil shook her head.

“I don’t mean Aunty Dorothy,” she said. “Aunty Anne.”

“Livvy, I told you many times,” he said, “It’s Uncle Anton now. My brother is probably busy, but I can ask him.”

“Can I call?”

“Call who?”

“Aunty- oh… umm,” Nil said. “Uncle Anton.”

“That’s right,” he said. Nil had no idea how Aunt Anne became Uncle Anton. Everyone said it was a miracle, but Nilvi didn’t understand. She ran over to the phone and dialed in the number from the wall list of frequent numbers.

“Hello?” a voice asked on the other end.

“Hi, Uncle Anton, it’s Nilvi,” she said and ventured a thought to where Iv came up in the barn. Right on cue, he popped his head out from the floor of the house.

“Hey, kiddo,” Anton replied. “What’s up? How’s your mom doing?” Nil frowned remembering the truth she tried to ignore.

“She’s still in the hospital,” she said. “But I’m sure she’ll be back soon. I’m calling for a favor.”

“Shoot, kiddo,” he said. “Anything I can do, I’ll do.”

“Can you drive me over to grandma’s place in Florida?” Nilvi asked while playing with Iv’ds face. Just then she realized that it wasn’t a normal thing to see a dragon head poking up from the floor. She grabbed a horn while waiting for Uncle Anton to think.

#Go hide in my room,# she thought as the head sank under just as Daddy stopped by to check on her.

“I- uhh…” Anton hesitated. “I don’t think I can do that, hon. Our parents and Nirona’s folks are not as with the times as Nirona and Charlie, I mean your mom and dad.” Nilvi met Daddy’s eyes to find a look that said: “I didn’t say he’d go for it.”

“But you wouldn’t have to see them at all!” Nil protested. “Just drive me out there and drop me off. Please? I want to spend my summer at the beach. Please, Uncle Anton.” There was a silence on the other end for a minute or so.

“You and your summers,” Anton said. “Fine, I’ll drive you.”

“Awesome, bring the truck please,” Nil said. “Love you. Bye.” She met Daddy’s eyes again with a grin and he smiled at her ability to change another’s mind. She was just like Nirona in that respect.

“I’ll be lonesome here without you, Liv,” he said and looked out the window. “Maybe I ought to get some puppies.”

“Don’t be like that, Daddy,” Nil said. “I’ll be back soon, and Mommy will be, too.”

“Right,” he said and slapped both hands to his face. “Best get packing. Don’t forget your toothbrush this time.”

“I won’t!” she called out already running upstairs to get her bags packed. For Iv transport to work, one of two things had to happen. Either Uncle Anton would have to be tricked into carrying Ivlin in the back of the truck, or he’d have to know about the dragon. Nilvi wasn’t sure yet which it should be, but left the decision for later.

#Get ready, Iv,# she thought. #We’re going to Florida!#

The dog-sized dragon moved around the room excitedly while she packed her stuff. There was a lullaby Mommy often sang to her, and Nilvi hummed the tune while planning the excursion to the beach. Maybe at night she’d be able to fly under the stars and over the seas, free atop the impossible lavender dragon she hatched all by herself. Ivlin took to the game of fetch, but often ended up phasing through the walls rather than crushing into them. At every instance, Nilvi noticed that to do so his tail touched to his body. Uncle Anton Arrived a few hours later.

“Hey, Uncle Anton,” Nilvi said and hugged him. “Thank you for agreeing to drive me over.” Anton looked toward Charlie with a dry smile.

“Let’s hope I make it back in one piece,” he said. “Haven’t seen pop since… before. I’ve always felt he took my change as betrayal.”

“You’re overthinking it again,” Daddy said. “Besides, nobody said you have to go see him. Better yet, drive Nilvi to Nirona’s folks and they can drive her over to ours. Face Dad when you’re ready, or don’t. They don’t have a lot of time left.”

“That’s harsh, Charlie,” Anton said. “I like it. While your ideas have some merit, I think it IS time.” He turned to Nilvi and gave her a thumbs-up. “Ready to roll?”

“Oh, yes,” Nil said and looked in the direction of her room. “Or… not. One moment, toothbrush.” Daddy face-palmed himself because he already reminded her of it a few hours ago. The excuse was a trick to get one last moment with Iv and make sure they were on the same page.

Nil entered the room just as the dragon phased in from the bathroom. She connected them again with a hand.

#Follow us underground for a bit,# she thought. #I’ll ask to go to the bathroom, then you’ll go into the back and cover up with a tarp I’ll bring. That should work to get you there without Uncle Anton finding you out.#

#Why do I need to be hidden?# Ivlin asked.

#People tend to attack things they are afraid of, things they don’t understand. Trust me. Doing this in secret is the best way.#

#Do you not trust Anton and your dad?# Nil didn’t reply. She took her hand away from Iv’s horn and put her face to his.

“I trust them,” she said. “But you’re a special case. I’m afraid for what they’d think. Please, do as I ask. Ok?”

#Ok.# He thought back.

“I’m ready,” Nilvi said and hugged Daddy goodbye. “I’ll be back soon, and so will Mommy.” She smiled bright and got into Anton’s truck. The scenery shifted into motion until it all blurred past on the highway. The interior of the truck was spacious for someone her age, and Nil hoped the back was big enough to fit Ivlin. Since she was glancing back often, Anton asked about it.

“Are we being followed?” He asked playacting a movie or maybe a book. “Should I put the pedal to the metal?” Nil found his eyes.

“No, I just,” she said and paused to glance around. “I gotta pee. Can we stop at a gas station soon?” His smile waned and studied signs until a rest stop appeared. When he pulled into the parking spot, Nil had to figure out a way to get him out of the truck. Luckily for her, he wasn’t about to send her out by herself.

“You go do your thing,” he said. “I’ll grab some coffee and snacks for the road.”

They walked together until she split off to the bathroom just long enough to watch him go inside the little convenience store. Right after, Nil dashed back to the truck to open up the back where she had a tarp ready.

#Come up, Ivlin!# She repeated the words a few times loudly in her mind, but had no idea if the mental connection still worked after being separate for about an hour.

“Come on up, Iv!” she shouted at the ground and glanced back to check where Uncle Anton was. He was already paying at the counter as the cashier bagged his items. She smiled and looked embarrassed for some reason. When Nilvi looked back to the ground, she found Iv poking his head out. Without a second to lose, she grabbed a horn only to phase through it. She motioned for Iv to come up while glancing again as Anton exited the store. The lady at the counter looked in his direction with a piece of paper in her hand. Once Iv was on the ground, Nil grabbed the horn.

#Get in!# she thought loudly as she lifted the tarp with her other hand. The dragon, now the size of a small horse, climbed into the back. The truck sank down visibly, but it could take the weight. It now looked to be carrying something heavy in the back, but Nilvi hoped Uncle Anton wouldn’t notice the difference.

With Iv under the tarp and Anton walking back, Nil realized the sudden need to actually go to the bathroom. Uncle Anton could not see her leave the truck, but she needed to go. She waited until he was at the door to bolt for the bathroom, but it was too much in view to escape Anton’s eyes.

“Nilvi?” he asked. Nil stopped and turned around.

“I forgot something!” she called out and ran into the bathroom.

#Stay quiet and don’t move,# she thought and hoped Uncle Anton didn’t need anything from the back of the truck along the drive. There was no way to predict how a grownup would react to seeing something like Ivlin, and Nilvi would rather not find out if she had a choice. When she got back to the truck, Anton was ready to go.

“Got you some snacks for the road,” he said as they pulled out from the rest stop. “Huh. The truck’s carrying a little low, don’t you think? It feels low.” Nilvi needed to change the topic before Iv got found out.

“Why was that lady at the counter smiling at you?” Nil asked. Anton’s eyebrows lifted as if trying to figure out what stage of development Nilvi was in, before he cleared his throat.

“Well, you see,” he started. “I found her pretty, so I decided to compliment her. When she liked the comment I made, I gave her my number so that maybe was can get together in the future.”

“Do you do that a lot?” she asked keeping to the subject on something that flustered Anton to keep away from the truck. The conversation went to him getting in touch with various women, but part of it felt missing. By the end of it, Anton had forgotten about the fact that his truck was one juvenile dragon heavier than usual. Nil sighed in relief and popped open a bag of pretzels.

#Are you ok back there, Iv?# Nil asked in thought. Was he still even connected? #Ivlin?#

#Tired,# he thought back. #Hot under tarp in sun. But, ok.#

“How’s our time, Uncle Anton?” Nilvi asked about an hour after the gas station. “The roads all look the same to me.” He didn’t glance away from the road for even a second. Nil wondered if that’s what driving was like.

“Two hours down, four to go,” he replied. “How are you on bladder? Need to stop again?”

“Not yet,” Nil replied. “But if you need to, we can stop. Thanks, but the way, for driving me. I know it’s a bit far to go just to drop me off.”

“No sweat,” he said. “That’s what family’s for, kiddo.” Nil wanted to know something, but hesitated to ask. “What is it?”

“I have a personal question,” Nil said. “But Daddy said not to ask it or you’d be upset.”

“Charlie’s such a worrywart,” Anton said. “Hit me with it.” Nilvi fidgeted a bit. Would he be upset for asking? She shook uncertainty off.

“How come you aren’t Aunt Anne anymore?” Nil asked. “How come you’re Uncle Anton?” He laughed at the bluntness.

“Great question,” he said. “And what a bold way to do it, too. Well, let’s start with what you know of it. What did your dad tell you about it?”

“A miracle happened,” Nilvi explained. “And then you were Aunt no longer, only Uncle.”

“That’s it?” Anton asked. Nil nodded. “I didn’t expect Charlie to be such a conservative. Did Nirona, err, your mother tell you anything else?”

“Just that it was your choice,” she explained. “Not something that happened against your will, so it counted as a miracle of the world, but I don’t understand. How can it be a miracle when it was a choice?”

“Well, I think they meant it was LIKE a miracle,” Anton said glancing from the road to meet her eyes. “It was miraculous, Mi- Ra- Cu- Lous. To tell you the truth, I’ve felt like Anton for a long time before it happened, but was born as Anne, so that choice righted a mistake of the world.”

“So we’re not all born perfect?” Nilvi asked. She remembered Mommy tell her that all things are born perfect in their own little way.

“That’s not the best approach to life,” Anton said. “But it’s very positive. That’s what Nirona told you, right? Your mother?” Nil nodded.

“I’m sorry for making you doubt her words,” Anton continued. “Our world makes mistakes, just as we do. Expecting everything to be perfect from the very start is like trying to win the lottery with one ticket and having never played it before. Often, there isn’t enough luck to bypass all the mistakes in the way.

“Consider playing a game. There is always a winner and losers, but in playful terms those aren’t that big a deal. The initial draw or roll is based on luck, and I was born a girl. It took me a while to figure out that this was a mistake of the world, but thanks to the modern inventions it was corrected. Sorry to drop this amount of info on you. It might be a bit early for you to grasp everything, but just like us, the world sometimes makes mistakes, and that’s perfectly alright.”

“But it hurts people,” Nilvi murmured. “The mistakes hurt people, don’t they?” #Like Mommy.# Uncle Anton nodded.

“That they do,” he said. “But expecting it all to be perfect is like having everyone win a game only meant to have one winner. Those mistakes are a part of the world, but there are many who try to right those wrongs because they were lucky enough from the start, or were helped along the way through a similar ordeal. Oh, umm, ordeal is like a struggle or a problem.”

“Like doctors are helping Mommy with her problem?” Nilvi asked and felt fear build in her heart at the understanding.

“Yes, like your mom is being helped by doctors,” Anton said. “And we’re all rooting for her to get better. Sometimes, just knowing that others are wishing you well is enough to help out. I’m sure Nirona will be just fine, because everyone she came in contact with wishes her well.” Was Ivlin a mistake of the world, too?

“Are there- Are there such things as wonderful mistakes?” Nil asked, but Uncle Anton was confused.

“What do you mean, Vi?”

“Ok, well,” she started. “Say you were hatching an egg, and rather than a chicken hatching out of a chicken egg, a dragon came out of it.” Anton burst out laughing at the thought.

“That’s quite the imagination you’ve got, ViVi,” he said. “But I assume so. If a dragon hatched from a chicken egg, that could be considered a wonderful mistake, a miracle even.” Nil felt happier to hear that, but what followed soured the idea of revealing Ivlin.

“Although, if such a thing happened in this world, I have a feeling people would be afraid of it, even to the point of trying to hunt it down and put it on display.”

“Oh,” Nil said quietly and sank in her seat. #There goes telling him what he’s hauling in the back.#

The rest of the trip was quieter. Uncle Anton tuned into the road as if it was some kind of music, but music played from various stations along the way. Nil was left to her own devices as the hours passed. At first, she tried sketching interesting sights they passed by, but after a bump in the road made her hand slip, she gave up on it. She did also bring a book with her about a dragon that felt similar to Iv.

The story was dry, about a scientist named Percival exploring a world of seemingly nothing to discover, a place on a purple glowing rock. There was a vague mention of dragons as something the inhabitants feared. Nilvi tried to focus on the endless descriptions of what the man saw through his invented lens, but the lack of dialogue and action almost put her to sleep.

When she shook awake, Uncle Anton wasn’t in the truck with her, and she could only see darkness outside the windows. Panic set in immediately, but she had to only glance back to find a gas station there. Uncle Anton probably had to pee and didn’t want to wake her up.

“Ivlin?” Nilvi asked of the backseat. “Are you feeling better now that it’s night?” There was no response, and no head poked through the seat to respond even if with a nod. Nilvi wondered whether she should be worried or if he was just asleep. Before she had time to check, Anton came back to the driver’s seat.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “You’re awake. We’re not far now. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.” He noticed Nil’s worried look. “What’s up? Need the bathroom?”

“No, but I have to check something,” she replied. “Only, you can’t ask what it is. Do you trust me, Uncle Anton?” His eyebrows raised at the sudden seriousness, but then a smile appeared on his face.

“I bet it has something to do with why my truck’s been carrying heavy,” he said. “But, ok. I’ll trust you.” Nilvi was already known for accepting all kinds of wild animals as pets, it was possible Uncle Anton thought she was transporting another creature, and wouldn’t be far off.

“Thank you, Uncle Anton,” she said and got out of the truck to check on the back where Iv was hopefully sleeping off the heat from before.

Nil lifted the cover slowly and found a purple mass underneath with a sigh of relief. Ivlin was just asleep, but Nil put a hand to his horn to re-establish the mental link.

#Aberration!# Nil heard someone utter from inside Iv’s mind with a deep-rooted anger. A spot of purple flashed in her mind.

#Should Not See!# Iv jumped in. Nil felt knocked back into her own body. #Not Speak Of This.# When she let go, Iv was awake, but she could see the hurt in his eyes. Something in that mysterious past hurt him, but Nilvi had no idea what the word shouted even meant. With the tarp back over her purple dragon, she went back to the passenger’s seat.

“Let’s go,” she said and held her hand where the horn was a moment ago with a worried thought. Uncle Anton said nothing as they drove off. A few minutes into the persisting silence, Nilvi heard the word again while thinking back. “Uncle Anton?”

“Yes?”

“What’s an ‘aberration’?” she asked expecting him to ask where she heard it, but he didn’t.

“An aberration is something that is wrong in the world, but still exists,” he said. “Well, at least in the mind of those who believe the world doesn’t make mistakes, which is dumb. In terms of the world, someone like me might have been considered an aberration, a distortion of the normal, but times change, thankfully. What makes you ask?”

“A friend of mine was called that a while ago,” Nil said trying not to give anything away about the dragon in the back of the truck. “But I don’t understand why.” Uncle Anton half-smiled.

“It’s hard to understand words of hate,” he said. “They only make sense in the mind of the person saying them. They are meant to hurt, but act only to show that the person speaking has been hurt in the past. Whatever the reason, calling someone an aberration is hurtful, so please don’t use it now that you know this.”

“I won’t,” she replied trying to understand who would call Ivlin such an awful word in his past, and why. The lull of darkness beyond the windows was getting to her, but they arrived to grandma’s and grandpa’s place, Daddy’s and Uncle Anton’s parents.

#Phase out of the truck and wait for me near the house,# Nilvi thought as she unbuckled to retrieve the bag of clothes in the small rear seat. Anton saw her struggle, and stepped back in to help retrieve the bag.

“Thank you,” she said as they walked over to the front door. Nil wanted to ask if he was scared, facing his Mommy and Daddy after correcting a mistake of the world they didn’t believe was one. No words escaped her mind, but she held his hand in support and he smiled all the way to ringing the doorbell.

It was Grandpa Mark that answered the door, and his look cut Uncle Anton’s smile down. There was a bit of a silence until grandpa’s eyes shifted to Nilvi. She hugged him tight in the doorway and he held her without a word.

“Did Charlie call ahead?” Anton asked.

“Yes, he mentioned you two might be coming by, Anne,” he said.

“It’s not-.” Uncle Anton started and paused at grandpa’s sour look. Nil was confused.

“Who’s Anne?” She asked. “Uncle Anton got me here in his truck.” Grandpa grimaced in disappointment at the words, but another person joined the conversation to relieve this tension.

“Oh! My little Nilvi!” Grandma Beth said coming up to hug her, but when she noticed Anton, embraced him first. “Anton, my boy!” Grandpa looked more disappointed at her acceptance of Anton and disappeared within the house. Nil wondered if there was a way to convince him that there was nothing wrong with Uncle Anton being himself, that this was in fact a mistake of the world that was corrected. Uncle waved and walked off, but Grandma Beth stopped him.

“And where are you off to in such a hurry?” she asked.

“Motel,” he replied confused.

“Nonsense! I’ve made you a bed,” she said and opened the door wider.

“Are you sure it’s ok with Dad?” he asked. “I don’t like seeing him angry.” Beth chuckled.

“If he can’t get over this change in your life, he shouldn’t get a say in the matter. Give it a few more decades. All the old farts like him will be gone, and the world will just keep turning, better for it.” They smiled and hugged.

“I love you, Mom,” he said.

“I love you, too, my son,” Grandma Beth replied. “Now get in here before the whole place is filled with mosquitos.” Uncle Anton took up Nil’s bag and went inside.

“I’ll be right there,” Nilvi called to the door while going back to the truck. There was nothing in the carriage anymore. And she smiled that Iv got out ok.

After a short dinner with a tense silence, everyone relaxed once grandpa went off to bed. Grandma and Uncle Anton opened a bottle of wine, and Nil faked being tired to get freedom at last.

#Ivlin,# she called out into the night with her mind. #Are you there?# She stood in the dark illuminated only by the starts between the clouds looking for that purple dragon she hatched from just a chicken egg at home. A star glinted purple in the sky.

In a blink of an eye, the purple faded to the other stars. Nilvi had to wonder if that was just her imagination playing tricks on her. Ivlin was the only thing of that color she knew, but it couldn’t be him all the way up there.

#IVLIN!# she called out with her mind again, but the connection felt broken again. Why did the mind link go away in the first place? A wind picked up from above, and Nil looked only to find a dragon in the night sky, hovering on silent wingbeat. She expected him to land, reach out his head so that she could connect to his mind again, but it only studied her in silence. Was this not Iv? It was a silly notion. How could this be anyone else? Before she could think anything else at him, the dragon opened its maw and exhaled black smoke that Iv hadn’t yet perfected.

The smoke rolled toward Nilvi and she knew that a spark would turn it into a fireball, but no sparks emerged. Instead, the dragon’s eyes closed for a brief moment as his horns lit up in purple light. The silent wingbeat didn’t bother the smoke below that clumped together like a black cloud just like before. A few seconds passed as the horn glow intensified and sank into the Veil, staining it purple and pink as it billowed inward. When the horns faded from light, Nil realized this wasn’t Ivlin, and was suddenly afraid.

Now entirely purple, the cloud gave way to the air, but churned around a darker center. Without warning, the dragon dove right into the cloud of purple light and vanished inside as the puff-light faded to the night air. Nilvi was dumbstruck, and when Iv finally found her, she jumped at his presence.

With mental connection reestablished, Nil recounted all that she saw inside her mind. Iv tried to replicate the action, breathing black smoke and stabbing it with his horns, but nothing happened. For some reason, he couldn’t make them glow, only used them to link with Nilvi. By the end of the practice session, Nil was so tired that she fell asleep on Iv’s back rather than go back into the house.

Morning came with a surprise. Nilvi was asleep on the lawn in front of the house, but as the sun was already shining, she understood why Ivlin wasn’t by her side. Where could a four-foot tall dragon hide from the sun around there? She set out to look for him while encountering memories of Mommy at this house. There was the yard where Daddy danced with her, the trampoline where they all bounced around, and a tree Nil climbed a few summers ago, much to Daddy’s, and Mommy’s cheering. She put a hand to the scar on her knee that was linked to that particular memory. It also brought a smile to her face because she climbed up really high before the fall. With Iv by her side, she could go even higher, but first she had to find him.

The only structure that could possibly hold him was the garage, and he was already there clearing bugs to feed himself. He looked a bit bigger than four feet now, but he was nowhere the size of the other dragon she saw last night. Nilvi licked her hand and took hold of a horn to make a stronger connection to explain why they came to Florida.

#This place is known for access to the ocean,# Nilvi said through the connected mind. # I’ll get the tarp from the truck and we’ll go see if you’re ok to swim in saltwater. That’s water with this thing called salt in it. People use it for flavoring foods and melting ice in winter. Another thing the ocean has is fish, a possible new food source for you.# Iv looked at her for a moment.

#There is no need to explain things to me when we’re connected,# he thought. #Even if the connection is made through spit. I’m in your mind and know all that you know. From what you know if it, I’m pretty excited about the ocean. Maybe I could swim underwater to hide from the hot sun. The night sky was also very beautiful. I look forward to flying through it once I can learn to fly like that other dragon.#

#Do you think he was like you?# she asked. #Born here?#

#From what you described,# he replied. #He came from the stars. Maybe that is where I need to go as well. In time. Though I’m not sure what there could be to eat up there. Perhaps there are larger space-inhabiting bugs to consume beyond this world and-# Nilvi took her hand away and stuck out her tongue as her whole body shivered at the thought of giant space bugs.

“That’s extremely gross,” she said and met Ivlin’s eyes. “If there ARE giant bugs in space, I’d rather not go there anytime soon.” The eyes has something familiar in them, but Nilvi couldn’t place the connection. She tried to sketch them before, but there was something missing in the drawn representations. Now that they were in a darkened environment and Iv’s eyes were bigger, Nilvi noticed a glow from each that extended beyond the physical surface toward her. This near-invisible mist entered her eyes. That had to be the mental link established by the horns now bending to the back of Ivlin’s head. It bridged her mind to this impossible dragon. Was he even that anymore? His characteristics were the same in many respects, but some details felt borrowed from other creatures.

Iv could breathe fire, but it was more that he couldn’t breathe at all. His mouth consumed insects, but his teeth felt ready to tear into meat. His eyes were windows to his mind, but the horns made the connection possible. Iv’s skin was smooth and purple, not scaly like other dragons in the books. The dragon from before looked to have the same features, but his skin looked leathery like the ones from books. Nil remembered the word Ivlin spoke to her possibly from a dream.

#Aberration,# she thought. #Something that is so different from normal that it is feared and hated. I’m sorry, Ivlin. I’m sorry anyone ever called you such an awful thing. There is another word that I think fits you better, and you already know it because of this slight glow connecting our minds. I don’t think you’re an aberration, Iv. I think you’re unique, one-of-a-kind. You’re a dragon that exists for me, that I hatched myself, and I love you for it. Don’t ever listen to whoever called you an aberration. Ok?# Nil paused because Iv was looking away from her. She traced his eyes to the front of the garage where a person stood.

“Hi, Uncle Anton,” Nil said without being struck by how weird the situation was. He held a mug full of coffee in his hand, but it fell as soon as his mouth opened to gape at the purple dragon that Nilvi hatched from a chicken egg.

“His name’s Ivlin,” she said introducing him as if there wasn’t a creature of myth and legend standing at her side. “It’s my name, but upside down.” The coffee mug had long crashed on the cement outside the garage. The day was starting, but Iv could still travel under the ground to get to the beach.

“Backward,” Anton corrected and stepped forward only to pause as Iv lifted his head. They stared at each other until the dragon leaned out toward him, horns first. Uncle Anton had no idea what to do, so Nil jumped in to pour some water on his palm and brought it to one of the horns.

#Hello, Anton,# Iv said right into his mind. At this occurrence, Anton jumped back in recoil, but approached again to take hold once more. #Thank you for getting me here. The sun tends to burn me, but Nilvi has assured me that I’d be fine in the ocean. Thank you for the vocabulary expansion. You’re the second human to welcome me into your mind, and I’ve felt your suffering. I become the keeper of your secrets, as I am the safeguard of Nilvi’s mind.#

#H- How is this possible?# Anton asked in his mind. #Are you really a dragon?# Rather than reply, Iv played Nilvi’s voice for him.

#I think you’re unique, one-of-a-kind. A dragon that exists for me, that I hatched myself…# She said in the vocal memory. When Anton’s hand let go of the connection, he found his niece pouting beside him.

“Private conversations are rude,” she said. Her face melted to joy in a blink of an eye. “Did you talk to him? Isn’t he amazing?” Uncle Anton stumbled backward and cut his hand on the broken mug he dropped earlier. Ivlin extended his neck and licked the wound sealed in an instant.

“Thank… you,” Anton said inspecting the healed cut. “What are you exactly?”

“He’s a dragon I hatched from a chicken egg,” Nil said. Anton looked at her to explain further, but only found a smile.

“How is that possible?” he asked. “He’s like six feet tall. A chicken egg is like two inches.” She laughed at the comparison.

“That was two days ago, silly,” she said. “Iv was the size of the egg when he hatched, but grew thanks to some food.” She leaned over Anton still on the ground to half-whisper near his ear. “He eats bugs.” Her face of disgust made Anton chuckle.

“Still, two days for that much growth?” he asked. “Makes you think how big he’s going to get in the end.”

“Oh, we know that already,” Nil replied. “Another dragon like Iv stopped by last night and he was pretty big. All the more reason to situate Ivlin in the ocean before he’s too big to hide. I won’t let people hunt him down and put him on display.” Anton recalled the conversation they had on the drive over. At the time, he shrugged off her claim about the dragon as a wild imagination of a secluded and frightened child. Who could have known that he was hauling a living specimen in the back of his truck at that very moment? It defied logic. In fact, it felt insane to buy into, yet here he was, a lavender dragon in the garage. Why was he purple?

“Why’s he purple?” Anton asked. “Or is that normal for his kind?”

#Normal,# Iv thought into his mind. #Skin. Aberration. Hated. Reborn.#

“Ah,” he said and thought back to the car ride. That word did feel a bit too complex for Nilvi to use. “Then we share a pain.” Ivlin nodded.

“I think we should wait for night again,” Nilvi said and turned toward Anton to explain. “The purple skin Iv has burns in the sun and ice hurts him the same way, so I thought the ocean has to be the best place for him to live.”

“What about the salt?” Uncle Anton asked. Nil had been hoping that it would work out and they’d swim in the blue at will. Her imagination took her on a wild ride down into the depths of the ocean without caution for breath or dangers hiding in the darkness. They’d explore shipwrecks together, discover corals never seen before, and introduce Iv to the world in a peaceful manner that would keep him safe and loved. All of that occurred inside her mind as seconds passed just beyond it where Uncle Anton doubted her ideas possible.

“I was hoping he’d have no trouble with it,” Nil said. “But there was no knowing until we got here, so I focused on that.” Anton shook his head.

“Let’s do a trial run, ok?” He asked. “That way we won’t have Ivlin here dissolving in saltwater. Also, I hate to break it to you, but those talons on his legs are not meant for water environments. Maybe he’s supposed to live in a jungle where canopies provide cover from direct sunlight. Not to mention he has wings. I just can’t imagine where a purple dragon could possibly fly around without being noticed.” Anton picked up the pieces of the mug he dropped.

“He’s not from this world,” Nilvi said. “He might be from another one called Secear. I’m reading a dry story about it right now, but they haven’t mentioned the dragons yet.”

“That’s a big leap, Vi,” Anton said and looked to the lavender dragon one last time before going off to create a saltwater solution for a resistance test on that purple skin. The second he discarded the pieces of broken ceramic, a tightness gripped his chest in a repressed panic. This was insane. It was impossible. His mind kept coming back to the word “Dragon” and he saw visions of fire, scales, fury, and molten rock. This little dragon born of a miracle defied the standard of myths and legends, but he was REAL. That scared Anton the most. And yet, ViVi was not fazed by his existence. But from a chicken egg? Was this a singular rebirth, or did something happen to all eggs to make them all into dragon offspring?

Anton’s mind was exploding with questions, but his body was carrying out a task, creating a saltwater solution based on a quick internet search for salt content in the Atlantic Ocean around Florida. When his father walked in, Anton was so lost in thought that any insult or comment the old man made at him was incoherent. All was fine until Mark knocked the solution out of his hand. The plastic cup fell and emptied on the floor, refocusing Anton’s mind to the angry old man standing before him.

“I’m talking to you, Anne,” he said. “What are you still doing here? Your dropped Nilvi off. Now, leave.” Anton looked into the old man’s angry eyes. Though he wanted to stand his ground, the sight of that emotion in his father’s eyes only hurt him to tears. He grit his teeth and ignored the comment to clean up the mess on the floor.

“Did you not hear me?” Mark asked. “Focus, Anne!” The welling tears burst forth with anger.

“IT’S NOT MY NAME, DAD!” Anton shouted.

“Nonsense!” He replied. “It’s the name your mother and I gave you! No matter how much you run from this, nothing will change! YOU WERE BORN MY DAUGHTER!” A push to the old man’s shoulder was all it took to bring him down, but Anton rushed to his aid almost forgetting the words he said just seconds before. The old man flailed like a child in his arms, and Anton saw him for what he was.

“Get off me, I’m fine!”

“I didn’t do it to hurt you, Dad,” Anton said sitting down beside him on the kitchen floor. “I didn’t do it to spite you or to make you lose face. If other people’s opinions matter more to you than how your family feels about it, then something’s wrong. I’ve been Anton long before I changed my name, before the surgery, and definitely before I was named. It just takes time to understand, to find yourself, and others are fast to criticize while slow to help.

“The truth is, I don’t need you to accept me as I am, but you need to stop pretending that you have a daughter. That’s no longer the case. Understand?” Anton stood up and recreated the saltwater mixture for Ivlin. By the time he was ready to leave, the old man was on his feet again.

“It’s a different time, An- Ton,” he said. “When I was your age, such things were eliminated like garden weeds. There was no room in the closed-off minds for deeper thoughts. People who felt different had to hide it or they would be killed by groups dedicated to just that.” Anton felt threatened, but the look on his dad’s face told a different story. Tears sprung up much to Anton’s shock. He’d never seen his father cry before.

“Dad?” He asked suddenly concerned and curious. “What’s wrong?” Beth’s voice entered the conversation from out in the corridor.

“It’s best to stop hiding now, Mark,” she said. “If there was ever a moment to let your kids in on it, it would be now.” She walked into the kitchen, looked to the old man and nodded. “He’s gay, Anton.” Surprise struck him like a sledgehammer to the chest, and his mouth dropped open. If what Mom said was true, there was much more cruelty in Dad’s actions. He turned to the old man, but could not meet his eyes. Mark looked down to the kitchen floor.

Anton could have stood there and hit the man with words of betrayal, but he didn’t want to be like him. Instead, he refocused to the task of the impossible dragon in the garage. The solution was saturated to the upper cutoff of the salt content in waters around Florida. If this upset that lavender skin, it was best to know beforehand. Still, a dragon that could connect to a human mind by touch did not feel like something of this world, and therefore dangerous.

#I am not of this world,# a voice spoke inside Anton’s mind as the solution headed for the pavement. His quick reaction time caught the plastic container before all the water was gone.

“What the hell?” Anton asked. “You’re still in my mind?” There was a silence for a moment.

#I’m sorry,# Iv thought. #I forgot to explain lingering connection. As such, I’ve been in your mind as you confronted your father. I do apologize for that, but am glad you did it.#

“Me, too,” Anton said. “I’ve got the saltwater solution and I’ll be right over.” Anton turned to find his father on the path to the garage.

“Please let me explain,” he said, but Anton just walked right past him. “I was hiding it to SAVE YOU!”

“It’s ok, Dad,” he replied. “Like you said, the times have changed. The only ones being cruel to those coming out are the ones who had to hide among the masses. I’m not one of those, but you don’t need to hide yourself anymore. Just like I no longer feel like I’m not in the right skin anymore. I can feel like myself, and so can you. Be yourself, Dad.” The old man hugged Anton before going back into the house. Could the dragon even swim?

The garage was empty when Anton came back to it, and he tried to understand how the dragon got past the sunny environment without pain. Did Nilvi mention something about him being underground? It was a strange thing to imagine. A dragon with wings digging through the dirt was a giant waste of flying ability.

Where was the next dark space big enough for Ivlin to come up? Anton tried to connect his thinking to what he would do in a situation where the sun cooked him much faster. There was only one option left to the young dragon, a cavern near the ocean that Nilvi knew about from her past visits. She played there once, and even got lost within the unknown depths. Nirona, being a badass back in the day, ventured into the cave and got her daughter out. Ever since then, the cave had caution signs put up and was blocked off so that nobody else went inside.

The strangest part of the whole event was that both Nirona and Nilvi left the cave smiling as if they discovered a gold mine within. A cavern near the ocean was eerie enough, but neither of them ever explained why they emerged smiling, not even to their immediate family. Fast-forward three years to when Nirona got sick, some disease that attacked her spinal cord. It wasn’t long before she couldn’t dance or even walk. Charlie felt alone, but Anton helped him out with work sometimes, in turn building up muscles he always wanted to possess. Now Anton had to wonder if this dragon who could heal his cut in one instant could be just what Nirona needed for a miraculous recovery.

The rocky deposit of an entrance was just a short trek to the beach. After ten minutes, Anton found himself at the mouth of this strange cave. Could the dragon tunnel through rock? Surely enough, just past the barricades Nilvi was snoozing on the purple dragon’s neck, while he rested on the cave floor. Rather than speak, Anton dipped his hand in the cup of saltwater and touched one of the horns for a renewed mental link.

#I figured you’d come here, but I’m at a loss as how you did it,# he thought. #I got the water solution if you’d like to try it. It should be dark in a few hours.#

#Thank you,# Iv said in Anton’s mind. #I’ve seen this place in Nilvi’s mind before, a place of great joy because her mother came to save her and due to what they found within.#

“Oh?” Anton asked taking his hand away for a moment. The surface underneath looked brighter, but it had to be his imagination. He put the hand back to the horn to converse in the mind as not to wake Vi. #You know what they saw? They never told anyone, but looked really happy.#

#I’ll show you,# Iv thought. #Connect to my horn with your blood. The horns are sharp, just prick your finger on one. Nilvi has done this before by accident.# Anton hesitated, but extended a hand to the sharp spike and allowed the needle-like tip to pierce his thumb. From a wince of pain that closed Anton’s eyes, the vision of the dragon in a cave vanished when his eyes opened. Now he was suspended in purple as a brighter blob of it shifted around him.

“Welcome to my mind, Anton,” Ivlin said. He created a dragon body for himself, but then transformed into something of a dragon-man altering proportions to a humanoid figure. Anton felt he had no body, but with a thought, he resided within one as gravity caught them both on an invisible surface. This body was ideal for Anton, but nothing that he could achieve in reality, except with a lot amount of surgeries. The frame was wider, and taller. The forehead was wider and so was his jaw, but this would not remain so in reality. Even so, this freedom to put self into a body created by his mind felt amazing.

A spark of light illuminated their existence, but it was off in the distance. As Anton watched, rocks came into view from the purple surroundings and soon enough the cave was complete. They remained still in the darkness until Ivlin walked toward the light coming in from a cave wall. Anton followed after him toward what could not be an exit. The light brightened at first, but then dimmed out past the opening.

“What’s down there?” Anton asked feeling afraid only to remember they were actually inside a dragon’s head. That realization didn’t calm him, but it alternated his thoughts between excitement and fear.

“Something beautiful,” Iv said. His voice felt human, with understandable dialogue and no audible accent, but maybe it was just that he used Anton’s human mind to find the voice that best suited the person spoken to. It would be a smart tactic. Any person would drop their guard at the presence of a familiar voice, a sound so like their own, but pleasantly altered.

“Just in case you didn’t know this,” Iv said. “When we’re connected like this, there are no secret thoughts. I can hear that you are thinking. Same goes for you, but I’m keeping my mind calm. Please try to do the same.”

“Sorry,” Anton replied as they neared an opening only big enough to see through. Iv motioned his taloned hand toward it with a mental instruction to look. Anton stepped up to the bright hole as the light adjusted in his eyes to a marvelous sight.

Within this bubble of rock was a whole separate ecosystem. The light streamed into the small enclosure with the tiny waterfall of what looked like crystal clear water. It was a natural spring feeding a bubble of life in the most unpredictable place. The light scattered into a pool which lit up in other colors of gemstones. What little green grew in the enclosure and fed on the light looked imbued with a radiance of near-magical proportions. All of this was contained within a living-room-sized space and was an absolute awe to behold.

The sight faded back to purple surroundings and the dragon man that Ivlin formed into. Anton was still stunned from the scene, but now understood why Nirona and Nilvi kept it a secret. The day that ViVi disappeared inside the cave and Rona rescued her, the news caught wind of the story. The only way to protect the bubble of gemstone nature was to pretend it wasn’t there.

“How do we go back?” Anton asked and was back in his old body an instant later. This body now felt like a less advanced version of himself, but this was his reality. Iv was no longer a dragon-man, but carried himself as if he was. Vi still snoozed on his back.

“You know,” Anton said sitting with his back to Nil who stirred as he continued. “I’d be afraid of you if ViVi wasn’t giving you a big vote of confidence. Your teeth and talons suggest that you’re meant to both tear into and consume meat, but she insists that you only eat bugs. Aside from that, I’m not a fan of dragons, but you aren’t one, huh? They’re reptilian giants that breathe fire and covet treasures like gold and gems. Some are posed in a more positive light, but are still plenty scary. Not to mention that they’re mythological creatures. And you’re, well… Here.”

#But that’s not why you aren’t afraid,# Ivlin thought into his mind.

“Ah, right, the lingering telepathy,” Anton said. “But you’re right. I’m not afraid of you because of what ViVi here told me about you and my own experiences with hate toward being different. I know it’s a leap, but I’m glad someone could be there for her in this difficult time of her life. Who knows whether her mom will actually recover?”

“What?” Nilvi asked at the words and stood up. “You don’t believe in her?” Anton turned in shock to find Nil’s face in a look of fear.

“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s not what I meant, ViVi, I’m sorry. I AM rooting for her to get better, you know I am. I’m just, afraid. She’s such an amazing woman, but now she’s always in pain. This isn’t coming out right.” Nil felt tears well in her eyes. If only everyone believed that Mommy would be alright, she would be. Doubt killed all hope. She questioned her own belief in presence of Uncle Anton’s doubt, and pain gripped her little heart. How could she imagine a world without her, without Mommy?

#Help! Ivlin, help me!# she screamed with her mind. Anton was trying to explain himself, but her hearing was muffled by the quickened heartbeat of fear. One moment she was in the cave, and the next she was in darkness, within the ground alongside Ivlin. Her tears burst forth just as they emerged on the sandy beach after sunset. The rays still lingered on the horizon, but could no longer hurt Iv’s skin.

“Thank you, Ivlin,” Nilvi said and drew her knees to her chest in a thought. Iv put a horn to her hand to speak into her mind.

#Don’t start doubting, Nilvi,# he thought. #Your mother will be fine. I’m sure of it.#

#But if Uncle Anton’s worried,# she thought. #That must mean so is Daddy. And if Daddy’s worried…#

#Tell me about your mother, Nilvi,# Iv thought and coiled his body around her on the beach. #Tell me how you see her. Tell me how strong she is, and how much of a cool mother she is.# An image of Nirona appeared in Nil’s mind, in bed at the hospital, connected to various machines.

#Before,# Ivlin breathed into her mind as the image flickered to Nirona sitting at the wooden table with worry in her hands. She massaged her wrists with anxiety. #Before that.# Nil’s mind shifted back further. There she stood, a woman clad in a leather jacket and the most amazing dirty jeans. Her hair curled in waves and amazing sunglasses covered her eyes. She was chewing gum with a giant grin on her face.

#That’s her,# Iv thought. #Tell me about her, Nilvi, please.# Her tears stopped as the thought of the past entered her mind, a vivid memory that Iv lit up with the use of his mind. Nil relaxed and rested against the warm, smooth, purple skin to talk about her awesome mother.

“Mommy is always so wild and fun,” she said and looked up to the darkening sky. “She eats spicy food and builds amazingly loud machines that tickle my stomach. She loves the wind in her hair and the sun on her face. Mommy once climbed Mount Everest and travelled the world. She has friends all over the world thanks to her adventures.

“On a clear night, we sometimes sleep right under the stars and point out constellations. Mommy always has time for me and Daddy. She dances like a professional and has won many competitions. That’s how Daddy met Mommy. She was fighting against him and won. He had to see her again and they fell in love. Mommy fought against discrimination all her life and became so strong because of it. She lives her life to the fullest and doesn’t care what anyone says. She’s my Mommy, and she’s just super cool.

“Oh, one time, she kept a person alive for hours using her own blood as transfusion. She saved this person who was in an accident and befriended him. And she always smells so sweet and flowery. And her hugs are the warmest and softest. And now…”

“#No,# Ivlin thought. #Hold that image of her in your mind. She is that, always and forever. She will be that again. Remember past brilliance and never let it fade, Nilvi.#

#But she’s so far away,# Nilvi thought. #She’s been away so long.#

#Don’t worry,# Iv assured. #She’s on a very important adventure right now, one that will take time, but she will come back and give you the warmest, softest hug with the scent of sweetest flowers.# Nilvi opened her eyes and met Ivlin’s with a smile of restored hopes. She knew in her heart that Mommy would come back once she was done with her important adventure.

Hours passed in the night as the Earth spun in the stars. Nil looked out into that vastness for another purple star to descend and help Ivlin understand what kind of dragon he was, but only waves washed ashore in the calm moment. Nilvi felt Iv’s heart beat underneath the purple skin and felt her own heart align to it. How could a dragon, now bigger than any dog or horse, have a heartbeat and warmth that a person would, that Mommy would? It was a marvel, but Nil relaxed just a moment longer before going about testing the water for Ivlin.

“Ivlin?” she asked waking up a few hours later. He squeaked something that now sounded more like a high-pitch growl. “What if you are a dragon of the stars? Would that mean that you’d have to leave me?” Iv’s head nudged a horn for Nil to hold onto. She held onto it and could have sworn it glowed slightly.

#I won’t leave you,# he thought. #Even if I’m to live in the stars, I’d always come back to you.#

“But I mean, if you found a place where your kind isn’t disliked,” she said.

#I’ve already found it, by your side,# he replied. Nil smiled and smoothed a hand on the bottom of Iv’s neck.

“Wanna go see if the water is good for you?” She asked getting up onto his back. In response, he stood up and walked over to the crashing waves. The sand displaced between his talons. Nil hugged his back as he walked looking ahead at the edge of the vast dark ocean. As he walked into the ever dark liquid, Nil felt fear in her mind, yet also felt safe by his side. She held onto his horns to hear first judgement of the water sensation.

#How’s it feel?# She thought.

#Pleasant,# he replied. #Hold on. We’re going in further.# Iv took off into the sky on his wings only to nosedive into the darkness further away from the beach. Nilvi gripped tight onto his neck and was shocked by the water as they broke the surface, but a smile burst through the fear as Ivlin propelled them through the dark underwater using his wings. When they came up, Nil reached out for a horn to make sure he was alright.

#This is amazing,# he thought. #It’s cool and wet, but not cold like ice. Are you ok to go deeper?#

#Wait!# Nil stopped the excited thoughts. #My lungs can’t take being underwater too long.#

#Ok, float here a moment,# Iv said and slipped from under Nilvi, leaving her to float in the dark with only the stars in the sky to light the surface.

Only now did Nil realize how frightening this was. She felt a shiver of soaked clothes in cold water. She was floating in a dark unknown, with no way of finding Ivlin, or him finding her. She searched for the shore, but found the distance too far to swim. Panic set in after what felt like twenty minutes.

#IVLIN?!# she called out with her mind. #IVLIN! PLEASE COME BACK!# She felt her arms and legs go numb in the cold water and struggled to keep afloat. With one big breath, she was underneath the surface, motionless, with eyes wide open to search for the dragon hatched from a chicken egg. Nil repeated his name with great urgency inside her mind until two purple horns lit up in the dark distance. Nil reached for them, but felt nothing anymore only seeing her arm stretch out to the purple light coming closer.

With the force of his wings, Ivlin lifted Nil from the water only now realizing the distress her body was under. She wasn’t built like him. Humans needed heat to live and she was dangerously low on that now. Ivlin called out to Anton as hard as he could.

#The beach! Now!# he called as he flew the short distance. When he was at the shore, Nil’s uncle was already aware of the situation and present. #I’m sorry. I was taken over by swimming and didn’t think she’d be in so much danger because of me.#

“Heat, we need heat!” Anton said taking Nilvi off Iv’s back. “Come on, ViVi, stay awake!” He snapped his fingers, but her eyes only fluttered open for a second. Iv breathed out the most veil he could muster onto the sand and ignited it to melt sand into glass.

#Get on my back!# Iv thought into Anton’s mind and walked over into the molten glass with a wince of pain. He coiled on the molten sand to keep Nil and Anton close to the heat, hoping for the best. There was a faint heartbeat in her chest near him, as he let out a sorrowful howl of regret, an extended hollow sound. Together, they slept in the warmth of glass shedding heat around them. As he drifted off from overuse of the veil, Ivlin thought of only her, hoping she would be alright.

The first rays of the sun woke Iv up to find neither Nil nor Anton in his embrace sealed in a glass floor. It was easy to break free from the fragile material, but he could not go where they went, into the cities of a million eyes. Iv searched with his mind, but felt nothing in response. He sank into the ground to visit the grandparents’ house, but found nobody there. He only hoped that Nilvi was alright after last night, and that Anton wasn’t upset about that happened.

After a thorough search for them while hiding away under the ground, Ivlin decided to wait for Nilvi to come back instead. This was the first time he was by himself since the outcast rebirth. He remembered parts of his past lives and original birth. He hatched different from others of his kind, those clad in scales glowing just like their horns. Iv didn’t want to eat the little purple men while growing up, and thus grew up weaker. If only home had the same delicious plethora of bugs that he could consume, but no such thing existed there. While pondering on bits and pieces, Iv travelled underground until he was in the cool blue water, undulating on the surface and churning deep within on the currents.

What Nilvi described as fish, swam about in plenty where he could also move about with ease. Upon trying to consume one, Iv’s teeth came in very handy. These water bugs felt slippery, but still tasty. He found they came in different sizes, but he focused on ones that fit into his mouth for the time being. While Iv’s eyes could already see pretty well in the cool blue, consuming these “fish” provided something that expanded his visibility range. This was their kind’s adaptability. They only ever consumed the purple men to adopt their smart minds and use this to evade their hunts.

Day after day, Iv came by to the shore where Nilvi’s grandparents lived and called out to her to no avail. He worried for her, not knowing whether she was ok after that night of swimming. It was a regrettable event, but Iv did learn to glow his horns, something he did not want to test with the veil for fear of not being able to come back to Nilvi, the second being that loved him like a mother would. During the nights, he swam in the vast dark blue, lit by light of his horns, exploring the depths to see if the weight of the water would bother him. Aside from a little pressure, even the deepest, darkest trench wasn’t painful to swim in.

A few creatures hid in that darkness of the depths, but Iv could swim circles around them, with teeth sharp enough to threaten them back. There were a number of metal vessels down there, but much unlike anything the purple men built. Some looked to have wings, but rigid unlike his own, while others had a smooth lower area, rounded out like a dragon scale. Nothing was ever alive in those metal contraptions, but Iv saw these same structures carry other humans to different places.

Iv did his best to stay out of sight while it was day, learning a new trick of moving through air like he did solid ground, turning his body a crystal hue, transparent to a degree, but still noticeable. Not knowing where else to seek Nilvi, Iv remained in that area by the shore, seeking her every day, hoping she would connect her beautiful mind to his again one day soon. He looked to the stars sometimes, looking for a glint of purple that would mean someone from home was searching for him, missed him, or was just keeping a watchful eye on him. Iv wondered if the dragon who stopped by was his father, but hoped it wasn’t as he was the cause of the rebirth.




Night after night, Nilvi called out to Iv with her mind from various hospital windows. She gazed at the sky looking for a glint of purple, hoping that it would be Ivlin who emerged from that distant light, with eyes and horns glowing purple the way she saw in the water.

That night, when Nil felt her body go into hypothermic shock, a blanket of fire wrapped itself around her, accompanied by Ivlin’s heartbeat. She woke up in the hospital, connected to machines. Daddy was at her side, sleeping while still holding onto her little hand. They were no longer at the shore, but somewhere further inland. When Nilvi squeezed the hand back, Daddy woke up and burst into tears of joy.

“I thought I was going to lose you both,” he said rightfully terrifying Nilvi with thoughts of what he meant. She felt that last star of hope die out within her, but felt too afraid to ask. No. She needed to know.

“Is- Is Mommy-.” She started and drifted off into a sob as tears flowed free. When she pried her eyes open, Daddy’s face was in shock.

“No, no, no, I’m so sorry, Livvy,” he said. “Mommy is alright. Mommy is fine. She’s still fighting.” Nilvi wiped her tears to find Daddy worried more than ever. She decided to believe for both of them. Two stars of bright purple lit within her mind, shining beautifully with hope just like Ivlin, the dragon she hatched from a chicken egg.

“Where’s Uncle Anton?” Nilvi asked when Daddy calmed down a little.

“He’s outside,” he replied. “Maybe you can explain this to me better. He can’t explain why exactly you went swimming at night. That’s not what people do, Livvy. I thought I taught you better than that.” His face was still concerned, but looked even more hurt. Uncle Anton knew why. He didn’t want to sound crazy acknowledging a purple dragon he transported to Florida. If only Ivlin was there, none of this would be misunderstood.

“Did you feel- uh- uhh… s- sad?” Daddy asked and looked more hurt than Nil could bear to see. “Sad that Mommy was in the hospital? You- you don’t- have to hide it, you know that, don’t you, Livvy?” Nilvi didn’t understand what he was asking. It was a sad time for both of them, but she kept hope alive in her heart for Mommy to find and get well.

“No, Daddy,” she said and decided to tell him the truth, no matter how it sounded. “I went into the water with Ivlin, so that he could try swimming. We couldn’t do it during the day because the sun hurts his skin.”

“And Ivlin is the purple dragon that you hatched out of a chicken egg who eats bugs, can phase through solid object, and speaks into your mind?” Daddy asked with the same amount of worry in his eyes. He didn’t believe her, and Uncle Anton couldn’t back up her claim for fear of giving into a fantasy. “Did this- did this Ivlin tell you to go into the water at night?”

“It was my idea, Daddy,” Nilvi said.

Charlie felt a sense of dread. Was he that inattentive that his daughter sought help from an imaginary pet dragon? Unlike standard imaginary friends, this one was acting on Nilvi’s repressed sadness in disastrous ways. Charlie had no idea how to deal with this.

“Is Ivlin here right now?” he asked looking around. Nilvi giggled.

“No, silly, he’s too big to fit in this room,” she said. “He stayed behind at the beach when Uncle Anton took me away.”

“Good,” he said. “Do you want to see your uncle now?” She nodded. Charlie left the room and woke his brother with a kick to the shin.

“Is she awake?” Anton asked startled.

“Yeah, wants to see you,” Charlie said and walked off with thoughts swarming. Nirona used to be a wild child and came out on top, but that was a lottery of one in a thousand. Most children who did as they pleased ended up being crushed and outcast. To protect her, Charlie decided to treat this right away. All she’d have to do is meet with a few therapists and adjust her thinking. It was all he could do when her future was threatened by her own mind.

The next day, Nilvi was released, but Daddy took her to another hospital. It was a smaller version of one, with a lot of people who did not look like doctors. There, Nilvi remained for observation while Daddy went back to work. Day after day, Nilvi told numerous new people about Ivlin, and they wrote it all down while listening. Uncle Anton was there to keep her company, but felt distant most times. Night after night, the stars lit the sky, with no sign of Ivlin.

She wasn’t given the same amount of space as before, sharing the room with a few others. They were nice kids her age, but acted strangely sometimes. Nilvi had times of play, and times of conversation about Mommy and Ivlin. They did not believe her, just as Daddy didn’t. If only Ivlin would show up to show them that he was real, but no purple star glinted in the sky as weeks passed, then months.




After a few days of checking for Nilvi at the shore, Iv tried what the other dragon did. He breathed out a plume of veil slowly as not to ignite it, and used a lit up horn to turn it purple. He hesitated a moment longer before dropping into the fluffy purple mess that could no longer be called veil. The fall continued until he was in a brand new, yet known space. Everything around was purple, shaded and tinted. This was it, the place of his original birth. Iv beat his wings to stay in a hover, but felt much less attraction from a deep and dark below. There was a central mass of lights hovering in the area, but before he could go explore, arrows whizzed by from the land’s direction.

He dodged the first few, but when one grazed his tail he breathed out a veil of fire in their direction and flew off toward something calling to him in the dark purple. The arrows stopped when he got further away. The light was no longer as visible in the distance, but his heart was pulling him away on instinct. Using his horns to light the way, Ivlin found his way to another floating mass in the dark, absent of light, but just as big, if not bigger. The air had a sort of vapor in it that felt like a mist or fog, hiding this surface from the purple men living on the lighted rock.

The more he explored the bundle of purple mass, the more he realized that it wasn’t anything like on Earth. This mass was soft, and when he sank a talon into it, a grumble moved the surface away. It wasn’t a stationary object, but instead a living creature, with a large dark maw. Ivlin beat his wings to fly away from the ever expanding opening lined with short purple teeth, but found himself swallowed by it. Using his horns for light, he followed inside until it was clear that he was home, his old home where he was banished from.

Other dragons of his kind stared as he walked in, judging the oddity they BELIEVED he was. Their bodies had scales of gleaming purple growing from their leathery skin. They were afraid of him until one descended from the glowing mandibles on the ceiling, the dragon in charge. He dropped and hovered before touching down in the center of the space. His horns curved into a spiral behind his head, glowing purple. He nodded at Ivlin with anger before a shout burst out to everyone’s mind in the room.

#OUTCAST! ABERRATION! YOU AREN’T WELCOME HERE! LEAVE!# the main dragon shouted in the minds. Others joined in opening their maws in roaring sounds of anger and disgust. Ivlin felt hurt, but remembered Nilvi’s words.

#I AM NOT AN ABERRATION!# He shouted glowing his horns. #I AM UNIQUE! I AM ONE-OF-A-KIND! And I don’t want to be here! Not with you! Not with others of my own kind who hate me for something so small enough to throw me away!# Ivlin breathed all the veil he could as everyone distanced themselves from the glob of black in purple space. One spark, and they could feel the pain they caused him, but instead he lit his horns as bright as possible and pierced the black to open a portal back to Nilvi. It glowed lavender this time, not the deep purple as before. He should have seen it then, that in his rage, he didn’t open a path back to Earth, but to something else entirely.




It took effort to right his mind. Ivlin tumbled through worlds back to his one friend. Time was left uncounted as he struggled to guide a portal back to that one ball of dirt in the vast space that his horns had access to. He rested some days, and forced himself to keep going others. There were no days where he went, but Ivlin tried to approximate the days and weeks by Nilvi’s standards. He wanted to come back and find her again. When he finally did, the first thing he did was swim in the ocean just like before. Perhaps only a few days that passed since he went to confront those who threw him away for being different, maybe weeks since he swam together with Nilvi.

After a snack of fifty fish, he made up his mind to go search for her in the world. He’d find Nilvi all by himself and show her the stars, or even visit that purple space without letting her meet the others. Iv travelled under the ground to where he was born, where they started their journey. It was that tree on a hill in the sun, but the area did not have Nilvi nearby. There was another around that Iv recognized, but he looked different somehow. He watched Anton for a bit before sneaking a horn to make a mental link before sinking back underground.

#Anton,# Iv thought as the man looked around startled. #Where is Nilvi?#

“Where are you?” Anton asked still trying to spot Iv. “Oh, right. The sun.” He rushed into the barn where Ivlin was reborn and closed the doors.

#The question is, where have you been?# Anton asked in his mind. Iv came up out of the ground to fill out the space in the barn. Anton reached out and it was clear he had a speech prepared, but Ivlin spoke first.

#You’re older,# he said reading his mind. #Seven years? No. I was just here…I was just there on the beach with Nilvi. Where is Nilvi?# A scene lit up in Anton’s mind.

“You’re telling me that she’s not lying about the purple dragon being hatched from an egg!?” Charlie asked with a look of desperation. “She just keeps insisting that her imaginary friend is real, that she fed him and had you transport him to the sea! This is insane, Anton!”

“She’s like Nirona, Charles,” Anton said, trying to calm him down. “She has a wild imagination. Don’t quash these amazing thoughts.” Charlie looked unhinged.

“She needs to live in the real world, Anton!” he said. “Don’t you throw Nirona in my face again! We both know how that ended! In fact, as far as I’m concerned, Nilvi has no Uncle Anton!” A needle of pain pierced Anton’s chest.

“You can’t mean that,” he said. “Charlie?”

“Are you going to keep feeding her mind with fantasies?” Charle asked. “Huh? Well, then you have no longer have a niece. She can’t be surrounded by people feeding her delusions anymore.” The scene faded to Anton’s frown.

#I’m sorry,# Ivlin thought. #I wasn’t there to stop him. Where is she now?# Anton checked his watch.

“Just getting out of school, I figure,” Anton said. “After Nirona passed, ViVi missed a year of school. She’s quite fascinated with the stars, from what I do know of her. Charlie has no contact with me, but ViVi and I secretly keep in touch.”

#Show me where.# A horn pricked his finger to connect their minds and give Ivlin directions to get to her. When it got dark, Iv took to the sky, hoping she still remembered him. He flew under the guidance of Anton’s thoughts. The direction was away from the ocean, further inland and far away. It was the middle of the night when he finally got there. According to Anton, Nilvi lived in a town called Charlotte of a state called South Carolina. He was close. Iv only hoped that her eyes were still poised to the sky even this late at night.




Nilvi finished dinner and washed the dishes in the sink afterward. Dad was already asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Work took a lot out of him, managing a whole team of salespeople. Nil did her best to help out at home to make his struggle easier. After Mom passed away, one of Nil’s stars of bright hope within her heart died out, but one remained lit, and burned brighter than ever. Because of this source of hope, Nilvi extended her imagination to scientific means, while being taught that her imagined dragon could not possibly exist. She left the idea in her childhood, but the hope would not fade, so she searched the stars for what she may have only imagined, a purple star among billions.

This pursuit surrounded her in likeminded folk, people also seeking something out there, anything. They sought understanding, but she only wanted to explain the purple light stuck in her mind. Nilvi no longer told everyone about that one time she hatched a dragon from a chicken egg. It became so attacked by therapists along the way that Nil internalized the story from her younger days. Dad had no idea that she still believed, but it was best not to worry him.

After the funeral, he was focused on giving Nilvi a proper education and a realistic goal to pursue, unlike Mom. Whenever Nil looked to recall her mother, she saw the same kick-ass woman in a leather jacket, dirty jeans, and killer shades. That awesome visage was out of her reach for now, but Nil intended to cut loose in college.

She put a blanket over her dad and turned the TV off. He stirred in the dark, murmuring something she couldn’t make out. With him off to dreamland, Nil rushed to the roof of their building with a telescope she got for her last birthday. The sky was polluted with light of the city below, but some of the brighter stars and objects remained visible. Nil enjoyed looking at planets on occasion, but when gazing alone, she focused on the search for that striking purple hue. After hours of searching, she set herself down on the blanket she brought up and let the peripherals bathe her in visible stars above.

The awe of it all took her breath away, but her tears were caused by the search for something impossible. It was a Friday, so she could stay up on that roof for longer than on a school day. Mom sometimes showed up in the stars, climbing Mount Everest like in the old photos. What remained of her were people she met throughout her life. All of them showed up for her funeral, and told amazing stories of her travels. After college, Nilvi planned her own tour of the world, to meet new people and follow in her mother’s footsteps. This would have to be kept secret from Dad, but Mom’s plethora of friends could assist in this excursion.

Nilvi sighed into the night air with a smile on her face of the future plans. Even if Ivlin was just created by her younger mind, she wanted to believe that such a thing was possible, that he came from an alternate dimension where they didn’t want him, to find one where he was loved. The city lights had a certain charm to them, blazing like a scattered star. Nilvi sat up to watch the shifting mess of humans staying alive and felt her heart skip a beat when one of those light gave off a purple hue. She calmed herself with a smile, but still felt her pulse race. The hue was purple of the same notion as that one night years ago, the same as Ivlin’s horns in the deep blue sea.

With a wild notion, she stood up and rushed to point the telescope over at the city. The light was atop a building, but it fell from it only to venture her way. With the telescope away from her face and heart racing in a panic, Nilvi watched as the light flew in the sky toward her. In seconds, she stood at the edge of the roof with hands to her mouth and eyes running heavy with tears of happiness. Right in front of her was the dragon she hatched from a chicken egg on her farm. He hovered there, horns and eyes aglow in purple of her dreams. His wings beat the air, but made no sound.

“Ivlin, is that really you?” she asked. He said nothing, but opened his maw a few times trying to make a squeak. His days of squeaking were over. With an open mouth, Ivlin let out a sorrowful cry into the sky of night that resonated with emotion of apology. “It’s alright now, Iv. It’s alright.” Her hand reached out to him, and in turn he lowered his head with horns fading the long sought-after purple light to those amazing eyes that Nil had tried to draw over and over all those years.

#I love you, Ivlin,# she thought right after taking hold. #Don’t leave me again. Ok?# Rather than reply, Iv had just one thought in his mind.

#Ivlin, it’s my name, but upside down.#