I dream of Polar night

While talking Osprey observed the kid's expression and liked, what she saw. Not all stories she came up with were good - sometimes she could sense that the other party was either not interested or they lost it somewhere in the tale. At those moments it was not easy to keep going on. She sincerely believed that every story - good or bad - needed to be finished. So she always brought one to an end, even if there was no audience left.

But this was not the case with Charon. She had managed to catch her interest. "There was silence between us for a moment and then he said to me - "Grass takes everything away." Needless to say - I felt perplexed, because out of all things I had imagined him to say, this was the very least of them. "What do you mean?" I asked him," she paused briefly, thinking that this probably was not a question a heroine would ask in a regular tale. She would probably know, what the dragon had meant by it.

"The dragon went on: "Once I was strong and mighty, I owned lands vast and wide, I had treasures and people feared me..." At this point I sat down and listened to him carefully. "But this is gone now... people have lost faith in the old tales and here I am... lying in the grass, while it takes everything away," he sighed - to me it felt like a gust of wind. "But why are you here? Why aren't you... going around like in the old days?" I inquired him, but something told me that these weren't the right questions to ask.

"The world changes, dear child," the dragon replied. "Once there was a time, when people's lives were entwined with those of the stories. They believed in spirits, they knew the secrets of finding a dragon's well of treasures. The witch was not feared but respected. The devil wasn't vile or evil - rich and silly - yes, but good in his heart. At those times the dwarves voices could be heard in the forests and fairies danced and sang in the moonlight. But people move on and old tales die..."

"Are you a tale too?" I asked him, but he just smiled at me cryptically and didn't say anything. "You know, I have wings, I can still fly," he told me. "Do you want to go for a ride?" he asked me. I nodded. He got to his feet - the earth shook a little, but otherwise there was no sound. He spread his wings and I climbed up on his back. The next moment he flew high in the air and I could see everything from above.

"The creatures from the old stories have almost faded away... just as the memory of them disappears from people's minds," he told me, while we flew over a vast forest. I could see deer moving through it and a family of wolves preparing for a hunt. "One by one we become grass," he repeated and I thought that I had finally understood. "Yet the tales still live... there are loners seeking purpose in the world, there are those that never settle... there are people, who would do just fine with a bit of fairy luck. There are those, who seek wonders in life and have never enough of them..."

"The tales remain, yet the creatures that made them complete, have become grass," he said. "Where do you wish me to take you?" he asked. "I don't know, wherever the path leads," I told him, amazed by the sight that I had. "Very well," he said and soared through the clouds faster and faster until suddenly I felt that he lost his strength... we were going down to the ground at a very high speed and I feared for my life. But in vain... I landed in soft, lush grass. As I looked for the dragon, I couldn't see it, yet in the passing gust of wind I heard his voice telling me: "Just look, how grass takes everything away..." Osprey finished.