43.

Lotte fell through the quiet darkness for what seemed like a long time, until she wondered if she was falling at all, or maybe everything had ended and she was frozen on the spot.

She tried to look up, but she could no longer remember what direction up was.

She wondered if she should feel frighted or alarmed. She had jumped forward without thinking things through and if this was the end for her, she had no one to blame but herself.

She sighed. The air here was quite dry and she felt parched. When was the last time she had a drink of water?

"Where are you, Blue?" she said, mostly to herself.

"I'm here," came a mournful reply.
Her eyes, for once, weren't lighting up the dark, but the tip of the paintbrush she held lit up like a torch.

There Blue was sat, right next to her. But he wasn't really Blue. He was Fintan, the new Dragon King.

He was sitting crouched with his knees to his chest, his wings spread out behind him like a cape.

He was still weeping, albeit this time silently.

Lotte stepped across the darkness towards him.

"They killed her...They killed her..." he murmured, rocking his body back and forth.

"I know," she said, settling beside him. She hesitated for a second and then wrapped her arms around him, patting his back.

"You can cry as much as you want," she said. "Cry into my shoulder."
She didn't expect him to do it, not really. But he did. He uncurled himself and buried his face into her shoulder and wept without keeping a single tear to himself.

There were so many tears, so much crying, that after a while, they were both in a pool of his tears. Time had no essence here, this wasn't a place where hearts could heal.

"Are you ready to come out?" she asked him when he quieted down.

"I don't know why I wanted to remember. I don't know if I'm strong enough to carry all this pain."

She took his hand. "You don't have to be strong," she said. "You don't even have to come out if you don't want to."

"But I'm the Dragon King now," he argued. "So many people depend on me to protect them. How will I ever break the curse if I stay here? Who else can set things right?"

"Then, does that mean you want to come out?"

He looked at her for a long time. "I remember it now," he said.

"What do you remember?"

"Everything. I remembered everything. I remembered what they did to Sia, and things before that. I remember the a human girl, Rowan, stealing me out of the palace and stuffing me into a box. Then when I met you in your house, you offered me something to drink."

"I was very excited to have a dragon as a guest," Lotte said with a smile. "Does that mean I don't have your right wing anymore?"

Fintan touched Lotte's shoulder. "No, it's still there."

"Then how...?"

He gave her a haughty look. "I'm the Dragon King. Do you think it actually matters how many parts I'm hacked into and where I choose to keep them? I'm more powerful than the Rugar, or the ocean."

"But don't you need your wing back to break the curse?"

"Broken hearts can never really be mended, but it's entirely possible to feel whole and live well even when you've been broken. When they cursed me, my wing breaking off was a by-product of the procedure. I became two people, one with the memory of Sia's death, and one protected from it. But even though I'll never be whole again, I'm just one person now."

"And the curse?" Lotte asked.

"It's over. Thanks to...this...whatever this is." He gestured around them. They were back in the jungle with its riot of colours and shapes. "I always liked this painting. I hadn't realised that it was enchanted."

"It's not enchanted....not exactly," Lotte said. "The painting is...well, it's me."

"You?"

Lotte laughed. "During one of the turns of my life, I was the artist Poppin."

Her words coaxed a smile out of him. "I wonder if the old Dragon knew what he was doing when he bought it..."

For a long moment, they watched all manner of bizarre animals fly across the green and tan patterned sky.
His face grew serious again. "Will you help me, Lotte?"

"With what?"

"It's not going to be easy to fix things here in Serades."

She grinned. "Not even for the all-powerful Dragon King?"

"Especially not for him."

"I don't know what good I can do," she said. "But if you need me, I'm here."

"What do you mean by that?" Fintan gestured around him. "Look at all this? Look how remarkable this place is. This is the true quality of your magic. Not making monsters of iron, but making worlds like this one."

Lotte was silent for a long moment, and then nodded her head. "I think I'd like that, Blue."

He offered her a self-confident smile and got to his feet, brushing out his clothes and stretching his wings. "Are you ready?"

She rose at his side. "I'm ready. Now show me what a Sky Dragon can do."

THE END