"All these flamboyant words are just to prove me that you are not a child, aren't they?" she smirks.

"Yes. And I also want to tell you that we are just humble bugs to compare with rulers, mages, and dragons. We have to do what we have to do. Sometimes it's terrible." I come up to the window to take a deep breath. My cheeks are burning. My mind is flashing. I feel I'm a dandelion that has its roots firm in the ground, but at the same time I'm its white weightless umbrellas that are dancing in the wind.

The sky is transparently blue as if it has cleaned all its dark spots; the thick morning fog, that was covering the Forest of Grey Spirits, disappeared. The valley is rich verdant, clear, and unfaded.

"You are wrong. You are not a humble bug. I used to know some mages and rulers who were weak, corrupted, and miserable, like Buyana or her husband. It's just the image that was created to make others feel humble. Simple humans can change this terrible course of the events." The dragon stands up, comes up to me, and puts her firm hand on my shoulder.

"Yes, sure. I just go to our monthly veche and tell the head of the village (whose son is a great idiot and my ex-future-husband) and other elders that I want to change everything: I want girls and boys to marry when they want and whom they want, I want peasants to work less and don't give taxes to our tsar. Are you in your mind? Who'd listen to me?"

"They'd listen to you when I'm standing by your side," she says, crunching something. I turn my head, seeing her insolent smile. She's simply chewing some walnuts as if it's not the most important conversation in my life!

"Are you serious? Are we going back to my village?" I can't believe what she's saying.

She hugs me from behind. I can smell nuts and warmth from her skin and mouth.

"Why are you so surprised?" she asks, looking at me.

I'm taken aback, "I was sure I would stay here. With you. Because I've made my own decision, my choice."

"We don't have to stay here. It's just my place where I could lick my wounds and maybe something else... but it's not about that. We could go wherever you want. And I know you want to go back to your family. Where is my traveling bag? Let's dust off my nice jacket."

"I thought we would live here..." I'm dumbfounded. Is she going to get rid of me? Did she finally realise how stubborn, unhandy, and childish I am? Did my words push her away from me? Is it because I tried to reject her riches and her help? If she were a man, she would be insulted, I guess: your wife doesn't want your help. Who will love this?"

"I can't believe you were sure I won't let you go anywhere! I'm a dragon, not a human male or kikimora. Though kikimoras are equal when it comes to hierarchy."

I shrug my shoulders, bowing my head down. I'm confused. All my beliefs, my plans, my ideas, and approaches are in question.

"Why everything must be so difficult?" I sigh.

"That's the most exciting moment of becoming an adult," the dragon chuckles. "It's great that you feel it. Some people don't bother to reflect on how life works. They just want simple, mundane things: they don't want to know what is behind the corner. They stay where they stay and they do what they have to do to please powers, parents, husbands, sons, society in general."

She sneezes when takes out a long jacket out of the chest with lots of big and small drawers. Aha, she has some dust in her chambers after all. She does need someone who can take care of everything.

"I can help you not to go mad when so many things and events are happening at once. Wouldn't you mind if I help you? You seem a bit puzzled."

"Fine." I try to help her with a jacket, but she sits me on the bad.

"No, no! No typical male and female roles. You are my wife, and I do hope you'll become my friend too, but you are not my mother, not my chambermaid, not my servant, not my slave. I need you to relax and focus on my question."

I've never thought that spouses could be friends. All girls are always repeating the same thing again and again like a pray to Perun: a man and a woman can't be friends. It has been imprinted in my mind. I'm not even sure if my parents are friends. They work so hard that they could hardly see each other. When dad comes, he kisses us, girls, eats what mama prepares and goes to sleep, while mama is still knitting something or teaching Zabava how to prepare vegetables before making winter preservations or million other things. I'm busy too: I bring water, wash the dishes, wash the table, wash the floor, then do my sewing until a tiny kamelek with whittlings and laths in our wood stove pechca is giving me light.

"Can you answer to three questions?" the dragon finally asks me, making sure I'm sitting in between two fluffy pillows with a fried drum in my hand (she obviously wants me to get on weight as if she's Baba Yaga who wants to eat me later).

I nod, "If it helps to comfort my soul, I'll be more than happy. I want to be a friend to my," I paused, "...wife," I finished proudly, realising how lucky I am. Only a few could become boyarinyas to say nothing of tsarinas or tsarevnas, while I am a dragon's wife!

"Why did you save me? Why did you fly away with me instead of going home with your sister? And what do you really want now? You don't have to answer immediately. Just think about it."

She is humming a nice melody, putting something red on her lips enjoying the result in a huge mirror.

"Be honest with me, Suzuka-chan," she repeats the question.

Suzuka-chan???