Challenge #00405 - A040: The Most Important Lessons

Fairytales don’t tell children that dragons exist. Children already know this instinctively. Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed. - G K Chesterton, with some posthumous turning of phrase by others. –RecklessPrudence

Mom found her literally up to her neck in the archives. Books held her place in other books. Notes hung out of yet more books like exhausted, multiple tongues.

“It’s getting late,” she said.

Danny looked up. Then around herself. “Uhm. Heh. No time to pack this lot up, is there?”

“The librarians have given special dispensation to maintain the -ah- nest. You’re doing important work, here. Everyone can see that.”

“Some don’t.” Danny stretched and flexed her way out of her study next. “Can you believe old men are throwing things at me for inventing Garlic body spray? They keep telling me I’m a traitor to the cause.”

“Funny. I thought the cause was to eliminate the risk from the haze.”

“So did I,” Danny sighed. “Have any of the surgeons called?”

Mom looked very sad to give the same answer Danny had been hearing for months. “No. Sorry.”

“Not your fault.” She sighed. “The answers are all here. I just gotta keep straining the truth out of the stories.”

One by one, no matter what their physical guise, Danny would make certain that her dragons would die.

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