"So then—BAM!—I wiped the dragon out!"

Rodent stood at the front of the large room, which was filled with children mostly wearing hospital gowns, some in wheelchairs and others with a mobile IV drip next to them.

Back at the front, Rodent flared out his arms, and behind him, the drapes on the windows floated upward from the afternoon's breeze. "Now. I didn't want to HAVE to mess him up—but sometimes the dragon is just ASKING for it."

He turned to the side and shadow-boxed the air. "It was real easy, too. Just knock 'em on the snout.” He laughed. “Almost like a shark!"

The children chuckled and gasped, but one such child, a little lady at the front of the room, scrunched up her face and scooted back in her chair, wiggling her nose as much as she could.

Her arms crossed as she huffed and turned her head. "You did not fight a dragon on your way back from the store."

"Did too!" Rodent scrunched up his face and wiggled his nose just the same, turning back to the side again, cocking his arm, and looking up as though the dragon were descending on him again. "Buddy just dropped from the sky as I was leaving the store. Blocked the whole way, too. Wouldn't let people, cars, or planes through." He snickered. "So I cocked back my arm like this and—BOOM!"

He threw a punch just as a breeze exploded against the drapes.

The children gasped at how the drapes floated upward and held them for a second to decorate the punch. Next, the drapes lowered as Rodent's foot slid back, and he turned to face the audience with his closed eyes and wide-open smile.

The kids absolutely lost it at this and started clapping and pounding their feet against the ground in celebration.

All Rodent could do was chuckle and laugh with the kids.

Behind him, the sunlight was starting to recede.

"What happened next?" asked a shy, quiet voice to the group's left, and Rodent immediately noticed the child.

He went to the kid and sat next to him, crossing his legs, starting to lean from side to side while humming—as if making up the next part of the tale.

"Well. Y'know me. Y'know that I gotta be honest with all of you here." His hand stroked his face as his shoulders lowered a bit. "I did kinda feel bad afterward punching that dragon like that."

Rodent became sad and looked at the ground. His side-to-side bouncing stopped.

"The dragon's nosebleed was epic, and we needed to plug his snout into some cars. We got to talking after that—which is what we should have done in the first place."

The children nodded along.

"Turns out the dragon had just come through the wrong portal and ended up in this world by mistake," Rodent said. "He didn't mean to be mean."

Silence.

But only for a second.

"So I apologized. We talked on a nice hilltop." Rodent rose to his full height and sat straight again. "He was upset about being in another world… and since I didn't know how to return the dragon to his world… I figured I would show him how cool this world was!"

Rodent chuckled and smirked and started to bounce from side to side again. "So I called in a few favours and had a water tankers full of soda and trucks full of snacks meet us there. The dragon and I ate and chilled and played games after that—until I rode his back scouting for a nice cave for him to relax in for the time being."

"YOU DID NOT!" yelled the girl from before.

Rodent, leaning past the boy he sat next to now, only wore a dumb, smiling face as he looked her dead in the eyes. "Did too! Even got a license and a job as a cave-brooker for dragons!" He reached into his olive-drab field jacket pocket—drawing out a card. "It's like being a real estate agent—except for dragons."

He passed the card along, the children looking at it and becoming puzzled before it reached the young lady in the wheelchair. She brought the card right to her eyes before they squinted with rage. "YOU JUST WROTE YOUR NAME AND DREW A STICK FIGURE OF YOURSELF IN CRAYON!"

"HEY!" Rodent called back playfully. "IF I'M THE FIRST DRAGON/CAVE REAL ESTATE AGENT IN THE WORLD, THEN DON'T I GET TO DECIDE THE RULES?!"

The room broke down in laughter that lasted until a bell was rung.

Just then, a flood of nurses and people in gowns entered the room, each wearing a happy expression while clapping their heads. "Alright! The show's over, everyone! Please thank Mr. 'Rodent' for being here!"

Most in the room laughed and clapped while Rodent rolled toward the front of the room and spun on his heels. He bent forward, touching his chest and extending his arm to the oncoming praise. Seconds later, he rolled that same praise, forcing the kids to cheer him on louder.

Afterward, the children were led into different halls and rooms by different people until the only person left was the girl in the wheelchair. Rodent came to sit on the ground before her, his head tilted and his smile a bit smaller.

"I take it you didn't enjoy today's show?"

The girl scrunched her face, bunched her lips, and looked aside. "None of it was real."

"That's the important part?" Rodent asked. "Well. It was real when it happened inside my head!" He tapped the side of such happily.

The girl's lips burst with laughter, and a smile appeared, though she fought to hold it back—to remain irritated and angry.

"Don't mature so quickly," Rodent's voice became gentle. "It's easier being immature as a kid than as an adult."

The girl looked up at him. "You're an adult," she said. "How come you're not mature?"

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Rodent snickered. "Because I'm not an adult!" he returned. "Just a really, really old kid."

The girl smiled and hated herself for smiling but still couldn't stop doing it as Rodent came around the wheelchair so he couldn't see her smiling. "May I bring you back to your room, mademoiselle?"

The lady sat there and huffed for a while as the man waited until she gave the okay.

After a few moments, it came. "…alright."

Rodent smiled softly as he took the handles to her chair and turned it around. He did not do his usual games or tricks, keeping quiet as he pushed. His head turned to look out the windows of the broad, rectangular room, which was part of a big block that floated above the ground.

There was another such block on the other side, a unique design that he hadn't seen in any other building—though, to be fair, he hadn't been in many other buildings. His attention focused on the large double doors they would be passing through.

"How come you keep coming back?"

Rodent blinked. "Back? Like… back here?"

The lady nodded. "Mhm."

"Hmm… it might not seem like it now… but even when you can get out of this place… there still is a nice feeling to it."

The lady looked downward. "There is nothing nice about this place."

"Sometimes," Rodent agreed. "I've had that thought too. Many times, in fact. Still do, here and there."

The lady's head raised as she looked over her shoulder at him. "Y-You mean you… still feel that way?"

"Sometimes," Rodent returned as they passed through the doors into a wide hallway. Rolling beds and machines littered the sides, and a few occasional benches were set next to wooden doors with the blinds drawn on their windows. "You'll find that some feelings never go away—they just become less strong, less frequent."

"What causes them to go away?"

"Hmm…" Rodent thought about it as his head leaned to the side, and he expertly moved the wheelchair around a cone left close to the right side of the hall. "When I get reminded of the good stuff, I guess. But that's the thing. I always have to be reminded of the good stuff—it doesn't stick to you like the bad stuff."

The lady faced forward again, though her gaze dropped as she entered thought, trusting the driving of the large friend she did not like. "S-Stick…"

"That's why I like to go by the name Rodent," Rodent said. "Every time someone calls me it, it reminds me of a good memory, and it keeps something that was once passive now active in my life."

"How'd you get the name Rodent?"

"Annoyed a girl I liked enough for her to call me that."

"And it stuck?"

"Mhm."

"What happened to her?"

For a second, the man deflated, shoulders lowered, head doing the same, gaze descended—soul depleted. He shook out of it to avoid an incoming cart before returning to his usual self. "Not around anymore."

"Oh." The lady was quiet and shy, and the air suddenly different. The man she knew as a goof turned out to be more human than she realized. There was a strange stirring in her chest and a kind of guilt she'd never felt. "So, um. You like the name Rodent?"

"It's the only one I really know."

"What about your real name?"

His head shook. "Never had one—except for what the hospital called me."

"O-Oh."

The lady's head lowered.

"Don't get so depressed—I'm not a sad story." Rodent's smirk and usual face returned as he hooked a right into a hall that split. On his left, a group of three sprinted past—not saying anything. "There were six of us like that when I was a kid here. Seven, really. We weren't upset that we didn't have names—only that we got to name ourselves after some cool stuff."

The lady's face scrunched as she turned and gazed up at him. "You guys actually named yourself? Really?"

"Pfft! Yeah! What's the hospital gonna do—reject the request of sick, abandoned children?" Rodent blew his lips, waving dismissively. "If we wanted to name ourselves Rocket, Firecracker, or whatever—then that's what they would call us."

"Except for you."

Rodent shrugged. "I didn't really care if I had a name." His smirk twitched again. "Besides. I wouldn't have been able to pick a better name myself."

They were nearing the lady's room, and though she had wanted to get there quickly at first, now, she wished it had taken them longer to arrive. They would be running some tests she asked not to be told about and only instructed on what was needed from her.

She had made sure to be strong, silent, and mature about the whole thing—enduring everything that happened inside as though it made her better than the rest. But the young woman exhaled as though she were immediately aware of all the weight.

"It'd be cool if I had a name like that."

“He-he-he!” Rodent gave his chuckle-like giggle. "So give yourself one!"

"But that's—"

"Can't be any worse than Rodent… can it?"

The girl looked down at her feet as they pulled into the small hall leading into her room, closing her eyes and thinking at once of night, that endless sky with the bright, dotted stars and the round mass that she gazed at the most. At once, her eyes fluttered open, and the woman breathed.

"F-Flower…" the lady said as she twisted to look at the blond-haired man. "I-I'd like to be part of that group you were talking about. I-I want to be called Flower from now on!"

Rodent snickered again, hitting the button so the door would open, stepping back and offering a salute. "You got it, Flower!"

Flower smiled, feeling a pleasant bursting in her chest like prismatic crystal breaking into magic within her soul. Grabbing the wheels of her chair, she struggled and strained to push herself forward, but soon she was moving forward on her own—entering the dim room alone.

She expected the door to close behind her, but instead, footsteps were followed by a light shining on. The girl turned the seat around to look at Rodent. He smiled and, bending to a knee, looked her straight in the eyes. "I know you're going through some tough stuff—stuff even worse than what I went through."

His mouth opened as his self-assured smile became too large to remain shut. "That's why, the next time we meet, I'll have gone on some real adventures—and I'll bring you back some cool stuff as proof."

Flower looked at him and felt something special again, not knowing why she suddenly wanted to cry despite being so grown up.

Instead, she masked it, straightening up and pretending to be more adult, her expression becoming stern as she pointed a finger at him. "You better. I want real adventures that you had. No more fairy tales, Mr. Storyteller!"

Rodent smirked and nodded. "I promise."

And just like that, the man turned and left, waving the back of his hand and disappearing into the hallway.

Flower turned her chair around, glancing at the large machines that were made of steel, old and confusing, with the staleness of the room getting to her.

Looking out the window, though, she wheeled toward it, and though it was a struggle… she managed to crack one of them open… fresh air blowing in… causing the lady to close her eyes and… indulge in the moments of peace.

----------------------------------------

The Affection of Children:

You know what it's like to wonder if you'll ever see anything beyond doctors and sterile walls. Hope is hard to hold in such a rushed, cramped place where life-and-death matters are treated too casually.

Your friends are no longer around for you to care for.

However, your efforts are well-spent on the ones who came after.