The little dragon swished her tail as she looked down on the bugs lovingly laid out on the book before her. She had been listening to her invisible friend explain them for over an hour and was quite entranced. Her eyes brightened as she looked to a silver winged creature that had patterns on it like a map. “And just what is that?” She asked.

“It’s a moth.” An invisible hand pulled the pin and then the moth rose into the air. “A Monothyptic Atlas to be exact. They’re able to find their way home from anywhere in the multiverse. I keep a live pair of them here for breeding purposes as they mate for life. Lady Loveless sells them on the open market in Evenport as sailors prize them for navigation purposes. Personally, I just find them beautiful.”

Xhen watched as the invisible hand pinned the dead moth back inside the book. The page then turned and the little dragon now looked down on a black scarab with white legs and a centipede made of glass.

“Oh, oh, oh,” she said excitedly. “I know what that one is. That’s a grave scarab, isn’t it.”

Robert grunted. “And just how do you know that little one?”

“Because my mother told me about them,” Xhen explained. “She said they were all over in her homeland. I so wish to go there one day. She told me she would take me. She told me she would.”

Robert was silent for a moment. “Yes, perhaps you’ll go there one day.”

“And what about that one?” Xhen pointed to the centipede with her tail.

“That’s a Scolupendra Circatus. The glass centipede. It’s only a fossil as they’ve gone extinct. They were hunted by the demons of Wraath who needed them for bait. They found that if you set a glass centipede at the foot of a Trimnott Tree, a unicorn would show up. Well, sadly there were more unicorns than glass centipedes and so the demons hunted them to extinction.”

“Oh, that’s very sad,” Xhen said as she thought about this. Why would anyone want to hunt a unicorn? Demons, she thought, were probably very silly and she supposed they couldn’t be trusted with such things. She looked back down at the book. “What about that one?”

“That’s an Enthogatha Centrifuga. It’s a very special not-a-bug with six legs, as you can see. Commonly called a Terminus Stort because it houses a small turbine in its thorax that allows it to manipulate time and space. This one, unfortunately, passed away some time ago, but I have his grandchildren here to keep us safe.”

“Just how do they keep us safe?”

Robert cleared his throat, which, as Xhen had learned, meant he was about to give a very important lecture. “It means that they are what keep this place safe. You see, we’re in an extra-dimensional space that’s separate from the rest of the physical Universe. We’re in a sort of … pocket dimension if you will. This is only possible when you’re able to collect seven or more Terminus Storts into one place and keep them happy. Which, of course, I do. I personally have collected over two dozen Terminus Storts here and they’re all quite content.”

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Xhen swished her tail again. She had never heard such fantastic things. It was quite remarkable. “What do they eat?”

“Dreams, mostly. Every now and again they’ll eat a nightmare if they feel like it. My research tells me they need a good nightmare here and there to balance their delicate biology.”

“So you have them here? In this place?” Xhen asked.

“Yes, but they keep themselves quite well hidden. You have to know where to look …”

But the dragon was already gone.

Robert sighed as he shut the book. He wasn’t sure he was up for looking after a young and inquisitive dragon. Then again, what choice did he have?

The painting on the wall then came to life as Lady Loveless stood up from her desk. “An enchanting little creature, isn’t she?”

“I would suppose so,” Robert answered.

“Have you told her yet? About her mother?”

“No.” Robert shook his invisible head.

“Hmm …” Lady Loveless looked in the direction the dragon had gone. “… I wonder if we even should.”

“And why wouldn’t we?” Robert asked.

“Sometimes I think it’s better that things take their natural course.”

Robert wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but he knew better than to start an argument at a time like this. So instead he asked, “What time does the changeover happen?”

“In a few hours,” answered Lady Loveless. “By the way, just where did you find those two before you brought them to me?”

“The room with the bottomless pit.”

“Hmm …” Lady Loveless raised a painted eyebrow. “Was the pit still there?”

“No,” answered Robert. “It was just a room with a strange statue.”

“What kind of statue?” she asked.

Robert shrugged. “Some kind of dancer in a strange skirt.”

Lady Loveless nodded. “Good.”

“And why is that good?”

Lady Loveless sat back down against the desk and crossed her arms. “Because sometimes unexpected things are good. Just like our little dragon friend here.”

The End