Ferry cloud dragon and T.C.

On a sunny and cloudy day, Ferry Cloud Dragon was swimming lazyly around the shallows, his anteny in the air. Suddenly he felt them tickle, curl and spin with delight.

Ferry slowly turned as to not cause a tidal wave, on the shore stood a tiny creature, no larger than Ferry's smallest claw. The creature had a feather tied to a spider dangling from a fresh picked reed.

Dragon did not want to end this delightful distraction, his anteny were having a blast, filling the air with a display of colors and patterns.

The feather and its delicate contraption played and teased until it tangled and broke, it snapped away and blew gently in the breeze.

Now the tiny happy creature, T.C. for short, jumped on a lilypad and proclaimed to the anteny but nobody in particular, "Now I'm going to push off and you are going to save me".

Ferry was about to tell T.C. about the three rules of getting help from a dragon, he lifted his head gently out of the water to speak.

"I can help you, if you follow these three rules or we will both have bad dreams for a year." But the little creature had already jumped on the lilypad and cut it loose. "What rules?" the creature shrieked as it turned around and saw the dragon's head peeking out of the water.

"AHAAAA, A MONSTER!".

"Where? Where?" Said the dragon turning his head to look, sending ripples all around them. The little creature screamed with terror now feering for its life as it did not know how to swim. "HELP, I'm drowning".

Quickly ferry grabbed the lilypad by the stem and gently slid it on to shor.

The creature jumped off and ran screaming at the top of its lungs, "Help, A monster, the lake isn't safe, I almost drowned".

Having realized by now, he was the monster, Ferry sank down to the lowest part of the lake and took a nap.

In his dream, Ferry was young again, too young.

The other dragons were playing Humans and houses but he couldn't play, he was too little they said.

Ferry left sadly and turned into a larger den where he saw another group, this time they said Ferry

was too big, or too old? He ran down deeper into the forest but they always needed him to be taller; shorter, faster, smarter or better at something else, Ferry sank back in the lake.

The tiny creature was there in his dream, behind it, hundreds more like it. They were all tickling his tummy he was laughing out of control. "Stop, stop" he was thinking, but no one did, in fact, now they creatures had picked reeds of the shore and were poking the dragon on his soft exposed belly.

Meanwhile up on the shore TC was having nightmares of its own.

Life, no longer seemed safe, encouraged by his buddies, TC started going to see the wise beaver

known as Buddha.

Every day TC lay on his back and recounted his dreams of monsters and tidal waves.

"Tell me more about that day" Buddha asked. "What exactly made you run?"

TC thought about the monsters loud voice, but T.C. could scream louder than anything. The monster was big, but so was his friend Tim, the blue whale. Was it those rules? What were they?

TC had not remembered the rules as being to crazy or demanding, except that last one, TC could not remember what it was or why he ran.

"Meditate on it" said Buddha, and fell asleep.

Ferry woke up startled, and disoriented, he caught his breath and slowly drifted to the surface.

As he lifted his eyes he saw none other than TC coming toward the dock.

TC was looking for a quiet place to meditate.

Their eyes met. After a long moment of silence, a small voice wa heard "May I PLEASE tickle your anteny again?"

Ferry nodded gently and TC picked a reed and attached a feather to it with some silk.

They spent a lovely day enjoying the warm air and the happy display.

At dusk, TC got up to run home, as he walked away he turned his head and looked Ferry in the eyes " THANK YOU" he shouted. Ferry smiled.

When TC arrived home the three rules suddenly came back to him. Ask please, say thank you, remember my name a sa rainbow.

TC picked up a piece of bark and cut out the letters of Ferry's name, it decorated the letters with Strawberries, oranges, bananas, mint, blueberries, grapes and salmonberries. The sign looked like a delicious rainbow.

TC went down to the dock to give Ferry the sign.

As TC got closer he notices the clouds above parting and changing, a large dark and stormy nimbostratus cloud the shape of a Dragon was flying thru the sky quickly getting smaller and higher until only a little cirrostratus dragon could be seen far in the distance.

From that day on Ferry and TC were good friends and had many adventures together, but most importantly, they always asked each other for permission, gave thanks and loved sharing rainbow fruit salad.