The first time I saw you, I was told you were a dream.

"Mama, why can't people fly?" my four-year old self asked from my patch of grass. I was playing my with my older sister Aria in the meadow on the outskirts of our tiny village.

"Silly Yuni," Aria scolded. "People can't fly because we don't have wings like birds!"

I remained skeptical. Aria may have been six years older then me, but that didn't mean she knew everything. I turned to look at my mother Luce, who was curled up in the sun reading. Her long black hair swayed gently in the breeze, and she turned her deep blue eyes towards me and smiled.

"That's true, Ari," she said, "But it's also because humans are too heavy to fly, even if we did have wings. We're made differently than birds."

I frowned, pondering her answer. Thinking back to the picture book I had once seen from a passing traveler, I tilted my head and said, "But dragons're really big, and theyc'n still fly."

Aria laughed as Mama shook her head in exasperation. "Yes, but dragons aren't real, sweetie."

Dragons aren't real? "But the book talked about 'em, and books are always true."

Mama chuckled and closed her own book. Laying it aside, she crawled over to me and said softly, "Not all books Yuni, not all books. Now come on, we need to head back home for lunch."

I raised my arms for her to pick me up, and together with Aria we ran across the meadow back home.

Later that afternoon while she was doing the laundry, Mama remembered that she'd left her book in the meadow.

"Aria, can you run back outside and get my book please?" she called. "I left it where we were this morning."

"I'm in the middle of the dishes, Mama!"

I ran over to Mama and tugged on her skirt.

"I can do it, Mama!" I puffed out my chest impressively. "I'm a big girl."

Mama smiled. "Alright Yuni, but be very quick. If you're not back in ten minutes I'm coming to get you."

Laughing excitedly, I ran out the door. "Don't worry, I will be!"

It took some time to find the book, and when I did I nearly ran back to Mama crying hysterically because of the giant grasshopper sitting on it. But then it jumped off, and I cautiously approached the book before snatching it away and turning back towards my house.

Suddenly, a great shadow passed over me. Glancing up, my mouth fell open upon seeing a great winged figure soaring above my head.

That looks just like the dragon in the book! I thought in wonder. Craning my neck to get a good look at it, I was forced to shield my eyes from the afternoon light reflecting off its shiny scales. Before I knew it, the dragon had been reduced to a mere speck in the blazing sky before it vanished entirely.

I bolted home as fast as my tiny feet could carry me. Bursting through the door, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Mama! Mama! I saw one! They're real, they're real, I saw one!"

"Saw what?"

My father Reborn was sitting in the living room with Mama and was looking at me curiously.

I jumped onto his lap and beamed at him. "A dragon!"

Papa raised an eyebrow. "A dragon, you say? And when was this?"

"Just now, outside in the meadow. It was HUGE and it was flying really fast."

Mama sighed. "Yuni, I told you earlier, dragons aren't real. Don't make things up."

"But I'm not!" I protested.

Papa chuckled as he ruffled my hair affectionately. "Ah, let her dream, why don't you? I honestly prefer a dragon to a unicorn or something equally feminine."

My lower lip stuck out in a pout. "I'm not dreaming. I saw a dragon and it was real."

"Dreams are real too, sweetie," Mama said, smiling.

"But..."

"Alright, that's enough about dragons," Papa announced as he swept me into the air. I shrieked and burst into giggles. "You and I, Yuni-cutie, are overdue for a game of hide-and-seek."

"Hide-and-seek!" I yelled before wriggling out of Papa's grasp and shooting down the hall.

Over the next few weeks, I tried to bring up the dragon multiple times, but each time my account would be brushed off as wishful thinking, overactive imagination, or most often, a dream. After a while, I heard it so much that I began to believe that it had been a figment of my imagination as well.

After all, dragon's aren't real, are they?

And then I saw you a second time.

Please review, it means everything to me!