Lucid Rescue

A young woman sat like Rapunzel at her window watching night devour day. Fog rising from the lake brought her the promise of twilight magic. Fantasy made her a princess held captive by an overprotective father. She believed in her heart he loved her, but his sternness and strict discipline made his affection seem like another of her dreams. Nothing ever happened in her life. Nothing was permitted to happen in her life. She longed to escape into the world below her window. The fog grew denser, erasing the pagoda on the bank of the lake. Something stirred inside her. Anticipation set her senses on alert. Her eyes scanned the hazy but familiar landscape below looking for the source of her excitement. Then it happened.

A pair of brilliant emerald eyes gazed back at her through the window. The reflection of the glass blinded her to the owner of the eyes. Her room towered several stories from the ground. The outside walls were impossible to scale. Who could be looking in at her? She had to find out. She raised the pane.  She felt a puff warm breath on her face. When he said hello in a resonant baritone voice her face warmed from the inside.

“Who are, how did you, what are you standing on?”

She leaned slightly out of the window to look and snapped back as though she were supported by a bungee cord. She had dreamed of a night such as this with a visitor such as she had, but she never really thought―

The face that greeted her was attached to a body that had his feet on the ground. The dragon of her dreams found her. He would rescue her from her tower of isolation and her life would never be the same, or so she hoped.

The dragon understood it wasn't possible for the young woman to invite him inside, so he gallantly invited her out.

“Would you like to walk around the lake with me, Daphne?”

“Would I ever!”

The mist rising from the lake by now was a fog so thick it actually assisted Daphne to climb out the window. She, of course, straddled the dragon and wrapped her arms around his neck as he flew her to water bank. Daphne’s heart practically jumped out of her chest with exhilaration. He had come for her, just as she always wished.