The dragon searched his memories for such an infrequently used word. "Hmmm... It means, to think badly of something... or, to see something as unworthy."
She scribbled notes into a notebook. "And villain?"
The invisible mind of the invisible dragon was more familiar with this word. "An old-fashioned word for criminal."
More scribbling. "Thank you, good friend. I like speaking English with you, it helps me."
He gazed around them, feeling a little impatient. "You're welcome, dear lady Anna. Are you ready to fly?"
She stowed the notebook into her little rucksack. "Almost. We are waiting for someone else."
The dragon cocked his invisible head left, then right. "Someone else? Someone else wants to go on this adventure with you?"
So many emotions manifested in the expression on her face. Hope. Desire. Doubt. A mixture of fear and fearlessness. "Maybe he will want to. I have to ask him first. He's a good guy."
Looking down from the roof of her apartment building, the young dragon spotted someone approaching the terrace entrance to her apartment, two floors below. "Is that him?"
Anna looked down and then began to wave. "Up here! Come up to the roof!"
The man on the terrace waved back. "OK, coming."
In the few moments it took for him to ascend, she issued instructions. "Keep stumm, good friend. He doesn't know anything about this."
With so many emotions swirling and coursing through her, she quieted herself. "Yes, wonderful. I have a question for you."
He was still a little distracted by the view. "Sure, go ahead."
After a moment's pause she found the courage to ask. "I want you to come on an adventure with me, to Alaska. To live in pure nature."
He gave a good-natured smile in return. "Wow. That's a bit far-fetched, but..."
She cut him off. "Do you disdain my offer, villain?"
A very simple emotion manifested now on his face: Complete confusion. "What does that mean?"
The young invisible dragon had been listening quietly and thought perhaps he could now be helpful. "Disdain means to see something as unworthy and villain means criminal."
So startled was the good man, he visibly flinched. "Who's there? What was that voice?"
Anna shot a Didn't I Tell You Not To Speak? glare at the dragon. "This is my friend, the invisible dragon. He's our ride. He will fly us to Alaska."
A very long silence ensued. The young dragon tried to fill the gap. "Pleased to meet you."
However the silence was already full, even though nothing could be heard. It was full of the churning emotions of the good man standing on the rooftop. Emotions which were readily manifesting in his facial expressions. Confusion. Disbelief. New awareness. Self-doubt. ...and realization.
A beautiful woman was asking him to come on the adventure of a lifetime, flying there on the back of a dragon. And it's not a dream.
Only one answer was possible "Yes." Then, a moment later, a little addendum. "Only a villain would disdain such an offer."
So a few hours later they were soaring over the north pole, which is a short cut from the rooftops of Vienna to the Alaskan tundra. Throughout the flight over the endless whiteness of the polar cap, Anna passed the time by asking the meaning of several more English words, like onomatopoeia, fulsome and interdiction.
The conversation piqued the good man's curiosity. "Do all dragons know so much about language?"
Anna didn't know, and the invisible dragon had to think before he could answer. "No, it comes from my father."
Now she was curious too. "But your father is a Magician. Did he cast a spell on you, so you would know all this stuff?"
A tiny invisible grin creased the dragon's face. "No, dear Anna. Most dragons have dragon parents, who teach their children stuff like hunting for food and not to breathe fire while chewing your talons and how to avoid flying into a mountain when it's cloudy."
The good man made a guess at the truth. "He couldn't do that, so he taught you about languages?"
Memories of the dragon's early childhood were flooding through his being. "Not quite. He told me other human parents tell their children fairytales when they are young. He didn't do that, because our little family is one of those fairytales. So he told me about other kinds of stories, which he found in literature. Stories of heroes and villians, interdiction and contradiction, esteem and disdain. The stories told me about worlds I was yet to experience. And I loved the language they were couched in. Every word a little vessel. A chalice, a grail carrying wonderful meaning."
The conversation moved from the past to the impending future. "Anna, what's the first thing we will do when we get to Alaska?"
The good man was riding pillion behind her, so she turned her head a little to answer. "Live in nature. Take one day at a time. Hunt and fish. Wander, and wonder. Be together, man and woman."
The young invisible dragon could never resist the urge to blurt out an inspired idea. "And who knows? Many years from now, with an igloo full of children, you can tell them stories and fairytales all about... you!"
Anna is alive and well and living in Vienna
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