Once there was a water dragon. He was brilliant and blue and he knew the depths of the sea like no other. Once upon a time a spider laid it's tiny eyes on him. This spider saw how wondrous and free the water dragon was and decided to silently follow him only so as to be close. The dragon, once observant noticed this but decided what's the harm. He let the spider look on as he continued to be himself. One day the spider realised it had something inside of itself that wanted to be free too and it bit the beautiful water dragon. The bite was venmous and the dragon could feel it corse through him and before he could even muster a thought against it, he wanted it. He wanted it and everyday the tiny spider would come to bite him again. The dragon knew this was wrong but he thought, that tiny spider all alone and everyday it comes back to bite me, that must be love. That tiny venom I feel in my heart must be love. And so he kept it.
The spider came from the ground but there was never a way back so it just stayed close to the dark. The cold places where there was little light and slowly those places became the dragons home too. He didn't swim in the light anymore. He didn't swin at all. His beautiful blue faded to grey and he forgot the sun. The spider continued to bite him every day until that last time when it borrowed itself right underneath his skin and then, the spider was swallowed whole.
The spider was called
Lie.
The water dragon thought, at last it is dead now I can be free again. I can go back to the water now. And he did try, he tried to escape the cave but when he started to see the light again he had to turn away. His head was hung. The spider lived inside of him now and even if it was forever only in that tiny place, he knew he would not escape and inside he felt it and in the bottom of his soul he knew the spiders name.
Lie.
He was trapped but at least now he could see the outside or watch as it went by. He could even feel the water again and float, floating was better than nothing at all, and he accepted his fate. He was content and he could be happy with being content and he wasn't even all that grey anymore. Mostly grey but still so magnificently beautiful. So he would watch the world but no one could ever see him because all they could know was a sad angry thing that is only called a shame because the dragon that once was is no more.

Once there was a beautiful water dragon...
Now no one remembers, no one searches because of what they might find...
Lie.
It's better forgotten.
The dragon became a thing that was lost to even a single thought but if there ever was one it went like this.
Beware of that hidden thing, he was once something you may have spoke of. That's all.

But the same water dragon was still there somewhere and he himself knew this much and in everything that was enough.
That's what he wanted to believe.
It wasn't real though.
One day a curious girl found his dwelling, he was sure she'd be too afraid but admittedly nervous as she was she did not look away. Her wide eyes only grew. She touched his face and whispered "beautifil" he unclenched and began to free himself from a rigid position he'd been wrestling with for what seemed like lifetimes. The girl lost her footing quick realising too late that she stood on the dragons tail. She fell back off the cliff from the cave right into the sea.
The dragon thought, if I do this now if I save her then I can remember myself. I will never be grey again but I'll remember that it was not me. If I go out into that sea now I might not ever be able to find a way back here and even though I know this is not home.
this is my only home.
But the girl was drowning.

The dragon saved the girl and he brought her back to his home and there she woke and said "I love you dragon, you have saved me but you are most beautiful in the light. You do know that don't you?" And she gazed at him in wonder but he just hung his head because he could not forget what he believed the girl should never know.
Lie...
He remembered that spider who was long dead now but part of it would forever remain inside of him.
The girl slid down and caught his head in her hands, smiled and pushed him back into place.

"I found you dragon, I FOUND YOU!!! That means you are mine and I say you cannot live here like this anymore. I will take you with me and we will find someplace beautiful for you to swim again so you can be what you are, so you can feel the sun. I want that for you, dragon. You know why"

"don't say no ok! let's just go far away from this cave now because I love you and I won't ever leave you here but I am a girl, dragon. And I need to see the sun and I want that and that is a freedom that you could never know confined to this cave"
The dragon came so close he was almost inside of the girls wide eyes. His huge, deep, warm breaths on her face made her skin come alive like she was in command of countless living creatures, breathing in her veins. Powerful. That is what he made her.
The dragon said, I saved you didn't I! You know why but please don't ask these silly things. I will not leave here now because it is my home somehow but you can come here anytime you like and see me. Looking at you makes me happy and you know, you know I'll love you but just don't try to move me now because because I am so much bigger than you tiny girl and know this, I have already tried. Nope! I am not going anywhere so don't even ask.
The girl smushed her face into some kind of unnatural expression and huffed.
"I'll show you dragon"
She kicked his tail and ran right up to his ear and whispered.
"I am not afraid of you. I saw that spider once and I know you feel it too and dead as it may be that spider will always borrow down deeper and deeper unless you just let it be free. The dead have left marks all over you. something a girl could never imagine, dragon. I see that and I do not have to know but you should know this, I am not afraid!
And I'll be back tomorrow, and tomorrow and all of eternity because I will never leave you alone here dragon.
And tomorrow, I will make you smile.

Tomorrow the girl came back. She scaled the slippery wall with a world of belongings on her back and when she reached the top where the dragon called home she flung what could have been all of her tiny life's worth out on to the hard rock. She yelled
"I am here, dragon"
And the dragon appeared. He slowly wrapped her in his cold skin and he said nothing. The girls face looked disappointed so he tightened his grip but she sighed and wriggled free and looked at him in the eye.
The girl laughed.
The dragon was in awe of how anyone could escape his grip and he did indeed seem defeated almost but the girl just smiled at him and said "silly dragon, you know that I am too small, you could never hold me"

"But dragon, this is the predicament now you see, I have told you that I am a girl who needs so many things and the sun and the sun but you are my only sun and that is the only warmth that I want to know now and I don't know how to tell you I was wrong. I only need you and I've taken all these things here with me so to make you admit what you yourself already know. You have said it and not said it in too many ways so now you just need to let it be. You dragon, you love me. You have saved me and now I will save you too"
The dragon still said nothing so the girl continued.
She stood the ground, taller than she was and proclaimed.
"THREE THINGS I WILL PUT IN FRONT OF YOU
Not to sway you but to show you how to look and see what is real. This is all I have dragon, so it will work because you will not tell yourself that it cannot.
Just see"

"First,
I took these three strings, sangen. And sometimes I can melt colours so you may not feel grey anymore and I will write and sing for you a million songs if you promise to always open your eyes for me.
Secondly,
All of my words which have now fallen right here in front of you. You really should open your eyes and see, it's like an endless haiku.
And third,
What else do I have of value save for myself and who knows how much value is in that. But third, it is spilled out clear. Honesty dragon. All of my honesty and I am not a perfect girl, not at all but I will accept whatever you show me because I only want to see you and I am not afraid"

"look"
she asked the dragon and she showed him her heart and all the times her tiny frame had cracked trying to get it out.
"I was not always this either but it is enough dragon, even if we are the only ones who ever know. You are still alive in here.
We are.

The dragon spoke and he said, ok girl I am listening. I am looking so show me. Then the girl whispered
"I know the spider all too well"

"it camouflages itself as something innocent but it was never that. I have been bitten by a spider too and I know what it never wants you to see"

"it can never rest even when you know its dead and the further down it digs the more eggs it lays inside of you, dragon and the only way it stops is if you set it free and I know that feels impossible but all you need to do is show me. Then it is gone and you will be free. I can see its marks on you, it's all over you poor dragon, but it is dead now so please let it go"

"I am only because I had looked at that spider everyday until I wasn't afraid, so I picked it out from inside of myself and threw it away. I cannot do this for you, dragon but I can stay here and make you smile while you find a way to let it go. But, just show me and I promise you it will go and don't worry I know I am small but I am not weak and I am not afraid of you and I will still stay"
The dragon spoke again but only to say,
stay here just don't say anymore.
Sleep now.
But the girl refused to tire and finally the dragon grew strong enough to show her.
Look now, you see it can never come away and I will never let it go now because I am afraid.

The girl saw the spider and it was in the dragons beating heart. She kissed his heart and told the dragon.
"it's ok, dragon. Thank you for showing me this"

For several days and nights they slept until a day the girl awoke. She was alone in the dragons empty cell and she walked to the opening where a light broke through and stumbled over a dried out tiny corpse of something that was once called
Lie...
And she looked far out through the cracks onto the waves and there he was like she had never seen him before and yet somehow it was entirely fitting to her image of what she knew the dragon could be. He was blue again and so fast and when he moved she could feel it through the bones. 

The dragon came back to the girl but still he said nothing. His breath was so close to her again that all the tiny creatures she never let die ran back through her veins and she knew. She was alive.
The girl climbed on the dragons back and he said said
Now, we can go home.