Lou

  "It's all right, Lou." Harper kissed his hand, as the roar of a dragon startled him. The kiss was gentle. Lou barely felt it. But his hand still tingled.

  He held on to the fabric of Haper's clothes with his other hand as they walked down a narrow path. In the middle of the high mountains. Nervously, he freed his hand from Harper's grasp. Sally walked behind them, watching his every step. A warm wind was blowing and there was a smell of dragons everywhere. Lou heard fpping wings and loud roaring. Again and again, he closed his eyes.

  "Careful!" Sally murmured, holding him by the waist. "Don't fall. Have you closed your eyes again? You're safe, sweet Lou. Nobody will hurt you."

  "Hm." Lou didn't understand why they always called him sweet.

  "It's all good. Come on!" Harper murmured, as Lou had stopped when Sally touched him. Lou walked very carefully over the rock. There were small stones everywhere that he could trip over. He had agreed to go for that walk, but now he wasn't sure if it had been a good idea. All the dragons scared him.

  Sally and Harper remained in human form. They kept pointing to caves of friends, or to how the sun made the rocks glow. Lou couldn't see the caves or the special glow. Just the colors. Beautiful colors that he hardly noticed. Harper's hand distracted him. His hand had been warm as the dragon gently guided him along the path.

  Harper. Lou could barely look at him. Instead, he stared at his own hands. Nor did he look at the glorious colors of the mountains at sunrise. No. All he thought about were his strange feelings in the night. The heat.

  Sally giggled softly. "You're all red, sweet Lou. What's wrong?", she asked. Of course, she knew what was going on. She had overheard everything. Harper's entire family had. Embarrassing. Lou, on the other hand, didn't even understand why he was embarrassed.

  "I." Lou shook his head and then tripped over one of the many stones. He clung to Harper to keep himself from falling. At the same time, Sally caught him. Lou tensed up until she let go of him.

  Harper looked at him and sighed. Lou closed his eyes. "Do you want to hook up under my arm?", his friend asked. "Or hold my hand again?" Harper had suggested this from the beginning, but Lou refused. Walking so close to him? No. Just the thought... The thought brought back the terrible heat. Lou's heart was pounding. He shook his head quickly, and the dragon sighed. Even Harper's hand was too much. Lou hadn't wanted to hold it, but Sally and Harper had convinced him. To be on the safe side.

  "Lou?"

  "No!"

  Sally smirked. "Oh, Lou. Do you want to take my hand then? Or hook up under my arm?"

  He immediately shook his head.

  "Shall we go back?", she suggested. "To our cave?"

  "No." Lou didn't want to go to all the dragons who had heard everything. Probably also SEEN. "I want... Louise."

  "Narcisse promised to bring her here!" Harper reminded him softly. "Lou? Take a look around. Will you? It's beautiful here. The sky is pink!"

  "Pink?" Lou frowned. For the first time, he looked up and consciously looked at all the colors around him. There were, of course, the colors of Harper and Sally. But all the other colors? Gold, Brown, Blue, Red, Orange, Pink... It was beautiful. "Oh."

  "Isn't it?", said Harper. "Welcome to our home, Lou. Welcome to heaven!" He released Lou's hands from his clothes and took them into his own. Lou was too captivated by all the colors to notice.

  "This is what heaven looks like?", he asked.

  "Our heaven does!", replied Harper quietly. But then Harper did something unexpected again. He stroked his hair. Not as usual to reassure or comfort Lou. No. "I don't know how the heaven should look like otherwise", the dragon murmured dreamily, pying with one of Lou's strands of hair.

  "Harper!", warned Sally quietly. Lou blinked. "Hm!", he protested. Cruel heat rose to his face. Everything was tingling.

  "Oh? Excuse me", Harper said quietly. "You don't like that?" Lou shook his head. He liked the touch, yes. But he couldn't make sense of it. And it was too close. And at the same time not close enough. Frustrated, he wiped a tear from his eyes. Noticing this, Harper pulled Lou to him and hugged him. As he did so, he stroked Lou's back. "I’m sorry."

  "That was too much!", Sally reprimanded quietly.

  sasi