Ruby

She's that little girl. You know the one-- the one who likes the things she isn't supposed to like and asks the things she isn't supposed to ask. When you light a lamp in the darkness and then scream to find out there was someone silently oh-so-close to you the whole time-- it was Ruby.

She's so little, teeny-tiny Ruby. Creepy little Ruby, creeping everywhere she wants to go. Grown-ups want to keep you away from so many things that are so interesting! Life is like a fascinating scab, you can't not pick at it just a bit. She can show up just about anywhere, with those big red eyes, watching so silently until she says something so bold in her whispery little high-pitched voice, poking just where it's tender. There's no sense in editing your conversation when this little pitcher is around-- she's already heard it all.

She doesn't mean any harm, little Ruby, the healers' child, little Ruby who is perfectly happy watching scars stretch and who loves to watch how so much pus can be pressed out of what appears on the surface to be such a small infection. It makes her giggle, a squeaky sound, a breathy one-note hee-hee-hee that goes on forever. Other hatchlings hunt the shore for shells-- Ruby's looking for sun-bleached bones. She loves best finding vertebrae with the marks of teeth where they cracked the spine. More than anything else in the world she wants a Bone Fiend of her very own... and no one is surprised.

Healthy dragons tend to stay away from Ruby as much as they can. It can come to a surprise to them to learn how often the dragons who have come to the sea for healing come to enjoy the ever-challenging company of this odd child, to find inspiration in her fearlessness, and a kind of vicarious liberation from their own horror in her innocent, interested lack of disgust.