previous part: https://jordynsaelor.com/2026/04/09/in-the-garden-crave/
all parts: https://jordynsaelor.com/cant-catch-me-now/
***
The dracans
lived
without roofs,
not even invisible magic ones.
Their homes
looked like log cabins
if the logs
were woven like yarn
and the cabins
were leg warmers
but only for giant ankles,
and by “giant” I mean
something much larger
than the full-grown dracans,
who towered
a whole library taller than me.
I mean,
each dracan
had a log cabin
without a roof
that they curled up in
to sleep
but if I squinted
and crouched in the dirt,
it wasn’t hard to pretend
the gold and gray dracans
were ankles
poking out beneath a blue-green skirt of the sky
with these woody, woven leg warmers
covering half the ankles and tops of the giant’s feet.
I didn’t tell the creature its sleeping friends looked like that though,
I just asked it it’s name
and the names of dozing dracans we walked past,
my arm
on its neck
to keep my balance
on the path.
It’s name
was Runabon
and its dad’s name was
Runaround
and the one sleeping to our right
was Pobbee
and the one sleeping behind her
was Borp
and off to our other side was
Pobba,
recovering from an injury.
Then it took me to its cabin,
occupied by a huge dracan
that was its dad
so I asked,
“Do you share this with your dad?”
and it said yes
so I asked,
“Where do you sleep,
on his back?”
And Runabon stared at me
like I was crazy.
“No,” it said, “I don’t sleep on xher back,
we don’t sleep at the same time,
silly Ola.”
So I said, “Oh. But since you sleep when your dad’s awake,
and vice versa,
do you ever talk?”
“Yeah,” it said, “we talk every dawn and dusk.
Xhe just told me how proud xhe was of me
helping with the fire
especially when I was getting no sleep.”
And I
started crying.
The creature patted my head with its beak and said,
“Oh, I’m fine, I’m not even tired,
you’re so interesting I don’t want to sleep anyway.”
And I didn’t have the breath
to tell it
I wasn’t crying about its lack of sleep
I was crying because,
I don’t know,
I just had a weird feeling in me
like…
like…could its dad adopt me?
***
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Jordyn Saelor 