Ladybird watches the dragon's soliloquy from afar, but an ice-cold grip on her heart prevents her from approaching him, as much as she would love to.

His words speak her own fate. She too has been gone for a long long time. She too has changed. Not for the better, some might say, but who are we to judge what is better and what worse? And she remembers what a wise man in far Shangala had told her: Change is always good, because it is our only means of progress. We cannot choose our roads if we do not know where they will lead us. But we can watch them unfold and decide to feel happy or unhappy. That is our freedom.

"Oh Dragon, you always bring such an air of melancholy with you," she whispers to herself, then leans back against the trunk of a giant oak with her eyes closed.

"The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark,
When neither is attended..."
--William Shakespeare