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A small sunlight enters the lair in the garden, hitting the tiny creature's eyes. The dragon wakes up with a yawn, checking the air with its tongue. Despite it being the taste it has tasted for a lifetime, it is very different from the taste its ancestors were used to: the coldness and essence of pinewood has been replaced by the hotness of human-made smoke. And cat poo.

The dragon comes out of its lair. In front of it, is a crowd of grass leaves, as tall as itself. On the horizon emerges a human construction, whose species would define it as a suburban house; behind the colossal building, more appear, in a perfect, unnatural straight line.

The dragon stands still. All it needs to do is waiting for the right moment, when the house is free to get in. The house has what the creature desires. It is not food: the garden has plenty of insects for its nutrition. It's something that has been the essence of its kind forever, since the times when its bigger, stronger forefathers roamed the Earth, making meals out of the humans in metal plates that came to slaughter them. They may have adapted themselves to the new, humanized world, but the instinct has been left intact.

Finally, here comes the moment. The bigger human exits the house, and opens the garage, enters in and from it emerges something made of metal, capable of moving at astounding speed, whose deafening noise means, for the dragon, one thing: it is time.

The dragon flies from above the grass. It searches for an open window, if the humans left one open. It hopes so: otherwise, it would have to pass through the chimney, which always covered in soot. That black, smelly substance takes hours to get off, and makes the creature much more visible to its main enemy.

But today is a good day. There is one window open: it is one of the windows below, where the humans pour water on themselves. In truth, the dragon would prefer to enter through another room: the pungent smell of detergent overwhelms every other information it could catch through its nose. But it has no control over it. The fact the humans forgot one window open is a good thing alone.

The door is closed. The dragon feels a wave of discomfort. Even though it has learned how to open it, it takes ages. Landing on the handle does nothing: the animal is too small to make any kind of pressure. Its only way is keeping its hind paws attached to the handle and try to fly below. It took several previous attempts for the dragon to learn this trick; but it is always terribly tiring. There is no other choice, though: the dragon flies on the handle, and with all its willpower pushes it down with its wings. The object is so heavy, and the dragon is using every single muscle of its body; but its effort is paid back when the door makes a clicking sound and moves towards the rest of the house.

In front of the dragon is now a long corridor, with some plants next to the walls and a pair of paintings. Now, it could easily fly towards the vast stairway that begins at the end of the passage. But there is another obstacle, something much worse than door handles. So many times has the dragon escaped from said obstacle by pure luck. The creature can only pray it is sleeping.

Therefore, the dragon silently walks, constantly next to the wall, hiding itself behind a plant whenever possible. It has almost reached half of the corridor...

"MEEEOOOOOOWWWW!"

Here it is! The dragon, now discovered, takes flight, soaring away from the cat's talons. But the feline is so damn good at jumping: the poor flying reptile must dive down, up, left, right; the stairway is so close, yet so far away at the same time. The cat won't leave it in peace: it is time for a direct confrontation. The dragon faces its rival muzzle to muzzle: it opens its mouth and before another paw comes to its direction, from the jaws comes a spit of acid. The paw lowers just in time, but the spit centers the cat on the shoulder: a loud moan of lament escapes the predator, giving the dragon enough time to fly away, towards the stairs. It reaches the upper floor of the house, but if the door that hides its final goal is closed, it'll have to retreat, and quickly: by the time it attempts to take the handle down, the cat will have all the time to catch it...

It's open! Just a bit, but it's the right size for the dragon to pass through; and before the cat can climb the stairs, its tail is passing through the passage. And so, the dragon is now in the room where the humans' offspring sleeps at night. On the dresser is a small ceramic pig. The dragon flies through it. Now comes the final part of its adventure. Luckily for the tiny creature, it is not one of the big ones: something its size can easily make it fall without breaking it, to leave no traces. The dragon does so, and the pig reveals its plastic cap; but the noise of the cat's steps are getting closer...the dragon must be quick...he must take the cap off, similarly to the door handle...

Pop! The piggy bank opens up, and the dragon dives in. Inside is a paradise of shining rounded coins, where the dragon would gladly roll on, rub on, sleep on and make sweet dreams-if only that wasn't in a human house. It grabs one coin, one small, silver coin, and then sniffs the air again, in the hope the cat isn't there. Unfortunately, the monster's scent reaches its nostrils. The dragon waits, waits and waits, resisting the temptation to abandon itself to that sea of gold and silver.

The low noise of cat steps becomes further, and the smell weaker. The room is safe. The dragon emerges from the pig's interiors with the coin on its forepaws. The window, unfortunately, is closed; it has to exit from the bathroom again and face the cat, knowing the coin will slow it down a lot. The best strategy is flying directly, without trying to hide, or its takeoff would be too slow when the cat finds it. Here is the stairway...then the corridor...the cat is still above, it hasn't realized its prey is flying away...it is flying to the bathroom...

And leaves the house! The dragon has made it, alive and rich, with a new entry for its lair. It dives into the grass, where the cat won't find it, and then back to its beloved lair, where several other coins, stolen during the course of time, are waiting for their new siblings. The dragon lays the coin above the others, and blissfully rolls its tiny body on them.

Some hours later, the boy comes back to school and finds his piggy bank fallen on its hip again. Once more, the cap is open; he counts his savings, and even this time, a coin is missing. Only the cat can have rigged his savings, but how could it open the pig up, put a paw in and take a coin, he wonders? What for? Whatever the solution to the mystery is, he will have to ask his parents for a real vault. Meanwhile, the missing coins lie inside a hole in his house's garden, where a tiny dragonlet hugs them happy, proudly honoring the spirit of its ancestors.