Along the narrow cobblestone streets of Venice, a twenty-three year old girl dressed in a simple yellow T-shirt and a pair of faded jeans wandered in the autumn night, the huge DSLR camera round her neck and map in her hands betraying the fact that she was another one of those tourists that packed this quaint city. Pausing in her step, she looked around for any sign of her current location, before turning her gaze back down towards the map. 

"Where am I..." she murmured to herself, trying to remember how many left and right turns she had made before getting here. 

According to her map, she should be seeing a restaurant named "La Operetta" on her left right now, but all she was staring at was somebody's house, complete with laundry hanging off clothes pegs. 

Sighing, she stuffed the map back into her backpack and looked down the fork in the path. 

"Oh well. I suppose there's never a better time for an adventure."

The path on the right led her down several alleyways flanked by ordinary houses, with absolutely nothing of interest save for the delicious scents of Italian cooking wafting out through some open windows. The further she went, the louder the growls from her stomach were getting. The plan had been to get a table at "La Operetta", which her housemate Habin had said served the world's best carbonara; but the plan had failed thanks to her poor sense of direction. 

She was about to give up and turn back when a narrow alley caught her attention. It was half the width of the other paths that she had been on, but what peaked her interest was the sight of the open sea at the end of the alleyway. As she squeezed her way between the walls, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore was becoming louder and louder, until she finally emerged on a small platform at the other end of the alleyway. 

Aera had no clue why someone would have built this small rectangular platform here, but she said a silent word of thanks to whoever it was anyway. Walking up to the edge of the platform, she stretched out her arms and let the cool sea breeze wash over her. Looking straight ahead, she could see the sea go on for miles, with tiny ships in the distance looking like fairylights dancing upon the waters. 

"Absolutely beautiful," she murmured. Reaching into her bag, she fished out her voice recorder, a small device that could easily be mistaken for an ordinary silver pen. 

Clicking the record button, she said, "Got lost while searching for carbonara, but ended up discovering an abandoned platform instead. The platform can be reached if you walk down the narrow alleyway leading off Rue San Pietro. and is flanked by brick walls on the left and right. Breathtaking view of the open sea, though not sure which part of Venice I'm at right now." 

Pausing the recording, she slipped the recording pen into her pocket, reaching for her camera to take a couple of shots of the scenery. 

After standing there for a good half an hour or so, Aera decided that her stomach was getting too loud for comfort. She was about to turn around and head off when a slight reddish glow from behind a brick at the bottom left corner of the wall made her pause in her step. 

She walked over to the wall and bent over, studying the reddish glow curiously. The brick was a loose one, and it came out easily enough without requiring much effort. Peering in, Aera reached out and pulled out a small glass bottle that had been hidden in a tight space behind the brick--its contents still emitting the dim red glow that she had spotted. 

The bottle was covered in dust and spider webs, evidence that it had not been moved from its hiding place in years. Wiping away the dirt from the surface, Aera stared at the two objects lying inside the bottle. 

Taking out her pen recorder once more, she hit the red button and said, "Found something hidden behind a loose brick in the wall! It's an old glass bottle and inside there's... it looks like a scale? Like those fish scales at the market? But that has got to be one massive fish. Anyway, it's a black scale, although when you lift it up to the light," she held up the bottle against the moonlight, "there's an odd rainbow tinge to it? A little like how mother-of-pearl jewellery looks like. There's also a pearl in the bottle, but it's the first red pearl I've ever seen. It's giving out a red glow--that's what made me notice the bottle in the first place. How strange, I wonder who buried this here?" Her stomach let out another grouchy growl, distracting her from her new find. "Right, I don't suppose anyone will come looking for this given how old it looks. I'll bring this back to the hotel with me and study it a little more after I get me some food in my belly. Aera over and out." 

Stuffing the bottle and its contents into her bag, Aera adjusted the straps across her shoulders and headed back the way she came. 

A couple of hours after Aera left the obscure little platform and the rest of Venice had long gone to bed, another person found his way there. Unlike the bumbling girl, this person had not chanced upon the platform by accident, but was returning here for the first time in a long, long time--over fifty years to be exact.       

As Kai stood by the water's edge looking out at the peaceful ocean that lay in front of him, he sighed. "It's been fifty years. Fifty years since I've stepped back onto dry land. Byul, do you still remember this place?"

He had brought her here many times before, to this little space adjoining the sea, so that she could always feel that home was close by. He could still remember how frightened she had been when she stepped onto the shore for the very first time, having spent her entire life living out at sea. She had been trembling when she placed one hesitant foot onto this very platform, clinging tightly onto his hand as if he were her only lifeline. At the very end, she had been the one who had protected him with her life--not the other way around. 

A tear trickled down his cheek as he thought about those memories, and about how he would only ever come back here alone henceforth. With another sigh, he walked over to the brick wall, reaching for the loose brick at the bottom left corner. Reaching his hand into the hole, he fumbled around for what he was looking for, but all he felt was a layer of thick dust and debris against his fingertips. 

"Why is there nothing here?" he cried out in alarm. Bending his neck sideways, he stared into the hole, confirming in horror that the bottle was no longer there. 

Closing his eyes, he concentrated his senses to detect the whereabouts of the glass bottle and its contents. The bottle contained one of his own dragon scales and also Byul's spirit pearl, which they had buried together as a symbol of how they would never be apart. Even the weakest of dragons would be able to detect the presence of his own scales from miles away, and for someone like Kai it should have been as simple as batting an eyelid, but for some bizarre reason, he was drawing a blank no matter how hard he tried. 

It was as if the bottle had vanished off the face of the earth. 

Turning to face the open sea, Kai shouted, "Byul! Did you take the bottle away? Is this your way of punishing me for not keeping my promise to you?" 

In the blink of an eye the once peaceful night sky became overcast with dark clouds, and the full moon disappeared from view, leaving the world enveloped in darkness. Soon, thunder and lightning began ringing out in the night, with huge raindrops pelting down relentlessly onto the surface of the waters. The wind howled and the waves crashed mercilessly against the shore, reflecting the desperation and hopelessness that was consuming the very being of the man who was responsible for this storm.  

Safe beneath the roof her her hotel room, Aera was standing by the window in her pyjamas peering at the thunderstorm that was raging on outside, having just finished dutifully recording down her day's encounters in her leather-bound diary. 

"How strange," she said to herself as she watched the rain trickle down the windowpane. "There were hardly any clouds in the sky earlier, and now it's a full blown thunderstorm." 

Shrugging her shoulders, she let down the curtains and clambered into bed, pulling her duvet all the way up to her shoulders. Reaching for the bedside table, she switched off the lamp and shut her eyes, drifting off into a peaceful slumber. 

Beside her, a small glass bottle stood quietly on the table, with the scale of a dragon and a single blood red pearl.