Alessio scuffed his feet along the ground.

His father, Carlo, had taken him up the mountain. For an hour, they had hiked over craggy ledges, ducked beneath low branches and almost tripped over every rock.

“Bring your son to work day,” his father had said, and now, Alessio couldn't think of anything worse.

“You’ll ruin your shoes,” his father scolded from in front, but when he turned, he smiled, and his warm hand squeezed Alessio’s, guiding him a little further up the path.

Alessio’s father was like that— dignified but kind, strict but loving. Appearances meant everything, yet nothing could beat the love he had for his son. Alessio knew how much his father loved him, and he took pride in it.

“And I will ask if you could quicken the pace—if only a little. We don't wish to be late, do we?”

“But I’m tired, papa.”

“The faster we get there,” his father said, not a breath out of place, “the sooner you can have a short rest. And perhaps a warm Taralli. Yes?”

Alessio huffed and swept the sweat from his forehead. Above, the path appeared to stretch for miles. It twisted and meandered up the cliff face, reminding Alessio of the sketches he'd seen in his books of the river Po. Morning mist shrouded the mountain's peak in a haze of white, the sun's golden glow kissing the stone, igniting it in burning brilliance.

As Alessio squinted, he could just make out the yellow streak of the post office, a pop of colour against the grey of the rock. His legs wobbled, and Alessio thought, ‘I have never been more excited to visit a post office’—even if the only thing he was excited for was a good rest and a Taralli.

Half an hour passed in a slow, agonising crawl. By the time they reached the white stairs of the post office, sweat had soaked through Alessio's clothes, and his dark hair fell in limp strands over his face. He pressed a hand to his chest, his heart pounding the hooves of a galloping horse.

“Do that twice a day, every day for thirty years, Mio Figlio, and one day, like me, you will no longer break a sweat.” Carlo held his hand out to his son. He stood on the first step, straight-backed, his suit still pressed and not a hair out of place—it made Alessio’s lungs wheeze just looking at him.

“Come,” his father added, “Just a few more steps, and you can have a rest.”

Sucking in the fresh swell of the mountain air, Alessio accepted his father's hand, stumbling; he staggered up the stairs behind him.

As they entered the small—not at all grand (slightly disappointing) room—dust from Alessio's shoes dispersed over the polished marble floor. A sizeable welcome desk curved in the corner, and behind it sat a lady; her black hair pinched into a tight bun. She peered through her circular spectacles and bowed her head at Carlo without saying a word.

Alessio looked for a chair, or a stool, somewhere to sit, but other than the desk, the only other thing to relieve the dull, white walls was a single grill door at the back of the room.

“When can I sit down?” Alessio whispered, his feet still numb.

His father smiled reassuringly. “In a moment.”

The weird door slid open with a griding squeak, and they both stepped into a tiny metal compartment. A single, yellow bulb flicked above, and as Carlo drew back the door and pulled a lever, Alessio realised what it was.

A lift. Which meant the post office had more floors.

The lift rattled, groaned, and then down they went. Down, down, down, until Alessio thought they might soon strike the earth's core.

They jolted to a stop, and metal wailed as the door slid open and—

Alessio’s breath caught in his throat, his heart skipping three beats. They were inside the mountain.

Handing lanterns dangled from the vast cavern walls, and the place smelt of mildew and burned paper.

Alessio counted ten or twelve people walking around, their arms stacked with boxes or pushing trollies filled with brown parcels and white envelopes.

On the far wall, wooden scaffolding framed a jagged hole in the rocky ceiling, gaping open like a screaming mouth. Stark, white light burst through the fracture, and Alessio’s eyes widened as it haloed a creature believed long extinct, one Alessio had only read about.

“A-a dragon?” Alessio squeaked. Thoughts whizzed about his mind, and he rubbed his eyes, hoping against hope this wasn't a dream.

His father grinned, his eyes twinkling, and he rested a hand on Alessio's shoulder. “How else did you think we delivered the post so quickly? One puff of smoke from its gold-mine nostrils, and those letters and parcels get delivered straight to the customer's door. This—” He flourished an arm towards the creature, and if on cue, the dragon moaned, a vibrating roar that rippled right through Alessio's chest. “—is our prized employee.”

Alessio didn't know what to think. His eyes wandered over the thin, hunched creature again.

Green scales, the colour of rust on old metal, ran the length of the dragon's body. Her wings were folded in, small and almost invisible against her sides. From snout to tail, she had to be no bigger than the gondola boats back home, and from what Alessio had read in his books, that wasn't nearly large enough.

She was only young, he realised, a baby—where were her family, her parents?

His father wouldn't take a child—no matter how beastly—away from their family?

Would he?

Something around the dragon's ankle caught Alessio's eye: an iron ore chain shackling her to the floor.

“Papa, why... Why is she chained up?” Alessio said hesitantly. A magnificent creature such as that shouldn't be chained up. “Where’s her family?”

“The chain is for security, Mio Figlio,” Carlo said softly. “To protect it from anyone who would try to steal it. And it's family... It's a simple creature; it has no concept of family.”

“Papa, that's not—!”

Someone shouted Carlo’s name.

“Stay here,” he said, “I won't be a moment.” He kissed Alessio’s head and then hurried to where the call had come from.

By Alessio’s feet was a crate similar to that he had seen some of the workers carry, overflowing with green envelopes. They were all addressed to the Post Office, with the same emblem of a dragon and company name stamped in the corner.

The dragon growled, and Alessio quickly glanced up before returning to the message.

“Podac,” he read, squinting at the symbol, “Protection Of Dragons and All Creatures.”

Alessio turned the letter over. There were hundreds like it in the crate, all identical, all asking the Post Office to release the dragon into Podac's care.

When Alessio's father returned, he asked, “Papa, what’s Podac?”

“The people we are trying to protect this dragon from. Somehow, word... got out that we possibly had a dragon in our care.” Spots of red began to blot Carlo’s face, and he snatched the letter from Alessio. “This group,” he growled, “think it's their job, their duty, to... to—as they say—rescue it. Pha! I say.”

Alessio swallowed the dryness in his throat. “Why did you bring me here today, papa?”

“To show you what you will one day inherit. Come,” he said, his fire gone, extinguished by his usual distinguished poise, “I have so much more to show you.”

But Alessio didn't know if he wanted to be here anymore, didn't know if he wanted to see any more.

He wanted to sit down...

...To think.

The dragon groaned a deep, mournful tune.

Snatching another Podac letter from the crate, Alessio quickly hurried after his father, his tired legs forgotten, his mind scheming ways to save that dragon.