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The statue wasn't huge, in a literal sense - even with the plinth, it wasn't quite seven meters tall - but it sort of glowered down at you. The sainted warrior atop his feral horse was dour-faced and totally intent on his business. The dragon that writhed in its death throes below him was much more animated, more real than the supposedly noble knight wielding vengeance as if it were justice. The tall young Clydesdale could reach up and touch the dragon, which he did nearly every time he came to visit the State Library of Victoria. More often now than not so long ago. He practically lived here, if "living" were the right word. Melbourne was home for him now, even if he hadn't a home within his home to go to.

"Gabriel."

He had always felt drawn to this huge building. Many of the city's homeless found brief sanctuary there, during bad weather or intemperate times. Some, like himself, actually took advantage of the great building and its more than two million books to read. He loved the great Reading Room particularly; the huge interior felt as if it were large enough for clouds to form just below the glass ceiling, and the eight long tables radiating like spokes from the center display and lectern, frequently crowded and gently buzzing with the shuffling of paper and people and possibility, a perfect geometric pattern to stimulate the eye and mind. It stirred his heart, reminded him of something, like a great hall a castle from some long-ago story of knights and kings and chivalry. Not much of that about these days, enit?

"Gabriel?"

The Clyde gave a soft nicker of derision as he continued to touch the hard bronze hide of the writhing dragon. He'd had a quarter century in this mad world to learn harsh facts. Orphaned at a young age, tossed between group homes and would-be foster parents, surviving on the streets any way that he could, and for what? Sheer stubbornness, perhaps; he was one to dig in his hooves and not give up. Even when the world had shown him its worst, he remembered the hobbit's comment:"There's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." Some days, it was all he had to hold on to.

"Gabriel!"

He finally turned to see who had been tugging at his shirttails. He looked down to see a young gecko peering up at him with large, round eyes in face of mottled gray, white, tan, and blue. "Gabriel," the female spoke again, "did you not hear me calling you?"

"Sorry, little 'un, but my name's not Gabriel."

"Hogo-sha said your name was Gabriel."

"Well, whatever his name is, he's wrong."

The short lizard looked up at him expectantly. "Hogo-sha is never wrong. Your name was Gabriel."

"My name," the equine said with some frustration, "is Will."

"Your name was Gabriel."

The word choice finally registered on the young Clydesdale's mind. "Was?"

The gecko nodded.

"I don't understand."

"Hogo-sha has a picture of you. You wore silver that day, big silver. Looks heavy. But it is you." The gecko canted her head, considering. "Black horse, white blaze, white chest blaze, white feathers. Protector. Just Guardian. You have many names, but Gabriel is the one he said would bring you to him."

Stepping back a little, Will raised his head, felt his ears flick slightly as he looked around. He'd been on the streets long enough to smell scams, stings, entrapments, the usual means of trying to control the homeless by finding a way to lock them up or roust them out of town. "I think this conversation is over, kid. I'm going home."

"He said you do not have one."

The Clyde's eyes felt larger, wider open than was comfortable. "Who said?"

"Hogo-sha. He said that, if any of us found you, we should make sure that you are Gabriel, and then bring you home."

"My name is Will."

"Your name was Gabriel. And you saved the waters."

The snort was instantaneous and unstoppable, eyes and ears forward, his body tensed and ready to run. He knew how to run; it was what he did best, and it had saved him more than once. His mind knew when to cut and run, when to escape the predators, when to cut his losses... so why was he still here?

You honor your sword, Sir Knight. In return, you are honored.

A story from childhood, about a knight, a quest, saving some village from a dangerous dragon... Dragons. Things of fiction. Things of legend. Beasts that could never have been, could not be now, save for the vestigial remains such as... such as this young gecko...

"You are remembering," the young female voice said, looking up at him, her huge speckled eyes not moving, not changing, but holding, holding with her glittering eye. "I will take you to him now."

Will had no real awareness that he was moving even as the gecko led him the very short distance to Melbourne Central. They wove through the barriers and trams, passers-by dimly aware of them yet never seeming to be in their way. Will was barely even aware that he and the gecko had somehow walked right past the bright yellow and blue myki touchpads without the slightest alarm being raised. On any other occasion, a half-dozen attendants would have taken him down like a hunted criminal; simply being homeless had caused him to be thrown to the ground on a few occasions, but no one even noticed them. Even as this comparative miracle was happening to him, he found himself still more engrossed in the story unfolding in his mind, a tale from long ago, about a knight being enlisted by villagers somewhere in the English countryside. They begged for his help, to protect them from the horrible dragon that had stolen and devoured cattle, terrorized the whole area, burned down one of their houses with the entire family trapped inside. Justice, they said, we demand justice, Sir Knight...

Platform 4, which served the eastern suburbs where Will had once briefly lived in a foster home, seemed just as it should, its clean lines of red and yellow brick marking the path for all who would travel safely to their common destinations. The area was crowded with a hundred muzzles and tails, just as always, yet nothing and no one seemed to hinder him or his young guide as they moved to the far end of the platform and to some sort of service door that allowed them entrance without pause. Bright light, conduit, concrete floor under his hooves, changing by degrees into darker, rougher, stranger passageways. The walls became less a rigid construct, more like a rough-hewn tunnel in the rock. As his mind traced the history of the wandering knight, the young gecko took his forepaw firmly in his, turned sharply to the right, and they passed through what should have been solid rock, no more yielding but a dream, and the justice-bearing paladin entered the dragon's lair...

"Welcome, Sir Gabriel."

Will's reverie was broken gently by the sound of a voice he had never heard before and recognized instantly. "Q'nestarra."

The smile was heard before it was seen. "You do remember."

Subtle light from deep within the cavernous chamber danced almost playfully across the deep emerald scales and pale lavender scutes of the large dragon who stood before the Clyde. A full meter and a half taller, 50 kilos heavier, and more muscular even than the well-formed equine, the saurian bowed, his impressive head bobbing low on his long neck, looking up at the horse before resuming his sitting position and casting his softly glowing eyes upon Will's features.

Finding his voice again, the horse asked, "How long ago was it?"

"To me, a blink of an eye; but that's because it's been goodly centuries since my hatching day. For you... we first met several hundred years ago, by your reckoning. This is the sixth time we have met. You keep returning. This time, it is in the guise you had worn when we first encountered one another."

Gesturing delicately, his lengthy tail making a glamorous sweep behind him, the great emerald dragon indicated a large portrait of Will ... or, more accurately, Sir Gabriel, in full armor and a serious yet tender look to his face, his dark eyes solemn, sure, empowered. Unlike the visage of St. George in the statue, this knight understood clearly that compassion and justice were not meant merely to be passing acquaintances. This last knight of the Equine Kingdom, wandering the hills and dales of England as a free lance, a paladin for the needy, occasionally called upon to right a wrong, to defend the downtrodden... and once, before he truly understood, a cat's-paw to a village that put its own desires above the rights of another.

"I came to kill you."

"You came to right a wrong, not knowing that ... I think the phrase has it, the boot was on the other hoof."

Will - or was it Gabriel? - nodded slowly. "You were the only obstacle to their damming and rerouting the only reliable water source in the region. They told me that you had stolen and eaten cattle, burned one house to the ground, killed the people that lived there..."

"I met the daughter of that family, on a few occasions. She had come to fetch water, and she spoke to me." The dragon was quiet for a long moment. "She was equine, like yourself. A Friesian, I think the breed is called. Strong, independent... I'd wondered what that rope was for, woven through metal eyelets driven into the trees. It was her guide, on the less-familiar leg of her journey. She carried water twice a day, every day, unless there had been enough rain or snow to have collected in bins and vats for her family to use. Her father was a smith, I think."

"Yes," the Clyde said softly.

"If not for her, I'd never have known anything about how the town wished to ... well, as she put it, they were upset that I would not allow them to divert the stream. She thought it a legal issue. I explained to her about the needs of fish, game, wilder animals, birds ... what is now fashionably called 'habitat,' when I simply called it a 'woodland home.' She understood me, though. Even though the change would mean that she'd have to travel a mere fraction of the distance for water, she understood why I didn't want to alter the watercourse. I offered to bring water to her, and she declined, so sweetly. She thanked me, Sir Knight." He paused. "Had she not been blind..."

"Her eyesight might have failed her, but her heart did not." He swallowed, remembering the rest of that story. "Her family believed her, listened to her. And the town destroyed them for defying their will."

"And I was to take the blame." The dragon's head bobbed slightly in agreement. "You believed them. Not that I blame you. Dragon reputations are not exactly spotless." He blinked slowly. "You never told me what stayed your paw."

"Her scent. Even a noble knight has a nose for a female of his own kind." Will felt himself blush. "She had been down that path many times; the rope had been constructed with care. How or why would the brutish, dangerous, deadly dragon allow such a thing? The countryside was otherwise undisturbed, in fact was nearly pristine - no rotting corpses, no half-finished carcasses, nothing save a modest entrance to a small cave where you slept. That, and the residual magicks, of course."

"One thing we have in common with unicorns," the dragon smiled. "The wildlife know us. They know the good ones among us, at least."

"You became Hogo-sha - protector." The horse's tail swished the question that came to his lips. "Why Japanese?"

"As your natives here would say, I am from sunrise, not sunset. Many languages are common to my tongue; that one seemed to be old enough to suit the magicks here. Not a hundred meters above us, your Little Bourke Street is home to many of my kith and kin. You walk about your Chinatown and Little Japan, never suspecting that some of the dragons you see depicted are so much closer than you imagine." The great saurian paused, considering. "You spared me, young_ronin."_

"I listened to you." Will walked toward the portrait, remembering a fairy story that he himself had lived. "I listened to the mare, even though she was no longer alive. I remembered things I was taught while there was still an honorable Equine Kingdom to serve." He looked over the armor, the "big silver" as the gecko called it, and discovered that he could remember how it felt, the weight, the responsibility, the honor of it. Not merely protection but a symbol. Like the symbol...

"There," the Clyde pointed to the portrait, to a collection of kanji symbols painted onto the armor. "That's..."

"That is my gift, Sir Gabriel. It is how I marked you - with your permission - to be recognized by others of my kind. It is Ry? no Y?jin."

Will's right forepaw moved, without thought, to his firm left pectoral muscle. He could swear that he felt a gentle warmth from the place beneath his shirt that bore his tattoo.

"From that day to this, whatever form your spirit wears, the symbol has found its way to you... and you have found your path from there."

The thought refused to connect properly in his mind. "The knight, Gabriel..."

"The first. This is the fifth time you have returned to this world." The great dragon shifted slightly, looking almost embarrassed. "I'd like to think that it is because you crave my company, but I know that it is because your questing spirit continues to want to be the_ronin,_the paladin, whatever this modern world may call it. I know when you have returned; if my own magicks do not detect you, others tell me of your presence. When the time is right, I find you, to help you remember, and to protect you."

"Protect?" The horse all but shrieked the word, echoing in the small chamber. "Do you have any idea what I've gone through, just in this short life? I'm homeless, without family, without friends, without food half the time..."

"...and you've not even begun to speak of the harshest of your trials. I know this, William. I have hated having to wait. How else could you have trained yourself?"

"Trained...?"

"There are no knights anymore, no squires, no means of apprenticing yourself." The dragon spread his arms wide. "There is only a world, a huge and implacable world, desperately needing heroes while going out of its way to discourage, dissuade, deny, or even destroy them. Look how you chose to fight for your life: Lifting weights, martial arts, full-contact sports to train and toughen you, the reading and study that you've done in ... what did they call it, street law? You did not always choose your way, but you always chose your way through. That is what has carried you through this lifetime, and others."

Will felt the tumult of his emotions, warring and clashing as they did so often, but the dragon's words kept running through his mind, and then his heart, and then something in his spirit that he began to feel was truly as old as the saurian had said._Choose your way through._Peaceful warrior. Defender. Protector. The last knight of the Equine Kingdom.

"The last..." he whispered.

"No."

The Clyde stared at the dragon, unable to understand. "There are more?"

"You have returned. Do you think you are the only one?"

"Friends of the Dragon?"

Slowly, the great emerald dragon nodded. "The Equine Kingdom is not Camelot, no matter how closely it resembled that great dream; the High Equine King shall not rise to rebuild his own great dream. Still, his knights have taken his cause into the future with them - not to rule, but to guide. They return again and again, to help all sentients of this world to find their own path to making that brilliant, shining example come true again."

"They'll never make it," Will snorted. "Have you looked at this world, Q'nestarra? Can you look at what we've done to each other over the years? We're not even returning to our feral roots; we destroy for pleasure, kill for convenience, we hoard and deprive others of even the simple right to exist. That's the sort of base creatures we are."

"It has never been what your kind have been, but what you have the potential of becoming." The dragon leaned forward, a smile on his muzzle that showed understanding and patience. "We dragons have long held the concept of enlightened self-interest; if fur-kind can become its best and truest self, we would no longer need to hide. So we find ways to put a word in the right ear, to help a child survive, to grow up to become someone needed by the whole world. We..."

"...assist." The Clyde found himself nodding as he remembered this same discussion, several times before. "We furs must make our own destiny, but you help us to help ourselves. And we... the Friends of the Dragon..."

Q'nestarra bowed again. "You have rediscovered your quest, Sir Gabriel. Will you serve?"

The young stallion looked away, considering. His eyes grazed slowly over the painting as memories came flooding back to him. The child he saved from the runaway coal cart, when all others froze in fear; the gentle influence of a rational mind at a trial, changing a bad law and finding justice; the teacher who helped encourage the great storyteller, whose work fired imaginations around the world; the idea that led to a new way of thinking about the value of an individual over that of money; the single voice that helped to raise other voices to rally to a good cause.

Will paused, looked down to see the young gecko still standing at his side, looking up with big, shining eyes. So many young, he thought; kits and pups and foals and more, all hoping that they'll be allowed the simple privilege of growing up in a world that hasn't systematically destroyed itself. Impulsively, he scooped the little lizard into his arms and held her gently. She placed a wondering forepaw on his cheek, then to his neck, finally to the place on his chest where his tattoo lay hidden underneath his shirt, just as if she somehow could see or sense it.

Turning his head back to the great dragon, his dark eyes solemn, sure, empowered, Sir Gabriel answered. "Yes, Q'nestarra. I will serve."