A fairy tale from a participant in the course “Tame the Dragon Named Fear” Published with permission from the client In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, there lived a king and a queen. Their kingdom, although small, was peaceful, life inside it flowed as usual. The king spent a lot of time with the courtiers, and the queen ran the household. Their little prince was already growing up, when suddenly a titmouse brought the news that a princess would soon be born into their family. This was good news for everyone. The queen was especially happy; that day she stepped on the tail of that lizard, who told her that children would never be born in their family. Time flew by leaps and bounds, the prince and princess grew up, learned new things every day, they got to know this world, were happy and sad, laughed and cried, made friends and quarreled, tried new tastes and colors, in a word, they were just children. At that time, there was a good tradition in every kingdom - along with the children, various animals grew up in the house. It just so happened that the prince and princess had chameleons. Interesting creatures, kind, but too talkative. According to legend, it was believed that the animal protects a person from danger, since it senses it well. And a person, showing attentiveness to an animal, among other things, also learns this skill from him - to be vigilant and take care of himself. But one day bad weather happened - it dashed into the kingdom - quietly, unnoticed. He made his way through dampness, through back alleys, through darkness, through holes - where it was difficult to see him. It made its way a long time ago, but over the years it grew, became stronger and began to crawl out of dark corners. It crawls out unexpectedly, incomprehensibly - sometimes with some kind of scream, sometimes with noise, sometimes it stings with something suddenly, sometimes it scatters rubbish - it creates a quarrel. Then many animals began to suffer from an incomprehensible illness - they began to feel danger at every step, at every dark corner, at every puddle. And the chameleons of the prince and princess became completely strange - whoever entered the house - first froze, then changed color, the prince's - under the color of the room, and for the princess - to match the color of the guest’s clothes. And then they became completely unpredictable - they would either hide, then run away, then start jumping all over the room, or even lay down with their paws up so as not to be touched. And all the time they muttered something, discussed something with someone, and their children guesses were told. But either animals... the scary thing was that their children began to learn this painful behavior from them. Well, how is it - since animals sense such danger, it’s not a matter of ignoring it, you also need to be vigilant. And children began to learn a lot from animals - and look in all directions, and camouflage, and freeze, and run quickly, and avoid dark places, or adapt to the darkness itself, so that they are “accepted as one of their own,” and look around for someone who would tell them how to drive this something incomprehensible into the dark. It was not clear to the king and queen then why discord began in the kingdom. Whatever they did to restore peace in the kingdom - the king thought that the courtiers could help, or what kind of medicine could cure the disease - he looked for answers day after day; the queen thought that the kingdom required more care, more order, and she worked all day long, trying to sweep away the disease from every corner. But neither the courtiers, nor the medicines, nor the brooms helped them - and they themselves fell ill, and everyone in the kingdom began to get sick. It was then decided to divide the kingdom into estates and everyone would learn to cope with illness in their own way, so as not to create misfortunes for each other. And if someone finds a cure, he will be able to pass it on. Many years have passed since that time. Everyone began to arrange their lives in their own way. The king, the queen, the prince, and the princess became very far from each other. One day the princess decided to go on a long journey in search of something that could cure her illness. First, of course, she had to look into a distant dark corner - from there she had to get a traveling bundle and pack her things for the journey. The chameleon then turned pale with fear, avoided everything, but when.