One day the entire mountain top was gone and instead entire cities were in the shadow of a rock dragon. Its eye was as if it had swallowed the moon, for it was a buttermilk-glow. Its wings were the purple of heather clifftops and its body was a granite-grey. From its head and all the way down its spine to its tail-fins, grew great spines as sharp as any knife. It was quite high in the sky at first, then it swooped and the gale struck up by its wing-beats was enough to unroot every tree and knock flat the homesteads. The elders had said that life can be this way, the daily routine of centuries gone in a moment; this is the story of what happened next.
The cloud dragon had once belonged to another world. Once she had graced the skies of an ice world in another galaxy. Legend has it that one day the universe set her on a new path, one that led her to Earth. All she knew was that for the next few thousand years it was her task to bathe in the clouds and keep watch. She loved to fly in chaotic swirls above the oceanic waves, to inhale the salty air, and listen to the tales of both fish and puffin flock. Then one day every cloud turned darkest grey and beneath them the sea was inky black. Something important had changed.
Electricity being alive is no more strange than any other matter experiencing a thought or feeling. You yourself are chemicals and electrical flow, are you not? Some dragons do not come from an egg, but rather from a surge of energy. The gods, for either reason or whim, chose to birth one into a world. Earth had never had a lightning dragon until that fateful day. The clouds had wrapped the entire planet into a dark storm of wind and rain. The thunder shattered windows and age old buildings fell into rubble. Then at once every little wisp of grey cloud, every ounce of lightning, every growl of thunder, shrank and took the form of a mighty winged dragon.
A water dragon is born when cold sea currents meet a tropical flow; an ancient magic is stirred by the collision. From nowhere, they say, a new light is born. Some say it is the very light of the stars brought to the newborn dragonlet through magic. None can say for sure. All we know is what is told in the myths, written in squid ink on parchment scrolls, this creature does not come from an egg and arrives fully formed. One moment there is only the brine and then there is this king of the deep.
For time out of mind the rock dragon had been the peak of a granite mountain. As storms had howled, as rain had lashed, the bonny fair weather seasons had come and gone - he’d slept. Groggy as he was when his eyes first refound light, it was a sickly smell that first got his attention. It was not the aroma of flowers, nor was it the aroma of fresh snow. This is why he had awoken. His realm was in trouble. Thus, he sent hundreds of years of sediment flying as his wings unfolded.
A cloud dragon is a dual-element creature of legend. Born of water and air, it is given to both truth and freedom. My grandfather once told me that he met one as a child, that it was as soft as marshmallows with the scent of meadow flowers. Its voice, he said, came as if a choir of angels sang and it took great joy in the beauty of its words. A dragon, apparently, is so wise that it soothes the soul of even the most worried mind. He said that, beneath its open wings, the human heart and soul begins to dream in entirely new ways.
Lightning crackled as if the sky had told a funny joke. The dragon built from light jiggled as if invisible hands tickled it. Storms were the best of days for such a beast of myth and legend. The electricity was its food and joy. To feel the build up of sparks in the cloud was a kind of music to its ears. Thus, as the sky became darker, the dragon flew in organic swirls of joy. Already it was looking forward to the annual battle of the dragons.
The water dragon flowed in the water with the grace of a kelp forest. Her fins were long green-blue ribbons in the currents. Coral reef fish were flowers to her heart and soul, as were the vivid coral reefs. She lived for those places, for the community with both seals and sharks. She bathed in the aroma of the life they gave. Thus, when the bleaching began, when her beloved home became a white carpet of skeletons, she was bereft. That, legend has it, is when the trouble began.
The dragon egg was every colour of fire, and as with fire, they leapt around the shell. Though it had the appearance of raging hearth, it was cool to the touch. Though it appeared smooth the texture was scaly and rough. One would guess, given that it was as tall as a mature oak, that it would be heavy - yet it was not! It could have been carried away by a single ant and bounced around for fun. Yet, that is how it came to be rolling down the hill at a frightful pace and the impact upon the temple walls was enough to hatch it.
Legend has it that the fire-dragon’s egg can only hatch in volcanic heat, bathed in amniotic lava. Furthermore, once born, they are not of flesh and blood - yet pure flame. They are as if the Gods themselves had painted them into existence with magma-oils. Even as newborns, or so it is said, the dragonlet is at one with the universe and all wisdom. They aren’t not born to learn as the human child is, yet forged as both the pen and sword of a world beyond the mortal curtain. Certainly, a fire dragon’s egg is never supposed to be found, nor befriended, least of all by a child of mankind - yet that is what happened on that fateful day.
The aroma of laval flow lingered, saturating the air as if all the town had eaten eggs for breakfast. The cooling basalt river was a monument to itself, sitting heavy on land that once blossomed with homes. Terry touched it, feeling its rough texture, running his hands along the flow as if it might move again. That’s when it happened. That’s when fate made a surprise move. The Gods had spoken, a dragon would meet a human child. Resting in a shallow crevice was an egg, its shell a cold flame yet as solid as that of any bird or reptile. Without a doubt, Terry knew his life had just changed forever - destiny had placed its hand upon him.
The dragon sits on gold because those whom come for it are the false knights of greed and vice, the ones every dragon has been tasked with exterminating. The treasure is bait, no more. The dragon is the patient fisherman. Greed and vanity are both the hook and the reel.
The ridiculous thing of the dragons and the knights, is that the dragon is bound by honour to protect a true knight whom speaks with love as the ancient of days knew it. He will not seek any treasure other than love. He will always protect those whom need protection. He is brave until the end. For all true animals of creation are this way, dragons included. The real problem with the knights is that since the death of King Arthur, since the loss of excalibur, they had become creatures of greed and war, far from the nobility they should have carried. Yet the dragon cares not for the fancy armour or the expensive thread, he sees the real heart and responds appropriately. Vice cannot hide from dragon eyes.
The dragons knew that man was no more than they, for what is a man that will sacrifice a woman instead of fight? All were dragons within. Whom would become a knight in an era when it cowardice had become so normal? Indeed, man had less of a moral code than they, for at least dragon-kind would never do such a terrible thing to another dragon.
The dragons have their duty and their code, for they see the world of men as a tale of greed. Their job is to take away the false treasures in the hope that mankind will learn once again to treasure creation and one another.
Behind these eyes of dragonish glare, in a language carved before the age of ice, is the mind of the serpent king, the beast of the darkened cave. And because I cannot abide your words, those sounds that flame too hot for this blood, I seek to end all that you are and prevent anything you could be. This is the way of dragons and seek not to make me what you are.
The tales of the knights aren't quite the same in dragonese. They tell of living in the caves, of a life of peace until the ones clad in metal came, the men of cold eyes and cold blades. They tell of a frenzy in the ones of two legs, how they took even the teeth from their dead and wore them as a decoration. Perhaps that is why we think of their eyes as cold, for they only reflect what they see in us. It took someone special to change all that, brave and kind, that was my sister, Amanda. She watched so patiently until there was a chance to help, to save a baby and show her heart. She would say that after that their eyes were every green of every forest, liquid and alive. So many thought her foolish, to risk so much, but she saw it the other way around - that it was foolish to surrender to war when peace was there for the taking.
The dragons never appeared to have grown from anything at all. Moira said she thought they weren't born but carved. Perhaps once they were mountains, content to slumber, until the keen edge of a knife woke their dragonish ways. Perhaps she was right, for they were so very grey, almost as if they were something missing rather than present. It was as if they had found ways to be a little satisfied with food or a sun-warmed rock, yet happiness and joy eluded them. I'd like to think that to fly brings them a pleasure, to play in pristine air, to twist as a rollercoaster without the bother of rails.
The dragons had a way about them, a slowness and grace. In the summer sun they would be out there on the rocks, taking the warmth in through their scales. They would doze that way for hours and perhaps that is how they feel happy, resting just so. In the wintry weather they hibernated, having fed on elk in the autumn. We'd know when they awoke by the calling in the hills, those deep voices, beautiful in their rawness, echoing from the rocks. No matter how often we saw them fly, arcing with outstretched wings, each as brilliant as stained glass, we held our breath for a moment, eyes wide. They were kites without strings, celebrations of freedom with each rhythmic beat. Nana always said they were the first sure sign of spring, more than all the flowers and new buds.
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