I had been born a Star, no, not a famous person or an actress, an actual Star. You know, when you look up into the sky at night and you see me twinkling down at you and then you tell me all your hopes, dreams, and wishes. I then listen to them and I have to decide which ones I help along to coming true and which ones you have to make happen. Each Star when they are born is given a protector to look out for them and to believe in them. For you see, a Star will disappear from the sky if no one believes in them. My protector and friend happens to be a small dragon, no bigger than my head and he is always with me as I go through my time in the heavens.
One day, Cyn and I decided to take a morning walk through a forest on a warm summer day. The forest path we walked along had little coolness as we wandered underneath the shadows of the ancient trees and shared stories and dreams. The silence of the day was broken as we could hear shrieks up ahead and off the path. As we got closer we could hear childish voices raised in terror, “No! No! Don’t catch us.”
Cyn and I looked at each other in fear and started to run to see if we could help the voices that were crying out. As we rounded the bend we saw a field of grass where a large, black dragon was flying low and deep towards the ground. Ahead of him were 3 baby bunnies running away and they kept on looking back over their shoulders and tripping as the dragon came in even lower before he grabbed them with his claws. As I watched in fear, the dragon swooped around the clearing skimming over the trees and the shrieks of the bunnies could be heard throughout the woods as the dragon came in low over the grass again. Then, gently, he let each bunny drop daintily upon the ground.
The giggles of the bunnies were then filling the clearing instead of their shrieks, and as they ran away from the dragon, I could hear their voices float back upon the wind, “Again! Again! Catch us again! We want to fly as high as the clouds this time and cool off.”
Cyn and I looked at each other in wonder and surprise. It appears we had come across a dragon who had decided to spend his day playing with bunnies instead of causing terror. As I looked up into the sky, the dragon lazily did a loop de loop and turned his head and looked towards Cyn and me. His voice echoed in my head, “Come and play with us.”
I looked longingly at the bunnies, playing in the tall grass as they worked out their strategy with glee. I wanted to run and join them, but I knew that I had so many things I needed to take care of for the day and I was much too old to play with the bunnies. “I want to, but I am too big to play with the bunnies.” I whispered back through the path he had left in my head.
“Then I will just have to make you into a kitten.” As the words whispered through my head I felt myself slowly changing until I was low to the ground. As I looked up at Cyn, I could see myself through his eyes and what I saw was a cream colored kitten with aqua eyes and a white star in the middle of her forehead.
I felt joy rush through me; I had never been young, always having to be wise so I can grant the wishes of the people who look to me with their dreams and hopes. I wondered what it would be like to just be kitten and play for the day and not have to worry about everything I needed to do.
As I once again looked up towards Cyn with the question forming in my mind, he smiled down at me, “It is okay to play for awhile as long as you remember it is for play and it isn’t who you are. You will have to go back to being a Star at the end of the day.” I felt all of my worries slip away as I ran towards the bunnies, and they let me into their circle and we started to whisper out our strategy of just how we were going to evade the dragon before we let him pick us up so we could fly through the clouds and let our laughter shower the land with joy.
