“Can we go fly?” I ask
“Where do you want to fly to?” He says
“Anywhere but here…” was my reply.
So we each closed our eyes and reached out our souls and in that single breath of connection we were flying. As the rest of the world was left behind it was two souls as one flying through the universe and the world of dreams.
I hadn’t seen Dragon since he had gone on his last adventure. I was stuck at the castle learning to be a proper princess (whatever that means). Today was my day of play and I had decided to go out to the garden to work on my ability to create things with my thoughts. As I sat there working on the creation of a butterfly to flit through the flowers, I felt a shadow cross my face as Dragon landed next to me and turned into a boy.
I was so excited to see him, I through my arms around him and gave him a big hug before we pulled back with blushes.
“So, tell me all about your adventures.” I asked, as we walked to sit on one of the benches scattered around the garden.
“It was wonderful, I went to the dungeons in Kalazaar and explored.” He said. “How was your time here working?”
“It was boring as always. I know it is what you do if you want to rule wisely. But I would have had more fun exploring the dungeons. Did you meet anyone fun?” I asked the question so that he would tell me all about the human female he met which the wind had been whispering in my ear for the last couple of weeks.
“No, there aren’t very many people to meet when you are exploring dungeons.” He said casually but I could see the color around him turn purplish black with his lie.
“You are saying there wasn’t anyone with you while you explored? No one?” I asked again, hoping that he was just holding back.
“No.”
“But, the wind tells me of the human you found while in the caves that you rescued and have been spending time exploring the islands with. Are you saying the wind is wrong?”
“You mean My Girl? The wind told you about it?”
“Yes, the wind comes and visits and tells me of the world beyond this castle. Are you saying there was someone?”
“Well, yes I guess there was.” He said
I just stared at him, how was it possible that a Dragon could lie? The Dragon code of ethics is about Honor and Integrity. They are not allowed to lie to continue with their existence.
“You lied to me?” I asked with tears choking my voice.
“I didn’t think it was important to mention so it wasn’t really a lie.” He tried to walk around it.
“But, you can’t lie, you can’t manipulate the truth. You cease to exist if you do.” I continued to look at him with despair. My friend the person I have seen the world with. He wasn’t who I thought he was. Is it possible he wasn’t really a Dragon at all? Something else entirely, something that wasn’t real? A lie from the beginning to the end?
“You are making this out to be more than it really is Etoile. I am still here so it can’t be that big of an issue.”
“You don’t understand, you are still here because I believe in you. You are a dragon, if no one believes then you disappear. Those are the rules for all creatures that are greater than mere existence.” As I continued to look at him, he started to waiver as the tears clouded my eyes and as a single tear drop fell against my cheek he was no longer there.
The tear turned to a star sapphire as it tumbled down my cheek to land on the ground next to the diamond which once was Dragon. And Dragon was no more.
As I cried my broken heart out to the skies sitting in the garden Cyn, my protector dragon, flew up and curled around my arm and laid his head against my shoulder.
“Don’t cry Etoile, he wasn’t really a dragon, just someone masquerading as one. One day, a real dragon will come and he will be worth your tears.”
“You don’t understand, he was my friend.”
“No, you don’t understand. A true friend would never lie to you.”
And the sun set around the castle and darkness fell.
I arrive back at the castle more saddened than when I left. As I land safely on the grounds where I am protected by the very essence of the earth, Cyn starts to take form again and peals away from my skin till he is once again in solid form.
“Why are you still so sad?” Cyn asks.
“Because I don’t want to be another person wandering around lost, missing a part of my soul.” I answer.
Cyn gives an exasperated grumble, “Have you tried to connect with him or have you been wandering around all day pouting and acting hurt?”
“Cyn, you are supposed to be on my side.” I protest
“When you withdraw your energy you hurt him as much as you hurt yourself. He flew away, you didn’t ask him why. Did you think he needs to take care of his own things, his own life?”
“In this world, each of you has your own paths to take and your own lessons to learn. Just because you are bonded through out space and time doesn’t mean that life ceases to exist for one or the other, it means that you need to learn to co-exist and you can’t be self-indulgent because what hurts one, hurts the other.”
“Now stop pouting and connect with your Dragon and make sure you didn’t take away his strength at a time when he needed it.”
As I opened up the wall I had built so I wouldn’t fee Dragon so he couldn’t hurt me anymore, I felt this huge wave of tiredness wash over me and I got light headed from it as it started to overwhelm me. I also felt his grief, his sadness and his pain at causing me hurt and being unable to connect to me either. I cried out wanting to do anything to make it better, if I only could see through his eyes and know what he was going through I would be able to help him out.
“Dragon, show me what you see, maybe I can help.” I cry out into the darkness.
As I close my eyes I start to see flashes or snapshots of Dragon’s world. Negotiations between people, dealing with someone he cares about who is in pain and lashing out at him but they continue to bring pain upon themselves and others and he sits there helpless. He is trying to put together a campaign of so many people but he is tired of them all trying to soothe their egos by being in the spotlight and trying to take control. There is hope and joy and fear as his mind touches upon the new woman in his life, but he is afraid he is making the wrong choice, but she makes him happy. He doesn’t want to cause anymore pain.
So many thoughts and emotions, all washing over me until I am able to harness my calm, cooling energy that allows me to bond to Dragons so that they don’t consume me and I absorb the heat and confusion of the Dragon fire and I return the energy back to Dragon pure and consumable for him to use.
“I love you.” I whisper into the darkness as Dragon flies on with his life and I continue with mine, touching minds with him so that we both know we aren’t alone.
I left the guarded boundaries of my palace to the enter the real world, Cyn has wrapped his body around me and now is safely snuggled as a tattoo that lies on my shoulder and peeks out of my shirt protecting me from whatever wants to do me harm.
I am sitting on a bench in the city surrounded by trees watching the world walk by and viewing it’s dramas.
I have my music playing in my ears and can only watch peoples faces and see and feel their energy flow around them.
A couple just walked by with joy radiating from them as they laughed, several others have walked by with those disinterested expressions and distance between them. Some radiate tragedy, others anger and so very many are lost and confused. I am amazed how many have physical bodies here but have no presence or life.
Across the way from me is a group of four people playing out the drama of their own making, one guy for a second looked like he was passing out and dying and is now in a verbal fight with the one who looked like he was trying to help him. Drugs, lack of intelligence maybe just another person who lacks life.
What is it about this world as we live in it now that causes such a disinterest fro being here? During the depression people worried about just eating, during war people worried about dying, that this was the end. But, now we have everything; technology, money, the capability to go anywhere and be anything but we still try to disappear from it all, that we refuse to live, that we refuse to love.
Across the way from me on the other side are two women, both sitting lost in thought, a cloud of loss and sadness covering both of them. Tears fall and grief covers their faces, the hold tissues in their hands to dab away the tears when grief overwhelms them. Are they talking about the loss of a lover or the death of a loved one?
And now a person walks by filled with joy and touches everyone with her golden energy as they passes by.
I am reminded of Charles de Lint’s ongoing theme of the Dream Tree that grows faster and larger than any tree in the park because it thrives on the stories of peoples lives.
So many people walking by lost in drugs, lost in misery and yet a father and his son are in the same world pointing up into the tree completely participating in the joy of this life.
Do you think when people finally stop to notice anything at all that everything will just cease to exist?
The man on drugs continues on in his own universe now curled in feeling a pain buries so deep he just curls in on himself and cries.
Everyone lost in their own drama.
There is always the question of what is our universe, what is our world. I sit and I watch the world move and continue, but I don’t belong to their worlds, their universe. I can feel their emotions beat upon my energy and I feel them drain my emotions but they are all figments that slide by as if they are not even there.
And so I just remove myself from that world and withdraw my energy and I am no more part of that world, but instead back in my castle.
Etoile steps out of the castle into the grayed out world. The rain had been falling for several weeks and she was tired of being stuck in the castle no matter how large it was or how many things you can do in it.
Cyn was curled around my arm with his eye peeking out between her jacket. He spoke in my mind asking if I was going to call Impulse out to play. But, I knew that was worthless, he had another human in another universe that he was spending time with. Cyn wanted to know what I was doing out in the cold if I wasn’t going to get a ride to another universe where it was warm and sunny. I just smiled a secretive smile, knowing that I had been learning on m own and I had power, maybe not the power to universe and time hop, but an even greater power the power to create my own worlds and my own universes. Dragons can only move between, but Stars can create new worlds from scratch.
As Cyn snuggles deeper into my jacket I step to the center of the garden and say a single word. As I speak the world around me shifts and changes and what was once was empty is now filled with a jungle which is warm and rich. The jungle is filled with the sounds of life and the air is scented to the sweetness of fruit. As I step forward onto the path that appears before me, Cyn wiggles himself out of my jacket and starts to fly next to me as I walk along the path.
“Where are we going?” he asks
“I don’t know, but it will be someplace where it is warm and sunny and it will be filled with life.” I answered
The princess was moping around the castle with her Protector Dragon, Cyn, wrapped around her arm trying to get her to cheer up.
Cyn, “Come on Etoile, you need to stop thinking about him and go out and enjoy the day.”
Etoile, “You still don’t get it Cyn because you and I are bonded and you can’t imagine ever being away from me.”
“I thought that is what we had and he just flew away and when I try to connect with him via our special energy path, all I get is jumbled emotions and I am not sure if they are mine or his or maybe we never had the connection with begin with, maybe it was all in my head.”
Cyn rumbles in my ear and I hear his voice in my head, “Dragons bond with only one human in a lifetime. As your Protector Dragon I was bonded with you before either of us was born and as we both came into the world at the same time our lives merged and that is a bond that can not be broken. In your Dragon’s case he is a powerful being that has the ability to traverse space and time. The bond you two have is a bond that goes back to the time before time and you have both always had it but the moment you two met, it solidified. It is a different bond than yours and mine but it doesn’t stop it from being real.”
“But, Cyn, how could he just fly away? You would never do that to me.”
“I am sworn and bonded to protect you. I shall be with you until we both close our eyes together. I am your companion and the protector of your soul, not every Dragon is a Protector Dragon. Your Dragon is of the species that rules time and space, he is not one who lives by any ones rules but his own and I think he is as confused as you are to live as long as he has and to come across a human he is connected to.”
“Does any of that make you feel better?” Cyn asks.
“I still sit here alone, trying to connect to that energy that makes me feel so alive, so much like I could fly the world and I was one with it and now I feel empty. I am used to connecting to his mind and now it is no longer there.”
Cyn pets my hair and rumbles in his chest in his Dragon purr and whispers, “give it time.”
Dragon and I continued our vigil in the garden, me with my back against the garden wall watching the negative thoughts hit the shield above the castle and Dragon getting ready to fly off, refusing to support me, refusing to help me get rid of the cause of all the hate pouring towards the castle which he brought into my life.
I ask him where he is heading too and he tells me he is bored sitting in the garden with me and he has other people to visit who he can go play games with. I look at him with hurt in my eyes asking for help, asking for him to be my friend and support me. He says he will always be with me, honestly, but he needs to go on to the many lives he has.
As I sit there in disbelief, he flies away and is gone.
As tears roll down my face and the negative thoughts pound against my shields, I stop and no matter how much I want to yell and rage and hurt, I don’t.
I quietly look up at the sky and a whisper crosses my lips, so low you can barely hear it even if you are straining, “No More. Good Bye.” And with those two sentences, the darkness in the sky fades and the sound of the pounding against the sky goes away and the sky is blue again.
I gather my skirts around me and I walk the path through the ancient trees offering their comfort and love and I head to the castle doors with tears running down my cheeks as I mourn the loss of my friend and I miss my Dragon.
As I enter the doors to the castle, night falls across the land and I head up the stairs to my turret where my Protector Dragon is curled around my bed posts sleeping, as I pet him good night, I can’t believe I had made such a mistake and that I could have been so wrong. I curl into bed and Cyn comes and wraps himself around me and we drift off to sleep.
I am sitting in the garden that is right off of my tower bedroom curled up in a little ball with my back against the wall hidden amongst the roses. Around me above the castle every now and then you can feel a vibration and if you look closely you can see the energy shields that protect the castle from negativity and harm shudder a bit and a blackish purple resonate out from where they have been hit.
I am alone, afraid to allow anyone into the shields because I don’t want whatever that is to come in and harm me.
I hear a voice in my head, it is Dragon asking me to let him in through the shields, he can judge the timing and they will be sealed up by the time he comes through. I so want to let my friend in so I won’t be spending time alone hiding inside the garden, but I am very afraid of the negative force trying to get to me. But, I take a chance and let the barrier down for a brief breath, a second in time and Dragon comes flying through to land next to me. As his feet touches the ground he turns into the boy I know so well.
As he walks over to where I am huddled against the wall and sits next to me with his leg touching mine, he asks, “Why are you so afraid of it?”
“How can I not be afraid? Can’t you feel the hate and malevolence resonating off the energy? Even with all of my shields in place and it being so far away, I can’t make it go away.”
“But you keep on feeding it every single time you react to it, you just have to stop giving it any reaction and it will fade away.” He says.
“Do you know what it is?” I ask
Dragon looks at me with sadness in his eyes, “Yes, I do I am afraid. You are under attack because of something I did and brought into your world.”
I look at him with hurt in my eyes, “Why would you do that? Why don’t you make it go away?”
He leans his head against mine and sighs, “I can’t make it go away, it is tied to me. It is part of who I am.”
I feel his betrayal all the way through my heart and deep into my soul. My friend, the person who I have lived life times with and adventured with brought the negative energy into my life and now it is hurting me and he will do nothing about it. I feel the tears fall from my eyes and track their way across my cheeks.
I have no words, I sit there in silence. He offers up nothing else.
The energy pounds against the shields that surround my castle and resonate a dark black blue against the sky as the sun sets and the world turns black.
There is a world in which peace and beauty are the fabric upon which it is built. In this world is a small area which has a lake surrounded by trees where only honesty and truth can be spoken. Around the lake walked a beautiful girl with a haunting beauty. She seemed to shimmer with an internal light and on her shoulder road a small protector dragon who was black as night and had emerald eyes that seemed to reflect all the colors of green in the world at one time. As you looked into them, you could easily get lost in the worlds which the dragon has seen and will be seeing.
As the two walked around the lake you could hear snippets of their conversation floating on the wind.
Dragon: I think it’s sad.
Girl: Why is it sad? It is what is real.
Dragon: Don’t you wish you could live in the fantasy and believe it all?
Girl: I tried that, the only person I was hurting was myself. Don’t look at me like that Cyn. I really did believe in it and I loved all of it. I liked the secret world that we created, all of the fantasies, the nicknames, the dreams and the hopes and the wishes. I really wanted to stay there forever.
Dragon: So why didn’t you?
Girl: Because he killed off each one little by little, piece by piece.
It all started with love and romance. That one actually made sense to me. I can respect if someone has given their heart away to the love of their life and their soul mate. I had taken all of my romantic love and hidden it away in my left pinkie toe. So, I was good with the deep friendship, that link between the two of us that is so very rare and special.
Dragon: Pinkie toes are a great place to put something that is so special and that deserves to be protected and Deep Soul Friends that share thoughts and dreams, that is a rare thing, people go through their whole lives trying to find it or wishing for it and never know what they are missing.
So what was the next thing to go?
At this point we stopped on our walk next to a luscious red rose bush that was perfect in its scent and its textures and as we looked at it, it seemed to take us away to a place of intense pleasure. We enjoyed it for a brief time and we walked on.
Girl: I guess the next thing to go was the intimacy and fantasy. I always knew it would be the first item killed off. He thinks of sex as people think of food. He gorges himself in it and loves the variety of different play mates. But, ahhh the fantasies were amazing and the sex was brilliant. The energy flow back and forth and the desire… mmmm the desire like flames when I was with him that burned ever so good.
Dragon: I can understand the flames of desire. I can’t understand the variety since Dragon’s mate for life. But, how can something so good get killed off?
Girl: The day he share the same fantasy with me as he had shared with someone else. I felt cheap and disposable.
Dragon: How did you know?
Girl: One of the girls that he spends time with on a regular basis posted the fantasy almost word for word as he was writing it to me a couple of days earlier. And this is from someone that never leads the conversation at all.
Dragon: I can see how that would burn away a bit of emotion.
Girl: I could handle that, sex isn’t everything no matter how much you want to live in that world of fantasy.
Dragon: But, why can’t you just live in it anyway? Why can’t you lose yourself in it and enjoy it?
Girl: I guess if I can’t be the best at it with someone then why even try if it has no value? Life goes on and he has others to fulfill that need for him. I mean, I still had the very deep soul connection with him.
Dragon: So, what was next to be killed off?
Girl: So many small things that I slowly closed down on. Tucking each other into bed since he would just disappear, I mean why spend joy in a moment that has no value to the other person. Sharing my thoughts since he never shared his back unless I pulled them out of him by asking 20 questions and feeling intrusive. So many things killed off one by one until all that was left was me supplying him energy/empowerment and help on his computers when he needed it.
Where did that leave me? Believing in a fantasy that was non existent, but I still believed that we had a very special deep friendship and I was there for him and loved him in that very rare way.
Dragon: So, that is still one of the rarest gifts in the entire world. People fight and kill for it. It is something that lasts from now until the end of time as we know it and even beyond that. Dragons live for forever and I would cherish and protect that friendship with every last breath and dream and hope I have.
Girl: So would I… So would I… But, I have learned that it doesn’t mean the same thing to him.
Dragon: How can it not? It is something that ties your souls and binds you together.
Girl: He feels that for many women, I am just one of many.
Dragon: Then it isn’t real…
Girl: To me it is. To him, it is just another part of the connection he has with many.
The two of them stop on the grass by the lakes edge and lie down upon the grass and look up at the sky and watch the patterns of the clouds as they twin into different mythical shapes. We both smile as the dragon flies by in the clouds.
Dragon: So where does that leave you if you no longer believe in the fantasy?
Girl: It leaves me to be there for him when he needs me, for even if he doesn’t put the same value on it, it doesn’t stop it from being something very special and rare and something you would fight for and kill for and sometimes just accept the person as they are, because you love them so very unconditionally.
Dragon: I am sorry…
Girl: Why are you sorry?
Dragon: Because what should be so very beautiful is instead painted with the harsh brush of reality.
Girl: Sometimes I want to live in Fantasy
Dragon: Why don’t you?
Girl: Because I don’t want to be hurt.
Dragon: Would you?
Girl: Making people out to be whatever you want them to be rather than accepting them for who they are is never a good idea, you are bound to be disappointed.
Dragon: Maybe they are actually that person and just waiting for someone to see them for it.
Girl: What world do you live in?
Dragon: I live in your head and I like this world.
The Girl starts to giggle and the Dragon wraps his tail around her wrist and they look up to the clouds and point out all of the different magical shapes they make.
I ran out of the castle this morning with a piece of toast in one hand and a bag filled with apples in the other. Dragon had sent me a message last night among the dreams to meet him as the sun rose over the castle spires on the front lawn, that he had something to show me.
The sun was just starting to peak over the edge when I heard the sound of the wings from up above and Dragon came flying over the top of the turret and did a loopy loop before he came in for his landing, just as he was about ready to land he transformed into the boy that I know and as his feet touched the ground, he threw me that cheerful impish grin that he seems to wear constantly.
Dragon has black hair that mirrors his black scales in dragon form and the greenest eyes you ever saw, almost as if they are jewels instead of the every day eyes that the rest of us have. As I reach up and give him a hug my hand brushes across his hair which is soft and sleek as a cat.
“So, where are we going today? You know I am supposed to be doing stuff, right?” I asked
Dragon looked around and whispered in my ear, “we are going to go to the birth of an island. I will take us through time there and get you back here in time to do your work.”
“Dragon, can’t we do the whole time travel thing and NOT get me back in time to do my work? I want a day of doing nothing but playing.”
“So you want to play do you? Hop on and let’s go.”
As Dragon changed into the large beast that I have grown to love I jumped onto his back and I heard him in my head. “Hold on.”
As I held on with my legs and arms around his neck, he took off and as he twisted and turned and my laughter rang over the castle grounds the entire world blurred around me and we left my time behind to the “time of the dragons”.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Dragon replied back, “we are everywhere.”
“Everywhere? How can you be everywhere?”
“It is very simple,” he said as he took us into a dive to fly low over the water so I could feel the spray flying up and touching my legs. “Everywhere is the place where everything is.”
“But, there is nothing here but water, so how can everything be here and if everything isn’t here than how can we be everywhere?” I sighed… Sometimes Dragon thinks the most impossible things.
“How do you know that everything isn’t here?”
“Dragon, if everything was here wouldn’t I be able to see it?”
“So you are telling me as we are flying along the water, that just because you can’t see the fish below they don’t exist? Or that as we are flying in the air that just because we don’t see any birds that there must be none or that because no one sees us that we are nothing?”
I can’t help but laugh at my friend, as I said he thinks the most impossible things. “So you are telling me that here is my castle and here is my cat and here is flowers and here is life?” I think to myself, now how can he possibly imagine that there are flowers here in the middle of the ocean. Let’s see him get out of that!
At my last comment, Dragon just stops and seems to be suspended in mid-air, “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I am so glad you finally understand!”
“But, Dragon…”
“shhh… We are here”
I look around at all of the water, trying to see the signs of the island that is about to be born. I see no bubbling in the water and when I look down it is clear and dark and deep. I wonder if someone magical is going to come by and call it forth from the sea, but it is only Dragon and I, suspended over the patch of water below.
“So,” I whisper in his ear. “How is it going to be born?”
As he turns his head and looks at me with his emerald eyes, I can see the smile spread across his face and make his eyes shine so brightly. “You get to decide”
“um..” I stammer, “I get to decide, but who am I to decide?”
“Well you are going to be the person who creates it, so it should be your decision.”
“I can’t create an Island, I am nothing special but a human.”
“you are wrong, Etoile. You are very special and you have the gift of creation. You have always had it, now you just need to use it. So, what should it be? Song? Words? A wave of your hand? Maybe you should laugh it into existence or cry it.”
“Dragon you can’t be serious. I am not like you I can’t do those things. I have no magic, I have no power. I am just me.”
“Do you believe that if you keep on saying Can’t and keep on denying that you are nothing that all of a sudden it will be true? I am very disappointed in you my star, I am giving you the opportunity of a life time and all you can do is look at me and tell me that you can’t do it. Before you say Can’t one more time, maybe you should just try.”
“But…” At those words of mine Dragon let out a roar and the flames from his breath turned the world around me the blue green of dragon fire.
“try…”
“Dragon, I don’t know what to do. You need to help me.”
At those words I could hear the whisper of the ancients running through my head telling me the secrets of creation. As the knowledge filled me, it all made sense, it was so easy. I just needed to name it, call, it give it life with my belief while I say the word.
I wanted to create the most beautiful island in the world, so I thought long and hard and I created what to me would be perfection and I looked below us in the water and I let the beauty spread below me into my soul and I said the one word that I wanted the island to be and as I said the word what was once just water and air was in but a breath and a thought a perfect island.
I could feel Dragon’s joy radiate up through every part of his essence into my very being and then it exploded out of him and I until we were laughing in the pure joy of creation. As our laughter rang out across the land Dragon flew across the beaches and up the streams to the mountain tops where a waterfall flowed down the mountain side to land in a pool below. As we got to the pool, Dragon transformed till he and I were tumbling through the sky into the cool depths of the water.
As Dragon and I came to the surface of the water and saw each other wet and happy, we gave each other a hug and played in the little piece of heaven I created. As we grew tired and sat next to the waterfall on the bank and dangled our feet in the water, Dragon asked me what word I used to create such a beautiful place. I smiled and whispered in his ear “Friendship.” I wanted the Island to be a representation of our friendship. He smiled at me and then whispered in my ear. “It is a very beautiful thing.”
