Silent Skies and Butterflies

"There weren't always dragons in the valley?"

"What do you think? Don't they seem out of place here? Grovelling on all-fours, trudging the earth amongst the swine and dogs—it's pathetic."

"What do you mean? T-they aren't from here?"

"Look, kid—what do you 'know' about dragons?"

"T-that... they can fly, they breathe flames, they can roar so loud that the land, sea and clouds tremble in fear-"

The man pauses. The girl winces. His faint shadow looms over her—his eyes stare into hers, unblinking.

"So tell me, if a dragon can roar so loud... have you ever heard it?"

"Well, I- I... No."

"Tell me, have you felt the heat of a dragon's breath? Have you ever seen a dragon soar amongst the birds and clouds?"

"No..."

"I asked you what you know, not what the fairy tales tell us."

The girl looks down, twiddles her thumbs and shuffles her feet.

"N-nothing, I suppose."

She ruminates for a moment—her footsteps slow down and she falls behind. The man looks straight ahead, his tempo does not falter. The girl's head twitches upward and she scurries back to his side.

"But if they can't fly, why do they have wings? If they can't breathe fire, why are our roofs thatched with fire-proof leaves?"

The man's worn sandals shuffle through the gravel—a dry shushing sound washes over the nearby chirping of crickets.

"No, no, no... I never claimed that a dragon cannot do these things—it is not a question of whether they can or cannot. It is whether they dare or dare not."

"I don't follow..."

"Why don't you scream into the swaying woods at the dead of night? Why don't you spit on the boots of a warlord or a chieftain? Or poke around caves during hibernation season?"

"My- to do so would provoke certain death!"

"Exactly!"

"But what in the world could hold a dragon at its mercy!?"

"A force that has dragons cowering in fear? Well, ain't that something? It must be quite frightening, no?"

The girl glares at him.

"Y-you're joking. If such a thing existed, h-how come I've never heard of it?"

The man snorts and shakes his head.

"From where you stand, you can't see it."

"W-what does it look like?"

"It has thousands of heads and twice as many arms. When it hunts, it moves in scintillating waves of metal, it bristles with blades like serrated hairs—it roars so loud that it can displace birds beyond the horizon, its footsteps shape the ground like a smith's hammer smites iron. It can drink dry lakes, and sculpt the layered mountains, it can shape the land to its will, and all life is at its mercy..."

"I've never seen anything like it. I-it sounds... just like an old story..."

"Oh, but I've met one. In fact, no, I've met two. And I'm sure there are many more if you venture to the edge of the known world."

The girl's eyes widen.

"What were they like? How did you escape alive?"

"They were... proud... fearful... perhaps even paranoid despite their power."

"But how did you get away?"

"Oh, it's far too vast to flee from. And how can you hide from that with ten-thousand eyes? I couldn't escape, of course."

"So it got you?"

"Aye."

The girl strokes her chin and furrows her brow. She looks up and points upwards.

"Ah- I get it! Do you mean some sort of god?"

The man shakes his head, chuckling to himself.

"Not at all. Though sometimes it deludes itself into thinking that."

"So it's arrogant?"

"Incredibly so. Perhaps that is its main feature..."

The man trudges to a halt. He raises a leg and wiggles it to free a stray pebble lodged in his sandal. He sighs and seems to deflate as he does so. The girl plods along beside him, watching the backpack swaying from each side as its contents rumble and rustle within.

"T-this creature... d-did my father ever meet it?"

The man scratches his greying beard and cracks his neck.

"My brother was always indecisive. He could not choose whether to appease 'the beast' or resist it to his dying breath. In the end, he hid in the hills paying tribute until his final day."

"And that is what we are doing now?"

"Someone has to do it. And your mother can't do it alone."

The girl slowly breaks into a smirk.

"Uncle Ivor, you act like you don't care, but you always show up when we need you."

"Mhm, is that so?" says Ivor. He adjusts his backpack and shrugs his shoulders to stretch them out.

"Don't get used to it, kid. I'm stuck here until you're of age. I care not for your mother, but you're blood to me, and I owe it to your father to stick around till we can marry you off to a half-decent man."

They lock eyes for a moment, but Ivor glances away as if her stare were that of the sun. He grimaces as his niece strides forward with a new set of questions.

"And this... t-this thing that preys on dragons... why did it do what it did? What were the dragons like before they fled to the valley?"

"That was a long time ago, even to the elders... that is a distant memory..."

"But what have you been told?"

"The hideous truth."

"How so?"

"Look, Xena, did my brother ever tell you about old granny snow-skin? She was before your time, but your father and I met her when we were young."

"I-I think I've heard the name... w-why?"

The violet recedes as a deep scarlet red conquers the canvas of the sky.

"You don't swim in the open water of the eastern ocean, why?"

"I don't follow. That ocean is dangerous, you wouldn't survive, of course!"

"Now, imagine if swimming through that ocean was like walking beneath the sky. If under the sky were as deadly as above the sea, would you dare show your face to the sun?"

"N-no..."

"What would you do?"

"H-hide, I suppose."

"And when you hide from the sun..."

"...y-your skin turns pale..."

Xena stares ahead, an empty look in her shine-less eyes.

"...s-so... t-that's how old granny snow-skin..."

"...got her name. Aye." says uncle Ivor.

"A-and the dragons..."

"Look, I'll put it like this. You recall old man Mart, aye? That drunkard who hollered at women from the knackered shack."

"I-I- remember."

"What if I told you he used to be a powerful chieften, a tyrant who's reign of terror spanned the known world?"

"I wouldn't believe you. Nobody would."

"But what if I told you that the dragons were like gods, and the world was once their plaything? That these now pathetic creatures were incarnations of wrath to our ancestors—that we hid in caves and forest floors to flee their fury..."

"Then how did they end up here? This thing that preys on dragons, w-where does that come into play?"

Ivor and Xena approach the apex of the hill. The sun begins to burn beyond the horizon.

"See, wild dogs used to chase men through the plains, we keep them on leashes now. Lions used to make us cower, now they cower for us, in cages. And dragons? What happened to them, you ask?"

Ivor trudges to the edge of the cliff and throws out his hands at the vista below. Stretched out across the curve of the earth are thousands of stone houses wrapped in walls as tall as five men, little fires blaze and distant smokes billow. The drowzy city stirs.

"Behold, Xena, Civilisation!"

"T-this is no ordinary tribe..."

"Nae, this is a city, a kingdom."

Ivor adjusts his backpack and points forward.

"When you leave the valley, this is where you'll go, the wider world—and all its flavours: the sour, bitter, and sweet, will be yours to taste."

"But the valley is my home."

"To you, for now, aye."

Ivor reveals his crooked teeth—he smiles with his contorted, crooked mouth. His eyes are ashen, black as coal.

"But to a dragon... this valley is a prison, that kingdom is their warden, and these mountains are its walls..."