Dirt

There weren't always dragons in the valley. Generations ago, before the sun split in two, the valley was inhabited by The Great Grumblehook. A nasty creature who had been killed in battle by Liggy the Dangler. So called because she had a habit of dangling kings from the tops of their parapets. A habit the monks of the time were set against on principle. The divine right of kings and all that propriety. But they wisely kept their mouths shut lest they too be dangled in an unseemly fashion from the tops of their suspiciously ornate parapets.

The Great Grumblehook out of the way, Liggy the Dangler’s army settled in the valley. They had had hard work dangling kings and were growing weary of finding them just to dangle them off of their parapets. But this story isn’t about Liggy the Dangler or even The Great Grumblehook, though you can still find some of its rib bones supporting older huts, and its large vertebrae bones used as tables in the back alley bars that haunt the settlement of Throck in the valley now called Hook.

There weren't always dragons, but now there were. And nobody quite knew where they came from. Some said merchants had brought them from the east, others that they had spawned from the mineral pits in the ground, and even others told the unlikely story that a golden dragon fell from the sky and created all the first dragons as it bounced along the ground. But this last tale was first told by the religion Dracus. And while no one should put much stock in it, such opinions are best left unspoken lest a parapet be built and you be dangled from it.

All Almy knew was that her family's dragon was rather small compared to her neighbors’ dragons. Sheep sized and a muddy brown-green, Dirt paled in comparison to the other cow sized, iridescent dragons with gossamer wings common in the neighborhood. Overall, Dirt was a satisfactory dragon in Almy’s parents’ eyes; he kept the pet chickens safe from passing dogs and sneaky predators, helped carry their weekly shopping trips, and kept the fire going in winter.

But Almy didn’t like how plain Dirt was compared to her best friend Topa’s dragon. A shimmery, bright yellow-orange, Buttercup was beautiful. Dirt couldn’t do fun tricks like looping through the air or growing flowers with his breath. He couldn’t give Almy rides as she got bigger. And Dirt couldn’t do the one thing that Almy wanted most: sniff out gold. There was a particular pair of shoes which Almy had seen in a shop window over a month ago that would perfectly match her eyes, so she needed them. But it cost exactly 3 more gold pieces than she had saved from helping Old Man Gert and Widow Bel weed their gardens before planting.

Almy needed money fast. Which is why she crept into the abandoned house at the end of the street. The one that was said to have been owned by a pirate who had buried treasure in the basement. As she crawled through a busted out window, Almy’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dimly lit interior. The foyer opened into a long hallway, open doorways loomed with their darkness beyond. The light of her lantern cast long shadows into the voids, catching and glinting off of objects within. She should have brought Topa. But she couldn’t afford to share the treasure.

The floor creaked and shuddered beneath her feet. Leaf litter and animal droppings covered the rotting boards and hugged the edges of the furniture and walls. Under the staircase, near the end of the hall, was a closed door. The basement. Almy pulled at it, but it didn’t budge. Setting her lantern down, she gripped the door knob with both hands and pulled with her entire weight. With a groan and a splintering of wood, the door swung open and Almy fell back. Dust swirled through the air, catching in the beams of lantern light. Through the open door the dark was more oppressive and the stairs going down into it looked old at best, and rotten at worst. But Almy didn’t weigh much and treasure awaited.

Taking the lantern, Almy began her descent. The first step groaned, but held firm. The second groaned, creaked, and then fully snapped. Almy fell into the darkness. She lost her grip on the lantern as she flailed about, trying to grab a hold of anything to stop her headlong race with gravity. Her shoulder rammed into one of the rail supports of the staircase and her shin scraped against metal. Her head and lantern hit the floor with a crack and everything went dark.