Dragons Are Awful, Like Turnips

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Usually they were in the hills. Or the cupboards, the clouds, the trees and bushes, or sometimes in your hair. But not the Valley; that was important. It’s the big rule: "There Be Dragons, But Not Here- Dragons Stay Out Of The Valley." We even wrote it on a sign and stuck it right outside, hoping the dragons would see it and not come in.

They must’ve missed it. I ran into one on my way to the old turnip farm (where we farm old turnips) this morning, and let me tell you, it did not look happy at all. Dragons never look happy. That’s the second rule: "If you see a dragon, it isn’t happy." There aren’t any signs for that one, but everyone knows it. I hadn’t been happy either, of course, which is probably why the dragon came.

"Can’t you read?" I ask the dragon, which doesn’t make him look any happier. "We wrote a sign."

For a moment, I think it’s going to shake its head. It doesn’t, of course. Just keeps staring at me, its lizard face somehow sad and angry and self-pitying all together, like it thinks I kicked its favorite puppy or something. It was lurking in a large bush on this dirt path when I walked by, like it was just waiting for some innocent human to stride innocently on by, so it could do what dragons always do. Well, I won’t let it. I keep walking.

It follows me.

Oh. Oh, no. This is it. It’s starting. "Don’t follow me, please," I say, even though I know already what its answer will be.

It growls, making me remember the time when I was seven years old and I accidentally knocked over my grandmother’s only candle whilst I was juggling turnips, and she was so mad that she told Pop I tried to burn her house down, so he sat me down for a long lecture about the importance of private property, and-

"Shut up!" I tell the dragon. It does, at least for a second, slipping back into the bush, still watching me with deep and self-pitying eyes. I can see now why I didn’t spot it until I was right up on it; it blends in. A drab olive green, like all the worst dragons are. They only come in four colors. Every one of those colors is ugly.

If a dragon is yellow, then it's mustard yellow. If a dragon is brown, then it’s mud-brown. If a dragon is red, then it’s not red, it’s pink. And if a dragon is green, then it's the ugly one sitting in front of me now, looking like a sick olive. Its scales are slimy and miserable, its eyes are reptilian but somehow sad. Wings are bat-like. Tail is fat. Draconis Awfulicus comes in a thousand shapes and sizes, each custom-made to upset a particular person- this one is about the girth of a small pony, which means I could technically ride it if I wanted to, but I will not.

I want to make that clear. I am not going to ride this dragon.

That is what you think, isn’t it? That I’m going to learn to ride this dragon. That this is going to be one of those books where a teenage hero becomes a dragonrider so that she can finally be the one to overthrow the evil king, or the dark wizard, or that person who repeats your joke but louder so that everyone thinks they were the one who made it up. Well, it’s not. This is the book where dragons are annoying, and awful, and I want it to stop following me.

By the way, this is also one of those books that talks to you- the reader- directly. Whilst making all kinds of mean assumptions about you. Deal with it. I have to deal with the dragon.

I turn again, determined to continue my path. It continues to follow me, its walk a defeated waddle. How does a lizard waddle? I don’t know, but it's doing it. I walk past the turnip farm, because a dragon feels like a solid excuse to miss work, and slip off the main road.

There’s a heaviness, a sludge-like feeling in the presence of a dragon. Something pressing down on your mind. I feel it while I skirt past the miller’s land, the three spinsters at the far side of the well, the dandelion meadow and the lake, the Lord's humble stable and his notably-less-humble manor, the village houses, the deep wood looming all around, and the looming temple past the forest. (Any one of those places could turn out to be plot-important, so I know that you’re taking diligent notes. I’m very proud of you.)

I’m not on a tour, I’m trying to keep myself away from line-of-sight. Grandmother always said, "If you ever get dragons, kiddo, don’t you ever, under any circumstances, ever let anyone know. That’s very important! Pass me the beer." She told it to my father, who told it to my mother, who told it to me, and I’ll tell it to my kids one day, after I get rid of this dragon I have. And develop a taste for turnip beer.

You wouldn’t blame me if I wished that Grandma had just said how to get rid of them, instead. But deep down in my heart, I do realize that she probably didn’t know, or maybe just that she didn’t think it was necessary. The Valley is quite a big place, and this happy little community has lived here for quite some time. And none of us have ever had dragons. I wonder how. ‘Cause of the sign, maybe.

"You must be the one dragon who can’t read," I tell the dragon, who I yet refuse to think of as my dragon. We step over an abandoned, root-strewn path together, away from the eyes of neighbors. It growls. I suddenly remember that when I was twelve, I bumped into a cart full of turnips which spilled out onto the village street, causing an old man to slip and spill hot, black tea right onto my new dress, which still has the stains to this very day.

Alas, it is not a coincidence that turnips feature in all these embarrassing stories. It’s our main crop. No, wait, I want to be truthful here- it’s our only crop. And I am the only one in the community who could never brute-force my tongue into accepting them. I’ve been working double shifts at the old turnip farm, just so I can afford to buy things-that-aren’t-turnips from other villages. Other people in worlds like this one may leave home to go on quests involving prophecies and magic at my age, but I have not, and don’t intend to start soon.

"Shut up," I tell the dragon.

It doesn’t skulk away this time. I interpret this as a bad sign. Grandfather always said: "If a dragon stops skulking when you shoo it, that means it’s coming for you, and then you’re more ruined than… uh, a ruin, I guess. Pass me the beer."

Shut up, grandpa, maybe I can lost it. You’ve never seen me run before, dear reader, but I’m fast. I would say that I sprint like a hawk diving for a rabbit, except that sounds stupid, and I’m too clumsy for it to be true. 

I turn suddenly to the side and run away from the dragon more like a drunken, blindfolded sparrow with one wing clipped, and the other wing missing. I jump over tree roots like an old woman forced to stand on hot rocks as a punishment for tap-dancing too often. I fly from my draconic stalker like a slightly tipsy shadow might flee from that harsh yet inescapable reality of the rising sun.

I run away, is the message here. I’m running away from the dragon. I’m sure you got that?

I’m asking, since the dumb lizard evidently didn’t. When I risk a glance back to look at it, it's an ugly lump in the distance, still slowly turning its head in my direction. I don’t know if it’s the slow reaction of something dumbfounded, or the prideful calm of something that knows nothing can escape it. The dragon probably growls again, but I can’t hear it from here, bounding over the tree-line in the distance, then the horizon, then past the point where I could look back and still see it. Over the roots, through the rustling trees, I’m free. I’m free!

"I’m free!" I declare, in my most declarative voice.

"Free of what?"

"Ah, the dragon!" I shout, jumping out of my skin. My first thought (‘The dragon can talk now!’) accidentally made me answer that question a little more honestly than I would’ve intended.

"...you had a dragon?" the same deep voice asks again, slower, more careful this time. He’s as worried about the implications as I am. And I know that rumble. It’s a chilling sensation to recognize the voice of a friend, but in a darker tone than you’ve ever heard. All the familiarity vanishes out of it.

I turn around; I’m facing him. His name is Breden Fairchild, a big middle-aged man, a distant relative of mine. Also an in-law, because there are only so many people in No Dragons Valley, and potential newlyweds stopped being picky when it became clear that their only option was to marry a relative or live in eternal celibacy.I think only the priest chose the latter. I presume that explains his consistent air of childlike innocence, his calm aura of serenity. Or maybe that’s all the ceremonial hallucinogens they use, I don’t know.

"Mabel," he asked again, interrupting my hallucinogen-related reverie. "You. Had. A dragon. Follow you?"

I hesitate. If you were to make a list of my personal flaws, I think you’d have to hew down every tree in the No Dragons Valley just to have enough paper for the ‘Family and Relationships’ section. But, for all that, I really don’t like to lie. Even here, in these woods so thick that there’s no sound other than the trees blowing and a distant thumping that might be someone cutting them down. I only need exactly one person to overhear before I’m more ruined than, uh, a ruin, I guess.

"No, what, of- of course not," I swallow it and lie, feeling pretty bad about it. "You scared me! I just meant ‘dragon’ as in- like, you know, a swear. Like ‘Oh, this day is worse than a dragon!’ or ‘Dragon darn it!’" I try acting the former out by swinging my arm and snapping my fingers in line with the words. By the furrow of his bushy eyebrows (the only part of him that’s hairy, as I have a strong suspicion that Breden is the universe’s first clean-shaven lumberjack), I suspect that he does not believe me.

There’s a quiet silence. Breden has always been silent, which I despise him for, since I can never stop talking unless I’m eating. He’s staring just over my head. Like he doesn’t want to make direct eye-contact. So I just stand there, too, waiting upon my doom. Slowly realizing I can hear my heart beat. It’s a thump, thump, thump-thump rhythm.

He finally asks "Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be sure?"

"I don’t know," Breden says, slowly. "I was just asking." Thump, thump, thump-thump.

"Uh-huh. Well, sir. Since you’re done asking, I think it’s time I be on my way. I was just out for a spontaneous run, you know. I think I’m needed at the old turnip farm, actua-"

I am attacked mid-sentence by my heartbeat.

It’s not my heartbeat, like you guessed. It’s the dragon, which Breden saw in the sky behind me. I have exactly enough time to think ‘Oh, that’s what the thumping was!’ as I am thrown to the ground by its flying tackle, and then enough time to think ‘At least it wasn’t my heart attacking me’ as my mouth is filled with dirt and tiny rocks.

It can fly. Of course. This time the creature does not need to growl to remind me that I am stupid. When I open my eyes, the sun is above me; the claw of the dragon holds me to the earth. It rears back its head victoriously, somehow gloating without really having a facial expression with which to do so. (It’s a very expressive head-rearing.)

In another story, the kind that used to be told centuries ago, this is where it would finish me off. Breathe fire, bite into me with his teeth, plant a curse-leading-to-death on me with his evil eye, whatever. I would meet a heroic end at the hands of a great serpentine beast.

As Breden tries to get him off of me, I wonder if those stories were ever true. Maybe my ancestors made them up to distract themselves from the real ones. Psychic dragons, they’re called, like there’s some other breed. They like to just appear suddenly and-

The dragon growls. I shan't bore you with the details of this particular memory, except that it involves a wagon, three balls of string, a red-haired traveler from the Kirkshire islands, and of course, turnips. I grimace. So does Breden. Satisfied, the dragon dismounts willingly. I keep one eye on it while I get up, lest it get any more ideas.

"What’d you remember?" I ask Breden, sorry that it affected him too. That’s on me. Dragons target one person. A particularly miserable person whose bad energy can be fed on. He only had to hear it because I led it here first.

"Remember that time that I used the outhouse during a storm, and there was a mudslide at the same time as a huge gust of wind?"

"Oof." I wince in sympathy. We haven’t built outhouses at the tops of hills since.

"At least that’s all it did," he says, prompting two thoughts deep within me. First ‘So it can do more?’ and second, ‘Breden just doesn’t want to get on to me for bringing a dragon to him. Probably hates me secretly now. He’ll have to join the anti-fan club.’

I brush dirt off of myself. He stares at the psychic dragon.

"How long has it been with you?" he asks. "Has it bit you?"

I count. "Maybe… thirty minutes? Forty-five? And no."

His whole huge body heaves with a deep, rolling sigh of relief. "Oh, oh, thank The Teinn."

"For dragons? …You’re thanking Him for dragons?"

"No, child. We’re thanking Him because He let me find you before it was too late. It’s following you, but it may still take some time to… attach. Come on, we have to go to the priest."

"Okay. I hope he’s sober."

In his private study adjacent to the temple, we find that the priest is sober. Also, in a talkative mood. Breden explained on the way that they mostly use the herbs for holy days. My parents didn’t take me to temple much as a kid. Either way, this priest is telling us the surprising amount he knows about dragons, and the dragon doesn’t seem to feel like growling during this time. Maybe it wants to learn about itself. I eye it, curled up over there in a dark corner of the office, possessed of a very cat-like aura.

The temple’s actual cat (even I know that all priests to The Teinn have cats) isn’t happy about this, and stalks around meowing desolately about the creature that stole its favorite spot, demanding we all do something about it. The priest gently strokes it, calls it "His Royal Fluffer," certainly a name I shall remember for the rest of my life.

Petting His Royal Fluffer, the priest intones: "You see, Draconicus Awfulicus aren’t animals at all, in fact, but spirits. They embody malice, misery and malcontent. They take their… physical form only when they’re ready for attachment. This creature," he nodded to where it was lounging, "would have been stalking you for weeks, Mabel, testing to see if your life and mind are the kind to attract it. May I ask: have you had nightmares lately?"

The only dreams I ever remember are nightmares, regardless of spiritual stalkers. I tell the priest this.

"You only remember nightmares?" Breden interjects.

"Yeah."

"Yes," the priest nods sagely, "that sounds like something someone who would draw in a dragon would say."

I swear, out of the corner of my eye, the dragon looks like it nods in agreement.

"Has it bitten you?"

"What? No. What? It’s gonna bite me?"

"More of a nibble, my child."

"No, uh, your priestliness, I have not been nibbled."

"Ah, yes, then it’s not too late."

"To be nibbled?"

"To be saved, my child."

The priest pushes his bowl of turnip stew away, stands up from behind his desk, cracks his knuckles (which doesn’t seem like a priestly thing to do, but I won’t question someone who may or may not have the power to call down a holy curse upon my immortal soul) and says "Alright. Let’s begin. I haven’t actually had to do it before in this town, but there’s a process to this. Getting rid of a dragon, that is. Dragon-slayings are a rare thing, more myth than fact, but we can chase it off. Alas, that’s the closest we get to ridding them. We must let it return to a spirit-form and search for easier prey."

"But then someone else gets it," nobody says, but we all think.

It turns out that the priest was being generous in his use of the word ‘process.’ I watch him sprinkle herbs across the little circle of his office, chant a lot of stuff in an old language I don’t understand, sprinkle some more herbs-

He tells me to stand behind his writing desk, and think happy thoughts, because none of this works if I don’t. He prays aloud.

The dragon starts to pay attention.

It’s slow, like when it watched me run away. It lifts its head like it has all the time in the world. It stares across the room, a deep gaze that promises something is about to happen that nobody in the world can stop. Is that derision in its eyes?

No, no, don’t look. I try not to think about the dragon. I try to think happy thoughts. Thoughts about- about- about. I realize at this moment that I have no happy thoughts. And it’s not coincidence that, at the same moment, I realize what the look in the dragon’s eye was. It wasn’t derision; it was humor. I glance over again. The cold light in its eyes is a challenge: what do you think a priest and some herbs are going to do, if you’ll just let me right back in?

I try again to think happy thoughts. I fail. And then I learn that psychic dragons really can breathe fire because- after a twitch of motion in its eyes that might be a wink- the herbs go up in flames. The room explodes into smokes and smells, strong scents that make your eyes water and fog up your brain like a night without sleep. I think I see part of the priest’s robe burning, and I wonder if "stop, drop, and roll" works in a room where the floor is made of flaming leaves, but I don’t have time to find out because-

The tackle hurts this time. Imagine, reader, if you were pounced on by a large dog, but the dog’s claws were rusty nails and its body was heavier than an anvil. I hit the floor. A plume of smoke helpfully passes just in time for me to see its head looming over me again. I think the priest is trying to pull it off of me, I think Breden is helping, but I don’t think either is making much progress. I’m pushing its face away with both my hands, smacking and slapping and all the other words for hitting something desperately.

It gets its mouth around my left hand and bites me.

But don’t worry, dear reader. As you will see shortly, this is where my story- and, sadly, my quest- really starts.

Let me explain. At that moment, I realize that the priest was both right and wrong. It’s true that it was only as deep as a nibble in the physical sense, but it doesn’t operate only on the physical. The moment the dragon’s tooth touches your blood, you know that it’s a part of you now, like your hair or your fingernails or your soul. Normally you would take some time to feel sad about this.

But it’s still on top of me, and the room is still filling with smoke and fire, so you’ll understand why I save introspection for some later date. I smack it in the head with the priest’s bowl of turnip stew, the only thing my other hand can reach for. It falls backwards, hissing, spitting and breaking out in boils. It crashes against three out of four walls running desperately out of the priest’s office.

A couple of villagers who heard the noise come bungling in shortly thereafter, help us put out the herbal fire and tend to burns. The priest rallies us into a discussion. We know that the dragon will reappear eventually, now that I’m marked. So we sit around his only-slightly-singed desk and just try to figure out how it all happened: why did the dragon run from turnip stew? Why did it choose me to begin with, and why on earth is that the first dragon that’s come to this valley in generations? We must admit now, it wasn’t the sign.

We decide that a dragon’s physical form must be allergic to turnips. It had avoided us all these years, not because of the sign or happy thoughts, but because everyone in this Teinn-forsaken village but me wolfs down turnips at every meal.

"Ah, yes, so the beast did not come to you just because of your general sad demeanor and miserable lifestyle," the priest attempts to comfort me, "but your odd aversion to turnips, as well? Interesting. I have an idea, my child." And then he stands up straight and spreads out his arms in an impressively priestly fashion. I don’t fully succeed in stifling my groan at what he says next, in a suddenly dramatic voice: "Mabel, I have a quest for you."

"Do you?" I ask.

"Indeed, young one, I do! Our fair No Dragons Valley has been safe for dragons for dozens of years owing, apparently, to our hearty diet of turnip." Breden and the other villagers nod approvingly. "And now, as priest of your village, I task you: take turnip seed from this valley and travel the world, teaching all peoples everywhere the secret to warding off dragons. Traverse all the lands, bringing the Blessing of the Turnip wherever you may tread."

After a moment of consideration he adds, in a much more ordinary voice, "You’ll probably have to ride the dragon to get from village to village quickly, but I’m sure that will be no issue."

"But…" I whine, "I don’t even like turnips."

Behind me, I think I hear the dragon growl again.