Dragons in the Valley

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

That was something relatively known by everyone.

Few today know the specifics of what happened three centuries ago. According to my grandfather, everything happened on a day called the rupture; a day when the earth rumbled and the Valley became an unclaimable territory—a place where none dared to venture. Dragons weren’t the only thing that emerged that day.

Grandfather wasn’t a talkative person. He was a quiet fellow; rarely spoke a word to anyone. Sometimes he appeared more of a statue than a person.

He was old and didn’t move much. Often, he stared out the window of our home. Alert, unsettled, glancing at every bush that rustled nearby. He was never able to relax.

And then one day, he left for the Valley.

I remember my mother taking me to the edge of Meredith, our mountain. She held my hand, and never once shed a tear. I did not cry either, for the man was but already a ghost in our home.

I’ll never forget. From above, the Valley was a beautiful and lush environment—seemed a place for adventurers and discoveries. It sat tucked away between the sibling mountains, Meredith and Vilem, and contained an innocent, unassuming look from afar. One could almost believe it was widely traveled from the steady look of its terrain.

Then my mother pulled me back home, limping as per usual, and made me carrot soup that night. She also laid a cloak over grandfather’s chair, telling me not to touch it until the morn. Something was different about her. She was much like the old man in that regard. Strange.

All night, she packed up the tiny log-home we resided in.

By morn, she had me strapped to her back, small packs tied to her arms and thighs. A spellbook sat on her left hip, a sword sat on her right, and a giant cloak rested over hers and my back. The arrangement forced me to look only through her hood as we left the abode.

The air was crisp when the sun shown, and moist when occasional fogs rolled over our shoulders. For hours, it was just us, the silence, and the mountain. Every once in a while, she’d pause if a bird flew overhead, fire sparking to life in her palms, only dimming when the creature was passed.

I was only ten at the time, but it was on this trip that she began speaking to me; disrupted my understanding of the life we lived.

“Utter not a sound, my child. These trails are not safe. You are old enough to know, I am but a temporary mother. Your real one, bless her soul, entrusted you to my care. I know not if she lives…but we will know soon. For you see, the lands we step near have long been torn at the seams by magic and dragons.”

I wanted to believe she was lying, but I would not break her command of silence. She and grandfather long emphasized the dangers of the mountain and the Valley. So, I listened on.

She spoke as though she’d rehearsed this her whole life.

“Your, uhm, grandfather, Croyven. He spoke of a story many years ago, when I was still a soldier on the field. He spoke of a prince and a prophet. The beginning of dragons. Magic. Spoke of a strange world before such things. Said there was a chance to undo everything and set the world right again.”

It was just her voice and the silent air as we descended the mountain. She went on to tell me how our mountain, Meredith, and the one across from us, Vilem, acted as the borders between the nations of Maerd and Vilca. Apparently, the two nations had been whole before the rupture; a time when the Valley was still traversable by human foot and nestled at the core of the then-whole nation.

No one knows who or what set off the rupture, but everyone knows that dragons and the other thing, the unlimited source of raw power, came rushing into to the world. People developed strange abilities, the good, the bad, and the gray. It didn’t take long for people to cross one another, for communities to fall apart, for dragons to terrorize the Valley and the mountains.

Such powerful creatures were the dragons. Many still roam free, but now there are those that have been detained and raised by humans. Whipped into creatures of war.

She went quiet for a while after that, letting her footsteps carry us down the loose gravel of the mountain path. Her hair tickled my nose, so I buried my face in her neck. Though she said she wasn’t my mother, I still felt she was. She and the old man, they had always been there for me. When she did begin speaking again, she said:

“You and I…we will try to find the prince and the prophet. Your grandfather believed in prophecies, and I…I am willing to try. For your mother. For a semblance of peace.”

She stopped walking, and I felt her hand move to her heart, where it rested for a while. Her breathing remained steady, but she held still like a weight was holding her down. The sun happened to go behind a passing cloud at that moment, and she looked up, scanning the area ahead.

After a moment, she lifted her foot and started us forward again. We walked a long time, never stopping except once to scan the environment. It was at that point she pivoted into a crevice as a large shadow passed overhead. It was noisy. Something of a creature monumental in size.

I couldn’t see anything, but I felt my mother pull out her spellbook. The pages fanned to life as the roaring wind of the creature’s wings circled back our way. I’ll never know for sure what happened, but I remember how still my mother stood, how a spray of sand and pebbles whipped around our bodies. There was a gust of heat and wind, a vortex of fiery light that lasted many a second. Then there was a calming of the elements, and the entity was gone.

My breath, I realized, had been held the whole while. I clutched my arms around my mother and remembered to breathe once again.

My mother hushed me and said the creature had been a dragon. She had warded it away with a spell, and warned me to never trust dragons. No one can tell which ones are wild, trained, or gray. While magnificent, too many times have unsuspecting travelers trusted the wrong one and been stolen, killed, or worse.

Perhaps she didn’t mean for me to hear it, but she muttered, “Well, there was a time when…no, it doesn’t matter now.” Then, louder, she affirmed, “My child, never trust them. Nor anyone who comes from the Valley.”

And then, we continued our descent into Maerd, to find the prince, the prophet, and some peace.