Dragons in the Valley of the Morning Star

Dragons In The Valley of the Morning Star

“There weren’t always dragons in the valley.”

That’s what they said. That’s what they told me.

Funny, how I blew those warnings off. Nobody wants to hear that just as they are about to embark on a long-awaited vacation. A much-needed vacation. A vacation that might be viewed as an inoculation of sorts, or self-medication even…a salve to be applied to the constant pressure of an incredibly stressful and equally thankless job. A vacation that cost me nearly the entire GNP of Paraguay. Not that that put any kind of dent in my portfolio. As much as I hated my job, I did work for one of the most successful financial institutions in the world. I was very good at my job. And as much as I loathed that work, my serial reluctance to pry myself away from that grind's daily ins and outs had made me extremely wealthy.

“Dragons? C’mon, man!” I joked as my driver loaded my luggage into the rusted-out bed of a well-used pick-up truck. No stretch limos here. No, sir. This place was quaint. Rustic. And rain foresty, with lots of green things. “Just get me to my beautifully photographed, marketed, and vastly overpriced bungalow.” This was a dream vacation crib, perched on stilts, ever so gracefully, above a picturesque lagoon. I couldn’t wait to get there, unpack and decompress. It had been a long, long time since I had even considered taking some “me” time. That time had arrived. Dragons? Really?

“No, bruddah,” my driver shot back. “Dis ain't no joke.”

“Whatever! Let’s go…please?”

“….weren’t always dragons…” You’d think they might want to lead with, “Hey, man! Don’t go to the valley. There’re dragons there!”

To which I probably would have had the same, dismissive response.

Not so much now, as I crashed through the valley’s dense foliage. Leaves as big as Volkswagens engulfed the tiny pathway I was desperate to follow. Who knew what horrors lay beyond the boundaries of this narrow trail. Behind me, the sound of chaos erupted from the enveloping canopy of exotic trees, giant ferns, massive bamboo stands, and the occasional philodendron. I was hurtling through this uncharted jungle path; a path that on any other day might have been vaguely inspiring in its ancient and mysteriously beautiful way.

A hair-straightening yowl cut through the vines. That sound goosed me into trying harder, running faster. Sadly, I was not in any kind of shape for this level of exertion. I was the kind of guy that resorted to sucking in his stomach, faking the six-pack, whenever I passed by anyone remotely attractive…or threatening. As I hurled my pudgy body through the encroaching undergrowth I vowed to return to the gym as soon as humanly possible.

I fought the urge to turn and try to take a peek at whatever in the name of all-things-scary was bearing down on me. Welts and scratches covered every inch of my thoughtlessly exposed skin. This surely was a call to table for legions of gnats, swarms of black flies, and mosquitoes the size of ping pong balls. A strong gust of wind nearly bowled me over. This was followed by a furious flapping sound, like a luffing mainsail on a boat running downwind of a brisk squall.

“Please…Please… don’t let whatever that sound came from be a sound made by a living creature,” I prayed. This, of course, was an oblique reference to any reptilian thing with the ability to fly.

“Do you, by any chance, mean Dragon?” might be a reasonable question, under different circumstances, of course. Perhaps the folklorish musing about dragons not always being around wasn’t as foolish as I had thought just hours ago.

Another, much more powerful blast of wind finally knocked me down. I was flat on my face. A deep shadow cast a shroud of darkness over me as I lay there. I heard the flapping sound begin to slow. Oh, no! Wings. The jungle foliage around me whipped and swayed with the undulating motion of a bird…a really big one…coming in for a landing. On top of me.

Trembling with fear, I ever so delicately tried to roll over. The thing now hovering over me was enormous. I felt like I was trying to move while pinned beneath a school bus whose wheels were parked on my shoulders. This thing was...without doubt…a dragon. And as frightening as it was, it was also gorgeous. Even from my pinioned position, I could see that its armor-like coat was extraordinarily colorful. The plate-sized scales on this dragon's sides and arms sported a rainbow of vibrant hues. Crimson red, bright blue, jungle green, and burnt orange. This was beginning to sound like a commercial for Fruit Loops, I know. But hey, that’s the way it looked. Its broad belly, under which I now quivered, was blazing yellow with deep indigo accents. Its eyes shone with a luminous purple glow.

“Why did you run from me?” I not so much heard as felt and understood. A telepathic dragon? I was going to have a little tête à tête with my travel agent if and when I ever got back home.

“Have you ever seen yourself? In a mirror?” I replied. “You would run from you, given the chance.”

“Home?” it asked, completely ignoring my response to its first question. “You are home!” the dragon hissed into the inner sanctums of my mind.

“What?” I shouted. “Get off of me!” I struggled to push myself out from underneath it.

Its nostrils flared. Its eyes turned a deeper shade of purple. It exhaled. My eyebrows ceased to exist along with the front-line defenders of my receding hairline. I could smell the pungent aroma of singed human hair.

“Be still,” it commanded, in its annoyingly invasive way. I made myself still. I could not afford to lose any more of my hair than was already on the male-pattern-baldness chopping block. In my line of work, you’ve got to look the part.

The dragon continued to stare at me. Its lavender eyes bore into my own mousy brown, alarmingly wide open peepers.

“You are home,” it repeated, the tone of its words bouncing around in my head. “I am just surprised and saddened by how…insubstantial…my only living relative has turned out to be.” The dragon eased up a bit, giving me a bit of room to maneuver.

I stopped trying to understand what this thing wanted. Apparently, I wasn’t on the dinner menu. But, insubstantial? I was outraged. Only living relative? Was this the beginning of the end for me?

“What do you mean by ‘relative’?” I meekly asked. “I’d like a little clarity here.” Somehow, I thought it best not to flail at the ‘insubstantial’ comment. I rightly judged that I didn’t have the leverage for that particular argument at that particular moment.

“You, Stanley, are my cousin,” were the words it uttered. I understood them clearly, even if the sound was all inside my head. This was insane. I was going crazy.

“How is that even possible?” I murmured, fighting to regain some stability, some sense of balance. I was also stretching time. I just needed a moment to divert this mountainous reptile’s attention from making me its afternoon snack. I also was grappling with the simple possibility of such a wild proclamation. “And how, exactly, do you know my name?”

The dragon leaned back a little, relieving some of the pressure of its weight from my shoulders with a gentle flapping of its wings. As deathly afraid as I was, something about that gesture calmed me down…just a notch. I got a distinct feeling that this creature would do me no harm.

“I know everything about you, Stanley,” it replied. “We are cousins. The DNA we share is quite ancient. It forms our ability to communicate. The antiquity of the blood bond between humans and dragons is indisputable. It has also provided direct linkages between our species across millennia. Now, the task at hand comes down to you and me. We are the sole survivors of our shared ancestry. You and I,” it said. After a pause for effect, it added, “I am your cousin, Donita.” The dragon smiled, then eased itself off and away from me, allowing me to take in and try to process all of this information.

“What are you talking about?” I wanted to scream but didn’t. “Am I hallucinating? Would you check to see if I have all of my oars in the water…Donita?”

Donita exhaled, her eyes zeroing in. My mustache vaporized.

“Will you please stop doing that?”

“You must listen to me,” Donita pleaded, in her breathy, yet soundless, way. “Over the centuries, the fortunes of the people of Isle L'Étoile du Matin have been negated. Erased. They have been systematically relieved of the natural resources and wealth that accompany such resources. All of this thievery has been at the behest of one organization. The organization for whom YOU work. Crédit Mondial et Sauvage.

“What the…” All of a sudden I could not breathe. I felt like a golf ball was stuck in my throat. This was all too much for me to take in.

“The people here are in grave danger,” my cousin warned. There is little time to correct this abhorrent history. To make things right. To get back to the balance that sustains life itself.”

“I don’t have anything to do with any of this,” I complained.

“Silence!” she boomed right into and through me. I have followed every bit of your pathetic, selfish, greedy, grabbing life since you were born…”

That hurt, but she did have a point. I am nothing if not self-aware. Although, I might quibble with ‘pathetic’ as a fair depiction of my character.

“...I provided boosts to your education and career as needed. I have guided you from afar. You are here, now. Standing in front of me because I have willed it to be. You have EVERYTHING to do with this,” she bellowed.

As she exhaled, the hairs on my arms sizzled and evaporated. Aw, man. If this keeps up I’m going to start to look like a hairless, brown-skinned albino.

“Ow! Okay! I believe you! Please stop blow torching me, “ I begged.

Donita looked surprised at the tone of my request. She backed up a little. Her eyes saddened a bit.

“For centuries, the scions of this financial institution, have systematically exploited the wonders of L'Étoile. Generation after generation of Crédit Mondial et Sauvage leadership has deprived the indigenous peoples of this island of their rightful share of all that has been extracted from it. A succession of Pettigrew progeny, pirates all, have always been at the helm of such sleight-of-hand. A Pettigrew now runs this toxic organization.”

“Wait. Hold on a minute. Pettigrew? My boss is Frank Huntington!” You're telling me that Frank is a Pettigrew?" I was stunned. I had an inkling of the evil machinations of the Pettigrews. I was aware of what they had always been up to. But Frank Huntington. A Pettigrew? That I did not know.

“The very same,” Donita confirmed.

“I hate Frank Huntington,” I snarled, unable to control myself. “That man is a walking nightmare.” Somehow, the irony of the current situation escaped me, but I plowed on, “This is a guy who is chronically late or absent. He appropriates everybody else’s ideas, claiming them as his own. He screams and yells at everyone who dares to question him or his methods. He lines his own pockets with the skim from his own family’s fortune. He is a loathsome human being who should never have been left in charge of Crédit…”

“That is correct,” my cousin added. “It is also the reason I have brought you here.”

“Uh… What can I do about any of this?” I said. “I’m just a lowly bean counter. Well-paid and very good at my job, but just a peon, a nobody.”

“You have become an extremely deft bean counter. I told you I have followed your career from the beginning. You are exactly the man for the task at hand. The only one that can make this right!”

The unsinged hairs on the back of my neck began to tingle. “What are you into here, Stan?” I asked myself.

“Um. Okay,” I intoned. “Task? What is it that you want me to do?”

Donita rose to her full height. She stretched her wings out to their full span, almost as if in prayer. “I want you, Stanley Drazil,” she proclaimed, “to help me commit robbery upon Crédit Mondial et Sauvage. I want you to help me take every last sou associated with their far-flung empire and redisperse it to all those who are truly suffering and in need.

I picked myself up off of the jungle valley floor and swiped at the remnants of my hairline. Ashes coated my palm.

I looked right into Donita’s dancing lavender eyes. I hated the Pettigrews, especially Frank, more so as he had just been identified as one of them. I hated my job. Crédit Mondial et Sauvage and all of the evil it represented could wither away and fade to dust as far as I was concerned. I was on the edge, looking down on the life I was about to discard. I decided to jump.

“Okay! I’m in. What’s the plan?”