Fire Talk

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. We had lived in the highlands around a different volcano many, many years before coming down into the warm, fertile valley in order to survive. As the ice and cold became the norm, our volcano became dormant. We had to seek out a new home for us and so we traveled down, closer to the warmness of the earth and the seas surrounding it. Finding a new home which had a volcano just beginning to push its way up through the valley floor, we thrived.

But we were not alone. There were others who made the journey as we did in order to escape the ice and cold. There were changes to us also, a price we all had to pay. Some creatures did not change and the toll exacted on them was their extinction. But we dragons survived. We were once fearsome creatures, massive and frightful in the sky as well as on land. We would strike fear in the hearts of those we hunted when they saw our shadows darken the expanse above them. Our huge sweep of wings and our path of fire we could create, made us most powerful indeed. Unlike other creatures though, we could speak the Fire Talk and understand each other.

As time went on in our valley home though, our size, as the other massive creatures that populated the earth, seas, and skies, began decreasing . It was a slow process that was years happening, but we gradually became quite small. This was actually an advantage for us. Being smaller in size, meant no one starved for lack of food. There was always enough food for all. We could move beneath the undergrowth of plants, while hiding and foraging. We ate differently too. We could eat most anything as well, like hickory nuts, thimble berries, and fiddle fern tips, which added to our survival. We adapted and became many in our colonies of dragons. Yes, we had lost our vast size, but we never lost our gifts of fire, flight, or speech. We could move through the skies as easily as we used to, but not as remarkable in size as in the past.

The valley was a massive fertile land that stretched out farther than we could ever fly. The developing volcano sat in the middle like a shallow winnowing basket. We dragons lived in small colonies coexisting peacefully. Our communal nesting site was within the volcano itself. This fire gave our eggs life when the time came and we were impervious to its heat as we ourselves were fire creatures. Mother dragons would travel to the volcano to lay their eggs and bring their new hatchlings home when the time came. There were many colonies of us with a variety of personalities and physical differences. There were the gregarious smooth backed dragons with silvery skin, and gray eyes who could breathe two colors of fire. The tan and blacks with long snouts, smokey blue orbs, and formidable spikes along their tails looked fierce, but were gentle in nature, and there were shy chestnut dragons with their brindle colored faces who were the smallest yet swiftest of flyers. Differences were plenty, but we all possessed keen eyesight, could fly miles if need be, and could breathe fire. Our most remarkable gift was the Fire Talk. We could converse with each other, and understand these conversations, not just simple speak, such as to give warning, convey directions to food sources, or to attract a mate. Our Fire Talk was sophisticated and developed. We could share emotions, make plans for the future, express ourselves, and we could even pass down our creation stories to our offspring. It was an ancient tongue that every dragon could speak.

One day, a traveler came into the valley. A lone girl, small in stature like us, with hair the color of the inside of our volcano, and eyes green as the grass on the valley floor. Her tunic was hand woven and in a pattern that was unusual, much like that of fish scales or snake skin. Her trousers resembled dragonfly wings, light and supple. She needed no footwear, but moved with ease as other woodland creatures.

For days we watched her as she would gather herbs and roots, mushrooms and berries that she placed in her satchel she kept slung over her shoulder. Some days, she would lie down by the stream that meandered through the valley and watch the birds and insects fly about, sometimes rescuing one that had fallen into the water. She had a little makeshift camp with a lean to shelter in one of the outcroppings of stone in the ravine. These plants and such that she had gathered, would be toasted over her fire whilst she hummed a low song. Afterwards, she took out a small round clay object that had holes in it. It fit snugly in her tiny palm and when she blew into it, it made a beautiful melody, like the birds when they sing in the morning. We would gather quietly to listen. She didn't see us. We were too small and very careful.

One night, at the gloaming, when the joint of day is bending from light to dark, she spotted the flick of one of our tails. We had been discovered! A murmur of concern and agitation rippled through our group. We were shocked and about to flee, when the girl called out to us in the crackling, snapping, hissing tones of Fire Talk, “Do not be afraid.”