Lunar Flame

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. They used to have a home in Thalessia, in the rich rugged mountains neighboring the crop-filled coastal farmland of Tamenessa. The dragons liked the farms, you see. They would help the towns folk plough their fields, herd their sheep, and even heat their ovens to bake food after harvest. The sea breeze would carry the smell of freshly baked bread and aromatic spiced stews into the mountains as the dragons woke their young from their afternoon naps.

The dragons used the farmland after harvest for their annual festival celebrating the birth of Sasieba, the great leader of dragons, who had brought peace between humans and dragons. She had taught dragons to harness the power of the flame; humans, to understand the dragons’ ways and both, to learn to live and work together, side by side. Her temple was carved into the largest of the mountains, with rooms for her priests, Agnimitra and Azar, on either side of the temple entrance at the base of the mountain.

The priests rooms were distinguished by their silhouettes burned into the rock by their entrance as Sasieba’s silhouette was burned into the inner most chamber, which only Agnimitra and Azar were allowed to enter. Sasieba’s chamber was carved out of the centre of the mountain, surrounded by eight chambers for its eight sides but only one entrance through the octahedral back chamber, which only high level elders were allowed access to. Most dragons accepted this. It was a temple after all. A sacred place. And dragons weren’t exactly the smallest, or most careful, of creatures.

Tanwen was not one of these dragons. Tanwen was not short, but shorter than most dragons her age. Her tail was actually slightly longer than most but her legs were just a little more stumpy than she’d have liked. She had scales of ocean green with horns and claws of dark grey, just a little darker than her rounded but rough scutes along her back and tail. She had never been further than the atrium. You had to be over fifty to go further into the entry halls of sanctification. And seventy to go beyond them into the square sanctuaries. Tanwen was just thirty seven, barely an adult by dragon standards.

“What is your obsession with the inner chambers?”, Helia asked, exasperated. “Can’t you just be excited for the rooms non-elders have access to? Or the festival? It’s in less than a week!”

Tanwen stopped pacing and turned to face Helia and Hestia, who had been her friends since their infancy, having been raised on the same crag. She could even tell the difference between them. Though they claimed to be identical, Helia’s scales were definitely cobalt, whereas Hestia’s were more of an azure. It was a clear day in the meadow beside the beach, and the sisters had invited Tanwen to hang out there before festival preparations blocked the meadow from public use. They had forgotten the festival got her more worked up than usual about temple conspiracy.

“How can you be excited?” she replied, “Everyone knows what’s in the square sanctuaries. It’s a temple, not a tomb! What does a dragon need a temple for anyway? The elders aren’t even much purer than the rest of us.”

Helia and Hestia leaped to their feet, their scales flashing in the sun, checking around them to make sure they were alone.

“Tanwen!”, Hestia started, “you can’t say that kind of thing. They’re preparing for the festival. What would happen if someone heard you?”

Tanwen smirked. “Exactly”, she said calmly, a glint in her eye.

Helia and Hestia gaped at Tanwen in shock, “no… you can’t be – TANWEN!”

Tanwen raced across the meadow, back to the mountains. She flashed past pastures and farmland on which elders were giving directions for festival preparations. She flew up to the temple steps and bowed deeply before climbing to the entrance.

Azar was on door duty, as he liked to call it. Tanwen called it stare too long duty, but she wasn’t too worried about being followed inside, there was a limit to how much work Azar could handle on any given day. He chose to save most of it up.

Tanwen entered the atrium. It was nice, but she’d seen it many times before. The room had eight sides, like Sasieba’s, with marble pillars in each corner, engraved with images of flame and crescent moons. Sasieba’s silhouette ran across the ceiling, embossed with emeralds and, covered by a sheet of ever shifting smoke.

Only two other dragons were in the atrium, and both had their eyes closed. Tanwen took her chance to slip into the left entrance hall of sanctification without being noticed. She gazed up at the detailed ceiling carvings depicting Sasieba drawing energy from the moon, and glanced around to the sapphire sculpture of lunar-flame within the fence of forgiveness. She didn’t notice the elder behind the door as she closed it behind her.

“I don’t think you should be in here young lady.” He said sternly.

Tanwen gasped and jumped with a start and charged towards the sanctuary door, the elder following swiftly behind and yelling for her to stop.

More elders joined the chase as she passed through the square sanctuary into the inner chamber where only the high level elders pursued her into the back chamber. And even they could go no further.

“Turn back now!”

“You can’t be here!”

“You’re desecrating the temple of Sasieba!”

Tanwen slammed the deep purple door behind her. The voices of the elders muffled by the heavy porphyry, it dawned on Tanwen where she was. She took a step back and turned slowly.

The chamber walls sparkled with precious stones and rare ores that ran through the fibre of the mountain, cream quartz pillars bordered the room, encircling a silver-lined pool carved from green serpentine rock in the centre of the room. The silhouette of Sasieba seemed to shine brighter than the gold that framed it, beckoning Tanwen closer. She hopped off the entrance ledges into the room and took a step toward the rippling pool. The water responded, rising into small waves as she grew closer, gradually growing in force. Tanwen had never been so close to the water, even in her youth when young dragons dared each other to go closer to the sea, she had never gone within ten feet of the highest wave.

Eight feet. Six feet. Five. Four. Three. Tanwen jerked to a stop as the surging waves collided in the air, sending droplets flying across the room. The spray swirled in the air and slowed to settle in a gentle orbit above the pool. Tanwen gazed at the spectacle in wonder then glanced back into the pool. Only her distorted face gazed back, reflected in somehow dry silver.

A tinkle of windchimes reached Tanwen’s ears. She lifted her face to look to the back of the chamber. Her eyes met Sasieba’s gleaming silver eyes, flecked with sapphire, and she jumped back, stumbling over her tail.

“I’m nothing to fear, my dear Tanwen”

Tanwen stepped a little closer then sat gazing up at her as she hovered beside the pool, only a little off the ground, wrapped in a warm blue glow. Her lilac scales glinted like amethyst found in the mountain crags. Her horns and claws were the same silver as her eyes, though not as bright. The smooth scutes along her back and tail were a blue grey, almost like duck egg, which is not dissimilar to many dragon eggs. Her tail curved around the full length of her body, the end swayed back and forth, hugging her front leg to rest. She was the most beautiful dragon that Tanwen had ever seen.

Tanwen glanced past her to the back wall, where a gold outline remained solitary on bare rock.

Sasieba smirked and turned back to face the place her silhouette was contained.

“I never understood the obsession with gold either. Everyone knows it’s a sun metal. I couldn’t have been clearer that silver was my thing.” She chuckled.

Tanwen looked up at her and asked, “How are you here?”

Sasieba smiled wistfully as she turned to face Tanwen. “I’m always here, Tanwen.”

“But you – ”

“Died over two hundred years ago, yes.” Sasieba continued with a pensive sigh, “A lifetime. But did you not wonder why there was a temple for a dragon?”

Tanwen gazed back at Sasieba, taken aback yet transfixed by her presence.

“I’m not a god.” Sasieba went on, “And yet, I have priests. I’m not a criminal and yet, I’m locked away. I’m not alive and yet…” she trailed off.

“Yet?”

Sasieba raised an eyebrow, smirking as she drifted around the pool to rest next to Tanwen, still seated.

Sasieba took a deep breath and spoke softly, “I’m not with the dead.” She sat looking forward and smiled but her eyes remained filled with sadness, “I can’t seem to leave this world. You would think I’d have moved on by now.”

Tanwen looked at Sasieba thoughtfully then glanced at her feet, “But I don’t understand.” She looked back at Sasieba, “What is the temple for? If you aren’t choosing to be here?”

Sasieba looked back at Tanwen and smiled, “I’m afraid I’ll need your help on that one…”