Of Magic and Stardust

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Her mind used to consist of hopeful things, the fairies, the knights in shining armor, the fantastical places they had visited.

Now things were darker. The streets of her mind are filled with soot. There weren’t always dragons in the valley, but there are now. They exist as proof of the battles that have been fought.

When Kiera was born, her family came to visit with spongy cakes and minced-meat pies. Little pieces of knit clothing in prints of florals and bunnies. There was love. There was a community. There were no dragons then.

We didn’t need them.

The sound of laughter roared in the village. Chalice’s clanked and spilled over. Protection was a force field cast by love, by the powers we had within, the evil hadn’t come for us yet. All being’s belonged, this was home. This place used to feel like home.

After the reign of Jorgia, things were different. Families didn’t visit. Families barely exist now. It’s much harder to navigate in the dark. It’s much harder to live on, when you know what’s been lost.

The silence now is most alarming. You can hear lumber being chopped. The dragging of chains in the work yards. The scribble of pencils in the school. These are not acts of magic.

If you listen closely enough you can hear the men in the pub with their deep belly laughs.

They don’t have much to laugh about, but they have found their ways to cope.

We all have. The mothers make themselves busy in the home, overprotective of their young.

In their gardens, protective of their yield. In the underground corridors, protective of their crafts. They know what the dragons are capable of.

Some of the mother’s did not make it through. Physically maybe - but their souls died in the fires. You may hear them shriek, far off in the hills. You may hear locals talk about them. We should all know better.

Sometimes I wonder if I will be a woman of the hills. Will I be a mother at all? Was my magic lost in the fire with the others?

The young adults, like myself … we get by too. We dream and hope of the world that lies ahead. It looks a lot like the world we left behind. A vivid memory.

We hurt, we all do, you can see it in our eyes. In the dullness of our spirits.

The kids now are different. They revel in the ash, happy to even breathe. They forge forward. We cry. Our eyes and our throats burn. We don’t love this heat.

For the new: the dragons are a symbol of triumph, of the defeated. Of the lives that survived the horrid heat.

They are a celebration. Idolized by way of a new world that was promised.

They represent the loss of what used to be. They represent a dry barren valley. A land that was lush, green, enriched with our kind, all kinds, magical and mystical. We did not ask for the false fantasy of this new world.

Our existence was beyond their wildest dreams. The magic is banished now. The stories have changed.. but we are still here.

Maybe we are different. We have lost some of ourselves along the way, but when you are made of the stars, not even dragons can destroy that.

Before we are old, and the true dragon stories have long past us, I want to share of the land and peoples that existed.

There weren’t always dragons in the valley, but there are now, and this is the story of how they got here.