Starting Off on the Right Foot

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Thank goodness that had changed. The old days sounded incredibly boring. Josie wouldn’t have the Valley any other way.

It had happened suddenly. One day, the dragons had just shown up, flying into the valley from all over the place. Or, from somewhere. No one rightly knew where they had all come from. There had never been dragons anywhere else before they’d shown up in the Valley, and there weren’t dragons anywhere else now either, but the Valley was full of them.

Tiny jeweled dragons that flitted around like birds and kept the insect population quite under control. A massive armored dragon that breathed fire and spent most of her day sleeping. Glittering serpentine dragons who made their homes in the lakes and rivers, snaking gracefully along with the current, keeping the water crystalline clear. Vibrant, spiny dragons so brightly colored and patterned their leathery skin hurt your eyes when the sun shone directly on them, with horns and spikes that covered their bodies and clacked as they walked. Shimmery dragons with pebble skin, that vanished if they held still and flew as silent as ghosts.

When the dragons had first arrived, there had been, what one might call, a massive freakout.

Valley residents had fled, or barricaded themselves in their homes. Every news outlet in the country reported on the sudden incursion of fantasy beasts, and what it could mean for the economy and the upcoming election. The national guard was called in, then the Marines.

Attempts were made to round up the dragons, futile attempts. The smaller dragons flitted all over the place, as uncontainable as mist. The bigger dragons shrugged off everything from tranquilizer darts to rocket-propelled grenades. An entire platoon of tanks was sent to the north end of the valley to move the massive gray, scaled dragon who had made her nest there, but all of them together could not get her to budge when she had settled in for a nap. The tanks pressed forward, tearing up the turf beneath their tracks, and the dragon paid them no more attention than the wind.

It was the abject failure of the tanks and rocket propelled grenades that finally got everyone to realize that the dragons didn’t seem all that interested in the humans. They weren’t wrecking buildings or hunting children. They had just…moved in, and gone about their days.

The people of the Valley, far from wanting to evacuate due to creatures that didn’t pose an immediate danger, simply adapted. They had always had to be prepared and cautious of wildlife before, there being plenty of deer and bears about. Occasionally they would even sight a mountain lion! Surely if the dragons kept to themselves and barely lashed out against a team of tanks, it was possible to coexist. People are stubborn about leaving their homes, so the dragons became merely a fact of life, and a major tourist attraction.

The children of the Valley were taught to treat the dragons as dangerous predators, like bears or mountain lions. They might not be malicious, but they were dangerous and powerful and you should avoid them and not draw notice to yourself.

Tourists were driven around the boundaries of the Valley in specially adapted buses in order to get close up views of the massive gray dragon that slept in the north, and the bright spiny dragons that roamed in the foothills. Viewing platforms were installed over the lake for visitors to catch a glimpse of the serpentine water dragons. Gardens packed full of flowering shrubs and fruit trees were planted specifically to draw the attention of the tiny jeweled dragons.

Josie wasn’t satisfied with treating the dragons as dangerous animals, or watching them from a bus. The first time they’d addressed the dragons in school–their history in the valley and how dangerous they all were–Josie had stood up, planted her fists on her hips, and proudly declared:

“I’m going to make friends with the dragons!”

And she did.

It had been tricky, and taken some time, but the dragons were nice and not dangerous at all–at least not to her. Turned out that dragons react very differently to armored trucks and rocket-propelled grenades compared to a smiley girl with bouncy curls and a bag of sandwiches.

The bird-like, jeweled dragons came first, as they were easily the least intimidating. They liked fruit, and Josie was all too happy to share her blueberries with them during the summertime. She’d toss them into the air and the little sparkling dragons would descend like a flock of seagulls chasing bread, snatching the berries out of the air before they could fall back to the ground. They whistled, and whirred, and came to rest on her shoulders, nibbling at her hair and tugging on her sleeve in hopes of more berries appearing.

She named them all. Short, fluttering names for small, fluttering dragons. Flik and Wisp, Lark and Nyx, Paz and Rue, Blue and Lai.

Soon, they came near when she walked toward the trees where they nested. Not long after, they came when she called for them, almost anywhere in the valley. By the autumn, she could call each one of them over specifically by name.

By that time, the weather had turned. All across the valley, the trees had shifted from vibrant greens to deep reds and blazing oranges. The wind turned sharp and cold, and the days grew shorter. The little fluttering dragons became slow and sleepy, building up their nests and spending more time curled up together in their little balls of grass and twigs than they did out flying. The spiny dragons, and chameleon-like, pebble-skinned dragons seemed to vanish entirely. Josie wondered if they’d all flow off before discovering large, deep burrows beneath the trees. Apparently they hibernated too.

The residents of the valley expected Josie to try the water dragons next. It seemed, to them, the natural progression, moving from smallest to largest. Josie, however, had already noticed that the water dragons seemed to be settling in for the cold weather in the same way the other dragons were, and she didn’t want to disturb them as they prepared to sleep. You didn’t bother bears in the early winter. It made sense you shouldn’t bother sleepy dragons either.

So, instead, Josie turned her attention to the massive gray dragon at the north end of the valley. The colossal creature’s behavior hadn’t changed at all. She–Josie had decided long ago the dragon must be a she–slept for most of the day, awoke near dusk to fly and hunt for a few hours, then returned to her nest of stone and entire trees to sleep again.

Unlike the tiny bird-dragons, this one liked meat. Her evening flight usually ended with her carrying back the carcass of a deer or coyote clenched in her teeth, then roasting it on the stones near her nest with her fire breath. She made short work of them, chomping down every bit, even bones and whatever fur was left after the scorching. Josie decided to see if she liked beef jerky.

It was just after the first frost when Josie had a chance to make the hike to the northern end of the valley, a fresh pack of jerky in her bag. The wind was chilly, and the sky was a dark slate, the perfect cover for the gray-scaled fire-breather. Finding the nest empty, Josie settled down on a dry stone–not the blackened cooking stone–and waited patiently for the dragon to return.

For a creature so large, the dragon arrived very suddenly, emerging from the gray sky in a graceful dive that brought her down just beside the nest. She stalled her descent by flapping her massive wings, halting her fall and sending a sharp gust of wind across the grass, so powerful it knocked Josie off her rock and stirred the logs in the nest. A deep, pounding boom, like thunder, accompanied the gust.

The giant dragon landed surprisingly lightly, carefully avoiding Josie. She turned to face the tiny human who waited for her, gazing at her with lazy curiosity. Her breath was loud and hot. There was no deer clenched in her teeth today.

For just a moment, Josie considered that walking right up to the biggest dragon of all of them, the one who eats meat and hunts smaller creatures, right when hunting was getting scarce, might have been a mistake. It was one thing to know the fire-breather was the size of a hill, it was quite another to stand under her. Josie shook that doubt away, smiled her brightest, most eager smile, and dug into her backpack, holding up the package of beef jerky. She had to crane her neck all the way up to look at the dragon’s face.

“This is for you!” she said happily, then emptied the bag of dried meat onto the scorched stone, backing away so the dragon could inspect the gift without squishing her. The dragon lowered her car-sized head, sniffed at the jerky, then licked it all up, then swiveled toward Josie and gently nudged her shoulder, sniffing expectantly.

“I don’t have any more today,” Josie said, giggling and patting the hard scales along the dragon’s snout. They were smooth and warm, like rocks heated in the sun all day. “I’ll bring more tomorrow.”

The dragon examined Josie with one of her deep black eyes, staring at her for a moment before blinking slowly and raising her head up again. She stepped into her nest, harrumphing and shifting her feet to shuffle the stones and uprooted trees into a more comfortable position. Josie watched with fascination as boulders and old growth cedars were shifted like twigs and pebbles.

“I’m going to call you…Bertha,” Josie declared. It seemed like the correct name for a castle-sized dragon who liked naps and breathed like a train engine blowing off steam.

Bertha blinked down at the tiny human child, let out an amused huff, and curled back around to nap once again.

When Josie’s parents asked how her day had been over dinner that evening, she happily informed them of her progress.

“It was great! I made friends with Bertha today!”

“That’s quite a name for a cute little dragon,” her mother replied, chuckling.

“Oh no! Bertha is the big gray one that lives on North Hill and sleeps all the time,” Josie replied.

Her parents paused, still as a freeze frame while they processed what their daughter had just said. Josie turned her attention back to her dinner, oblivious as her mother slowly lowered her fork, removed her glasses, and pressed her hands to her forehead. Her father sat back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling.

The people of the Valley weren’t sure at all what to make of Josie’s endeavors. Some found her efforts encouraging. Others deemed her a public menace. Her hobby was the topic of more than one heated school board meeting.

In the end, they would all be very grateful.