Fantasy
Secondhand Scales
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. For most, there still weren’t. There were only costumes, velvet fur dyed green and pink and purple, marble eyes embedded in headdresses staring you down in the street, tin claws clanging in time to the drums of the parade.
By Melody Reynauld4 years ago in Fiction
Vengeance
"There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. They came with the storm, a wicked whirlwind of rain, ice, and fire." Gunther's voice was hushed, and the children that had gathered around huddled closer, eyes wide. "They descended upon us with the anger of the Gods. Our homes were trampled into dust, or torched to nothing but ash!"
By Moonlighter4 years ago in Fiction
A Feat of Four Fools
"There weren't always dragons in the valley…" rattled the old man, his tone bitter and his volume faint. "No, there was a time at which era we would have been safe to roam without ado the plains of land above our trenches and antres we now encave in like cowering mice, but scant is the company that can attest to such epochs, and scanter still those that would bid of them soothly. This is because company of that like would be preponderantly plagued by such poor memory which often accompanies old age, their aged memories ripe with truths contorted by senility and bent at whim to the obscure state of their minds eye. I am lucky to have circumvented such fate."
By Tristan Holy4 years ago in Fiction
Advent
There weren't always dragons in the Valley, but no one will forget the day the streets filled with screams of terror or the thundering of massive wings stirred the atmosphere. What had once been nothing more than folklore and tall tales for children suddenly became a waking nightmare as flying monsters of fury and might engaged in combat in the skies over Chattanooga. Buildings were ravaged and the streets flooded with dragon fire as they clashed overhead. The dragons raged for a week before finally retreating into the mountains to tend to their wounds.
By HeyItsPhephen4 years ago in Fiction
Out of the Ashes
“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” I thought with distress. I keep replaying in my head over and over, “There weren’t always dragons in the valley.” I must try harder to remember when all the carnage started. Where did it all begin? How did it all begin? I can feel the earth hardening, tightening against my skin. I am so tired but each time I close my eyes the horror of last night floods my thoughts, and the fear I saw in their eyes terrorizes me. My family, my friends, all those I loved are gone. Lying in this place, I cannot help but notice the blue sky filled with gentle white clouds. When I was a kid, I would lay in the fields around our valley home and imagine all the shapes I could see in the sky, welcoming shapes, images only a child protected from the world could imagine. Today, lying here, staring at the clouds, all I can see is smoke billowing from the homes in the valley, and images of devastation and destruction beyond what I could ever have imagined. I cannot make the images in my mind disappear, burned into my memory from the snarling hellfire of those dragons, those demons. My teeth grind, my fists clench, and I fill with rage and hate thinking about what those creatures have done to our world. I command myself, “Get up, get up now, move, leave this place!” I just cannot. I am too weak. My limbs are heavy, my body feels broken, and the mud hardening around my shape is becoming my tomb. I can feel myself slipping into darkness and I cannot fight sleep any longer. I whisper softly to myself, “There weren’t always dragons in the valley.”
By Erich Poch4 years ago in Fiction
Dragons a Dozen: Ten Pence a Pair
There weren’t always dragons in the valley. There weren’t always dragons nesting in the bustling city of Acklemare - not until a little magic trick decided otherwise - a trick so small and quaint, harmless and repetitive, to be confused with the act of stewing carrot and onion broth. Only, without the carrots and onions. Any old literare squibbler could read up on the process if they pleased in a pocket sized, ornately illustrated manuscript titled: “Mars AnteCariot’s ‘Cooking Up Dragons,” not to be confused with simply “Cooking Dragons'' by a very different author. The little ritual goes as follows:
By J.R Bevier4 years ago in Fiction
The End of Ages
“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” The Elder Dragon’s voice boomed across the pitch-blackness of the cave as the new generation of dragons surrounded him. Every murmur and whisper that escaped the young ones’ lips were hushed the instant he spoke; every wandering eye was now glued to his.
By Kayla sutton4 years ago in Fiction
Treasure
There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. ‘Dragons’ – that was what we called them: the surly, violent soldiers who wore the Maudraci crest. They’d earned their nicknames from the brilliant crest emblazoned on their shields: a red dragon spitting fire and curled around a sword. The dragons had appeared in the Valley six months ago, a black legion that had invaded the once-pleasant village like a plague.
By Natasya Paris4 years ago in Fiction
DRAGONS OF PAUL HILL
LIKE BIG BROTHER, the dragon's eye was ever watching from its undisclosed settling someplace in the Vulcan Mine along RED MOUNTAIN. It could see from beneath the stratified rock of kidney red hematite which literally passed as the hide from a reptilian carcass found many generations ago by children playing in the new mining settlement. The dragon's eye could see well beyond the clays beneath the Wenonah Schools, a company-owned school series for local children of miners living within company-owned mining towns established by the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company (TCI) of 1917... but there weren't always dragons in the Valley. The dragons came because of the digging. Digging in the mines for so long and so deep in a widespread area that had not been cleansed of bones from eras long ago. The mines reached as deep as the Jurassic Era layers and pulled from Carboniferous Era tiles worked for decades of opening layer after layer, wall after connecting wall underground, some connecting into long closed mines. The Wenonah School, nearly complete as early as 1943, was destroyed by a fire caused by a lightning bolt in 1946. The Tennessee Coal & Iron (TCI) Company donated a parcel of land consisting of approximately 16 acres (6.5 ha) to be used for new elementary and high schools. Construction began but was not completed within its schedule due to vibrant antagonism from surrounding populations and accomplished work was repeatedly demolished. Because it had such drawn-out and lengthy channels to bypass before classes could be held within a building, alternate plans began in the fall of 1946. Students were sent to attend classes within the distant town of Galilee, Bryant Chapel, and Mt. Olive Baptist Church. They were grudgingly accommodated among populations of Riley and Powderly Schools for which materials were provided by TCI for heat and lights and construction projects. A new Wenonah Elementary School and Wenonah High School were built and completed on land donated by TCI by 1947. With persistence and determination, the education program took hold and students could attend their designated campus. In spite of the good it was doing in regard to educating the children of its workers, The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) was and had been one of the largest users of prison laborers, mostly Blacks convicted of petty crimes... a petty crime being a classification of crime that falls mostly in the category of violations and infractions. They were put to work for whatever duration in the coke furnaces for smelting or the mines for digging red ore, coal, and limestone. This, as penalization for their convictions of petty crime.. traffic offenses, disorderly conduct, and shoplifting. Petty means of little consequence or importance; as a method for paying fines... "for their sins." Petty as it was, it was their evil met with evil done them in trade. Drawn from therein was the source for mining labor in Alabama at the close of the Reconstruction Era after the America's CIVIL WAR. The number of convicts employed increased after 1907... after the end of slavery, as did the brutality of the conditions in which these mining workers labored. In 1908, almost 60 "prison" workers died from workplace-related accidents. It was as though it were simply created as a prison and not a corporate entity at all. Prisons provoke unrecounted evil built upon evil.
By CarmenJimersonCross4 years ago in Fiction
Dragon's in The Valley
“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, but there are now.” Regina, the Queen of Starseed, was known in her kingdom as the youngest and only female leader. She rose to power at 16, after the death of father and the disappearance of mother and older sister. Her rulership extended from the Starseed Castle, the Valley, Enchanted Forest, and the Town Village. Regina wanted to lead differently than her father because she found out about a dark family secret. Regina was provocative and intelligent. She cared about her kingdom.
By AGirlFromSF4 years ago in Fiction
