The Farmer's Dragons

“There weren't always dragons in the Valley.”

“What do you mean?” My little one asked her hair in her face tangled from a day of play.

“The old ways were much different. We didn't always have the peace we have now. There were warlords that controlled everything. We were consumed with having to please them. People worked most of their lives just to survive. If we made mistakes we had to pay on top of our mistakes, sometimes for years. They played favorites with their friends and while most were often ill and had to pay even more for any healing. Those dragons, in the valley, they saved us.”

“How did they get there?” Her 5-year-old eyes full of wonder and curiosity, I don’t ever want those to fade away. I also don’t want to scare her either. I can tone the story down just a bit and leave out the gory parts.

“There was a farmer on the far side of the valley that was building a root cellar to store extra vegetables. While digging after 7 days through ancient clay he discovered three eggs, no bigger than his closed fists, shimmery, rough and hard. Not telling a soul he used his hens to hatch them. When they hatched they were adorable with big eyes, one was small, and deep green like a forest, another was crystal blue like the ocean and the third, a bright yellow like the sun. The farmer didn’t know what he was going to feed them until he saw the yellow one chasing a chick. So he built them their own dragon coop in the root cellar. He really just built another chicken coop and called it a ‘Dragon Coop.’ He then named the chick chaser Tillandsia. The small green one was not very strong looking so he gave it a strong sounding name, Ceroxylon, and the blue one Aquina. After a few months he let them out and began to raise them like they were just another one of his many farm animals.”

“What did they eat? They didn’t try to eat the farm animals when they got bigger?” she asked as she climbed into my lap and nestled under my left arm. I smiled and nestled too.

“Nope,” I said. "The farmer had figured it out. It took him a little while but Aquina ate fish, so he built a pond and grew fish for her.”

“Wait! Her? Aquina was a her?” She asked smiling leaning forward like she wanted the answer to be yes, her little hands clasped tightly together anxious for my answer.

“Well the truth is the farmer never knew for sure. Aquina’s scales were so blue and beautifully translucent in the water and I guess a feeling he had, the farmer just choose to call her a her. The other two were boys he guessed, okay?"

“Okay.” She said easing back in my elbow with a smirk.

“Anyway. Ceroxylon ended up eating ugly and over rip fruit and vegetables, which worked out great for the farmer as you can imagine. Tillandsia ate extra old eggs and then any crow that came along to eat the farmer’s crops. The farmer had it better than most of the people because his crops were were beautiful and his eggs were fresh, so he had some money and he lived away from town on the far side of the valley. He did begin to worry constantly about the warlords finding the dragons once they got bigger than his goats. They got more daring in their ventures into the valley while the goats grazed. One day just before sunset, when the sun was low in the sky Ceroxylon was seen and unfortunately was captured.”

“Oh no, what happened?"Did Aquina and Tillandsia rescue Ceroxylon?”

“Yes, Yes, but not right away, Ceroxylon was heavily guarded and was still smaller than the other two. The farmer needed a plan, and he needed allies, friends that would help him if he was going to be successful. So the next day at the farmers' market he asked several of his regular customers that relied on the farmer for their food to come by his farm at sunset to discuss something important. When a few showed up the farmer thanked them, then confided with them, told them the whole story and then asked if they would help rescue Ceroxylon.

The dragons are masters of remaining hidden, how Ceroxylon was seen was a mystery, so the villagers thought the farmer was crazy until they saw the dragons come out to greet them. ‘Aquina, Tillandsia come meet our friends!’ the farmer shouted smiling. When they came out of the farmer’s barn, the setting sun was reflecting off their iridescent scales, small bat like wings were growing on their backs now, they flapped them and stood up on their hind legs. Their wings still not big enough to fly but they stood over 6 feet tall. The villagers gasped”

“Oh my goodness”

“You’ve got to be kidding me”

“Those can’t be real.”