The Tears of Eórann

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. It held a deep lake surrounded by towering mountains, and the town of Gilios perched on the southern edge of the lake like a water strider, an archipelago of wooden flats webbed together with bridges and canvas. The people lived off the plentiful fish from the lake, and for many years the town was at peace.

But soon a strange shift happened. It began as a single ripple in the water, as if an unseen hand had dropped a stone into the lake, and within days the fish began to disappear. Winter had already begun to take hold, and it wasn’t long before the people began to starve. After months of suffering, four brave young men decided to take a boat across the lake and search for the missing fish. The people watched them sail away, tears freezing on their cheeks, and as days passed there was no sign of the young men. More ripples began to rock the little town, and the elders whispered tales of an ancient monster said to live at the bottom of the lake. Leviathan, they called it, a terrible creature that awoke every thousand years to feed. Some even thought it was a demon sent by the gods to purge the valley of evil, and the temple was filled night and day with supplicants begging the gods for mercy.

After ten days a girl named Eórann, whose brother had been among those lost on the lake, prayed for the gods to bring her brother back. She fell into a trance and saw a vision of the sun shining on the Great Falls that poured down from the mountains and fed the lake. The sun seemed to pierce the water and shine into a great cave, and inside the cave appeared a pair of great, glowing eyes from the darkness. After this vision, Eórann knew the gods had spoken to her, and in the dark of night, she took a boat and slipped away across the lake. She got as near as she could to the falls, then went ashore and began a treacherous climb up the mountain. The rock seemed sheer and impassable from the ground, but as she climbed she discovered places for her hands to grip and her feet to stand, and by sunrise she had climbed several hundred feet. The light struck the water, just as it had in her vision, and she could see the opening of a cave hidden behind the curtain of water. She felt her way across the cliff and managed to climb into the dim cave.

The sunrise filled the cave with a sparkling light, and Eórann saw great stone dragons sitting in the cave, dozens in many shapes and sizes arranged in a half-circle and facing her as if she had been long-expected. The greatest of all these sat directly across from her, a huge behemoth with great horns and talons, and she stepped forward into the circle. The eyes of the dragon suddenly began to glow with that same ethereal light, and Eórann felt drawn to it. She walked closer, between its great front legs right up to its belly, and touched one still-wet hand to its rough stone scales. The water on her skin was pulled into the stone, then suddenly the stone beneath her hand was changed to warm scales. The stone crumbled away, revealing brilliant blue and purple hues, and in a moment the statue had transformed into a living, breathing dragon. The other statues caught the change like dry grass catching fire, and soon the cave was alive with dragons, all twisting and wriggling with voracious joy. The great dragon bent down and touched its nose to Eórann’s forehead, and without words, she knew what must be done. She climbed up the dragon’s leg and sat between the enormous spines on its back, then with a lusty roar the dragon bounded forth, burst through the waterfall, and out into the morning sun. Eórann looked down at the lake and could see a dark shape moving ominously under the water’s surface. Behind them the other dragons were pouring from the cave’s mouth, taking to the skies with wings of scarlet, gold, jade, and violet, and one by one aligning themselves with Eórann and her sapphire mount. The dragons dived down toward the lake, and Leviathan leaped from the depths to meet the blue dragon in the air. Eórann took her brother’s dagger from her belt, then jumped from the dragon’s back and into the gaping maw of Leviathan. Some say that this unbalanced Leviathan long enough for the blue dragon to strike a fatal blow; others say that Eórann herself cut Leviathan open from the inside out. Whatever the truth, Leviathan fell back to the water mortally injured, but the dragons did not let it descend back into the depths. They lifted its body high into the air and cast it over the side of the valley, but Leviathan’s body struck the lip of the lake and broke it, creating a new waterfall that faced the sunset. Some called that waterfall Leviathan’s Fall, but to many, it was known as the Tears of Eórann. None forgot her courage, least of all the dragons. Now only young girls of great bravery could be deemed worthy to mount the dragons, becoming the famed Dragon Maidens, who now protect the Valley and its people from all who may threaten them.