The Dance

Written June 1997

"Something comes on breaths of light, a strange and brilliant thing to sight, " it hissed, running over the plains and hills on tiptoe, throught and around the trees and across the sea. "It comes tonight for one and all, to prove to all that heed its call."

Shadows wavered in wonder, and the streams murmured to the rivers of the things the wind said. What could it be? Wisps paused midflight with dreams still undelivered, demons halted the nightmares, and even the trees silenced their conversations. Not a sound was made but for the whirring of thoughts. The earth trembled, expectant.

The wind whirled and leaped. "Nearing now, in silent tread, hereupon where it's been led. Ne'er been seen in but millenium, it pauses to finish what it's begun!"

The earth rumbled softly a few suggestions, but none listened. They glanced around, curious, wondering where it would come from, and what it would do when it arrived. A night lily bent its mouth to the grass' ear, and it wavered in an unheard reply. A pair of mice peeked up from their ground burrow, pink noses and twitching whiskers turned toward the sky. Moonbeams danced on leaves and petals, anxious, even as their mother in the sky scolded them. If one looked hard enough into the forest, they might be able to see the soft glimmer of a horn of pearl; the night was adrift with magick.

A rabbit hopped out onto the grass, curious, and a hawk perched on a nearby branch. In this one soft moment in history, nothing was killed, not for sport, nor play, nor for food. All lay silent and expectant. Beetles froze on the sands of the Sahara, jungle cats stopped their prowling in the jungles of Brazil. Mountain goats stopped skimming up slopes, wolfs stopped howling their chase on the Alaskan plain. The wind was the only thing that dared to move or make a sound.

"All here upon herald my cry, cast upward your eyes unto the sky!"

And in the dark expanse of space, through all the glowing and twinkling stars, there came a soft warble of music, like a bird's welcoming cry to the sun. Like crystal, and like fire, like rain and like the wind, it harmonized with the beating rush inside every living thing's soul. Its rhythm was the earth's, and its melody belonged to the stars. It sang with the touch of waves upon the shore, tender and gentle, a lover's caress, but with the force of an earthquake, rattling the ground. A soft, golden glow brightened in the heavens, pale gole like the watery light of winter. It grew, comnig closer, and everything held its breath. It had two wings, billowing golden sails upon which it flew, graceful as a butterfly, and a long serpentine neck upon which sat a proud gold head with eyes made entirely of light. With a bugle like thunder and cry like the wind, it flew low towards the earth."Winds of tempest night, Behold! Born unto you is Dragonflight!"

The wind cried, soaring upwards to greet the great being and carry it along. Together, in unison, they soared over the world, sending a shower of peace upon it, and a message of hope. The golden one's wings filled the sky with a heavenly light as it surged across the globe. Its talons shined metallically, opening and closing rhythmically with each wingbeat, claws stretched out before it as if to embrace all it met. Huge breaths filled the air, grunting like a galloping horse, but with the gentleness of a spring shower upon the leaves of a rose. Time ceased - nothing mattered but the golden beast filling the sky with scales like stars and eyes like the sun. It touched them all, in some way, shape, or form, and it left them breathless as the massive golden tail slipped over the horizon, leavingbut a glow of the former light in its wake. But to all came back a powerful cry, like a crack of thunder in the summer sky.

"Harken ye of Gaea's make and listen well for all her sake. Live in peace, and go with light, and once more I shall grace your endless night!"

The roaring dragon's cry resounded in the dark, and all who heard were awestruck. That a being of such power and beauty would grace the world befuddled many, and many other took it as a sign that the tides were turning. And in its presense, all were changed, yet remained unchanged. The dragon, having completed its circuit of the world returned to the heavens, winging away. The wind, exhausted, fell back unto the earth and rested. The things of the night returned to their work, scattering.

Not one human had seen the miracle. Only the dreamers, locked away within the worlds of their creation, ever had an inkling of what had happened. Some forgot it, some merely wondered, and others denied it ever happened. But few and far between, you will find someone who remembers that night, when the sky gleamed golden with the belly of the dragon. They remain everchanged by those events, and cling to their beliefs that while they may be gone now, dragons existed. Creatures of myth, perhaps. Adorners of dreams, definately. The dragon lives, my friends, and he will come again, and he will leave more behind; more of the dreamers, poets, and bards referred to as "Dragonchildren", the humans of the night.

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