Dreams by Dragons

There is a periwinkle diamond singing to me beneath a thick layer of solid ice. I have never wanted anything more in my entire life.

Well, maybe not my entire life, as I am only three winters along, and maybe there’ll be something sparklier and twinklier that’ll catch my heart three winters from now. Mama always says a dragon’s hoard is only as big as his heart, and a dragon’s heart can be as big as he can dream. This diamond’s as big as any I’ve ever dreamed of!

But, well, maybe it’s not even a diamond. Could be aquamarine, or maybe a deliciously pale sapphire. Those are quite rare. Definitely not quartz, though. Quartz could never project such brilliance, harbour such colours. It could be something entirely new, entirely undiscovered. Maybe I’ll be the one to discover it. Wouldn’t that be grand, a dream come true! Me, barely a hatchling, and already made my mark on dragonkind everywhere.

Though there still is of course the matter of retrieving the sparkling little gemstone, twinkling in the depths of the ice-capped river. I stretch my claws, the ones not quite long enough to cleave, and shift my body, not quite strong enough to smash. Maybe three winters from now I would’ve been ready. Maybe a few more.

It sings, this purply-blue-pink thing, lurking and taunting and tantalizing me. I tap at the glassy ice with my too-young claw. Not even a scratch.

I cannot wait for the spring thaw because there is no such thing in the mountains. There are the months where the sun shines bright and long in the day, and then the months of endless clouds and blustery winds, but always there is snow. I have only ever known snowfall and ice and the crunch crunch crunch of this cold place. Warmth is rare here, rare as periwinkle diamonds.

And besides, someone else, bigger or stronger or cleavier than me, might show up and get the diamond (or aquamarine or sapphire) if I leave now.

I must try.

I hop, I fly, I dive, I tear, I bounce, I dig, but nothing makes a difference. The ice is stubborn and unbroken, but so am I! Even if I do sink to my belly and lay my snout just above the singing rock. I am not defeated, and I am definitely not tired. I am just… paused, for a moment or two. I must think on this. We dragons are wise, as mama always says, with wisdom enough to know when to wait and think. Of all her children, she says that phrase most often to me.

So, I lie on the ice, my belly cooling, and I think, and I try to be wise like my mama. I think of my siblings, all older than I by many, many winters. I think of my closest sister, how she’s been on countless adventures out in the world, soaring over waters with sunshine bearing down on her, so now that when she comes to visit her scales no longer sparkle as freshly fallen snow like mine and Mama’s, but shine with a smooth hardness of a pearl, the colours so similar to the ones in my rock below. She dreamt of the sea, of an ocean of pearls, a great and grand dream, and now it is hers.

I think of my eldest brother who dreamt of hoards as large as the mountain he was born on. He lives on another mountain now, the core of which he’s filled with gold and rubies red as blood and emeralds green as grass. He told me all about the gemstones, taught me all their names. When he last visited, he brought a diamond, a real diamond, and offered it to me. It was brilliant and pure and clear as ice, the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. I refused. I remember him smiling, an understanding between brothers, before he took flight to his own hoard once again with that diamond tucked between his claws.

I think of my mother, who’s dream always was to be a mother, who’s achieved that dream again and again. How she nurtured each and every one of us from fresh hatchlings all the way to proud and grown, nurtured in us that capacity to dream from the very beginning. She has the wisdom of many winters, and I wonder what she might think of my dream of acquiring this stone, how it would compare to a dream as big as an ocean of pearls, as big as a mountain of gold.

It is quiet here in the snowy mountains. Always quiet, unless it is windy, but the air is still now. The world is muffled as the snow falls and I am slowly buried and I drift, drift, drift…

I dream of heat, of light, of life.

I dream of fire.

I am no longer as small as a hatchling, but as big as my sisters and brothers, bigger still. And I am flying with them, flying with Mama, and we soar and we shout and we laugh. We tear about the sea and conquer new mountains. I melt a hundred frozen rivers with this fire, find a thousand sparkling stones, and they all sing with me.

I fly until I am the last one flying, flying over a black river with periwinkle stars glistening within. I draw in a great, heaving breath and...

I wake in the quiet dark of deep winter with my belly wet. The ice around me has melted, melted enough that I can now hear the faint rushing of the river beneath me. I am still warm, and I am glowing.

From beneath every scale I radiate light, purple and blue and pink and gold, like the singing stone beneath the ice, closer now than I ever could've allowed myself to dream when I started this day.

I smile, like my brother did, and glow brighter still. I laugh like my sister in my dream, and the ice CRACKS.

There is a burning in my throat and a desire beneath my claws and a dream in my heart, a dream my mama will be proud of, a dream as wild and free and big as dragonfire.