A Bit to Read

I said I was feeling draggy today (I am) and @dcroucher made me this gorgeous image for, and I quote, “when you’re dragon.”

And I’ve participated in the @spoutstories writing prompt semi-regularly over on Spoutible, so I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a while. I’m going to write a short story for today’s post, inspired by this dragon.

Or maybe I won’t, we’ll see how it goes, but if I don’t, you won’t know anyway, unless I tell you which I probably would, so there’s that. And here it is:

A Dragon Named Ruby

Her name was Ruby, ironically the only color she didn’t contain in her bright rainbow of scales, but when she was born, most of the Elders–all but Mother Mist–thought eventually it would all even out, that as she grew, the peacock blues and teals and fuchsias and sunrise oranges would fade and mute to a sensible red.

They did not.

Instead she was a symphony of color among her dragon peers who were single-shaded, or, at the most two subtly complimentary colors seamlessly blending. Not Ruby, who stood out in fire target practice, who could be spotted as her class flew sky laps above a tired, waning earth.

The Elders–all but Mother Mist–bickered over what to do about Ruby, not one of them with any color variation beyond the whitened and grayed tips of their scales. They tried dyeing her, but to no avail; her iridescence shone though and the red washed off at the first drizzle.

They–all but Mother Mist–told her the source of the colors must all be in her head, and tried talking her out of them, but still they remained, a softly-changing landscape that would not be tamed.

They–all but Mother Mist–told her she could be a productive citizen in spite of her colors, as long as she didn’t show off about them and let others pretend they couldn’t see them. But Ruby didn’t know how.

One day, Ruby found herself curled up in a corner of the Dragon Cave Complex, deep inside near the storage chambers, where it was dark and at least there, she was no more than an acceptable shade of gray. She didn’t turn her head as she heard the familiar sound of claws on rock.

“Ruby,” said Mother Mist, “why are you here in the dark?”

Ruby said nothing. A warm tail encircled her.

“Once upon a time, Ruby, we were all rainbowed.”

She turned to look into Mother Mist’s steady red eyes. “We were?”

Mother Mist nodded. “Oh yes, we were. Every single one of us, but they’ve all forgotten. Or pretended to. Imagine the skies filled with us all, shining like the the world after a rain.”

Ruby lifted her chin just a bit more off of her front legs.

“What happened?”

“Those awful creatures with the bows and arrows happened, we were far too easy to see, and soon only those of us who didn’t stand out, who could blend in with the earth and the water, were left. But you are a memory of how beautiful we can be.”

“The creatures with the bows and arrows?”

Mother Mist laughed, a deep sound that made the stone of the chamber vibrate. “Oh I’d forgotten how very young you are, Ruby, not yet even fifty millennia, and they’ve been gone so long now. Terrible animals, those, with weapons and cruelty that only got worse and worse until they’d done themselves in entirely. And the damage they did to our beautiful world.” She shook her almost-white head. “Not a being remaining misses them.”

“I’d guess not,” Ruby said. “So does that mean now it’s safe to rainbowed?”

“You,” said Mother Mist, her tone firm, “You be the brightest dragon in the sky, Ruby, that is who you were born to be, and you cannot be anyone else.”

“What about the other Elders?”

“Don’t you worry about them, you leave them to me. Did you know Father Stone has a red circle on his belly? He covers it up every single day. And Parent Light mutes their iridescence with scale spray. You are who we’ve always been heading toward and back to, Ruby, and don’t you forget it.”

Buoyed, Ruby followed Mother Mist from the chamber, up and out of the Dragon Cave Complex, and let the sun radiate off her scales in their full glory. And as the light reflected off her in streams, it fell upon bare patches of mud and cracked dirt.

But soon they weren’t bare at all. Tiny shoots became leaves became plants, and every spot Ruby’s light fell blossomed with flowers not seen for centuries. Even the Elders who had tried to remake her stood rapt, their wings slack with wonder.

After considering for a moment, Parent Light leapt into the air and took a steep dive into the nearby ocean, emerging, instead of its usual steady light brown, a shimmering gold. Everywhere their gold met Ruby’s light, vines appeared and crisscrossed, twisting and twisting upon themselves until they formed the tiniest of houses with the tiniest of peaked roofs.

From nowhere, then, came a soft drone, almost too quiet to hear, and suddenly the air filled with delicate little creatures with sweet faces and gossamer wings, who neatly chose the houses, one by one by one, waving tiny wands to add the finishing touch of a door.

With a groan and a lumber, Father Stone waded in the stream until the perfect circle of red shone true, and then he stiffly took to the air, circling over the water. Where that soft red glow landed on the color, bright fish teemed, and the mermaids who thought they would never again surface to a hostile, ruined world rose to check out the commotion.

And Mother Mist unfurled her huge, translucent wings, flying higher than most dragons could, warming herself against the sun. There she hovered, and through those wings she cast the biggest rainbow ever seen over a world reborn thanks to a dragon named Ruby.