shades in between. A mile or two downstream from the hill, a tiny bridge spanned the river, and near it was a small village. Around the village the pastureland was emerald green, spotted with dark brown where the fields had been ploughed. Sounds of cattle and sheep murmured from the village, carrying faintly into the sky, while from the great forests a loud chorus of birdsong exuberantly greeted the dawn. And beyond the vast Autumn forests, which spilled their myriad colours across the land in a splendid carpet, lay a chain of distant mountains, blue and smooth-crested, like the backs of some sleeping blue monsters. And above them was the sky, pale lemon-yellow with the sunrise which stretched its rays across the sky in blessing, having returned from beyond the world. And ––
Casting a fleeting shadow on the leaves of the forest below, her crimson hide brilliant against their Autumn colours, a dragon sped over the tree-carpet through the chilly air. Half-kneeling astride the dragon’s spiny back, on a pad made from his tunic, was a boy – or was it a young man? – finding his balance again after so many years. This double creature, the boy and the dragon, lifted higher, rising with every flap of its wings straight towards the dawn. Higher and higher, leaving the world behind.
Up and up, dizzyingly, but somehow in their hearts neither the dragon nor the boy was frightened.
And once they had soared into the sky so that they were impossibly high, untouchably high, gloriously limitlessly inestimably high, the once-orphaned boy threw back his head, flung his fists to the air, and he and the once-lonely dragon simultaneously whooped and trumpeted from the depths of their beings in utter exultation; their voices twining and ringing together like the double-toned note of a single bell.
And as the boy’s hands stroked her neck, his own eyes wet, the dragon wept, big dragon-tears of indescribable, unbelievable, intolerable joy.
For it was glorious; glorious; wonderful and unbearable and glorious.
And both yelled together,
“I’M ALIVE!”
The End.
G. Wulfing, January 2004.
About G. Wulfing
G. Wulfing, author of kidult fantasy and other bits of magic, is a freak. They have been obsessed with reading since they learned how to do it, and obsessed with writing since they discovered the fantasy genre a few years later. G. Wulfing has no gender, and varies between twelve and one hundred years of age on the inside, and somewhere in between that on the outside. G. Wulfing lives amidst the beautiful scenery of New Zealand, prefers animals to people, and is in a dedicated relationship with theirself and hot chocolate.
G. Wulfing on Tumblr: www.g-wulfing-author.tumblr.com
G. Wulfing’s blog: www.gwulfing.blogspot.co.nz
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