The Absence of Silence

There weren't always dragons in the valley.

It used to be peaceful. Oh, how Kieran missed those days. He used to take walks in the thick fog on particularly cold mornings. He would find a decent rock to sit on and just listen to the air. He used to be able to smell the dew, to sense the slow rhythmic breathing of every tree. He could feel every passing wisp of mist that came his way.

But these moments of silence he had once taken for granted were now quite few and far between. His new neighbors were noisy. They roared and growled and crunched bones and made clicking noises in their throats. They filled the air with the smoke of their lungs and turned the forest hot and dry. The soft lichen that once had filled the valley with hues of green, turquoise, yellow and red was beginning to turn an ugly brown. The dragons liked to throw things and make messes and carelessly tread over the moss and the budding flowers, and it seemed that wherever they went, they left a trail of disconcerted rocks and wounded branches and mud and all manners of destruction and burnt things in their wake.

They consumed the deer and the rabbits -the only creatures that were gentle and quiet enough for Kieran to tolerate- and they brought with them all manner of birds- oh, the birds! The worst of all were the crows. Big black things with the most horrible call you've ever heard.

When Kieran had moved into the valley, he had taken great care to spook away all the finches and chickadees and jays and all the other loud obnoxious ones. He had a knack for that- spooking things, you see.

Ever since he was small, he had learned to become as a shadow. He learned to sweep his feet across the twigs and dry leaves without making a sound. He crept among the shady areas and the darkened places with such skill, even humans with their flashlights and cameras and binoculars never seemed to notice him.

At least, not until he wanted them to.

The thing about the life of a shadow is that nobody expects it when you are imminent. Humans and animals were all the same. All you had to do was manage enough patience to wait for a child or a bird or even a gorox (detestable creatures, the gorox) to convince themselves they are alone and then suddenly, unexpectedly, cast off the dark like a cloak, open your eyes and mouth wide and hiss or howl or screech and dodge to-and-fro. That would usually frighten any creature you wanted.

Humans were even easier than birds. Sometimes if Kieran would stand motionless in the dark just beyond the light of a human’s campfire when the sun was low and the shadows danced as reeds in the wind, he could easily make them uncomfortable. That was usually all he needed to do. If that didn’t work right away, Kieran would wait a day or two and then at dusk he would again near the camp and begin to flutter back and forth among the trees. Even though he was barely heavy as an owl, he was nearly as large as a human. The mere idea of something similar but not quite like themselves dancing among the trees was enough to cause any human in their right mind to pack their things and leave.

Dragons, however, were not so easily deterred.

Kieran imagined he could sneak up on a dragon without much effort at all. They slept all the time, and they didn’t even sleep with their eyes half open like a rabbit or a toad.

The first dragon he tried to scare off was a great grey dragon with a red crest on its head. It seemed to be a good choice.

Kieran detested it above the rest.

As it rumbled through the delicate gardens of the wood, it would drag its thick, fat body across the earth, paving a trail of death and charred rubble everywhere it went. It led a large clan of other dragons, and it was particularly obnoxious because it was always battling with the other large ones. They hissed. They bellowed. They clashed their heads together with a noise loud as thunder. They brought down the great trees of old with their strong tales. They caused fires and did not care to snuff them out. They were fighting for territory. Kieran’s territory. If only he could get the great grey dragon to fear the valley, to fear him, possibly the others would follow. At least they would be disheartened that one of the bravest among them was scared of something lurking in the shadows.

Kieran had been observing this dragon for some time. He learned that although the great grey dragon tended to roam about and claim any spot it pleased, frequently the horrible beast would return to the same spot- a large slab of basalt near the river.

At first Kieran tried the indirect approach. He would appear at random intervals, following the dragon from a distance, sometimes dashing from shadow to shadow, sometimes dropping small rocks or bones from the tops of trees, sometimes just standing nearby the creature's favorite slab of basalt as the dragon rested, peering from the darkness with the un-flickering candles of his luminescent round eyes. He did not know if dragons believed in ghosts, but if they did, he made out to be a very convincing ghost.

He played the phantom for weeks, with seemingly no effect. The great grey dragon would occasionally glance at him for a moment, sniff the air, and return to its slumber. He would have to get closer. The problem was, you see, that the dragons always had with them a murder of crows. What a fitting name for a flock of crows! They were always around the dragons; picking beetles and ticks from between their great scales, feeding off the scraps the carnivores left behind, and they were always crowing. Oh! How murderous the sound, the crow of a crow!

Constantly they would chatter and croak, singing as though someone were choking them. It was all Kieran could manage not to strangle them himself.

But the crows had another call, distinct from all the rest. A cry for danger. Whenever Kieran would get near enough to attempt to really alarm the great grey dragon, its watchmen would utter a horrible scream, and as the monster opened its eyes and lifted its head, Kieran would take his refuge in the shadows. The element of surprise was lost.

° °

Many days had passed without peace. The cry of crows and the rumbling of dragons in the distance had become as constant as the wind, but today above most was a rather miserable day.

The wind was upset, the trees were nervous, the frogs were moaning, and Kieran could smell a prophesy of rain. In fact, it was even now beginning.

Kieran used to love the rain. Now he hated it.

The dragons had brought back the frogs into the valley- a creature Kieran had previously removed from the area with great difficulty. Frogs became dreadfully loud when it rained. However, what was even worse than the frogs was the rain itself. It used to fall softly, cooling the valley on hot days and dampening Kieran’s fur. Now that the dragons had come, the smoke they constantly emitted from their nostrils seemed to mingle with the rain as it fell, causing it to bite Kieran’s eyes and skin.

He now had to shelter from the downpour he once loved.

Although he was in an unfamiliar area, Kieran crawled into a cleft of the rock to avoid the rain. He watched as the clouds tumbled over each other, nearer and nearer, and soon the drizzle became a deluge. Raindrops splattered on and nipped at his big, yellow eyes. He crept deeper into the cave.

Watching the rain from a safer distance, it began to hypnotize him. The cave was warm and stuffy. His eyelids began to droop and his breathing slowed. He began to snore. But the snoring he heard was not his own. Kieran opened his eyes.

The snoring was coming from behind him.

He turned and blinked a few times. Although he had excellent eyesight in the dark, he could see nothing in the small cave other than rocks. No sign of life, no passages to a deeper part of the cave. Just grey rocks all over, and one with a red crest on its head.

It was the great grey dragon.

Kieran’s heart beat fast. Not of fear, but of excitement. Kieran was not afraid. He was the only thing worthy to be feared. He saw little danger in a dragon. Surely he was quicker than they. The lazy things relied too much on their teeth and claws and armor. Besides, now was the perfect moment to catch his enemy off-guard. The unconscious creature had none of its winged watchmen to stand guard in the cave.

Now may be his chance to melt the heart of the bravest of beasts.

Kieran slid up the wall, silent as the air and smooth as the dark, diligently avoiding loose stones and slippery spots. He crawled onto a large stalactite on the ceiling quite near to the creature. He relaxed his body, dripping off the ceiling like liquid fear, stretching down until his face was directly in front of the dragon’s.

The snoring continued.

Carefully, Kieran held a small pebble above the dragon’s scaly head. He planned to wake it at precisely the right moment, open his eyes wide as the moon, scream his loudest most terrible scream, and slip back quick as a dream into the dark.

Kieran dropped the pebble. It struck the end of the dragon’s big black snout, rolled over its left nostril, and landed on the cave floor with an echoing ker-plop.

The snoring stopped.