The Tail of Pen'dragon

There weren't always dragons in the valley. The valley itself was mostly void and frozen for what seemed like an eternity. I suppose when I look back now, the cold months were but few. The baldies still tease that we only have two real seasons around here, rather than four: salt and barrel. When the winter rushes in, the salt hits the roads. When the winter breaks, construction begins on the roads. Salt. And barrel.

Good evening, my friends and companions. Curl up here next to me here on the hearth—but not too close to the fire—and I’ll tell you the tale of a particular dragon, a member of my own clan who left this earthly existence not so many years ago. Although I was never fortunate enough to have met her, they say she was as majestic as a queen and as beautiful as ever one could imagine. She was the softest of the softies, as legends and baldies have lamented o'er her in days past. But, she also was tough, far more formidable than anyone could ever have guessed. Her common name was Penny, but she was known by those who knew her as “Pen'dragon of the Abel Bald Ones Clan, a Drakaina of Royal Blood and Chief of Warriors.”

Tonight, I will serve as your humble narrator. I am Alayne, and my story will be told later, as I am of the same royal family from which Pen'dragon was born- and I also am of the same noble clan as she. This is a tale about Pen'dragon and the thunder of dracos that came into and out of her long and extraordinary life - a life that began, ironically enough, beneath a simple, gray porch, in The Valley of Agape.

— Alayne

It was a warm, fairly normal day in the life of the young Abel family, a family of humans who lived in a quaint, two-story white house on the ridge in northeastern Agape. The friendly, outgoing mother, Shanyn, was away at her daily chores of "do I have to do everything?" Her husband, Himay, worked in a demanding and stressful job, and was likely dashing madly about, trying to meet some quickly approaching deadline.

Five-year-old Keivan and his little sister, Stevie, were next door playing with the three neighbor girls, whose mother often watched over the children to help ease the burdens of everyday errands. The girls, Jamie, Aine, and Bubba were happy and rambunctious most days. This particular day, all five of the children were playing a game in the neighboring driveway, when they heard feeble, little weeping sounds … noises much too soft to be human crying. Curious, the kids scoured the area looking for the source of the noise, until one of them squealed with glee as she found a drakaina with a litter of new hatchlings hidden under the wooden deck of the front porch.

The weary mother was nursing four small wyverns, each with fur of a different color pattern. The wyverns’ father, as it turned out, was a rough-and-tumble White Dragon King of Yamamura. He had brought the beautiful Roane Welsh Dragon Mother Goddess from far away. Their union had caused agony and great wars. They had hoped to join East and West, but their love was not big enough. Or so it would seem.

The excited children could hardly wait for their parents to get home so they could ask about keeping one of the dragons. As if dragons are a "thing" to be kept. Being a dragon-lover herself, Shanyn quickly submitted to Kievan and Stevie’s begging, but told her own little 'hatchlings' that they would have to wait until the wyverns were old enough to leave their mother’s care. Wyverns grow fast, so it was not a very long wait. When that big day arrived, Mom and the kids instantly knew which wyvern they would want—a beautiful, little Balinese Draco with long, fine hair and classic, dark-brown, seal-point markings. Shanyn spoke to the Roane Drakaina about her wyverns.

"Could we bring the wyvern into our home? We would love her, and feed her, and protect her, and she shall be of our clan. We admire the one with markings that appear to us as though she is a Balinese Dragon." Shanyn was respectful and kind.

The Roane Drakaina gave her blessing, "Good woman. We have come far to find a safe place to share the love we have forged. We see in you the same. We must find refuge for all of our wyverns so they may grow in love. We have faith that you will do all that you say and more. Our hope is that she will be a superb leader, use her wisdom in all things, be courageous, and rely on love above all. Guard her safely. Beware of enemies."

With these words, Shanyn embraced the wyvern and returned to the house. By morning, the Roane Drakaina had gone with her family. One can only surmise that she needed to protect all of them. If it meant they could not be together, the mother would do what needed to be done.

As for the Abel Clan, coming up with a name proved to be a more difficult decision to make, but after some long consideration, Shanyn christened the little kitten “Pen'dragon,” the regal family name of legendary knight King Arthur.

“Like with all dragonets separated at an early age from their dragon family, being taken from my mother, brothers and sister was traumatic,” Pen'dragon said years later. “Add to that the presence of two young humans in the Abel dwelling … I thought my life was going to end before it really had a chance to begin.” She would spend her days hiding so the baldie kids would leave her alone. Yet, she could not resist the smell of freshly popped popcorn every evening. Mmm...that warm, buttered popcorn was the perfect ending every day, sitting between the adult baldies. This could be love.

However, it didn’t improve her outlook when, early on, the family put Penny (an affectionate nickname for Pen'dragon) into one of their cars for a visit to a veterinarian. The doctor poked Penny several times with a needle, pried her lips back to inspect her teeth and then snipped off her sharp, little claws. Is this what love is? I don't like it.

“Horrible … just horrible,” she had recalled. “For the second time in a few short days, I thought I was going to die. To this day, just getting put into the metal moving machine makes my fur fly.”

Of course, the four stages of life thing is a myth that actually haunts the lives of most dragons, as bratty children and foul-minded adults sometimes do dastardly things to dragons that they expect will use up five, six times the amount of our lifespan. I could live to be 1200, but humans will be the death of me. Supposedly, the myth started when humans noticed that flying dragons usually land on their feet.

“Hey, just because dragons are able to do summersaults, doesn’t mean that dragons should be tossed from the tops of dwellings just for cheap entertainment,” Penny once said. Pen'dragon survived the Abel children through their terrible twos, atrocious threes, awful fours and frightful fives. She also survived hatching eight wyverns of her own.

The Abels were good to Penny. They gave her food, brushed her fur and cleaned her garden box. Most of all, the Abel baldies seemed to enjoy having her sit with them, sometimes in chairs, sometimes in their sleeping chamber. Curling next to Momma baldie was always the best place to be. She was always very calm and would always guard from children and flying objects. Maybe this is love.

One time, when she was still a young wyvern, one of the adult baldies put her in that infernal metal moving machine—instantly her fur started flying. They took her into a building where they propped her up and flashed bright lights in her eyes. The strange baldie that worked there, it seems, was making small paper replicas of her. She had seen similar replicas of the children and others like those over the years sitting around the home she lived in. She just didn't understand how terrifying the whole process was going to be. Once she was back and curled on the cushion-seat, paper replicas of her began to appear throughout the home. Maybe this is what love feels like.

She spent a lot of time in a room where she could hide under the edge of the cushion-seat and watch the porch entry and the magic picture glass the baldies stared at for hours on end. The magic glass always had different things on it. There were other people in the magic glass who looked like they were in the same room with them. Sometimes it was scary. Sometimes there was music. It was always different. She got used to it eventually. she stayed where Shanyn was most of the time. Usually she only went up the stairs to rest in the sleeping space of the grown-ups, snuggling up to Shanyn whenever she could. Surely, this was love.

Life was full of surprises in those days. One evening when the little baldies were playing on the porch, someone left the entry standing wide open. Within minutes, one of the most awful flying creatures flew into the dwelling and was circling the front space where the magic picture glass flickered. Penny sensed danger and felt she should do something. Back then she was still small and didn’t have all the knowledge —that some animals can be mortal enemies of dragons. A bat of unusual size was crashing through the Abel home. She dashed for shelter under the long cushion-seat, keeping near enough to the edge to track the flying mouse’s movements, circling the space again and again. Things were happening too quickly. Penny began to shake. Her gorgeous fur felt like it was coming out. Her temperature was rising. The baldie kids were screaming and running in every direction. Suddenly, Shanyn came around the corner with a laundry basket. Himay came up from the basement and from the other direction with a tennis racket. He took one swing and knocked the wind out of the flying beast. Shanyn scooped it up and tossed it back out into the night. And with that, Momma baldie came back in, picked up Penny, sat everyone down for lots of hugs and cuddles. This was definitely love.