The Dragon King (and Other Dreams) Part Three

[Continuation of The Dragon King dreams.]

Dream #4: The Dragon King's Performance

We rose with the suns the next morning. Two beautiful suns, one orange and one red, both rising from the north. They almost seemed to overlap each other, and it made for such an amazing view. The Cuoca tree we were sleeping under was on the top of the tallest mountain in a long mountain range known as the Yethic Mountains. We were high enough up that I could stand far from the cliff's edge and see the entire valley laid out before me. There was a winding river, wide and strong, that burst forth out of the mountain from a sparkling waterfall to my right. The river seperated the valley into two parts, both of which were covered in a soft green grass that seemed to glow. Spotted through the valley, thickest near the edges, were tall smooth tree trunks, gleaming like polished silver, just wide enough for me to wrap my arms around if I wanted to, with wide, thin purple fronds sprouting out the tops. Unique creatures flew through the trees like winged cats with long ringed tails, chasing butterflies, dragonflies, and tiny winged serpents in jeweled colors. Large beasts roamed the valley floor, what I once would have considered dinosaurs but for their dog-like faces and thick coats of bristled fur.

They were all peaceful; every creature on this planet was fully sustained merely by drinking the water from the oceans. It wasn't salty like the oceans I grew up around. It was pure fresh water, a deep dark blue. It really was blue, too. The Dragon King had laughed when I said it reminded me of home, and had me put my hands in the water. The water itself truly was blue. He said it was all because of a tiny microscopic water-creature that composed nearly half the ocean's mass, living entirely on the energy given off by life. The creature had been a gift to this planet from the Great Water Serpent many aeons ago, for there was time once when the Great Water Serpent had fallen, injured. In his fever brought on from the pain, he had found himself wandering aimlessly through time and space--delirious. He collided with a reef in the oceans of this pristine world. A doe had found him washed ashore and cared for his wounds. As a symbol of gratitude to her unexpected love and nurturing, he gave to her a single drop of water, with a single water-creature residing in it. That deer was still alive, too; that single drop of water made her immortal. And that single water-creature had multiplied, as it needs no mate to do so, and soon the entire world was as it is now. As long as there was life on this planet, this water-creature would continue to thrive; and as long as this water-creature existed here, life merely had to drink the water, and the creature exerted an energy force into every living cell, even reanimating some of the dead cells, and revitalizing life. Some of the beasts in the valley were hundreds of years old because of the life-extending properties associated with that energy force. And even though the creatures may not have understood or had the capability of comprehending that this water-creature even existed, all life, on any planet, needed water. It was that simple truth that kept this planet in perfect symbiotic harmony, and it would stay that way for many ages to come, until travelers arrive in the future and begin decimating the wildlife.

That thought made me cry, knowing that something so peaceful and simple would be destroyed... but the Dragon King reminded me that it was all part of the endless Circle, and one day, peace would be returned. All things must come to an end. Knowing that your end is near, do you try to extend your own life, or prepare the way for another? That decision is what separated Kings and Emperors. Always consider the good of all before the good of yourself, and you would live a long and prosperous life. For example, he said, there was no use in trying to preserve this land when it's destiny was to be destroyed.
"You can not stop destiny," he told me, with a far-off look in his eye. "You can only delay it for a while." He had turned to face the valley below, waving his hand from one side across to the other. "Imagine, if something had not been destroyed, this new life would not be here. Life is like the Great Phoenix; born of the ashes from the fire before it. This may have destruction in it's path, but beyond that is new life. Yes, it is sad to lose something beautiful. But it is not the person, creature, era, or object that matters... it is how they live on in your memory. So do not think of it as an end. Instead, pray for what was lost, and rejoice in the new beginning it brings."

Right then and there, I made a decision. I walked to the edge of the cliff and got down on my knees, folding my hands in my lap, and sent out a silent prayer that this valley would enjoy many more years filled with harmony and prosperity of life. I prayed that when the time came, they would go quickly and painlessly, and that those amazing creatures would not have to fear or suffer during their end. I also made a promise to myself that I would never forget this place, so that it could always live on in my memory.



At this point, I'm afraid I have to stop. I have had... oh, at least six different people tell me that I need to write a book, and after reading the first part to this dream they think this would be fantastic to read. The way I saw this all play out in my head, I can't help but agree. So, what I'm going to do next is write a short summary, telling the basis of the rest of the dream. If you want to read indepth beyond this, you'll just have to wait and see if my book ever gets published. Though I'll keep you updated via my main blog, Mommy's Personal Space, as to how my book is coming along as I write it. =)

Summary of the rest of the Dream

I feel the need to point out first of all that there is a hierarchy of life, ruled and balanced by five creatures. Much like gods, these creatures take on natural forms, but in much more elaborate and eccentric ways. There is a godcreature for each of the four elements; fire, earth, air, and water; and there is a godcreature of life itself. The Dragon King rules over all of these godcreatures and is what keeps them in harmony and ensures they stay balanced.
From this point, the Dragon King took me back to his castle. I met his wife, the queen, and was very surprised to see that he was married (he had never mentioned it). He tells me that he had to marry her for the good of the kingdom, and even she knew that it was not for love, though they had come to care deeply about each other... just not the way you feel with true love. We then met up with his Windseer, who told us of a deeply disturbing vision she heard on the wind about a betrayal, pain, and ultimately, death. The Dragon King did not seem phased by this, and dismissed her with a smile, telling her to get some much needed rest.
Over the next few weeks, the townspeople began to hear hushed whispers regarding this secret meeting with the windseer, and many rumors spread like wildfire about what it had been about. No one liked me much, as they were all pretty sure that it had to do with me, the King was being "tricked" by this "foreign seductress" and that I was just plain bad news. The King decides to lighten the mood in the kingdom with a gigantic festival that will last an entire fortnight, conclusing with a grande finale performance.
This huge performance and festival are being planned, and the walls of the castle get lined with silk draperies from floor to ceiling. The windseer pulls me to the side one day warning me that I had to do something to save her King, because these draperies were wrapped around him in her vision. I was on my way to see the King and warn him myself when a messenger finds me and informs me that my presence has been requested by the queen.
I meet the queen and we go for a walk through the palace gardens. She tells me that she doesnt hate me nor does she believe any of the bad things the kingdom says about me. she says that she believes i am what a prophesy told would come one day, and i was what the king had been waiting for all these years. He married her out of necessity for the good of the kingdom, the same thing he told me, and although she had loved him from the start, she knew he had never loved her the same way. She talks a bit about the prophesy and what is foretold, and how she thinks I might be the one to save the kingdom. I tell her I think she's got the wrong girl, and she said "we'll see."
I finally meet up with my King, but it''s the morning of the final performance. I warn him and tell him he cant continue with this, and he tells me that we cant live in fear, and that sometimes, the show really must go on. he tells me to trust him, that he knows what he is doing and he knows exactly what will come of it, and that i just need to trust that in the long run, this performance is the best thing to do. I know this will all end badly, but I agree to trust him, and we share a few last loving hours together.
The performance begins, and its fantastic. Acrobats, dancers, firebreathers, illusionists, all sorts of amazing incredible things. An amazing show is taking place. meanwhile, I notice three men moving boxes and such off to the side... and it seems quite unusual given the state of things and the way everyone else has stopped what they are doing to concentrate on the show, and yet these three men are still moving things, as if they are completely oblivious to the festivities around them. I decide to keep my eye on them, but when i start to move towards them a crowd blocks my view and when I get to where they were, they are nowhere to be found. The queen then enters and sits at her royal place at the front of it all, yet on the ground floor instead of her balcony. she said she was tired that day and didnt want to make the trek up the stairs for what would last merely an hour at the most.
As she sits down, the King stands at the center balcony of the act, and prepares the way to his grande finale. he looks down at his queen, smiling, then looks at me, and i can see in his eyes that he loves me. I can see his lips forming the words silently; i felt like he was saying goodbye, and i knew something must have been wrong. This was happening. I had to try to do something... anything.
He turned himself into his dragon form in a very dramatic way, with the lights shining on him just right to accentuate colors and shine. I keep looking around for something out of place, for someone making a wrong move or doing something shady. The king twisted just right and my attention was drawn back towards him... and something then DID seem out of place. Suddenly it hit me-- his spurs! They were missing! His spurs, as he had told me once, were the source of his protection and his immortality. There were ways around it of course; every immortal had something that would kill him. Everyone has a weakness. But not even I knew what his was, but without those spurs anything that would kill a mortal could now kill him too. It was as if he was suddenly human, even in his magickal dragon aspect, and I feared for his life more than ever.
I tried calling to him, begging him to come down, to stop the performance... but he couldnt hear me over the music and the crowd. I tried waving my arms above my head, but I must have looked like 20 others doing the same thing. All I could think to do was something outrageous to attract his attention; so I ran over to the wall and tugged on the silk draperies. They were steady and secure, and although a bit loose and flowing, they would hold my weight if I was to climb them. I began trying to make my way up, climbing walls of silk, but it seemed that no matter how high I climbed, the crowd got louder still, and the dragon was always farther away from me. I was deathly afraid of heights, but i climbed higher still. the life of my king was worth more than my own.
 The King was up on a balcony in the center again, swirling and twirling in his serpentine form, dazzling the audience and just showing how beautiful and natural he truly was. He was getting to a point where he was staying in that one spot now, as if he was preparing to go back to his human form to say something maybe... i couldnt be sure. but i do know that from that height i was able to see across the entire great hall, and i saw something moving in the queen's balcony. i repositioned myself slightly so i could get a better view, and i saw those same three burly men who had been moving the boxes earlier! they each had something in their hands, and they kept their eyes on the king while putting their objects together. One of them was a golden bow with a soft white bowstring, one was an ivory arrow with a jade tip, and the last one was some sort of silk ribbon. The ribbon was tied to the shaft of the arrow, the arrow was nocked on the bow, and the man who had the bow was raising it to eye level, drawing the string...

I knew I had to act NOW. I had just reached the top of the walls, i began inching along the wall trying to get closer to the king, but i knew it was too late. I shouted to him as loud as i could, and at that moment he turned and looked at me. Our eyes met, and I could see a million emotions roiling at the surface of his eyes, though his face showed nothing. I could see an eternal sadness, a longing, pride, regret, acceptance, knowledge and wisdom, but above all else, love. I could see his love for me. That moment seemed to last an hour, with all the emotions I was recieving at once. It was almost like... he was giving me something. Some sort of transference through my mind. I could feel something... but i cant describe it much better than that. I just knew something was happening.
Suddenly he closed his eyes. It woke me up from the sort of trance i had been in, and I realized the arrow had flown. It's mark was true; right through his heart. There was a loud cry emitted from my king, a sort of animalistic expression of pain and sadness. It was like a flute, with a musical quality, that made everyone want to cry just to hear it. My heart broke in that moment. His body began to fall from the balcony, and without thinking I kicked away from the wall and leapt at him, colliding with his body in midair and wrapping my arms around him. We fell a short distance more, and I closed my eyes and braced for the impact of the ground. I just could not stand the idea of his body crashing to the ground and being disfigured and broken during his burial. Even if I died from the fall, my king would be honored in his death. After a moment I realized we were no longer falling. I opened my eyes to find us hovering just feet off the floor, and we were sort of... glowing.
I felt a sort of control though, as if i was swimming in the air, but without the pressure of water. I lowered my feet to the ground and gently came down, resting the king's head in my lap. He was barely breathing, i could hear him wheezing softly, his eyelids fluttering as if he was trying to open them, but he just couldnt. I realized that the entire room had grown silent; nearly the entire world. No one was moving; the exception to that was the fire-breathers and flamethrowers, who had to put their fires out as they were realizing that they were catching themselves on fire.
The world in silence, all eyes on me and my king, and I didn't care. All I cared about was my king. I stroked his mane, and he shifted slightly, and I heard him muttering, trying to talk. I tried to tell him not to speak, to save his energy, and he almost seemed to laugh at that. He muttered something about his energy being safe already, and then asked me in broken sentences to remove the arrow; to just pull it out as hard as I could. I looked over at the end of the arrow, looked back at him, and reached a hand out and wrapped my fingers around the shaft. I thought for a moment and put both hands on it, then squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could and pulled. It came out slowly, but soon tore free and I fell back onto the ground, the bloody arrow in my hand. He didn't cry out at all during that, only winced.
I laid the arrow by my side and wrapped him up in my arms, knowing he didnt have much time left. We were still glowing for some reason. He turned his head towards mine, and was able to open his eyes just long enough to look deep into mine, then he smiled, and in an instant he was gone.
I clutched his lifeless body for what seemed like hours, though I know it was merely moments. The light glow surrounding us began pulsating, and getting brighter by the minute. I could feel a warmth, and I felt it all throughout my body. I looked down at my hands and inspected this glow, and realized it was no longer around both me and the king, but just myself. Suddenly a rush of emotion hit me all at once and I fainted.
When I came to, I was in a chair in the queen's chambers. I was no longer glowing.

(Getting through this summary a bit faster now, with less detail)
The queen told me she had the three men arrested and brought to the dungeons, the weapon and arrow laid on a table between us, and her eyes were on my face as she asked where i had hidden the king's spurs. She said the spurs were very important in the burial process and he could not be laid to rest without them. I didnt have the spurs but when i concentrated on them i was able to feel them, and i told her to check her purse. she did so, and dropped it in shock when she saw that she had the spurs the entire time. She broke down in tears, and had to leave the room. I reached for the spurs and a guard tried to tell me not to, that it would be the queen's duty to reattach them, and i told him that somehow i knew she would want me to do it.
I took the spurs, the ribbon-wrapped arrow, and the bow, and walked out and back to the king's chambers, where his body had been taken. A few of the palace servants had let me into the room, and they stood by watching in amazement as took one spur at a time and simply touched them to his sides, and they seemed to naturally fuse back to him. It's like the scales on his body parted and small tendrils of red reached out and grabbed the spur, pulling it back to his body as the tendrils ran throughout the carvings on the spur, until the spur was nestled back between his scales and the tendrils then glowed for a moment before fading altogether. I did this with each of the four spurs. I sat there beside him for hours, wondering what he wanted me to do now, and i never realized that the reason the servants were so quiet was because i had begun to glow again, and they rushed out of the room to start the wildfire of rumors that would take the kingdom overnight. Stories of the true queen of legend.
The burial was a few days later, and creatures and humanoids from all over time and space were gathered there for the funeral, to pay their last respects to the once great king. Some of which I had seen and met before on our travels, some of which were entirely new to me. There was a very touching service, lots of people came up to me personally and bowed, and i was very confused and every time i told someone to get up they looked at me with knowing adoration, nodded their heads, and left with a smile. The five great elementals were there, and they pulled me aside in a meeting. They were telling me how i was the true queen of legend, and how great things would come to me. I would have many trials ahead of me, but i would need to come to see each of them for training and i would be well and powerful. they were kind of secretive but told me that all would be revealed in time, and that i would learn a lot on my own in the upcoming weeks.
Back at the palace, the queen had recently committed suicide. She left a note saying she couldnt live with herself anymore. She had the three men released, admitting guilt to the murder of the king. She had a spell cast on the three, so they hadn't known what they were doing. She told of how she had killed him out of jealousy, knowing that she had given up her entire life for this man who didnt even love her, someone who had just casually brought home some other girl without even her knowledge, basically telling her right then and there that he really did go out into the universe and seduce women. What really got to her was knowing that I was THE woman he was searching for, though I didn't understand what she meant by that. I was just a girl... anyways, she couldnt bear to be left behind by the man she loved, and if she couldnt have him then no one could. It wasnt until she realized that he had given her his spurs that she decided she would kill herself. She realized that he must have actually cared a lot for her to have given her his spurs. He knew she wasnt in any immediate danger, but he also knew that she would attempt murder and so had given her the spurs as a way of letting her know that she was always under his protection, even if he was gone. It was a really sacrificial thing to do,  Knowing that she had killed her king, and that he had given his life to ensure her protection, basically putting his life in her hands, and yet still knowing she was having him killed... she couldn't stand the guilt and regret and poisoned herself in her bed.
Weeks later, I was walking out of the palace, about to head out into the universe again. I had spent too much time at the palace, and it wasn't my place right now. Maybe one day, when I was ready to take the throne, I would come back. But now was not the time, and I wasn't near ready. I had a talk with the three men after their release from the dungeons, feeding them well and apologizing for the queen's misdeeds. I gave them all rooms at the palace and had deep conversations with them, learning that they were all very smart and had political talents of their own, each of them complimenting the others, to the point where together they would hold the title of steward for the kingdom quite well, ensuring that all was taken care of until i returned. The entire kingdom agreed with this, as I had asked many people throughout the villages myself over a week of nothing but traveling from town to town and throughout the city asking people their opinions. I stayed back to monitor the men for a short time, but soon found that they had everything under control and I was free to leave as I wished. The men were still quite handy and were carrying a few boxes of food down to a local shelter. As I walked down an open hallway between two balconies, i went out onto the left balcony of the palace. I glanced down and saw them walking; they saw me watching them, and they all began to smile and one shifted the weight of his box to wave at me. I smiled down at them and waved back, then as they continued to walk down the path, I turned and walked across the open hallway and onto the balcony on the right, overlooking a sparkling lake with a forest on the other side.
The view was amazing. I stood there for a few moments, absentmindedly running my fingers up my arms, tracing the glowing golden patterns that had been starting to appear over the past few weeks, since my king passed. A cool breeze rolled in, and I stood there for a moment with my eyes closed, letting it wash over me, before stepping forward onto a chair, then onto the very railing of the balcony itself. I spread my arms out wide, and stretched open my wings.
You see, I've been changing. My king had apparently passed his energy and power onto me when he died; though the great five told me that he had begun the transfer long before that. Once he had died, the last of his energy had flowed into me; hence the "glowing" the fact that i had put his spurs back onto him sort of "consummated" the transfer, and i had begun changing that day. The lines across my body were part of it... as were my golden-lined wings, soft as clouds and just as pure white. I even had small ivory "horns" coming in, two on my upper arms and two on my hips. The great five told me again that those would never truly come in, and i would never truly become immortal, until i had completed all of my training. I would be the next incarnation of the Dragon King; it passes through true love, from man to woman to man again. Though the title itself changes as well. Obviously I would not be the "Dragon King", especially if I was a woman, and clearly not becoming a dragon. Whatever I became, it would be my own, and I would have the power to travel time and space, helping keep the great five in balance. In a way, I was like the "key"; time and space is the key to balance of everything in all worlds. It's what makes it all work, it was very scientific and yet magical at the same time. I leaned forward and let myself fall off the balcony, feeling the wind rush through my hair, fluttering my feathers. As I felt myself nearing the ground, I spread my wings full out to catch the wind, and soared over the top of the lake, running my fingers in the surface of the water as I went. I flew off, into the distance, and began my journey towards enlightenment and higher power.
At the end, there was a view of the sky, with the clouds rolling by, and as scenes of nature rolled through my mind, I could hear the Dragon King telling me some of the things he had told me once. Things about nature, about the great five, about himself and his love for me. About the way the worlds work, how all things were the same no matter how different they were; and it ends with him reminding me that he is a part of me, that every second that ticked by was a beat of his heart, and the last thing I heard him say was that no matter where we were, no matter how far apart, or no matter what happened in life, he would always love me.

~The End~