Dragon and Butterfly
In the distant hills, where the shadows grow long and cold, and the grasses thin and pale, there is a spit of rock, high above things, where nothing ever goes.
At the foot of this stony place, between the mounds of brittle rock and orphaned flowers, there is a crevice, tall and dark and narrow, barely wide enough for passage of a man.
The cold winds blow and the hills moan, and this stark, lonely place seems empty beyond all things. A traveler, lost and wandering, might miss the spot, looking for the illusion of warmth and light that rests on the heights. And so, it is undisturbed for many years.
But… lingering in front of it, even for a moment, a person might feel a puff, a breath as it were, from the inside of the earth. Warm. Faint. Comforting. Someone entering might find that it goes on tightly for a while and then, when the pinnacle of breathlessness is achieved, a relaxing of walls. A release from these tighter confines in a single step as the path widens into a warm and comforting room, dark perhaps, but farlit with a banked hearth fire, or some other welcoming glow.
This traveler will stumble in the darkness, moving forward until the room is revealed, opening up into a study filled with cases and shelves and papers and a warm, inviting fire, faced by a single comfortable chair with a nearby ottoman, puffy and leather-smelling and sinking and soft. The weary traveler, warm and exhausted after so much cold and effort, might sit down in this chair and sink, achingly, into the sweet drift of oblivion…
“What is this?” a gravelly voice, musical, resonant and deep, interrupts the sleeping reverie. The man wakes, startled, leaping out of the chair and whirling about, windmilling his arms and dropping halfway to a crouch. There before him is a sight beyond imagining, curled, lithe, sparkling in the soft light, wings half raised, steam from his breath curling away, in the center of his library of leatherbound tomes and collected files and strange and interesting things. The creature, this dragon, for that is what he has always been, peers with lucid green eyes at the terrified trespasser.
“Are you interesting?” the dragon asks slowly, adjusting his clawed feet with scratching noises against the stone floor. He speaks as though language is uncomfortable, as though he is proficient, even excellent at making use of it, but does not often have a reason or purpose to do so. The man trembles, watching tendrils of heat rise from the end of the dragon’s nose. He drops, suddenly, into a prostration suitable for the court of an emperor.
The dragon laughs at this display, more of a chortle, really, a sound like dark canyons echoing through a bellows, and the man trembles again.
“Why are you in my house?” The dragon asks, pointedly. The room grows slightly warmer as he exhales, less steam now, more heat. He shifts and settles his glorious bulk into a more comfortable position, and pulls his wings in carefully, almost to full rest, giving our traveler an opportunity to speak.
“It was warm… outside, it was cold, I mean… It has been very cold in these parts, and I was lost, and there was a warmth, just a glow of warmth. My fault, being lost, I was following a butterfly…” he trails off, flat on the cool stone floor, and waits, mind probably racing to find the right words, the right reasons, the perfect, excusable, excuse for his transgression of entering a… a… someone’s house and falling asleep in their comfortable chair. Which makes no sense, honestly, now that he —
“Butterfly?” The dragon chuffs, amicably. “What butterfly? Sit up, please, your speech is muffled against the floor.”
The traveler raises himself up and speaks, hesitation and terror evident in his halting phrases, but his mind turns inward to examine and regale with his love of subject, the rarity of coloration, the beauty of delicate wings, the creature never seen before, until the fear fades, the voice evens out, and what is left in their stead is a beautiful, poetic reverie. The dragon, verdant eyes all a-whirl and gleaming in the firelight, is listening at rapt attention when the story comes to an end. The traveler waits, unspeaking, to see what his fate might be, looking for the first time at the scales, not red as he had thought, not carapace, as he had thought, but crystalline, tinged blue, and green, and absorbing and reflecting from all their shaped edges the reddish, golden-orange of the fireside glow. He is beautiful, the traveler realizes, awestruck. Beautiful.
“What would you do with her if you found her?” The dragon asks after a time, lifting his head and closing his eyes, as though the tremor of our traveler’s voice would give him the purest answer.
“Do?” The traveler wonders, confused. He is seeing the vitreous form, the magnificent, nearly transparent wings, the sinuous curve of great length, curled and waiting. The suggestions of color, the clear to cobalt-edged shapes with the vivid green ridges, the refraction of light, all remind him of —
“To the butterfly. What would you do if you found her?” The dragon repeats himself, taking on an edge, leaning his weight, bearing suddenly the appearance of predator about to fly.
“Oh!” The traveler laughs. “Why, nothing. Just look, and see. Draw her picture. Try to know what flowers… could be planted, that might attract her attention. She was lovely. I have followed her for many miles.”
“And gotten lost.” snorts the dragon.
“And gotten lost.” agrees the traveler.
“Tell me of the world,” the dragon demands, kindly, “it has been long since I have seen it.”
And so, the traveler does. He speaks for many hours; always honest, always earnest. The dragon at last calls an end to the tales, and bids the gentleman to eat of the bread and cheese found on a certain shelf, and to drink a goblet of wine from a particular bottle, as thanks for the telling. Soon, the traveler is fast asleep on the floor; it may be that the food and drink were treated, but then again, it may not — our traveler did walk for a long while, lost in the windy cold, and upon finding warmth was confronted by a dragon. It might try the sturdiest of souls.
Some time later, a man, not too tall, not too wide, climbs that tallest hill. His white hair is awash in the colors of sunrise, and the brilliant moon shines down her light upon his lined leather coat, his walking stick, his sturdy shoes. The loose rocks and the moss and lichens, the short, stubby grasses grow sparse and thin the higher he climbs, but he has a purpose here.
His step is almost sprightly, and sometimes he pauses, to glance ahead, and to look at the fading stars, a glitter in his eyes. He is not lost, this man. He knows exactly where he is going.
There, high above things, where nothing ever goes, he lays down the walking stick. He places his hand on the lonely spar, and turns to look out at the hills, stretching off and away and below. He is smiling, brightly.
“I was afraid you weren’t coming,” she says. He revels in the music of her voice for a moment, as she slips her pale fingers into his hand.
“I had a visitor,” he says, his own voice filled with emotion, “but he is gone now. Will you not come dine with me?”
And so, luminous in the cold air and brightening light, they descend the ancient hills together.
What became of them, none shall ever know.
***
What? What is that you say? The traveler? Well, perhaps he awoke with an aching head on a far-off dock, and perhaps he found coin in his pocket and boarded a ship for new lands, filled with wonder. Or, perhaps the dragon ate him? Who can tell.
