Supratentorial Dust Storms and Tumbleweeds

Hungry in the Storm: Story Ideas Interview

Author's note: To hear the inspiration for this story, have a listen to the interview above.

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The sky turned green signaling a tornado would soon rip through land. Princess Edie didn't wait for the sound of the wind to get any louder before she grabbed her prize possession, her golden crown, and ran down the stairs to the dungeons below her castle.

Safe from the dangers of the storm above, princess Edie peered through the darkness. She had never ventured this far down below her home before, in fact no noble people had traipsed through these damp, dingy corridors, lit only by torches, in a very long time.  

But Edie was brave. She put her beautiful crown on her head and decided to explore. Down she went, down, down, down beneath the earth. She entered an enormous cavern and heard terrible roars far at the other end. Carefully she tiptoed towards the ruckus, hiding in the shadows. 

 To her surprise, two large dinosaurs were fighting with each other, ripping at one another with terrible claws. It didn't take Edie long to figure out what the fight was about. Beside them was a very large cheese burger. In the flickering light, Edie could see the bun looked soft, the meat juicy. Delicious-looking catsup dribbled out one side. She heard her own stomach rumble. In her haste to seek shelter from the tornado she hadn't grabbed any food for herself and it was now far past her dinner time. Her mother had baked cookies that afternoon and Edie pictured them getting sucked up by the tornado.

But then Edie noticed something else in the gloom. A pair of sad yellow eyes sat and watched the fight from behind a pillar.

She carefully picked her way over to the other onlooker and to her surprise it was a dragon, one she had met as a little girl. When she had told others about this dragon they had only laughed and said the dragon was just in her imagination.

"Why do you look so sad?" she asked the dragon. "Is that your hamburger?"

"No," sniffed the dragon, "although I'm hungry. I'm sad because I'm hiding from Dark Rock, the evil witch. If she finds me she will turn me to stone."

Edie thought for a moment about the dragon's dilemma, idly fiddling with the beautiful gems on her crown. Finally, she had an idea.

"Why don't you live with me in the castle," she suggested. "We are safe from the witch there."

"You would let me do that?" the dragon asked, a smile on his face for the first time in months. "How could I ever repay you?" 

Edie smiled and whispered into the dragon's ear. Then she jumped on its back and they took flight. The dragon grabbed the cheeseburger in its claw while the two fighting dinosaurs looked up in disbelief. 

By the time Edie and the dragon had reached the surface of the earth, the tornado was gone and the sun had come out. Edie and the dragon sat and shared the cheeseburger on top of the castle. As they licked the last of the meat off their fingers and claws, Edie sniffed in the air.

"Do you smell that?" she asked. "The tornado didn't suck up all of the cookies after all! Let's go have dessert." 

And Edie and the dragon lived happily ever after. 

And the dinosaurs? They probably found more meat to fight over.