Dragon Dreams

Chapter 7: Lessons by the Lake (2/2)

Beside me, Rofar reached out with a wing and gently placed it on my shoulder. I looked up at his kind face, my frustration and embarrassment clear in my body language. "Patience, Ayreth," he said. "After all, a hatchling does not soar over mountains on his first flight. No. He merely glides at first and then rises steadily higher each day. Thus is the way of magic. This time, just close your eyes and focus on the energy. Pay attention to the ground beneath your feet—feel the sun and the wind on your scales. When you achieve a peaceful focus, that is when the magic comes easily."

So I closed my eyes and held my head high once more, jaws agape. My other senses were effortlessly heightened by my temporary blindness. The smooth pebbles under my paws radiated their pleasant, warming sensations. The breeze that caressed my body offered up the crisp scents of pine and fresh water. I noticed all these things, and then something else. My frustration was replaced by a calmness that reverberated through each slow breath and heartbeat.

The corners of my open mouth pulled back in a slight smile. "I'm actually getting this," I thought happily. The sun splashed its pleasant beams onto my back, warming me from my neck all the way to my tail. I tried to envision this heat as energy flowing through my body. With a gentle touch, I directed this energy to my throat and was surprised to feel a tingling on my tongue. Not wanting to miss my chance, I held my focus and breathed out. My eyes were still closed, so all I felt was a hot stream of air exiting my mouth and a sharp, but not unpleasant, taste on my tongue.

"It's working!" I thought gleefully. Snapping my eyes open, I was greeted with the welcome sight. Flames were issuing from my jaws, an orange inferno that burned with surprising vigor. "I'm breathing fire, just like a true dragon," I thought. I wanted to jump for joy. But right then, as my excitement nudged my focus from the fire, the flames started to sputter. I simply closed my mouth to stop the fire-breath, leaving the last of the magic to hiss and dance as contact with the water extinguished it. Beaming broadly, I looked over to see a mixture of pride and incredulity on Rofar's face.

The older dragon's eyes darted from me to the still-steaming patch of water and back. He started to laugh, sitting down and swishing his tail as mirth shook his body. "That was quite something, young one," he said when he finally caught his breath. "You certainly found your spark that time. But what did I tell you? It is amazing what one can do with a clear and focused mind. This has been a marvelous inception of your training, marvelous indeed. Let us cease your lessons for now; you have progressed enough for one day. I say we take to the air and celebrate with some flying."

The flight was amazing, as always. Somehow, I felt even more graceful in the air than usual. It was as if using magic had unlocked something inside me that made me feel even more like a dragon. The aerial acrobatics soon wore me out so I took a dip in the water. I waded back to shore and shook myself off, my muscles feeling sore but invigorated. My blue companion soon rejoined me, drying his wings with a flourish. Droplets of water flew off them like diamonds and sprinkled my scales.

As I stood on the beach, the tranquility was disturbed by a distant sound. It rumbled like muffled thunder, so faint that it was impossible to locate. However, it was steadily getting louder, pulsing, accompanied by a growing disquiet inside me. My eyes widened, and I looked about, my ear-fins flared alertly.

"Is something wrong, young one?" Rofar asked.

I looked at him in confusion. "Can't you hear it? That noise?"

"I am afraid I know not of this sound," he looked around, seemingly as confused as I was. "Can you describe it?"

"Yeah, it's deep, like thunder, and getting louder too," I replied. "It almost..." My voice trailed off when I saw something strange and frightening. Black mist was seeping out of the ground all around me. Swirling columns of it emerged from the forest, looking like slender figures cloaked in shadow. This was not the darkness that signaled the end of the dream; this was something much more sinister. "Rofar, what's going on?" I said, panic raising the octave of my words.

"Ayreth, what do you see?" Rofar said with concern as he took a couple nervous steps toward me, looking around. "I see nothing. There is nothing wrong."

The dark fog was pressing in as the din grew even more forceful. My heart was pounding as the deafening sound reverberated in the air around us. It felt like an earthquake within a thunderstorm. I crouched and spread my wings defensively as the gravel beneath me shifted with the moving earth. In the next moment, the ground beneath me gave way completely. I flapped my wings desperately, trying to stop my plunge. It was in vain—somehow the air around me had lost its substance. "Rofar!" I roared in terror, before the black fissure swallowed everything.

I fell, twisting through the darkness. In seconds, the fleeting, spinning speck of light high above me was gone. So too was the sound. Still, I descended into the abyss, silent, except for my own ragged breaths. Suddenly, I crashed into something. I roared in pain and fear as unseen objects lashed me. Moments later, I realized that I was falling through branches—dead branches. They snapped and shattered painfully against me as I fell. Solid ground brought me to a halt shortly thereafter. I registered that I had landed in a pile of leaves, but the impact was still hard enough to knock the wind out of me.

For a second, I thought I saw lights in front of me, but these were just stars in my vision from the impact and I blinked them away. Wherever I was, it seemed like a forest from the trees and leaves around me. But I couldn't be sure since it was totally black. It was also silent, except for my rustling movements and laborious gulps of air.

I was still lying on my side where I landed. Dry leaves crunched like snow as I regained my footing. I would say I looked around, but that would imply that there was something for me to look at. As far as I could tell, I had fallen into a strange and frightening new dream. Tentatively, I took a few steps forward. Underneath, my paws felt soft grass sprinkled with leaves and pine needles. It was a normal forest floor. I discovered a tree by running my snout into its trunk. Rubbing my nose, I stood up on two legs and resumed walking with my arms outstretched to intercept any more arboreal encounters.

"What are you doing?" said a voice. The words were deep, deliberate, and sharp as a sword. I could not tell where the question came from. It just hung in the air, followed by, "Stumbling around like a helpless infant, surely you are no real dragon."

"Who are you?" I answered with a question of my own.

"You may call me," the voice was booming now, echoing hauntingly through the trees, "master." 

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