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There Was Once A Prince
There was once a prince, given a kingdom of his own by his parents.
Everything in life, to him, was about appearances.
Everyone in life, to him, was as a thing to be used.
But his subjects resented that he did not see them as human beings.
They talked behind his back, which he could ignore – but rumors abounded, as his subjects dreamed of Lands Far Away.
And they sang and gossiped, most of all, about a Kingdom of dragons which has no king: for every dragon was free.
This rankled the king so much, that, instead of enjoying his feasting and jesters and rich lounging couches; he would instead rage and mope and whine all the day.
For though he spoke often about the beauty of freedom; the reality of the concept filled him with insecurity and fear.
He stalked the people who spread the rumors.
But he got no closer to discovering where the Land of dragons was, so that he might conquer it.
His father, a great fool, was also eager to war with dragons, and to have great 'glory' and 'praise' from the victories he imagined.
But the prince's mother was frightened down to her soul: for she knew that the dragons would surely not be defeated in a war.
In fact, they would be sorely insulted by the humans' attempt to colonize them, and would kill the royal family.
And so his mother schemed, and sought, and planned, and plotted as carefully and cleverly as ever she could.
And, one day, his mother succeeded.
She bought to the royal court news of something sure to quell her husband's delusions. Something sure to soothe the ego of the prince.
Something rare: a captured dragon, who had been lured and manacled by the neck to the stone at the summit of a mountain near the castle.
And the mountain had been ringed round with runes: so that his kin could not find, see, or hear him...
Now the dragon struggled and roared and fought, for weeks upon end.
But he couldn't get free.
The prince came to 'speak' to him every day.
Monologues of mind-numbing, wrong-headed topics and ideas, for hours.
At the end of each day, the dragon tried patiently to ask for its freedom.
The dragon hails him as friend.
Speaks kindly and calmly, speaks rationally, "Please free me. Everything here is a lie, and lies are as poison to my kind. I do not belong here."
The prince, always, gets angry and leaves; and pretends upon the next day that the conversation never happened.
The prince's advisors come to see the dragon, too, so he tries to reason with them, instead.
For the dragon is also a seer.
He tells the advisors that his freedom is not just to the dragon's benefit, it is to the benefit of the king and the land as well.
The dragon can SEE the future of this evil act.
His dreams haunt him with terrible images of needless suffering, misery, and pain.
He knows that, the longer he is caged, the deeper will grow a curse upon this land.
To save the dragon, the king, and the human lands, he must be freed!
Yet, the advisors choose to continue to coddle the prince's ego, instead.
For a time, the prince sprinkles the phrase, "For I have spoken with dragons", into his speeches and conversations, and enjoys the momentary regard, anticipation, and intrigue of his people...
Yet, as time wears on, people ignore this assertion:
Because his views and attitudes do not change.
Because his policies and actions remain oriented towards control and the maintenance of image – not well-being or freedom.
If he, indeed, is 'speaking to dragons', it has not changed him for the better, informed the way he moves in the world, nor lent to him any nurturing magics…only given him another empty bragging point to preen over.
_
…The years pass.
The dragon has less and less energy for the prince's foolishness, and becomes sullen and silent: a once vibrant, joyful, wild face now creased with anger and despair, perpetually bared teeth and red eyes, staring; responding to very little, if anything, at all.
True to the dragon's desperate warning, the waters turn bitter.
The sky slowly hazes over. The soil greys. Crops die.
The wildlife dies, or flees for other lands.
The manacle on the dragon's neck is beginning to wear through his skin… he is always very slowly bleeding: the wound oozing and rotting, crawling with maggots.
Wings atrophying. The dragon is frequently sick.
Thrice, over the long years, the dragon hears a single, far-off roar over the horizon, and weeps: for he knows what the sound means.
The dragon's kin do die over time, as all things die -- and he cannot even fly to his family's side to grieve!!!
The advisors, at their limit in trying to manage the curse, come to beg the dragon for advice about the land.
"Free. Me.", He growls, irritated beyond telling at the sheer magnitude of their denial.
The advisors ignore him.
They cannot risk hurting the prince's feelings, nor can they admit that they were wrong.
For in their asinine kingdom, image is everything.
They make an excuse that they fear that the dragon will retaliate, even though they know: freedom is the sole thing he wants.
The dragon curses them for cowards as they leave.
The queen mother tells the prince, 'Oh, you just have to make the dragon happy, to break the curse upon the land. Treat him nicer!'
The prince begins to give the dragon nicer meals.
He decorates the bare stone surroundings with velvet carpets, silk curtains and bejeweled banners; golden lamps, and embroidered pillows.
"Free! Me!", the dragon tearfully bellows...
He is ignored.
_
Fully taking hold, the curse builds unrestrained.
Magical, poisoned fires rise out of the dead grey soil, and eat the dead forests. The smoke of it chokes the sky.
When the winds blow, the air is full of dust and ash.
Peasants lie unburied along quake-broken roads: ravaged by plague, thirst, and starvation.
It begins to rain acid.
The prince, in grand gesture, comes with a troop of weary, impeccably-dressed attendants blowing trumpets, to gift the dragon with a fine, tiny tea set…
Finally, one day, the prince, covered in plague boils, comes to visit.
The dragon's scales and skin have worn through in raw patches under the chains; the pain of which keep him from sleeping.
The dragon stares balefully.
He is just barely holding it together, but he knows.
There is nothing he can say that he hasn't said a million times by now.
He prepares himself to wait silently through another long, awful, one-sided conversation…
The prince sniffles at the dragon dolefully, and monologues: talking about 'how sad' he is for his 'poor kingdom'.
His parents are sick and hallucinate with fevers.
Even his advisors have died.
"But at least I still have you, my dear old friend."
The dragon fucking LOSES it.
When the dragon involuntarily jerks his head upward in fury, the manacle snaps and falls away.
…Unbeknownst to either of them, the acid rain had done more than eaten through the skin of the dragon…
It had worn away at the manacle around its neck.
Suddenly staring down at the king, the dragon's jaw drops.
The prince stares up: his usual placid, oblivious face a mask of total fear.
The dragon, tears streaming down his face, screams the years of rage and sorrow and pain and loneliness and frustration and grief into that face -- without even intending to, without thought – with one, long, firey scream, burning the prince to a crisp.
The surrounding stone of the mountain runs: heating to lava and charred slag…
...
The dragon pauses. Catches his laboured breath.
Without another word, the dragon turns, and, panting, limps his atrophied body slowly away...leaning on his ruined wings, with each step…down the mountain...
Towards the horizon.
Towards whatever remains of home.
Before Grandmother
The men do not speak so I took my pack filled it with tinder, water, wine and dry meat and went out into the rain
The men do not speak I needed, said I a woman I need a woman to speak; to speak as women speak to women when they want each other to grow
I know it is not always easy
I went up the road in rain walking steady pace, one, and another step, my head down
my soles washed, little by little, in clear puddles smudged, little by little, in the soft growing mud
The daylight was sky-silver and blue silk, I found the pathway through golden hay, fragrant, sticking to the bottoms of my sandals: building a mat out of my stride
I found a way through tall, wet, emerald grass parted this way and that like hair and felt my heart look up a little
the women were there and all of them sat beneath the woven branches dry with soft looks and faces straight, tall, full of juice
I need a Word, I said I need a woman's voice, for the men do not speak and they looked at me mildly each like a gleaming crystal in the rain resonating in silence.
The women do not speak
I feel sick I feel I keep treading roads that end in mild looks, cool distance like a tiny finger of rain slipping down the back of my burlap neck tightening my spine to disappear
No one is speaking so I must speak.
I don't know anyone I am not known the risings and settings all ask me their turning questions and I can only fumble weary in my ignorance.