Descending the Mountain

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Long ago, there were monsters that roamed the frozen land and terrorized the rest of creation. Hulking, insatiable beasts with trap-like jaws for crushing and claws for ripping apart anything unlucky enough to be within each. The dragons had arrived soon after those monsters and intended to make the Valley their home as well, but the bloodlust that overtook their equals became unbearable to their gentler nature. The dragons took flight as their wings enabled them to like no other beast could. They knew we were up there in the mountains, hiding in caves and surviving on melted snow and any scraps we could find.

It would have been easy for any one of them to dip their heads into a cave we cowered in and roast us with the fire in their chests for themselves, for food, to remove us from the space they could claim as their own. Or for fun – it seemed other monsters would do the same.

But they took pity instead. They admired our resiliency, our attempts – however feeble – at staying warm, staying nourished, and protecting each other.

The cold that kept us bundled in furs and huddled around fires did not faze the dragons. They could rest on the snow and it would all be melted around them within a few minutes.

There were dozens of them, each one assigning itself a human clan throughout the mountain chain. Our relationship became mutual. They sheltered us from bitter chills, brought us fattened food from the Valley that we would not dare step down into, and gave us peace in the knowledge that we were, at least, a little safer with their presence.

The help that they gave so graciously allowed us to grow. Not just in numbers, but in the richness of our cultures. We had time to weave masterfully instead of haphazardly, to create art that told stories in and of itself and gave the eyes a rest from the endless grayscale of the mountainside, and to savor food that we experimented with. Never before had we been blessed enough with the resources to try anything adventurous with food for fear we would waste it.

Down in the Valley, there was a season the dragons called summer. They told us of the time of year in which the clouds would finally break, and sunlight came down to illuminate the Valley and warm it to such a degree that fruiting plants would become fecund. The furry animals even shed off a layer of their valuable hair. We could not imagine feeling heat on our skin that did not come from a crackling fire. And so when summer came to the Valley, the dragons would fly down and bring us back these colorful fruits and vegetables. We found we could do more with it all than just eat it; we learned how to make dye. Before, our paint had come from animal blood, charcoal dust, and occasionally from dark red berries that the rabbits ate. Now, we had entire palettes of color: blue, violet, bright red, orange, yellow.

We were overwhelmed with the kindness of the dragons, and we did not know how to possibly repay it. What was a mere human to what had essentially become gods in our lives?

“Truly, you were created by intelligent design as we were.” The dragons had said. “You have no wings, no scales, no claws, weak teeth… And yet, here you are, humans. Alive on this mountain for a thousand years now. Tell us, what has kept you sane?”

It was a question we had never pondered before, never had a use for it. Until we realized what the dragon intended for us to say.

“We tell each other stories.”

“And oh, how you weave them.” The cloud gray and gold dragon had told my own clan with a grin. “Dragons don’t think the same way that you do. You spin tales of things you have never seen before. I have heard you begin to tell each other fables of what summertime is like. How it is to live in the Valley below without the hindrance of monsters.”

The dragons wanted the worlds we created within our minds and spoke aloud into the air. They were enchanted by the ideas we concocted, bemused when we made each other laugh or cry with tales old and new. An excellent storyteller would have an entire clan with all of their eyes locked on them as they spun a yarn. The clan dragon too would be transfixed, the brilliant glimmer in their eyes knowing that we could see things that they could not. But they could see our expressions, could see our emotions change, watch us pull threads further from tales we already heard to tell new ones – all from the images and sounds that swirled in our minds.

For hundreds of years, we traded happily with the dragons; sustenance and protection for our craft. The havoc that the beasts on the Valley floor wreaked could not reach us in our now beloved mountainside homes. The cold was relentless, the eternal winter that continued on and on. But the loneliness was gone, as was the fear, and the hopelessness. The joy that dragons brought gave us new life. Surely, they saved us from certain demise.

A day came when the clouds thinned slightly, enough to make them a pale gray instead of the oppressive charcoal shade that had been a constant.

The dragons returned from the Valley, and said to us that the summer was not ending. The time for winter in the Valley had come and passed. The sheets of ice had begun to recede and melt into the land, and only dustings of snow coated the ground.

“The monsters are nearly gone.” The dragons all breathed sighs of relief.

They asked us if we would like to see the Valley, to descend the mountain.

There was hesitancy for fear of leaving what had become comfortable, but the dragons gently pressed, insistent that humans would be happier there.

An agreement was reached, and down we went.

As we descended lower, we began to see and hear things we never had before. Loud, initially terrifying waterfalls that cascaded down into rivers that stretched on past our vision. Deer with sprawling antlers that grazed peacefully in mountain meadows that the monsters had once frequented and were now nowhere to be found.

When we reached the Valley floor, it was nearing the dark. The dragons called this time of the day twilight. The sky, which was sparse in clouds, bloomed a brilliant purple.

The ground was still icy, but patches of the grass that we had seen on our way down had begun to break past the thinning sheet. Mountains ringed the Valley, and we had never seen them from a distance. The snow caps echoed the violet of the sky.

As the sun sank below the horizon, bright sparkling things began to dot the darkening sky.

We had ceased our camp building with the dragons to gaze at them, enraptured with wonder.

“They are stars.” The dragons taught us. “They liven the blackness of night and race across the sky with the season changes. Soon, you will learn how to read them, and they will be your guides when you travel even farther from this place one day.”

We could not imagine that day, but then we could have never imagined migrating to the Valley. The dragons had made anything possible.

Time stretched on into years, and only the occasional monster had shown up in that time. They were often weak and easy to frighten away, especially with our allies.

A day came when the dragons collected us all together. There was something important they needed us to know.

“The time has come for us to leave you, humans. You have all been brave and strong and are now where you are meant to be. Now, dragonkind needs to go on to where we belong.”

A nervousness set in, but they quelled our fears.

“We will return to the sky from where we came. Those of us returning to constellations will always be watching over you humans. But most of us will be formed again into the egg which bore us onto the earth long ago.”

One by one, the dragons began to ascend, until only my clan’s dragon was left.

He was sad, but sure of what needed to be done.

“This egg we speak of,” he told us, “You shall call ‘the moon’. You will see it full and bright some nights, and other times it will wane and become hidden.”

He unfurled his wings, and left us with one last message before he joined the others.

“Should you ever need us again, the moon will crack open, and we will be reborn.”

But centuries passed, and humanity could no longer remember a time when there was no moon. And yet, we never forgot the dragons’ promise. Especially not when there has been no moon in the sky for many nights, and the dragons that should have spilled from it are nowhere to be found.