The dragon king was sick. Not sick in his body, though he was very old. Not sick in his mind, though he was set in his ways. The dragon king was sick in his heart.
All day long, day after day, the dragon king lay in his golden treasure room, weeping, surrounded by gems that glistened with his tears. He had wept for so long that he no longer noticed he was weeping.
The dragons in the kingdom tried everything to cheer up their king. They told funny stories, they performed delightful dances, they created beautiful artwork, they played games near and around him. Even surrounded by laughter and creativity, the dragon king wept.
The dragons in the kingdom tried everything to comfort their king. They sat near him in silence, they wept their own tears, they prepared his favorite foods and drinks, they brought him new treasures for his collection. Even surrounded by compassion and generosity, the dragon king wept.
“We have tried everything,” the dragon princess lamented in private to her courtiers.
“Not everything.” It was the dragon king’s sister who spoke. She rested one hand on the enormous sapphire she wore around her neck. “Not everything. You have not visited the Greenland Shark.”
Everyone in the room gasped. The dragon princess covered her mouth with her talons. Throughout the small gathering, the dragons whispered, “The Greenland Shark? No! Impossible!”
No one wanted to go to the depths of the Arctic Ocean to visit the Greenland Shark. The journey was perilous, but more than that, to descend into the depths of the ocean was to relinquish the gift of fire. No dragon who visited the Greenland Shark would ever breathe fire again.
No one would go. Except for the dragon king’s sister. But she knew it was not her journey to make.
Time went on and the dragon king continued to weep.
Finally, when the dragon princess could no longer hold space for her father’s sick heart, she went to the map room and studied the route to Greenland.
The dragon princess flew north. It took her 13 days and nights and when she arrived, she was cold and weary. The Arctic wind blew fiercely against her as she hovered over the choppy waters of the Arctic ocean. Around her neck she wore a bundle of sticks soaked in oil and wrapped in wax and she breathed her final breath of fire on it. It ignited and she released the brightly burning bundle into the ocean, where it was flung this way and that, but it did not go out.
Then she flew up, up, up, and dove down, all the way down. Her body broke through the waves like a hammer through glass, she felt the shards of water ripping over her. Down, down, down she plunged. Deeper and deeper she went until she could no longer see anything at all.
And then, the smell. The smell. The pungent, caustic smell of ammonia burned the dragon princess’ eyes and nostrils. She recoiled and had to force her body to stay there in the depths.
“It’s been a long time,” a voice said. “A long, long time.”
The dragon princess stayed in the deep dark realm of the Greenland Shark for 3 days and 3 nights and when she ascended she knew what must be done.
She burst through the sharp waves and retrieved her burning bundle, still alight and blazing brightly. Though she could no longer breathe fire, the bundle lit her way and kept her warm enough to fly the 13 days and nights back to the dragon kingdom.
When she returned, all the dragons in the kingdom welcomed the dragon princess with cheers and fireworks. Then the entire kingdom gathered in the dragon king’s golden treasure room to hear what the dragon princess had to say.
“What if we stopped trying to cheer my father, the dragon king?” she asked. “What if we stopped trying to comfort him?”
The dragons murmured uncomfortably.
“What if, instead, we did something altogether different?”
“But,” the dragon king’s advisor finally spoke up, “this is how it has always been done. We must never change. Dragons stay the course.”
“Yes, I know that is what we have said since the beginning of memory,” the dragon princess agreed. “But rather than a hopeful promise, it has become a chain that tethers us to something that no longer works. We need to leave this path and take a new one.”
Now the dragons murmured angrily. They argued and debated and finally the devastated dragon princess was banished. Alone and fireless, she lived in the caves outside the kingdom. And the dragon king continued to weep.
No one visited the dragon princess except for the dragon king’s sister. One day, the dragon king’s sister brought a mirror with her to the caves, which she gave to the dragon princess.
“This mirror shows the future. The reason the dragon king weeps is because he saw your fate in it years ago.”
“Then why didn’t he say something?” the dragon princess questioned. “Why didn’t he step in to stop it?”
The dragon’s sister’s eyes glowed with her own unwept tears. “Because a dragon stays the course.”
“But that’s not right or good or just!”
“No, it isn’t. I should have done this a long time ago.” Then the dragon king’s sister breathed in deeply and breathed out a blaze of fire so great it encompassed them both.
When the flames died down, the dragon princess felt a burning sensation and looked down to see a heart-shaped flame in the middle of her chest. The dragon king’s sister removed the enormous sapphire that hung around her own neck and revealed a similar heart-shape made of ash and charcoal.
“A dragon makes her own course,” the dragon king’s sister said. “Spread the flame.”
“But I lost the gift of fire,” the dragon princess protested.
The dragon king’s sister laughed kindly. “This kind of fire can’t be lost.”
Katie Carey is a spiritual midwife, community herbalist, and theater artist devoted to real-izing the Emerging Story. Katie spent 10 years doing theater in the Northwest, followed by 8 years of theater in Chicago. She then decided what she really wanted to do was raise a family in a hand-built hobbit hole in the middle of a mud puddle on a Montana farm. So that’s what’s happening now. Katie's works include How to Re-Ignite Your Internal Fire, Foul-Mouthed Mystic, Vasilisa + Baba Yaga (or: How to Destroy Your Enemies without Losing Your Soul), Excommunicated! The Musical, New Creation Stories for the Emerging Paradigm, The Real Life Adventures of Lizzy and Rilla, and Solitaire.
Katie has degrees in theater and spirituality, so she can act like she cares.
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