glass_icarus | dragon lady; lady dragon.

The night is cool and calm, the brilliant eye of the moon wide shut. My pulse races, blood of her blood; it is time. I close my eyes and approach the silent edge of consciousness, stepping over with arms outstretched. It is always thus, a leap of faith.

Dreaming in darkness, I breathe her in.

She dwells in the margins between stories and songs, between pictures and words, between motion and stillness. A spirit, a muse, a dream; her open mouth spills beauty and wonder, a pearl of great wisdom tucked beneath her tongue. The sound of her voice haunts those who seek her for the rest of their lives, the most precious and elusive of secrets; those who find her are marked with her five-clawed foot- once the sign of a golden, blessed lineage, now the stamp of greatness.

My path to her lies over a blazing river of stars, the crossing marked only by a cowherd's flute and a seamstress's silk. I pay my toll- memories of a mountainside trail lined with goat dung and the smell of incense and burning red paper; ashes of a story- and wait for the birds to arrive and prove me worthy.

Love and honor, she respects above all things. Once, she was a girl who dressed in men's clothes and picked up a sword in her father's place. Once, she was an empress who seized the throne in a court of men so that her son could rule after her. Once, she was an artist-diplomat who dreamed a nation at her husband's side. She has lived and died a thousand lives, each as fierce and brilliant as the last, willingly walking a road without end.

In the glowing surface of the river, I am shown the mountain beneath which the Monkey King lies, resting in the palm of a monk's hand. I am shown the bow of the archer who shot down eight mischievous suns. I am shown the face of the lady who swallowed a magic pill and floated away from her husband to land on the moon, a permanent exile. I am shown the axe of the woodsman who cuts down the same tree for all eternity. I am shown the knife of the daughter who sliced off pieces of her own flesh to cook for her ailing mother when there was nothing left to eat. The flock of swallows hovers above the opposite shore, waiting; in the beating of their wings lies my task. Choose.

Blood of her blood, an unbroken line. I reach for the knife- love, honor, sacrifice- and watch as the bridge forms, a living arch of birds. She waits for me on the other side; I can see the glimmer of the pearl in her smiling mouth as I step lightly upon the swallows' backs. I am not the first of her daughters to make this journey, seeking the road home rather than the road west.

When she is still young and immortal, her scales newly-minted on her skin, she finds a stone on the shore: born in fire in the deep belly of the earth, spit out from the sea, worn down by the wind. Her brothers laugh at her fascination; it is a pebble, after all, small and insignificant. She likes it, though, and slips it in the little hollow of flesh beneath her tongue.

I kneel at her feet to seal our bargain, the point of the knife at my breastbone. The keen edge of it feels like a feather as I trace a bloodless line, laying my heart open for her to see, that she can read all the stories of my life.

Her breath flows over my face, shivery-warm, as she presses the pearl into my mouth. For a moment, the world is a web of red threads, gleaming in our shared sight. She shakes her head- these aren't mine to see. She has been gracious. It is enough.

The pearl is smooth; I swallow it easily.

(This is the (hi)story I want for my dragon lady:

When the world was young, she came: from the wind and the rock, from the sun and the sea. Her brothers were of the elements, but she was not, her aegis unwritten beneath the moon and the stars. While they concerned themselves with their provinces, she pursued knowledge- of life and of breath, of words and of songs, of all the secrets to be found in the place between waking and sleeping.)

I wake before dawn, the sheets cool around me. The sun won't rise for a few hours yet. Smiling, I close my eyes and dream of dragons.

-- written for the Remyth Project.