Dragon Story

A fantasy blog by Susanna Vesna

[dragonspiritblog]

Art by  Eldar Minibaev

[dragonstory]

They held on to each other. The Dragon and the woman. Her hand was tenderly touching his magnificent scales, her face glistening with tears, turned away, eyes lost in the view before them. They had no one and no one had them. There were alone in this universe. Alone, but together. 

They stayed in silence, without thought, simply letting their feelings overflow them and sink in deeper into their bones. The fact that Chaos had engulfed everyone in this world in order to start again, was a heart-wrenching thought, silenced only by another - that both of them survived this inevitability because their souls found each other, completing an infinitely long search. They were complete and indestructible, the pure original spark of all life in this universe.

And now that Chaos had done its job, it was their turn to start theirs - recreate the world.

(Susanna Vesna, 27th Jan 2020) 

[dragonstory]

(Artwork by Amorphisss) 

Noise in her ears...

She was holding her head, eyes tightly shut, teeth bared from the noise in her ears. Everything was muffled, as if she was underwater, but loud as if there was a trumpet near by, sending immense vibrations to her membranes. She felt so many things simultaneously, that it was impossible to know what exactly was happening to her or around her.

Was this how it felt to die in an accident? She tried opening her eyes, but all she could see was bright circles pulsing across darkness. She may have been talking to herself, but she couldn’t tell for sure. For a split second she became aware of her nails digging into her skull.

It suddenly became hot...She could still feel, that means she wasn’t dead. Very hot now... There was some movement above her, she started hearing screams but could not discern their source. Everything seemed to be happening next to her, but far away at the same time, as if she was sitting near by and watching or rather hearing, the repercussions of her car accident.

The sudden unbearable pain passed like a lightning through her entire being, pulling her out from the dreamland she was hiding in. She could finally hear herself screaming, unable to move. 

Her eyes wet from tears snapped open only to gaze upon a jaw-dropping sight in front of her. She was looking into a pond with a pitch black slit in the centre, surrounded by what seemed like glowing lava. It bulged towards her and she saw her bloodied pale reflection on its smooth surface and thought that it was surely an entrance to hell.

And then the slit moved outwards, expanding into a scary abyss like a drop of black ink on paper, and she felt herself starting to fall into the endless darkness. She weakly raised her hand to obstruct the daunting view, but as her hand made the move, something weird occurred- the whole mirror seemed to shift and rotate slightly.

“What the fuck?”- she heard her voice say, cracked with agony. The blurred lines surrounding her vision began to focus, and so did the pain. Her body & mind were returning from the shock and it was not a good feeling. 

She blinked...and so did the huge bulging mirror with an abyss in its centre. She stared, thoughts unable to form in her mind. And then it hit her- it was an eye, a humongous eye. Before everything went pitch-black, her failing consciousness registered a leathery eye-lid, with what looked like scales.

(Susanna Vesna, 2019)

[dragonstory]

The atmosphere was trembling. The massive Dragon landed on top of the gate, crippling the edges, sending debris and stones tumbling down. 

She jumped off seemingly from nowhere, tiny and fragile next to the enormous creature, fire and anger in her eyes. The countless eye-less souls hovered nearby, drawn to the gates of “hell” by invisible forces. They stared at her in disbelief, for she was not one of them. She did not have a “soul”. She was free, she was one with the Universe and all Existence, and so was her Dragon.

Her eyes were wild as she looked at these lost faces. She turned around towards the gates, with a menacing grimace on her face.

“Open the gates! Your lies are out! Your foul games will not prevail! The minds of this Existence have been imprisoned and manipulated by you for too long! Open your damned gates! Show us the “horrors” that you have been threatening the inhabitants of this Universe with for eons!”, she roared, her voice magnified by the tall towers and walls. The Great One looked at her from above, his chest heaving with ferocity and pride. This was the moment they would destroy the rule of the Liar and Manipulator. 

When her words did not bring about any affect, with empty gloomy gates staring silently at the unexpected visitors, she clutched the ash-black staff tighter and started marching towards them. As she reached the huge black doors, she lifted the staff and to the horror of the on-looking souls began knocking. She knocked seven times and let out a violent scream, staring into the redness that illuminated from beyond. The Great One turned his head and let out a jet of fire, as if to assert the challenge.

(Susanna Vesna, 19th July 2018)

(Unfortunately, I cannot find the source of this beautiful artwork)

[dragonstory]

“Where will we go?”, she whispered looking up at him, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes. He let her weep for countless minutes, all the time not making a sound, only a quite purr resonating from his massive chest, waiting for her sorrow to extinguish in its hopelessness. She needed to let it out. After all, her planet was lost. The spirits of everyone she knew and would never know were gone, broken down into smallest particles and merged with a myriad of others to form new living things in other new worlds. This was infinitely hard to comprehend and accept. And so she wept, and he waited for her to take her time.

“We will go wherever you wish. I will take you to every direction where I have and have not gone before. We will see every star, every galaxy yet to be born. We will witness the inevitable perishing of many others. That is the way of this existence. This is all much bigger, beyond what you thought or even may think now”, The Great Dragon said.

“You will see sunsets and sunrises of other worlds, you will see days and nights of brilliance you could never imagine before, for you lived in a small world. It will feel overwhelming and mad, but once you accept it you will know no bigger happiness”, he continued enthralling her with his huge eyes, which seemed bottomless, reflecting endless galaxies in their depths.

(Susanna Vesna, May 2018)

[jadeiseult]

[dragonstory]

...She kneeled on the ground, unable to stand straight, dazed and petrified from the horrible truth she had just learnt. Her head was spinning, countless thoughts and realizations hitting on the inside of her forehead, wanting to get out, wanting to scream at the world for doing this to her.

She hopelessly whispered “this can’t be, this can’t be” over and over again, staring unseeingly in front of her. Flashes of faces of people she knew, little trinkets she owned, places she loved to visit, all passed in her head, each causing more and more pain. Her brother’s face appeared and she grimaced in agony. She clasped her knees, digging her nails into them. Closing her eyes, tears seeping through, she started to rock back and forth, a monotonous hum rising from her chest. 

The Great Dragon was motionless silently watching her break into a million pieces and with all his power not being able to help her...

“The most painful thing in the existence is watching your beloved suffer tremendously, and have no capability to stop or ease the suffering... It is far more painful than losing someone, I know it only now”, he whispered finally breaking his silence. (Susanna Vesna, Dec 2017)

(Artwork- Luis Royo)

[dragonstory]

...She saw magic. It was real! The lights, the colours, the sounds, the vibrations and every particle of the universe spoke to her. She could see so much more now. All her life she only saw and noticed a tiny portion of the beauty. Seeing it all in full glory was pure magic!

She understood what happiness truly meant. Not status or luxury, success or recognition. Happiness meant the euphoria that lived in one’s mind and soul without any of these components. Survival in conditions which one would deem unbearable or very basic, not needing anything extra, just the right beings by one’s side and the magic, the magic!

She would never look at universe, life and herself the same way again. And if daily struggles & routines would dim her senses, she would close her eyes and remember what she saw and no one or nothing could ever take that away.

She spread her wings and jumped into the unknown, fearless in her flight. (Susanna Vesna, 2017) 

Artwork 1, artwork 2

[dragonstory]

His vast wings ripped through space with immense force.

  The Dragon knew no boundaries. His whole being was drawn to a certain tiny spot in the Universe and he needed no compass to know where it was exactly, for instinct was strong and he trusted it fully.

  It was a flight of life & death. He had to make it on time. Skilfully manouvering to avoid countless meteors, space whirlpools and even blackholes, he flew at the speed of light, but even that was not enough.

  The Dragon closed his eyes, his ancient head bowing in concentration. He had to summon all his powers and all the powers of the Universe to aid him on his quest. The calling of the Great one was heard in the farthest corners of existence. He opened his eyes and they were no longer fiery orange, but pitch black with mysterious shimmer of stars reflecting in them. Every matter present in cosmos, from the tiniest star dust to gigantic planets slowed down, slowing down the whole Universe.

  The Dragon returning from his trance, made one last massive flap with his wings before disappearing, soaring away as fast as a thought, for the power of thoughts was greater than any other, and his were engrossed in reaching his soulmate before she dies...again. (Susanna Vesna, 2017)

(Artwork found here)

[dragonstory]

She looked over the small valley that marked the end of their neighbourhood. What used to be small lakes stood filled with rubbish, what used to be garden houses stood in a deteriorating rubble, what used to be fields of wheat and sunflower was now hectares of dry infertile land covered in wild grass. 

She never saw how it all looked before the Earth started giving up with all the monstrosity humans were doing to it. When she was born it was all quite gloomy and depressing already. The only evidence of the long lost beauty of this planet was saved in the form of old photographs, and even they were yellowed with age. People said that LA3 continent in the South East had the last surviving forests and that’s where she needed to go... (Susanna Vesna, 2017. First Image- source, Second Image- Mike Anderson Design) 

[dragonstory]

“Are you not afraid of me?”, he asked. She cocked her head to one side, “Should I be?”.

He opened his jaws in what looked like a smile, “No. We are made from the same fire...” (Susanna Vesna, 2016. Artwork by Maugryph)

[dragonstory]

The Great one took off, leaving gushes of wind and dust behind him. He flew for a while in focused silence, crossing worlds and boundaries. He had to consult the All-Seeing Eye to be sure. He felt his soulmate’s heart-beat clear, but feeble. “She must be far away”, he thought...He saw The Eye from afar, or felt it more like...Resting there in the centre of the Universe, among billion of galaxies, seeing them all, watching and listening to all that has happened, was happening, and was yet to happen. To someone unfamiliar with The Eye, it would look like nothing more than a dying star, pitch black in the middle, with its last fires shimmering through its cracked surface. But it was not...It was nothing and everything at once... 

- “You have come”, said a deep voice, not man nor woman, whispering as if in a million voices.

 -“I finally felt her presence...Eons of waiting and searching. I can’t be wrong”, replied the Great One. 

- “You are not wrong, but you may be late again...”, whispered the same voice. The mysterious globe, seemed to lighten up with a slight purple haze, “She is very far, on the outskirts of this world...Nearing the edge of no return. Her planet is called Earth and she is a human...”

- “A human? On Earth?”, whispered The Great One, feeling a slight dread creeping up his massive spiked tail and spine. 

- “Things are even more complicated than you think..You & I both know what that means...”, whispered the Eye, thousands and thousands of tiny sparkling orbs circling in its shape... (Susanna Vesna, 2017. Artwork by Sean Soong)

[susannasia]

[dragonstory]

“He descended and they could see the wildness in his enormous eyes. His wrath was inevitable, and they knew it. Before the end came, they looked up to the sky, hoping to see the blue for one last time, but it was dark and dangerous, as if smoldering with anger for what they have done. And they knew, that this was their punishment…” (Susanna Vesna, 2017. Artwork by Trylea, aka Zhichao Cai)

[dragonstory]

"They think we don't exist...it is easy to think that way while bound to their lonely planet. They don't even look at their own forests & skies anymore, hardly notice the suffering of the people beside them...Somewhere in another world someone else thinks they don't exist either!"- he turned his great head towards her, smoke slowly rising from his nostrils... (Susanna Vesna, 2016. Found this artwork on social media website. Beautiful done, unfortunately no artist name was mentioned)

[dragonstory]

The great dragon has cut the skies in two, lighting up everything with his great fire..."I will be the moon in your skies, when you need to find your path", she told him. (Susanna Vesna, 2016. This is the photo I took in Abu Dhabi on July 10th 2016, and it inspired me to write this sentence)