Dust

Just as dragons, so too must stars be born, from the dust and heart of the universe itself. Sometimes the beds of birthing stars prosper… and sometimes they fail. Deep in the darkest shadows of the great forest, a great light once fell from the sky and passed into the woods, leaving no trace of its appearance, save the strange dragons that suddenly appeared in the forest. Because the other dragons of this part of the forest were busy wearing shoes on their heads, creating herbal remedies, or plotting to take over the world in increasingly complicated and stupid ways, the new dragons were largely ignored, even as they levitated rocks and created new clearings by accidentally setting the forest on fire.

As the years passed, their ability to hold the appearance of dragons improved, only the space-green of their eyes revealing their true origins as the dust of stars. Children came, both stardust and flesh, starlight passing beneath their skin as surely as blood and the confusion between their two halves always present. Some chose the ways of earth and others… others ate a lot of rocks and stared at the sky.

The girl child felt the stars beneath her skin, the strange cosmos that stared out of her eyes, and was torn between her flesh and the peace of the open air and darkness of the night. She tried to find friends amongst the dragons of flesh and blood, but they knew, on a blood deep level, that she was different, and she was left alone and unwanted.

Her parents, strange and cosmic as they were, could not help her, but the child had hope, had love in her heart that she wished to give and share. As she closed her eyes and listened to the stars she came from, she realized that there were gifts, bridges she could build between what her people had been and what her people had become.

She went to those who had shunned her and stood in front of them, brave and unashamed.

“Would you like to hear a story?” she said, her eyes full of a million years of love and creation. “Yes,” they said. And they listened.