SKYBLUE’S NEW LIFE

The trees in the dragons’ enchanted land were magical. From the outside they looked far too small to hold a creature of such a size, but the moment a dragon entered, the space inside adjusted to fit. There was room to rest and move about and, above all, to store treasures.

For the first duty of a dragon with a new home was to fill it with riches.

Dragons were known as the guardians of treasure. They amassed precious metals and gemstones, slept on them, and took pride in their weight. When they married, they combined their possessions and considered themselves all the more respectable, important, and powerful.

Skyblue had treasures, too, though her neighbors struggled to recognize them as such. She liked rocks that reminded her of a place, metals that, she said, had hearts, pieces of quartz, and blue crystals. She would rather leave a precious stone where she found it if looking at it stirred nothing in her.

Yaseee’s labradorite held a place of honor among her belongings.

Her parents’ friends were concerned.

“She’ll never find a dragon worthy of her lineage with stones like those.”

Her parents had stopped arguing about Skyblue’s treasures.

“Those are the riches of the place she comes from,” they would reply.

The neighbors shook their heads. Some added a disapproving flap of their wings.

“With parents like that, it’s no wonder she has that name.”

Meanwhile, Skyblue was decorating Ernesto. She hung the metals she had gathered among his branches and placed the crystals where they would catch the light. She liked watching their colors change throughout the day.