Aurora whooped with delight as she held on to the mighty creature's leathery neck undaunted and, most certainly, unafraid. The sky was hers. The golden dragon was, by his own choice, hers as well. The world below…the mundane workaday world she had known when she lay down to sleep…it was falling away swiftly left to fend without her participation for a wondrous while.
Up they flew, higher and higher in the sparkling, cloudless sky. Suddenly, naturally, a lilting melody came to the dragon's mouth; a melody as ancient as the universe itself...a melody as timeless and enchanting in its unmistakable soulfulness and undeniable power. The dragon, caught up in the joy of the moment, was singing the fabled "tomorrow song".
Down below, the grey land-dwellers cast grey, envious eyes upon the bright-eyed, raven-haired beauty and her shining, singing dragon soaring in carefree abandon in wide, swooping arcs above the fields of sweat and workaday suffering. If they could they would slay the great golden dragon and force Aurora to toil again with them in the endless grey fields forever and a day.
But they could not.
And Aurora flew higher still upon the sturdy pack of her friend, the dragon. Together they threw off the shackles of the world and reached for the boundless, star-flecked heavens.
To touch a star, Aurora thought with awe, if only to touch a star if only for a brilliant moment. The dragon, knowing full well his friend's wish, soared through the ebon expanse towards the brightest, most wonderful star of all.
Aurora reached out her hand eager to catch the star, just for that single, amazing moment, and then let it continue on its appointed journey. Her smile was dazzling...a rival to the radiance of the proudest star itself...as she reached out for a fleeting celestial flicker of light...
And then, almost as a matter of course, the incessant whine of a digital clock abruptly brought Aurora back to the world. She sat up with a disappointed start and, irritably, wiped the sleep from her eyes and glanced over at the clock. She sighed wistfully...it was, of course, only a dream.
She sat on the edge of her bed and looked out her bedroom window. The sun was newly-risen and the world was waking to reluctantly face another day.
And she listened. The house about her also began to stir with reluctant activity as her family…her husband in the shower, her sons half-heartedly indulging their first squabble of the day in their own room…began readying themselves for the new day.
And she listened. Outside her window, the birds roused themselves from peaceful, dreamless sleep and began to add their sweet songs to the symphony of the morning.
And she listened. For a fleeting moment, she put off dwelling on the mundane demands of her day…of her husband, of her children, of her co-workers…that would soon gather all of her attention and energy unto itself.
And she listened. And faintly, but distinctly, she could hear it...a haunting, eternal melody...a song for dreamers who would try to touch stars. Aurora smiled her shy, beguiling smiled and hummed along...filled suddenly with a glow of contentment and purpose...with the dragon's immortal "tomorrow song" as she rose, undaunted and inspired, to meet her day.
- for Tracey -
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