by Lyn Worthen
She heard the crackling first, roaring so loudly as it whipped the winds about her in a frenzy that it nearly drowned the cries of the villagers caught within the firestorm. She crested the last hill and reared on her hind legs, gasping at the inferno, the blasting heat so hot that the edges of her scales began to curl. Steam hissed from her rapidly drying body, the moisture sucked up greedily by ash-laden gusts.
Tianlong ignored the pain of her scalding. She scanned the buildings, most of them already engulfed in flames. The shared common structures, constructed of plaster and wood, were still standing, but most of the smaller homes that had been built with cheaper, flimsier wood and mud had already burned to the ground or were on the verge of collapsing.
Movement drew her gaze to the middle distance, just beyond the largest building of the village, which she assumed was some sort of central governing place. A narrow river of mud-stained water no wider than a couple of meters, barely wide enough to accommodate her body, had failed as a fire break. Flames raged on the far bank as well, licking through green fields of soybeans.
Tianlong sniffed, then coughed and closed off her nostrils. Judging by the smell of the smoke, the flames had caught on the abundant fertilizer strewn through the fields rather than the legumes themselves. But it wouldn’t be long before the fire grew so hot that even the green plants caught flame.
Huddled in the middle of the creek were the villagers, each one holding on to another by hand, the water coming up to the waist of the adults. The swiftly flowing river tugged at the humans, threatening to drag them under with the current or push them further downstream, while the fire raged so close at the edge of the river banks that Tianlong could see the humans’ skin reddening. Babies squalled in their parents’ arms, who desperately tried to keep them above water, and small children wailed, clutching anyone who could keep them anchored to the group.
Tianlong wondered why the villagers weren’t simply swimming downstream to get away from the flames until she spied the dam. A blockade of timber wood a couple of meters tall created a drop-off and a waterfall that surely the smallest and youngest children would not survive.
The river had been diverted to irrigate the farm fields. The villagers couldn’t pass the dam. Not without help.
She moved down the hill, flanking the village and the worst of the fire, until she slipped into the narrow river upstream of the terrified humans. The water flowing over her fevered scales brought cool relief. She had never been so thankful for her water heritage.
A few of the humans had caught sight of her and they shouted in alarm, pointing and gesturing at her as she trod toward them, her claws sinking wrist-deep into the thick mud at the bottom of the river. The muck forced her to move slower than she would have liked, churning up thick clouds of debris that clouded the water even further. The mud coated her in a layer of muck that protected her from the worst of the heat being thrown by the fire raging on both sides of her.
A small child turned his head and stared at her with wide brown eyes, his wailing abruptly halted. He was hanging onto a man, presumably his father, like a monkey baby clinging to an adult, arms wrapped around the man’s neck and his tiny feet hitched up around his father’s rib cage.
The boy’s flaming cheeks broke into a toothy smile that must have hurt, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Long,” he said. “Shuilong.” And he reached his chubby fingers out to her without fear.
Water dragon.
Yes, Tianlong thought. That’s right. Her family commanded water in the sky and in the earth, and here she was, bathed in its element. Fire raged, but here was a river at her disposal.
She dipped her snout below the surface and sucked in a great quantity of the river’s water, then rose high, high, high up in the air. Some of the humans screamed, but most of them froze in place, staring at her looming over them.
She blew water, spraying it in a wide arc above the humans’ heads and raining it down on the wall of flames coming from the village. The first arc disappeared in a sizzle of evaporating mist, but the next arc hit the sputtering fire and won. Flames died, one by one, as Tianlong continued spraying water from her throat, more than she’d sucked in, an endless stream that battled back the inferno until the river bank was a steaming, muddy mess of char and debris.
She turned her snout and swept her water breath over the soybean fields, dousing the smaller flames even quicker than she had the inferno in the village. Only when the last ember had died did she let go of her breath.
By then, the humans had scrambled out of the drained river and gathered near the half-burnt shell of their communal hall. Their strange chatter filled the air as they checked each other for injuries and made sure everyone was accounted for. She eyed them for a moment to make sure no one was crying, then she dropped back down to all fours. She’d emptied the river of water, and it was nothing more than a channel of mud now.
The effort of drawing on that much water had cost her an enormous amount of energy, and she laid down in the squishy muck to catch her breath. Baba was right, Tianlong thought. She wasn’t much of a dragon.
The hot breeze of the fire’s aftermath stirred over her body, ruffling damaged scales that fell from her hide and sank into the mud. She would hurt for a while, but she would regrow new scales. Perhaps the angry red flesh that showed beneath would finally add some lucky colors to her pattern.
“Shuilong.”
The boy’s tiny voice lifted Tianlong’s head. The sight that greeted her made her want to sink into the mud after her fallen scales.
Along the river bank, the villagers lined up to peer down at her, whispering to each other. Worse, they were staring. At her.
Tianlong lowered her head and closed her eyes, trying to shut out the scale-prickling sensation of being stared at and talked about and judged. She wished she were anywhere else, that there was a cliff or cave or tree or something that she could hide under or behind.
The soft touch of a hand on her nostril startled her eyes open. The boy stared solemnly at her. In his other hand, he held out a rice dumpling wrapped in bamboo leaves, partially smooshed with its sticky rice filling oozing out one end in a cold, congealed clump, but it was a dumpling nevertheless.
Behind him, the villagers stood in silence, hands clasped before them in gestures of reverence and respect.
It took Tianlong a moment to understand. The dumpling was an offering of thanks, of gratitude and celebration.
She had never been thanked before.
She rose to her feet and with the gravity befitting the situation, took the dumpling from the boy. The luscious scent of salted duck eggs and sesame oil and sautéed mushrooms filled her nostrils as she unwrapped the dumpling and popped its sticky rice contents into her mouth, chewing slowly to honor the villagers’ gift. They didn’t have much, and had even less now that their homes had been destroyed, yet they had still given her food from their sparse stores.
Tianlong swallowed. “Thank you,” she said, though she didn’t know if the humans understood.
Warmth flooded through her, from her tongue down her throat to her belly, spreading to all four limbs and down to the tip of her tail. The exhaustion fell from her as easily as her burnt scales. Surprised, she flexed her claws, sensing the renewed energy flowing through her tendons. She had thought to rest a little while longer, but she now felt as if she could fly the rest of the way to the Jade Emperor’s palace.
“Thank you,” she said again, this time in wonder.
The boy smiled and bowed with his hands clasped to his chest, backing away a few steps before turning and scrambling up the river bank to rejoin his village.
Tianlong mimicked the bow as best she could, although it was difficult with her long, narrow body. The villagers waved as she launched into the air.
Catching a nearby thermal, Tianlong soared.
# # #
Travel went much quicker with the villagers’ blessing and without Baba.
Tianlong found where she’
d left her father, but he was nowhere to be seen, so she flew onward toward the Jade Emperor’s palace, following the river’s winding course as that was the only route she knew.
Just before the sweeping tile rooftops of his palace came into view, she glimpsed a sodden brown bundle floating on a log in the middle of the river. She dipped closer to the water until she saw that it was a young rabbit, his wet fur plastered so closely to his body that he almost looked like Rat. His long ears drooped along his back.
“Why, Rabbit,” she called out, “are you on your way to the Jade Emperor’s palace, too?”
“I was,” he said sourly. “Making good progress, too, until I slipped and fell into the water. I’m too heavy with all of this water in my fur to swim to shore.”
Flush from her encounter with the villagers, Tianlong circled lower. “Here,” she said, “let me help you.”
She blew her water breath, sending a gentle wave of water that carried the log with Rabbit to the river bank. He hopped onto the grassy shore and scampered up its slope far enough to make sure he wouldn’t fall back into the river, then shook the water off his fur. The tiny nub of his white tail fluffed back into a cotton ball. His long ears flopped upright and twitched at Tianlong in thanks.
“Many blessings of peace to you, Dragon,” he said, and streaked through the brush toward the Jade Emperor’s palace, his tan fur blending into the landscape.
Tianlong cruised the rest of the way, following Rabbit’s tracks. She landed in the courtyard of the Jade Emperor’s palace, her talons clacking against the stone cobblestones to announce her arrival.
She found her father quickly, his huge dragon form towering over the other parents sitting in the spectator stands lining one side of the courtyard. He glowered at her, his whiskers held quaveringly at his side. He wouldn’t dare insult the Jade Emperor by displaying negativity. She would get her scolding at home later, in private, to save face here.
But she let her father’s disapproval slough off her back like so much water. She’d done a good thing today, and she was proud of herself. No matter what happened with the race, she would be able to take home something just for her – the memory of a small boy placing his hand trustingly on her nose and offering her a misshapen, but precious, dumpling.
“Dragon!” boomed the Jade Emperor. He threaded his way past Rat dancing in the middle of the courtyard – huh, she thought, so Rat hadn’t been that slow after all – and Ox chewing placidly on his cud, past Tigress prowling restlessly, and Rabbit settling down on his long haunches, unperturbed by neither the ruckus nor his ordeal in the river.
The emperor was dressed in long imperial robes of brilliant gold and yellow, embroidered in azure and vermilion and green with the celestial symbols of his office. Long, black moustaches hung down on either side of his face, reminding Tianlong of dragon whiskers, matched by a long beard that hung down to his waist.
Tianlong lowered the front half of her body to her elbows, managing a passable representation of human genuflection.
“Emperor,” she said. “I represent the Dragon Clan in your Great Race, as called to service.”
“So you do,” he replied. “So you do. Well done, too. You’ve placed fifth in the race. Seven more spots left in the guard.”
Tianlong blinked. “I don’t understand. I thought the race was to take place today.”
The Jade Emperor chuckled and rubbed his hands together in child-like glee. “Yes, it was. And it did. How quickly each of you responded to the summons was the race. The race started as soon as the summons was sent out.”
Tianlong met her father’s storming eyes and understood, her heart sinking below her feet. That’s why Baba was so angry with her. Not because she’d stopped to help the villagers, but because the Dragon Clan had already lost the race when the first representative had arrived.
Truly, Tianlong was unlucky to be the dragon who’d lost the pride of the clan. Who’d lost to ...
“Who won?” she asked faintly.
“I did,” Rat said, breaking into another little jig. Ox glanced at Rat and raised a brow, but didn’t stop chewing cud long enough to say anything.
Dragon had lost to Rat, the smallest creature in the race. Tianlong would never live this down. She wanted to sink through the earth and pretend this day had never existed. Not even the glowing memories of the little boy could save her now.
The others gathered around her, a chorus of curious voices, polite and congratulatory. Tigress’s cut through them all, asking the one thing on everyone’s minds that no one but Tigress dared to voice: “What took you so long, Dragon?”
Tianlong thought about lying. Perhaps the summons got lost on the way to her clan. The mountains were high and hard to reach, after all. But, no, the message had arrived by pigeon. Or perhaps another had been chosen to race, and he’d woken up deathly ill, so Tianlong was chosen at the last second and had a huge deficit of time to make up.
No matter what kind of excuse or story Tianlong thought of, nothing felt right. She didn’t want to share her experience with the fire and the villagers. It felt like boasting if she said anything.
But Tigress had asked, and now everyone – including the Jade Emperor – waited for an answer.
“A village caught fire and some humans fell into trouble,” Tianlong said. She related the tale quickly and without embellishment. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the parents descending from the spectator stands to listen, including Baba. It made her want to finish her story even faster, and she tripped over her own tongue to do so, stuttering finally into uncomfortable silence.
“That is some story,” Tigress said into the hushed quiet, almost – but not quite – snickering. She, too, was cognizant of the Jade Emperor’s presence and was making a colossal effort to be polite.
“I must apologize on behalf of Dragon Clan,” Baba said in a low, deferential rumble. A few of the young racers startled a few steps back at the sound of an elder dragon speaking. “I discovered on my way here that the fire was caused by lightning, accidentally sparked by my battling sons.” His whiskers fell with shame. “They fight for the right to rule our clan next.”
Tianlong tamped down the tide of disgust rising in her throat. Her brothers would be the death of her. Of the entire clan.
“She didn’t tell all of it,” Rabbit put in. “I got caught by the river and would never have made it here if it weren’t for Dragon using her water breath to help me gain land again.”
A murmur rose from the other contestants as Tianlong decided right then and there that she’d rather die than go back to her clan’s mountainous home. Helping Rabbit had wound up costing Dragon a higher rank in the race. No one would forgive her for anything she’d done this day.
The Jade Emperor raised his palms, and silence descended once again.
“Dragon,” he said seriously, the twinkle gone from his wise brown eyes. “You didn’t place first, as we all expected of the biggest, strongest, and fastest creature under the celestial skies.”
“No.” Tianlong hunched her shoulders, as if by doing so, she could more easily carry the weight of her mortification and regret. “I didn’t.”
“My villagers are lucky that you came along, Dragon,” the emperor continued. “For that, we will be forever thankful. The rest of the heavenly guard would do well to follow your example.” He nodded to the remaining seven creatures who had filed in as Tianlong related her story, unnoticed by the crowd until now. She twisted around at his glance.
Snake bobbed and weaved a greeting, one cousin to another, riding on the broad back of Horse. Sheep, Monkey, and Rooster chorused a hello, and Dog panted a lazy grin, her fur still dripping from her river crossing. Fat, happy Pig grunted from where he flopped on his side on the cobblestones.
The emperor spread his hands, palms open to the sky, in a gesture of benevolent benediction. “You won something greater than a race, Dragon. You won us, for you taught us to think of others, and not only of ourselves.” Tianlong’s he
art beat faster. This did not sound like words for a loser. Behind the emperor and across from Tianlong, her father’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and his whiskers relaxed.
“You have earned your place among my heavenly guard,” the Jade Emperor said to Tianlong, “as the only creature of myth and legend in the zodiac. And for that, great Dragon, those born under your purview will forever be fortunate indeed.”
Tianlong dropped to all of her knees. “Emperor,” she managed. “I am not worthy.”
Unbelievably, the emperor pressed his palms together and bowed to Tianlong. “On the contrary. For your generous heart, your steadfast will, and your quick courage,” he smiled, and the clouds parted to let the sun shine through, “yours, Dragon, should be the soul by which we measure ours when we aspire to ascend to these heavenly gates.”
One by one, the race contestants bowed to Tianlong and murmured, “Tianlong.”
Tianlong. Celestial dragon.
Her father sank down to his knees, his whiskers drooped the lowest she’d ever seen them. The barest hint of a smile played about his lips.
“See, Tianlong,” he said under his breath so that only she could hear. “What did I tell you? The tiles chose rightly, as did our Jade Emperor, when choosing the best among us. You have the biggest heart, strongest will, and fastest courage of us all.”
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Deb Logan specializes in tales for the young – and the young at heart! Author of the popular Dani Erickson series, Deb loves the unknown, whether it’s the lure of space or earthbound mythology. She writes about demon hunters, thunderbirds, and everyday life on a space station for tweens, teens, and anyone who enjoys young adult fiction. Her work has been published in multiple volumes of Fiction River, as well as in 2017 Young Explorer’s Adventure Guide, Chronicle Worlds: Feyland, and other popular anthologies. Learn more about her work at https://debloganwrites.com
About this story, Deb says: “I was in the process of imagining a larger tale and wanted to get to know the characters, to explore who they are and what parts they would play in the novel that was taking shape in my brain. I’d met Roddy in my first published story, Deirdre’s Dragon, and I knew he had a lot more to tell me. He’s a family dragon, so when I was looking for a younger partner, I wondered who would be his charge? And then it occurred to me: Deirdre’s granddaughter, Claire, of course!”
