June: The Dragon Girl
The breeze ran through the leaves, the bass, impossible voice vibrating “yohm” through the flute and spring of the feminine voice on stage. Languages accumulated around the rainbow of fabrics and costumes while the attendees sought shade from parasols, vending booths, and the one tree of the whole of the festival grounds.
“No, you’re not allowed up here,” the youngest of the children shouted in German to two other English girls trying to leap into the branches. “You can’t climb up here!” They didn’t understand her, or even acknowledge her. They continued to try and help each other onto the oak’s limbs, but neither were strong enough to support the other. She opened her mouth wide, displaying her fallen teeth and the new ones attempting to replace them. She hissed, spewing her flames at the two English girls jumping, reaching toward her, without care.
“I can jump higher than you can,” one of the English girls said to the other, ignoring the German girl in the tree. After their leaps of attempt, they gave up. The dragon girl looked after them triumphantly, though with an element of disappointment at their departure. The least they could have done was try to slay her so she could prove her might!
“I have terrified them,” she lamented. “It’s not my fault I’m so scary,” she explained to the leaves. She opened her mouth again and breathed her fire. “All the maidens are afraid of my flames.”
The music continued in the background as the various festival-goers swayed with it in their faery costumes.
The girl shrugged, throwing her bracelet to the ground before spreading her arms and wings wide and jumping after it, her orange frock billowing behind her. She shook her shoulders and the rest of her body down to her feet, which quivered with her hard landing. She nodded to herself in determination. If the maidens would run, then she just wouldn’t be friends with them. Dragons shouldn’t be friends with food anyway.
She could see her mother along the line of the tree’s shade, her own fiery strength hidden from the world by her embroidery project. The girl envied the shiny scales her mother hid behind her work, and the strength within her very being. She knew she would one day be like her—she could already breathe fire, even if no one else knew.
A fawn in a decorated hat and goggles ducked under the tree’s branches, glistening with moisture from the heat of the sun. The girl, straightening her frock, pulled her shoulders back and marched straight to him, pushing out her hand to him, her chin jutted forward in earnest, demanding his hand.
Somewhat unnerved, yet pleased at the girl’s gesture, the fawn returned the motion, cautiously. She took his hand, and with all her strength, she raised it and slammed it downward, in the strongest, most respectable handshake she could muster.
“Tschüss Sie!” she declared before moving on to the next person. She continued in this manner until she found a woman scribbling in a notebook. The girl had seen this woman when she first arrived under the tree. The woman had set her chair up in the on the slight hill and fallen backward when she tried to sit down. The girl had tired to call to her, but the woman only looked to the young dragon blankly.
Now the woman, indifferent to the world around her, was equally indifferent to the dragon which approached her. It is never wise to be aloof in the presence of a dragon. This important lesson she would show the woman! The girl crouched, stalking the woman until she was just beside her.
“You must shake my hand,” the girl explained in German, in the most adult voice she could render. The woman looked up from her notebook. That was when the girl noticed the paper. It was decorated in spiraling, looping lines, evenly across the page, separated into words, swirling together in some strange writing, fluid and just as mystical as the girl herself.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said in English, then, in German: “Ich spreche nicht Deutsch.”
The girl cocked her head to the side. Clearly the woman spoke German, since she just had done so! What did she mean she didn’t speak her language?
“Mein Deutsche is nicht gut,” the woman repeated her attempt, but the girl had lost all interest in audible linguistics and had fallen spell again to the words on the page. This was magic, she was certain of it, and a magic she would learn.
The girl ran to her mother and retrieved a piece of paper and a pen. She approached the woman again, leaning in close to inspect the journal. The woman stopped writing, equally observing the little girl, who was endeavoring to mimic the symbols. She struggled without something to lean on, and soon gave up, though still intrigued as to the creator of such patterns.
“Are you an elf?” the girl asked.
“Elf?” the woman questioned in English.
“Are you fae?” Again, in German.
“Fairy?” asked the woman, pointing to the girl’s own fairy wings.
“I’m a dragon,” the girl explained, heatedly. Did she not see her fly to the ground? Breathe fire? “What are you?”
The woman looked at her notebook, and the piece of paper the girl held in her hand.
“June!” Her mother called her hatchling back. The girl looked back at her, then back to the woman and her notebook with the strange writing.
“Tschüss Sie,” the girl said slowly, directly to the woman.
“Choo zee?”
“Ja! Tschüss Sie!” she waved before returning to her dragon mother and taking her hand into the sunlight.
Author's Note:
The story of June was inspired by a girl I met at a recent festival. She was fearless among the strangers around her, and her mother, while always watching, allowed this girl to find herself. I found so much strength in watching the two of them, and I hope that one day our paths will cross again, though unlikely. I would very much be interested in knowing the great things the dragon girl goes on to do in her life time.
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