How I Became a Dragon- A novel.

[MissTris]

This is the beginning of my novel from my series, which I am re-writing. I thought perhaps you guys might like to read it, maybe give a suggestion of you'd like. Fret not, I don't mind criticism. Remember the sandwich rule. I personally don't know what I think of my intro, I've never been very pleased with how I did it to begin with (any time I was thinking about it, or the time before)
And, a note about the dream that is written here. That is a dream I've had, and it's frickin' terrifying to me. To conclude it though (so you may know what happened) That green monster /could not/ touch me. I hissed at me, angry that for some reason it could not and spoke in a rather weird language at me. Then I ran away. I'd had that dream over the course of a week as much of it was reoccurring...


Roughly in the month of May...

It was a normal day so like any other anymore, after all the time we’d spent so busy...after the wars, panic, pain. It is refreshing, now, a year after the end to sit and remember how things were before.
It seems odd what they can pull from your memories, but that is the wonderful thing about this place. Life is not always, what it seems, and it’s seldom ever dull. A particular movie is now slid into the slot. I still cannot help but chuckle any time I do this; it is the little things...all the little things.
Settling back to watch it, on my cushions and pillows I smile. Alone right now, in blessed peace, quaint unstrained silence is beautiful when you have been through so much. I settle my thoughts as the movie begins. This was...ten...twelve years ago? Such a short time for me, and yet so long to all and all. So much has changed...so much.
The screen to the box, something like to a television, but not all at once, clears and shows a girl, short, only five feet tall, round with a spare tire gut, dirty blond shoulder length hair of the curly frizzy persuasion. She is smiling friendly and warm; it touches her eyes, lovely blue eyes flecked with some strange yellow. No one in the family has yellow like that; it is all so strange...
That is I. My name is Heather...
My little cat, older now, but, as things are, not yet dead climbs into my lap and looks at me with her lovely green-blue eyes, a feline grin, broken by her one large tooth shows she’s glad I chose to sit and be her resting place. “Meiyoko, little cat of my heart, we’re going to watch a movie.” I tell her, knowing she would not care anyway, happy for my company and I hers. I pet her little brown ears and content to watch...


I am sitting at my desk, a seventeen-year-old pain in the ass junior student with average grades. However, it’s summer, thank god. The sun is not yet quite up, after all...its five thirty in the morning. “Why am I still awake” I growl to myself and shove a few more things into my duffle, last minute supplies.
“HEATHER, COME ON!” Mom is yelling because she is nervous. Every time anything involves planes, she gets nervous. She is my mom, and I love her, but she worries too much. We always get to the air port two hours early, sometimes almost three, and have to sit in the crowded, bustling place and watch foolish people who did not leave early enough rush to get where they are going. I can’t say that I envy or admire them getting there by the skin of their teeth, but it must be a comfort to sleep those extra five minutes...perhaps at all as this case was today.
A family vacation for us. A wonderful affair of a trip into New Mexico in some little town, the name I could not even remember right now. It was my dad’s idea; he liked to take these trips with the family. Not going to lie, I enjoy them to much of the time. This one...not so much though...I do not really like Mexico as a country. So by proxy, call me bias, New Mexico does not sound like my place either. I go though, one part in not having a choice, and another in wanting to give it a shot. I will call my friends here and there, and write letters, pick a souvenir or two for a few of them. They were my friends after all, and I liked to give them things.
But here I am stalling some more, never having slept all night, up playing with Role plays of wolves, cougars, foxes, an assortment of things with people over the internet. Neopets, even though I am 17, a few random sites I would found that I liked which curtailed my interests. It was time to go though now! Hurried goodbyes rush in screwed typing as I stuff more into the duffle. I am taking my laptop, but I do not anticipate much time to play around on it, so I say as much to a few of my people. Closing the computer, I stuff it last into its own bag, peppered with buttons and pins of anime of various kinds. Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and loveless to name just a few of the popular favorites amid many. I chuckle a little, at these pins, and wish I could attend the convention with the rest of my friends. But alas! A Trip! I will come back tanned and with pictures to swap at least.
Barreling down the stairs now I almost trip on Meiyoko and stoop to pick her up and hug her to me “I’m sorry lovey, I can’t take you. I want to. You be good.” She likes to run away when she think that I am leaving to go somewhere. It almost never fails to hold me up. “Oh catcat, stay here.” I hug her harder and she gives a protesting ‘ahhck’ something like a sigh and a grunt for a cat I guess. Putting her down I finish my decent with my mom at the base of the stairs, looking fretted and busy. “I’ ready mom.” The clothing was packed up and was in the car last night in its duffels and totes.
I won’t go out the door first without talking to Abby, my Abby. I fall to my knees and hug her around her thick black neck. The mutt wags her tail, brown eyebrows over brown eyes look as though to say ‘you’re leaving me? With who?’ My uncle is taking care of them; he had better do a good job! I left particular instructions about my Bearded Dragon’s needs. For Pirakos, as my beadie was named, is a picky animal. “Be good girl.” I ruffle her flopped ears as I stand again and head out the door. Pirakos would not be awake this early to say goodbye too, and if I managed to wake him up, he would be angry and try to bite anyway. That reptile had personality and there was no way to disagree. He loved his reality TV and, even if it sounds clichéd, he loved Godzilla too, but more for the baby Godzillas than the mother of them.
Door locked I got in the car, finally, at the consternation of mom, and we were away! Off to the airport. I watched the trees, cast in deep shadows flicker past. My father is a rather fast driver, it’s his personality I suppose, he’s a Leo after all, very show offish and sometimes short tempered. However, at this early stage of the drive, in our own neck of the woods there is no terrible traffic, only a deer and its fellows crossing through the road and a lone Fox. I watched them through hooded eyes, tired at last from lack of sleep, but to excited to actually fall asleep just then. I could not read in the car, I have never been able to. Anything involving reading makes me get terrible headaches that tend to evolve into Migraine. I needed no such thing while in the air, so I simply watched the scenery as it brightened with the coming of the daylight. Such a welcoming thing the rising sun is. It is a promise of another day of bright warmth and growth. A hail to the human kind, though one myself I am not a fan of them. I hate people. Coming into town now shows a bit of why...those buildings, ugly, imposing, aggressive towards the nature that once lived in their place. I hated people then and still do today.
At last, I drifted into a sleep, lulled by the car rocking and turning as we smooth along the way to the airport. The day promised to be a clear one, but in my dreams, it seemed there was only turbulence...
I dreamt...
I tread along a pebble-pocked path, dark and twisted, off into the red and black smoked abyss. I was afraid and I was confused. I could see me, as a spectator in my dream. While I was the same short round blond girl that I always was where there should be ears were blue fins, and where tailbone should end extended into a true tail, scaled, a rich blue with a lighter blue web-like end, the same light blue as the fin-ears. What did that mean? As I watched my little figure turn down a path I saw that my eyes were not gold flecked, but actually gold in my dream, tinted here and there with little blue spots not unlike my eyes normally in reverse. I looked afraid as I walked along the path through the smoke. I was not watching long from above, it seemed like after I saw my eyes I was sucked into them, and was myself in the dream. In the distance, there were screaming calls, and flickers of light from below either side of the walkway glint and flicker of things in the air. Eyes, in sets of three, flicker Red, distinct from the smoke highlights from below in their bloody viciousness. There! A wing, a huge wing, followed by a second in alternating rhythm right behind it, what was I seeing? I stopped and crouched, those fins for ears folding back and my tail coming around my feet, wary of the dangerous things that were flying overhead. One dipped low enough that I could get a better look, and seeing what they really were did not help at all. They were birds, three eyes on either side of their heads, four wings, one behind the other on either side, flapping in alternate times. Long hooked beaks edged with more stiff bone, like teeth. The one that dipped low, perhaps the length of two SUVs in a line opened its maw with a crackle and let loose that screaming cry that I had been hearing. The owner of that terror noise did not help settle the feeling any more than cutting off your hand would stop the pain in you skull. This hellish place was indeed a place of pain.
I whimpered, and rising took a few steps down the stone death tread. I had not gotten too far though, when the path ceased to be flat with nothing to either side but smoke and heat. Rocks cropped up here and there, and perched on one was something that would be comical...were this world funny. It was a huge dark green thing, its skin was not quite scale, but not really, skin flesh. It shone like acid. I stopped before reaching where it was crouched, with its three talon hands on skinny stick arms resting over equally thin stick knees and legs. I looked at it, no apparent face, though there was a ridge of spikes strait through the circumference, as though it was decorated. How could it stand? How could it use those hooks like claws that shone with black hell light? It defied reason, and that alone made it dangerous and scary in this place.
I gave it a wide berth as I could try to go around it, but getting midway, directly across the walk from the weird form it moved. A talon twitched, and it straightened up, and then opened its eye. One huge acid green, cat like eye, swirled and whirled with yellow and red as though it’s eye was a nimbus storm gathering. This eye filled its completely circular body except the edges, and its arms and legs. Those spines I had seen were perverse eyelashes, rimming its eye, pointed down towards it as though to cut it. I edged a little further down the path, and then saw the rest of it. A mouth split the small space between the bottom of its eye and the curve of its bottom. Hooked, tearing teeth, layers like a sharks teeth shine white in the inky light and it chuckles a little. Slowly one hand rises from its knee and curls in two of the fingers. The last is pointed out towards me, as I start to shake my head and take a small step back. It does not move but for tugging its finger in, twice, in a ‘come here’ motion. ‘Come here, let me hurt you, let me cut you, let me let you bleed.’ Is what it seems to say. A sob of terror escapes me, so weak I am, but I do not cry. I run, down the rocky, twisting path which switchbacks into the gloomy smoke. I do not know where it leads, what is at the end, if it is even the right way I am going, but I ran.
I ran as if hells hounds were following me, maybe I was right. I slowed though, and stopped, there was a fork at last, a fork in this crooked and jagged path. Rocks built and piled here, and despite having run there crouched the green beast. It was perhaps four feet from me, and smiling wickedly, it reached for me. It shoul-

I woke up cold, so very cold, from this dream. I woke up because dad was yelling. Ah, normality. I shrugged off this weird dream, the last thing I recalled was that that green beast looked angry, as though it was going to touch me and either knew I was waking up...or could not touch me.

[MissTris]

I pushed the thought away, sleeping for two hours instead of a whole night and writing with others about dragons and wolves was bound to give you strange dreams anyway. I finally realized at least where we were and a small ‘ah’ escaped. We had made it to the airport, and it was busy, as always, which was the source of my dad cussing and throwing a fit (“GET THE HELL OUTTA THE ROAD!!” And such like.) He settled as we finally parked though, and gathered our things. My red travel suitcase, with Roy from Full Metal Alchemist stitched into the front was stuffed. Toting this after me on its little black wheels and slinging my travel duffle over my shoulder, then straitening my ears, for my Fox ears, with ear rings in, was always a must have, I was ready to go.
An easy walk: through the elevator, down to the first floor, woops! Second floor...down to the first floor, find the ticket pick up, and check in counter. Wait in the long line that is there, and watch the people who are pressed for time twitch and jerk about and grumble to themselves. It is a game all its own to see if you can catch what they people are really saying and if it is English. Indeed there are a few who are not really those of our nation, not Americans originally. I don’t hate them, it’s just fun to see where they come from by guessing what the language is, or seeing where their packages and bags are bound, but perhaps this is just me. Last time I had seen a few huge boxes, fiver, maybe six that were bound out of country in some Asian province. However, not being a huge history major and geography buff I could not quite say which it was.
Today I get to see some Australians I believe, who are bound for home and not sure about their flight time and if they are going to make it. Overhearing they have family in this country and were still uncertain about making their time like the want to. I wonder which lay over place they are heading for, probably one bound in California, those poor, poor Aussies, they will be jet lagged like no tomorrow if they have been over here to long, but by the sound of it perhaps two weeks? It was hard to make a guess like that, as it affected everyone differently. None the less there was them, and some Indonesian people, talking in their language, which I could never understand as making sense. They were talking quickly and quietly to themselves further up the line. Visiting the home country on a holiday?
I turned my attention to the little things, somewhere a shaft of light was cutting in and I wanted to find its source, which was actually harder to do, then it seems to. I tried to follow it but it got lost amid the dust motes that floated through the air above, kicked up from the mess of people and suitcases. I tried to hunting approach of finding the bright spot in the slats, but there were a few of them. Only one that produced light rays that shot down from above. At last, though when I stepped into the light beam and felt the warmth of it on my face I could find the source of it, and smiled. It was perhaps a space no bigger than my fist, but like anything in the world, this little space was nothing compared to the skies beyond, if you only look. I tried, but the harsh burn that had felt nice on my face would not let me see beyond the burning gold triangle. It had been about five minutes of me framed in the lovely glow that caught the brighter gold in my dark blond hair. We were called to the counter. Good-bye light shaft, may your next face be a smiling one like mine. A glance told me that no, these surly people would only be angry about the gift they were given. People, I hate people.
I followed silent at first as Mom talked to the counter woman, headphones around my neck, I sometimes wore them over my fox ears to mess with people, they seemed not all to like the idea of a girl with ears like that playing around. Well, different strokes for different folks, right? They could kiss my big behind if they really did not like how I carried myself. Called forward I snapped back into ‘reality’ and stepped forward, placing my suitcase onto the scales, a good 53.87 pound of suitcase and essentials. The woman looked at my hat and gave a bit of a chuckle, she seemed like she may have joked once, but this job was a tedious one, and her day may be coming to an end. It rendered her friendliness mute beyond the normal things she is suppose to say. They wrapped the flight destination on it, lugged it back as I received my tickets, and gave a small bow “Thank you ma’am,” I said polite, for I could be. I got a smile from this counter woman for my good behavior; it is the little things that make the world better or worse. Let other men move mountains by sheer force, and I can move them with less harm for everyone. I follow mom and dad, looking around and taking it all in to remember. South West Airlines is what we are taking, however the gates are on the far side of the port. Thankfully, we were here about an hour and forty-five minutes early, so we made our way over there, looking to see what was available for hungry fliers like ourselves before crossing into the check. The line there was short right now, but it could grow huge in a matter of minutes. No matter, nearly two hours, remember. Finally we settled for what we wanted, I had a chicken biscuit from Burger King, and some hot chocolate from the air port general store type thing. (As we as getting a new book to read, even though I did not need one.) Mom just drank her coffee, and dad ate something eggy-bacony-on a biscuit too with his coffee. It was chilly in the airport so, with the time we had we walked a few circuits around and looked at some flight panels. From what the weather had said yesterday (and it seemed to be true because of flight delays) there was a storm brewing down off the coast of Mexico, another hurricane. Shame those people; thankfully, it would not be a trouble for our flight out towards the southwest. More people rushing, some were gathered around the boards we came to, grumbling and growling about their flights being delayed. These people were most likely the ones who made it there just in the very nick of time, and not expected to get out the same way they came in: fast.
I started to ignore those types, in favor of the fretful ones who were there to pick up someone from a flight. There were a couple families waiting for a parent to come home, a wife that was waiting for her soldier, who must be alive judging by her behavior, excited...expectant and tearful. Her man was coming home. Maybe it was a mother actually. I watched with interest, trying to gage. Old enough that she could be someone’s mother.
We were still sitting there when the plane that held these people’s destinies landed and the passengers got off. A man in fatigues, a bag over his shoulder and a solid haunted look in his eyes, walked towards the woman I had been watching. She had covered her mouth with her hands and was shaking a bit, tears brimming in her blue eyes and spilling down her face. I could not help a tear of my own as I watched from the outside these people embrace. Large, corded strong arms of this young man wrapped around that woman and held her tightly as she was he. She must have said something because he responded with one word “Mom.” Nevertheless, he smiled, and it looked hurt. I read him like a book, he’s young and had a mother to return to, most likely his father had gone overseas too, and this was following his father’s path. A proud family.
We were getting up, time for another walk to get into our gate area, we had to stand in line. I looked back once at the soldier who had come home, a tear of my own at the expressions he would carry home from war. I took off my ears, in a rare gesture of patriotic pride, and saluted him in my loose way, hat to my heart. I do not know if he saw me do it, some people did and nodded their heads as though to agree. I felt pride that day, for my people who were doing what they could for the rest of us. Whether we were right or wrong we were fighting for what we did believe, and that was all that mattered really.
A single nod after my salute before I turned and followed mom and dad; Mom had seen what I did and nodded with me. That was us, sometimes silent, sometimes overly loud. I loved my family, weird, as we are sometimes, mom and I. Now. Before we go further, I am not an old child and I am not spoiled. I had a younger sister and brother, both of whom were in Germany visiting a friend they had been talking to for a few years. It took a lot for mom to let them go, but at last, she had consented with them.

I paused the movie for a moment, reflecting on the events that had befallen me since that day. There had been so much. If I had known then what I knew now perhaps I would have been a little less alone when things started to turn. I could have had my siblings with me. However, Fate is a cold beast, her fangs are steel, and her eyes are glass. With those clear orbs, you can see the hell fires of her mind, as she plots your demise. I have met her since that day in the Airport, and while she is a cold and distant personality, her visage is beautiful. Angular, long and thin but well muscled. Her fur is sleek and healthy and her wings are prim and silent. No doubt, she is a strong thing, for Fate never dies, she skips merrily before you and chuckles at your guesses and shoots you with her concentrated glare.
Perhaps though, the fate I met had been mine, and that is why she looked as she did. My Fate, one of thousands. One who conversed with four others, those of my relations? It is all speculation, even now, knowing what I know it is still all guesswork and games. My sweet Des does not know either, and to him secrets had been passed on.
Thinking of him, made me wonder if he might like to watch this movie with me. I started to get up, much to the protest of Meiyoko, poor cat. Therefore, I sat again. “I cannot let myself get over excited watching these old movies; it would ruin the surprise wouldn’t it?” I asked her, as though she could answer me. She does look up and purr, squinting those blue-green eyes. I set the movie to play again, to watch myself young and stupid wander through the airport terminal, not worrying about life, or what it was Fate was leading me to.

[MissTris]

Another Snippet: This is a lullaby a wrote a long time ago, and it's been tweaked in little ways, but pretty much what you see is what came from the mind of a 10 year old girl, who first thought to write a book called 'How I Became a Dragon.'


The flight goes as it normally does for a typical airline run, on time, uneventful. I am lucky to have a window seat so I watch us take off with some trepidation, but it falls away quickly the higher we get. I may be afraid of heights because I fear I will jump from them, but the height in which an airplane hits seems so surreal that I do not get the hyper-alert state that normally comes with heights. Before I drift off into the world of sleep, looking out the window at the sun peaking from clouds I chuckle a little and hear in my head a song, which I mouth along with.

Hush, love, see the Moons.
Softly, softly, Dragons Tunes.
Don’t fret now, don’t be afraid,
For it is only the winged parade!

Don’t cry child, don’t make fuss.
Be curious of them, as they are of us.
See them twirl, see them dance
A beautiful turning, flames entrance.

Quiet now, Hush love hush,
We’ll spin a reel, the two of us.
Life is full, wonders abound,
I am here to hold you now.

Hush my Love, see the Moons.
Softly, softly, Dragons Tunes.
Sleep you sound, nice, and warm.
I am here for you, there’ll be no harm.

Rest your head, Trust my hand
I will guide every grain of sand.
Your fates shall be, warm and bright
Sleep my child, sleep well tonight.

Those words are the last thing I hear in my mind as I sink into sleep. Such a lovely tune, I would have to remember to write it down because I enjoyed it. If only though, if only I would remember it. My dreams were not as bad as they were earlier, but they were different.

There was a dusty rose-colored dragon, which looked a bit cat like, though I would not directly call her a feline. I watched her working out and wrestling with other Dragons of all kinds of colors and forms. None was like her, being that they resembled any other kind of creature. They all looked like Dragons. I knew it was female too, though I was not sure why. I heard no noise in my dream, it was all action and movements so when they spoke I strained to hear and got nothing. I wondered what they were talking about. She was larger than a few of them, but seemed younger. I wondered now at how old these dragons were, was this common? This was my favorite species; I had so much speculation about their existence. It was one of many considered a mythical species, but then again so was others until they were rediscovered by accident or bones were dug up by arch/paleontologists.

It changed again, and I was looking at people I did not know, doing what people do. A little boy with dark hair and deep eyes is scuffing along the sidewalk. Poor little emo boy, I think, as I watch him walking. He is what, fourteen? Maybe even fifteen but he does not look much older. How odd to see little boys walking down the road. He snarls at some kids who go by him and say something. Then I hear...I hear only one word in my whole dream...

“Amir”

The boy jumps at the sound when I do, and I see his startled face, then he looks up at me, with gray eyes, deep gray eyes, the color of stone.

[MissTris]

This, while Long is another piece, which I would like appraisal on. Is is descriptive enough, do you see what this 19 year old Heather sees? can you feel it? (though I think I need to improve on the latter, mostly I was going for the five senses)

I look around now. Actually taking it all in, the living room decorations and paint are done in cool colors with great care. Hued with medium and dark purples and blues the tones of a sunset. A dark blue suede couch, which I lean on, faces a decent sized TV, on a dark wood stand. The walls are painted in a mural of a sunset, which is very well done. I will have to check the other paintings in the house, I am curious if one of the true residents is the artist. The floor is a wooden one, dark like the TV stand, though I do not know my trees well enough to tell what kind it might be. Instead, I see the rug under the coffee table, which is a royal blue, and rich purple weave, and complements the whole room perfectly. Whoever really lives here has a nice taste in colors I will admit, despite the outside of their house. A large antique wooden star graces the wall between the window and the door. Sheer drapes blot out direct sunlight. Over the TV is a painting of two people standing with their backs to the onlooker facing the sunset mountains. I feel that the mountains are the ones we had passed coming here, and yes, the one who painted the mural on the wall is one of the residents of the house. The kitchen, in contrast reflects dawn colors, the floor tiles being the indigo of the fading night checker patterned with lighter blue of blooming sun-filled sky. Wood that matches the floors done in the same natural finish in the living room make up the cabinets below and above the counter. The counter itself, I am proud for knowing, is human made granite, because it is a light stone, where most natural granites are dark. I run my hand over the cool surface, enjoying the twisting patterns beneath the smooth sealed finish that it makes. The kitchen table, an oak one I believe, has four chairs of the same kind around it. It is a simple but sturdy table indeed. The more I see the more I like these people.

I grab my bag and wander down the hall, opening the first door into a bathroom, tiled and colored in a soft cream yellow and white. I pull the door shut and move on, the door almost right across from it, but a little further down is going to be mom and dad’s room, since the bed is huge. I pull that door shut and check the thin door next on the wall from the bathroom. As I thought, it is a little hall closet with towels and sheets on the top two shelves, and some cleaning things on the lower two. A bucket on the bottom with a box of rags next to it fights for space with a mop and broom. I close that door and carry on. My feet, still in my chucks, make no noise on the long hallway carpets, which are a nice navy and burgundy weave much like the coffee table rug. A few more paintings grace the hall; one is of a gray and white cat, sitting on a cushioned deck chair. It makes me think of my cats, and I sigh. Another is a cheerful one though, a vacation scene since it is on the beach. The picture has who I assume is the man from the Living room painting reeling in on a fishing pole his expression one of surprise. The next framed wall hang is a blown up photo of the man with his fish. It is not a huge one, but it is still quite a fine catch. He looks proud, and I could almost hear them laughing, the woman who took this picture. I know it must be a woman; there is a craft about it that says it must be so.

The end of the hall bares three doors, two, one to either side, are bedrooms. The last at the very end is a door to the outside, to a porch. A little window with lace curtains gives a view to the covered deck. I open the door on the left and poke my head in.

If this was a place with more than two residents, I believed this room was to a daughter, or still decorated for a little boy. The rooms over all tones were shades of middle blue, not dark, nor excessively bright. A twin size bed with a patchwork quilt, a six-point star blooming in the middle and danced around with flowers of light blue and green. Aside from a closet, which holds many boxes with labels like ‘stuffed animals’ or ‘games and puzzles’ proves my thought of this having been a child’s room, this place is rather bare. A chest of drawers, a bureau with a mirror that stands opposite one window and a small TV on a stand, with matching nightstand adorn the space. A single picture, a poster really, which I approve of, is a single wolf, in the autumn, it’s golden eyes looking out over the bed from the wall next to the second window. Whoever use to live in this room had a good interest, but the room had been taken over as the girl had moved out and turned into this one that I saw now, a guest room. The Wolf poster is but a remnant of the former occupant.

I had left my things sitting in the hall, and walk past them to the door on the right, so I can see what kind of room this is. I fully expected a guest room, but it was not. It had been a boy’s room, it is clear first thing. This room is in earth colors, forest green and fertile brown. The bed covers of this twin-sized bed are quilted trees, with two deer standing in the fore ground. Like the other room, there are two windows, a chest of drawers, a bureau and a TV on a stand with its’ matching nightstand, made of the same dark wood. I bring my things into this room and leave the door open so mom and dad know, while I open the closet. It is shelved a lot like the hall closet; only this one has some folded clothing on bottom shelf, a couple boxes labeled like the ones in the other room, and many knick-knacks of degrees of useful on the others. Camping gear, decorative statues, old coins, I was surprised this closet had not been locked tight. I would worry that someone would steal the things that are in here. I can tell, since I am similar, that these are special things, so I do not touch them but instead shut the door and sit on the bed.
Mom comes in, and looks around the room arching an eyebrow, “It does not surprise me.” Is all she says, since I am a tomboy. I only shake my head a little and grin back, what can I say? It is true. She goes back out, down the hall to put their things away. I still feel ridged despite finding a room I like however, since in a way I am connecting a little with the owner of it, we share quite a few interests. It is still not my place though, so I do not unpack my things. I trip over the trunk at the end of the bed, which is where I was going to set my suitcase, and bare my teeth in a groan and stand still a moment, letting the offended appendage sit still. I did not see the forest green box there, but this little accident makes something catch my eye though. I drop my foot and stand now putting my suitcase atop the trunk so I see it next time. I walk over to the bureau and drop down so my eye is level with the surface. Who is this? I look at the little figure for a bit, a lead cut statue no more than five inches tall, sitting in the shadow of the movable mirrors’ anchor to the rest of the piece of furniture. What had caught my eye was the glint of yellow star points. Little stones for eyes of this figure...Coyote, brother Coyote, the god of tricks. I wonder at first what the meaning of this is, and see the legs of another little figure on the other side of the mirror when I lay my head on the flat surface of bureau. “Who are you?” I question, knowing that I would get no response. I slide my chin along the cool top and come to a rest before the second figure. “Oh, Brother Fox.” Coyote’s counterpart and friend, who helps him out of many scrapes and often revives him, Are there more of these little lead figures in the house, or in just this room? Fox’s eyes are green, some kind of stone similar I think to Coyote’s eyes. “The more I see the more I wonder about your owner.” I tell the two little figures. I would not touched them, and muse that the owner put them there, perhaps as a joke for someone who may have known what they were? I found it amusing though, not weird.
“Are there more of you?” I ask them as though they would tell me, Coyote only continues to give me his high and mighty smile, and Fox continues to look clever a ‘perhaps it is so’ look on his face. I was going to go outside, but now I need to know if there are others that I had missed when I first came into the room. I doubt that they would be in the closet, I would have seen them right? I check anyway, looking over the knick-knacks, and find nothing. However, pulling back from the closet and shutting it shows me Rabbit. I grin at him lurking there by the door molding, his eyes are brown stones, do not shine like Fox, and Coyote’s do.
I look up around the room, trying to see if there are any high up, when I spy two. Raven and Crow, looking up at them as best I can, since they are sitting on the corners one window to the side of the bed one has red stone eyes and the other onyx, or some other black stone. The larger of the two has the black eyes, and I assume it is raven, since Ravens are larger birds than Crows. Since I found those two on one window, I look at the window across from the bed, and am rewarded, but puzzled. Walking over to the space I look up at a dark blue figurine and try to riddle out what it is. Stepping back a bit I see it is a black-eyed bird, with a white mark on its’ chest, a lightning bolt. A Thunder Bird, sitting on the window facing the mountains, and he is the only one at this window. Balanced carefully on the top of the curtain rod holder he sits proud. Searching alludes to no more god statues at least in the room, so I decide at last to go outside and see what is there.