A Prayer to the Three-Eyed Skunk

I stayed with dragons when I was young. 

To be held by a dragon is to be held so fast that not even your own heart’s beat can move you. In the arms of a dragon I rested once and only once, but because of that rest, I have never had to sleep again.

I once used my sunken eyes and nocturnal prowess to prowl the places people pretend they haven’t heard of—or haven’t hoped to go. Squire cut and dressed in the finest free clothing the empire has to offer. I was posted up in all the dimmest alleys the world could carve from light and city blocks. Layers and layers of shadow make books of black. There is the cool Mississippi breeze and the hot Louisiana touch on the thigh and neck nape. Alone in the labyrinth I wielded a shrimp po boy and a minotaur horn. Alone in the lost aisles, I roamed Tir Na Nog in drag and dragon-scale armor. 

Now I snarl like my adopted family. I was raised by dragons, but I am a bird.

I was raised and trained and fought with the scaled masters of the skies. Now I beat my wings and I breathed whatever fire I could. I so hated my roar. While the other dragons crumbled walls with their wails I sang sweet and high—but I still fought. 

When a bird can only sing dragon songs to get their supper, after some time there is no need for them to know their own bird’s song. So I learned to sit perched atop the mountain with the things so many fear. When this little bird sang, I too roared and shook the whole of the Earth. 

The gales tore my wings and pulled me to the ground. I was grateful. While on my back, for the first time in my life, I saw my first view of the whole night sky. History in permanant polaroid. The great ribbon of explosions that light the paths for sailors—that light the paths of all things that might ever be. 

I know who I am now. You should see me fly.  A lark, but I still fly like a dragon—and on occasion roar like one too.