Back from some time away...

Quick post from this dragon, with promises of a longer post in the days to come.

I've been off on a so far fruitless search for my parents. My scribe has also been 'away' pursuing his 'career' as an actor in community theater. Though I do not like it when he leaves me scribe-less for so long, he did pretty good. As good as someone with a bad voice can do in a musical . He even received some critical acclaim. Here's my favorite: "Jack's scribe has a voice that would make a baby cry, but he had a great time with it. Much of what was missing in the rest of the cast was this kind of fun and energy so vital to comedy. " And then there is this: "The best work comes from the people who get to do short spurts. Jack's scribe bursts in for
some quick laugh-getters...". Overall, he did well and I am happy to have him back scribing. I would even pat him on his little head, but last time I did that he had to go to the doctor.

I was off in search of my parents. More specifically, I was searching for the motion where I was born. As I noted earlier, I think I've found the village nearby, but the mountain it's self has been a little elusive. There are a few candidates in the area, but I am having trouble narrowing it down to just the one. Once I figure that out, I will have to do some scouring to find the cave or den where I was born. I expect that to provide some clues that I might follow to where my parents went next. It's been frustrating so far, but when one is immortal, time doesn't matter. If it takes another 100 years to track them down, I will be happy.

And with that I am off to take a long dragon nap. I am working out some issues in my head, and sleeping seems to help me with that. I am near to putting a long standing issue to rest, and that will free me up to grumble about a lot of other things. I always like the free feeling I get when I finally move something out of my mind and into a few bits of treasure in my hoard.

Off to dream, maybe I'll see you there too...

Jack Dragon

Answering some questions...

I've been away for a bit again, more parental research, but I did have time to quickly reply to a couple reader questions. More on the parental research in a later post.

How many genes determine coloration in dragons? Are you red or green or brown?

I am red, though I don't know if I've yet mentioned that. I'm not sure about the genetics of it all, but one would guess that red was a dominant gene. I can tell you this much, and you can help me figure it out, dragon colors are absolute, they are either red or green (or black or whatever), but never a mix of colors or a shade between color.

Did you visit the mountain where you were born?

You'll have to keep reading to find that out. I am sure it will get covered one way or the other.

More late,

Jack

Searching for an old dragon's roots...

I've said little about my parentage in this blog, mainly because they left me quite young to fend for myself. That's a hard thing to say, and a pretty rough way to start life. It is, sadly, pretty much standard dragon child hood. I suppose it's another reason why there aren't so many of us left. The smaller, dumber and weaker dragons often get themselves killed long before they reach maturity. Some might say I'm lucky to have come this far, but I don't think luck as much to do with it. Lucky seems to be how we like to characterize the life of others.

Until this moment, I have never mentioned or let on that some of my long absences as of late have had a purpose other than sleeping off the grouches and depression that I so often fall into. Rather, I have been searching for my parents, or at some sign of my roots. There comes a time in a dragon's life when he just needs to know where he came from. For some this is just a curiosity, but for me it has become an obsession as of late. And it's been an obsession with me that I am pretty sure will just lead to disappointment and sorrow. I want to find my parents, but more importantly, I need to know that I wasn't just some nuisance left behind in some dark cave somewhere. What scares me, and dragons aren't often scared, is that I mind find out that a nuisance left in a cave is exactly what I was to them. Though at this point, I just want to know, I can deal with the pain latter. Finding out is the mother of all hope or dread moments for me.

So given that I don't know where I am from, it's a hard path to trace. As near as I've figured the best place to start is the beginning, the place I was born. Problem is, I don't know where I was born, except for memories of a mountain and an ocean. So much of the land has changed that it is almost impossible to retrace my footsteps even if I had did have a good memory of the early times. I decided instead to zero in on mythology with the understanding that in the time proceeding my birth my parents, two mature dragons lingered in the same place for many months at a time.

Since Mexico was my best guess as to where I was born, I started there. I spend many days looking through books with the local mythology, and then I spent many more days flying from village to village and listening to local folk lore and legends. Sometime I would hear something promising, but none of it ever panned out into a true lead. And then when I was nearing exhaustion, I overheard and very old story of two great dragons that long ago settled not far from a little village by the Gulf of Mexico. One was a great Red dragon who breathed fire, the other a smaller, less terrifying green dragon.

As the legend goes these two dragons swooped in from the ocean one day and laid waste to much of the fishing village, indiscriminately eating villagers and the fish they had brought in from the sea. After days of this, the flew off towards a great mountain which overlooked the village to the northwest. The villagers heard nothing for days as they began to rebuild their shattered and burned houses. After a week, the red dragon returned flying low over the village, but not stopping. Later that same day they saw smoke to the Southwest. Out of the smoke the red dragon flew towards them, his massive claws closed around two terrified cows. He flew off towards that same mountain.

For many months this pattern continued; red dragon flying out and returning with food which could be livestock, fish and often enough people, screaming and crying in unrelenting crush of the dragons great claws. After more than a year the raids stopped all together. All was silent and quiet. One clear and cloudless morning a sharp eyed villager spotted the two dragons again. They flew out over the village and then went back to circle the mountain several times before heading out over the land to the west. They never saw the dragons again, and no one was ever so brave as to venture up to the mountain. After many years their lives returned to normal, the story forgotten except for in the legend that had passed down through the generations.

And that was a good start to my quest....

Jack Dragon.