The Lamb

Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 5

The Lamb

I was brought back to the top of the mountain, to the Spring of Wisdom.

The Goddess statue spoke again.

“Thanks to your efforts, Naydra, the spirit

of Mount Lanayru, has been freed from

the grips of an evil power.”

The dragon was once again coiled atop the mountain, but he looked much better, the arching curves of his long body more alive, less weighed down, his great taloned feet strong on the snow and ice beneath him. His great head he held, low and docile, above the spring. Eyes so bright....

“But a single ceremony remains. Now...

Loose your arrow through the body of

Naydra to free the spirit of this region!”

What?

Naydra still lay.... stood.... coiled, there, head hung low beneath his beautifully arched neck. I’d never seen a dragon still as this before. And getting a chance to actually look at him, he was.... just....

His eyes so bright and yet so calm, wells of peace, outward facing as a deer or a horse, such long beautiful eyelashes, drooping, funneled llama-ears hanging down, and his flexing, moving, unsplit, camellike muzzle.... Was he really a scaled creature? It looked almost like a fringe of fur, hanging down from his upper.... lip. Whiskered. Fuzzed. So that the mouthline could not be seen. Like a grazing creature. Patient. Peaceful.

In that moment especially, the blue spirit Naydra really did seem.... as a lamb.

And I held the knife.

I did take a few pictographs first, some of them, I’m only a little sorry to say.... somewhat irreverent. Like standing as if in deep and oblivious thought with his man-sized, all-rending claws behind me....

It was funny.

And I tried to touch him, too. But, even when he was still, the force and chill of his body sent me sprawling back, taking a tiny bite from my health each time.

All right.

I went back to the platform. If it was to be a bowshot, I wanted to try for a hornshard. Giving the honors to the Phrenic Bow that had served me so well, I took careful aim, and landed a shaft in the crystal-blue horn a third-way up from the dragon’s brow.

At the contact, Naydra took off, this time rearing straight up into the grey, grey sky, and for a worryingly long time, or what seemed like it, nothing happened. But after a moment, a gleaming something broke from the glittering mark I had left on the horn, and came streaking back down to earth, landing on the platform before the Goddess statue.

It was a dragon scale.

Well.... that was good enough, I thought.

“That is the spirit Naydra’s scale.

It fell when your arrow struck.

It serves as proof of the courage you

received from the one who served the

spring since ancient times.

Come... Offer a scale from the blue spirit

Naydra to the Spring of Wisdom.”

Naydra....

He was flying away. Up into his vortex in the sky.

Like they do.

I picked up the scale. The first and only one I had ever held from the blue dragon Naydra. So precious and wanted a thing, but.... I needed to sacrifice it to another, first.

I stepped down into the spring, waded forward to where I could see the royal family’s crest engraved upon the submerged stones, and let fall the scale into the water.

A plash and a golden light.... and a door opened behind the Goddess statue.

“Your path has shown itself. Now go forth.”

I glanced into the sky once more before entering the cavern. Freed from the shackles of evil, Naydra flew away in peace.

And I crossed over the threshold, and entered the Jitan Sa’mi Shrine.

And when I stepped back out of it, it was noon, and the mountain knew it.

And the high, cold music was playing again.

Clarion as ice.