Adventure at Our Age?

Adventure at Our Age?

Bill steadied himself against a pine trunk and exhaled. His knees always protested on the inclines now, though he tried not to let June see. She was a hawk for weakness, had been ever since they’d met in their twenties at a walking club.

“You all right?” she called back, not even winded, her silver hair bright in the morning sun.

“Fine,” he said. “Just enjoying the view.”

The view was, admittedly, worth the pause. The lake below them was a mirror, so still that the mountains above looked like they were growing straight out of its surface. Mist clung to the edges, dissolving as the sun climbed. Beyond it, slopes rolled upwards into thick forests, dense and ancient, and somewhere further on, snow peaks gleamed.

June came to stand beside him, hands on hips. “We used to storm up these paths. Remember?”

“Storm? I recall more like a steady plod.”

She grinned. “You’re plodding a little steadier these days.”

“Cheek!”

They shared a laugh, the easy sort that needed no explanation. For sixty-odd years each, they had carried whole lives - marriages, jobs, illnesses, bereavements - yet whenever they walked together it was as if time loosened its grip. The mountain paths were their old refuge.

By midmorning, they’d left the lakeshore and followed the trail into forest. The canopy thickened, letting only dappled light through. Birdsong echoed, though faint, muffled by pine. They fell into silence, the kind that felt companionable rather than empty.

It was June who noticed it first. “Bill - look there.”

Just ahead, where the main path bent towards the ridge, an overgrown track veered off. At first glance it was nothing but bracken and nettles, but if you looked twice, you saw a faint groove, half-swallowed by moss and roots.

“Old herders’ way, maybe,” Bill said.

“Or smugglers,” June countered, with a mischievous tilt to her brow.

Bill gave a low chuckle. “Smugglers in the middle of the mountains?”

“People smuggle all sorts. Or maybe it leads to a hermit’s cave. Fancy a detour?”

He hesitated. Their planned route circled the lake before lunch. Yet the track tugged at him. Perhaps it was nostalgia; their younger selves would have never hesitated. “All right then. Adventure at our age.”

The path soon narrowed, forcing them into single file. Branches clawed at their clothes. It smelled different here: damp earth, a tang of wild garlic. The deeper they went, the quieter it grew, as though the air itself had thickened.

“I don’t think anyone’s walked this in decades,” June murmured.

Bill agreed. Bracken curled across their boots, and lichens painted the rocks. Eventually the path petered out before a huge boulder. Moss carpeted its flanks, and tree roots twisted around it like sleeping snakes.

“Well, that’s that,” Bill said, brushing his hands.

“Hold on.” June peered at the base. Where the boulder met the slope, a narrow space yawned, half-concealed by ferns. She crouched and pushed aside the fronds. “Look, it goes further.”

Bill squatted stiffly beside her. The gap was barely shoulder-wide. Beyond it, shadows hinted at more space.

“June, we can’t…”

“We can,” she said firmly. “We’ll only regret it if we don’t.”

She wriggled through before he could protest. For a moment only her boots stuck out, then those too vanished.

Bill sighed. “Stubborn as ever.” He ducked, squeezed, scraped an elbow, and emerged blinking.

The sight stole his words.

They stood not in another stretch of forest, but in a valley neither of them could name, though it felt like a memory. The air shimmered with warmth. Sunlight poured from a sky richer than any he knew, and everything glowed with impossible clarity.

Tall trees arched above, elegant and ancient, their leaves silver-green. Branches bent with fruit in colours too vivid for the human eye: ruby, amber, indigo. Flowers blazed in the grass like scattered jewels, and a river wound through the valley, sparkling as if filled with light rather than water.

June pressed her hand to her chest. “Bill… it’s like walking into a painting.”

He could only nod.

They stepped forward, awe softening their pace. A bird, its plumage iridescent blue, darted across the river and vanished among blossoms. The air smelled of honey and rain.

“Am I dreaming?” Bill muttered.

“If you are, then so am I.” June crouched to touch the grass, then laughed. “Real.”

At the riverbank, they knelt and refilled their bottles. Bill tasted first. The water was cool, but sweeter than any he’d known, as though it carried the memory of mountain snow and summer fruit.

“Good heavens,” he said.

June drank too, eyes closing. “I feel younger already.”

They lingered there, sipping, staring, listening. The valley hummed, not with insects or wind, but with some deeper resonance, a harmony under the silence. It soothed Bill’s joints, his weariness, even the nagging voice of reason that said they shouldn’t be here.

Eventually June pointed. “Look…what’s that over there?”

Far downstream, light shimmered - golden, unlike the sun. A glow rising just beyond the bend, pulsing like a heartbeat.

Bill squinted. “Fire?”

“No. Too steady. Come on.”

They followed the river, drawn as if by the tide. With each step, the glow grew stronger. It spread across the treetops, gilding trunks, rippling over the water. Birds flitted ahead of them, guiding, or perhaps fleeing.

As they walked, memories surfaced unbidden. Bill recalled boyhood summers of running through meadows, drinking from streams. June murmured of her grandmother’s orchard, where pears shone golden in late afternoon. The valley seemed to pluck their memories and weave them into the air.

After some time, they couldn’t tell how long, they rounded a curve. And there it was…

At first Bill thought it a bonfire. But then the shape moved. A long, sinuous neck arched high above the river, scales blazing gold. Wings folded like molten shields along its flanks. The creature’s sheer presence filled the valley, radiating warmth that prickled Bill’s skin.

“June,” he whispered. “That’s… a dragon.”

She gripped his arm. “Don’t be daft.” But her voice wavered.

The being turned. Slowly, with grace that belied its size, it swung its head towards them. Eyes like twin suns fixed upon the two small figures at the river’s edge.

Bill’s knees nearly gave. Every tale he’d heard of knights and monsters shrank into irrelevance before that gaze. Yet he felt no threat, only a weight of ages, solemn and patient.

Then the dragon spoke. Its voice was deep as the earth, clear as bells.

“Ah. You have come.”

June gasped.

The dragon inclined its head, golden mane rippling. “Thank you. You are now the new Wardens of the Last Golden Dragon. And you are home.”

Silence hung, broken only by the river’s song.

Bill’s throat tightened. “Wardens?”

“Yes.” The dragon’s voice echoed both aloud and inside their chests. “For centuries I have waited. Few may find the hidden path. Fewer still are chosen. But you have walked with courage and trust, and so the valley welcomes you.”

June swallowed hard. “But we’re just two old walkers.”

“Age is no barrier. You have known loss and endured. You have cherished friendship. You have lived with honesty. Such souls are rare.”

Bill glanced at June, and for once she looked shaken. Her eyes brimmed with something like recognition, as though this was not a surprise but fulfilment of a promise she hadn’t known she’d made.

He looked around at the fruit trees, the shining flowers, the endless sky. He felt tears prick his eyes. He had not expected, at sixty-eight, to stumble upon wonder. Yet here it was, asking nothing but his presence.

He met June’s gaze. She nodded, faintly smiling, though her lips trembled.

They bowed to the Last Golden Dragon together. “Then we accept.”

The dragon lowered its head, so close they felt the heat of its breath, smelled spice and smoke. Its eyes softened, as if in blessing.

“Welcome home,” it said.

Bill and June stood very still, the weight of the words settling into their bones. A strange calm filled them - part awe, part recognition, as though this was where all their paths had been leading.

And so they remained, with the river singing at their feet and the golden light bathing their faces, knowing with sudden clarity that they would not be going back.

They were Wardens now.

They were home.

By Sue Roberts