Dry January

I can hardly bring myself to open my eyes upon waking. The world is already spinning behind my closed lids and I know I’ll feel even worse when I see the destruction my New Year’s Eve celebration has wrought upon my home. Don’t get me wrong, last night was glorious. I felt on top of the world, indestructible. I had fun, I laughed, you could even say I was the life of the party. But is it worth how drained, how depleted, how guilty I will inevitably feel for the first few days of this new year? At my age, shouldn’t I know better?

I blink my eyes open to survey my lair. As I suspected, I had truly gone overboard last night. Goblets and bowls lay overturned and broken, swept off the table no doubt in my frenzied revelry. The smell of sweat and metal lingers in the air. Is that a severed hand lying amidst the crystals of my meditation corner? I groan and begin to unfurl myself, shaking out my wings, and feeling my age as my stiff bones and sore muscles make themselves known. I start to clean up my cave, righting furniture and rearranging my bookshelf. I’ll save the scouring for later today; it takes more energy to get viscera out of granite than I can muster at this moment. A wave of regret hits me as I discover where I left the charred remains of my visitor last night (half on top of my cashmere throw blanket!) and I bite back tears of shame. In a few months, I will be six thousand years old. Six thousand! I’ve had enough mornings like this to teach me the lesson - these men aren’t worth it. They truly aren’t. And yet, every time one of them makes it to the top of my mountain, with their silly sword and worthless shield and lame bravado, I can’t myself. I rage and I kill and the knight becomes a legend for his people, while I am left with the hangover. 

Looking out at the sun high in the sky, I curse, grab my bag, and make my way outside. Every year, Arria and I meet on Argazkia Aneto, the highest peak in our shared ancient mountain range, for tea, scones, and conversation, and every year, I am late. I know she won’t mind, I even know exactly what she’ll say. What’s an hour in a few millennia of friendship?  But I mind. How many times have I vowed to myself that I would wake up early, establish a mindful morning routine, meditate more, try a plant-based diet, only to revert to my basest nature? New year, new me, I vow half-heartedly before spreading my wings and taking flight.

The exercise and fresh air improve my mood; another lesson it seems I need to learn over and over again before it sticks. The sun sinks into my skin, warming my bones, and suddenly I don’t feel like such an old lady. I catch a glimpse of my reflection as I fly over Lake Ibon, and smile inwardly. My muscles may be sore but they are also strong. The patterns in my scales, steel grey and lapiz blue, are truly magnificent. I’d be hard-pressed to admit this to Arria, but I’m not really surprised that I’ve inspired the largest number of epic poems of any dragon in the Pirinio Mountains. I circle around again, moving into a lateral barrel roll just for the fun of it. 

Arria greats me in the tradition of our clan, letting loose a breath of fire that burns from blue to red. “Urte berri on, my sister,” I respond. “Happy New Year. I apologize for my lateness.”

“What’s an hour in a few millennia of friendship, my dear Heren?” she asks, smiling and pouring me a glass of Ama pét-nat tea. I smile in return and take the bottle to pour her glass, as is our custom. We settle into our perch atop Argazkia Aneto, breathing the mountain air deeply before lighting a fire beside us and digging into the scones. 

Arria catches me up on her activities of the year, sharing her success with a new varietal of mountain orchid, and her frustrations with her youngest daughter, Alaba, who had recently taken to coloring her scales black and composing her own poetry. “They don’t even rhyme, Heren! She says it’s a return to the classic form like the Greeks and Romans did it. Why anyone would want to return to how those people did anything is beyond me.”

I nod in agreement, although I’m having trouble focusing on her words. The revival I felt initially from the fresh mountain air has passed, and even the finest tea brewed from our own mountain springs is no match for the throbbing headache I feel building around my left temple. I wince, and Arria stops midsentence. “Heren, are you alright? I brought some of my mountain herb elixir, just in case…” She trailed off at the expression of humiliation on my face. “Sister, the shame you feel is not yours to carry. We have removed ourselves to live in peace in the mountains. They come to our doorsteps. They bring the violence. You were only reacting as is natural for our kind. Please, drink the tonic and let it work its healing.”

I drink the elixir and feel, in surprise, my eyes fill with tears. Arria sits with me as I cry and as her home remedy does its work. Within a few minutes, my head is clear of pain and my nervous system returned to neutral. “Arria,” I say, lifting my head to meet her eyes, “You are a treasure greater than any I possess in my hoard. What a gift a long and true friendship is.”

“The greatest jewel indeed,” Arria replies. “Speak to me, dear sister. I can tell this lies heavy on your spirit. Unburden yourself.”

“I’m just so tired of it, Arria. The endless cycle. Every time I vow to do better, to live differently. And then some knight shows up at my doorstep and I can’t seem to help myself. The bloodlust overcomes my better judgment and I give in to glorious battle. The highs are so high. But I’m tired of living in the lows.”

“I understand completely, Heren. I have felt like that myself, many a time,” Arria said, moving closer to me and curling her long, spikey, green tail around me.

“You?” I respond, in shock. “But you are so in control, so centered, so together. I know you still kill a knight now and then, but it doesn’t ever seem to take you over the way it does me.”

“Don’t you remember what I was like two, three thousand years ago? The rage I carried, the ugly side of me that could come out when I murdered? It was like I was another dragon completely.”

Thinking back, I do remember days when it was Arria who was the unreliable one, open and good-natured at times, cagey and brutish at others. She even missed one of our New Year’s teas back in the seventies, and when I flew to her peak to check on her, the aftermath of carnage was unmistakable.

‘What changed for you?” I ask.

Arria sat pensively for a minute, before responding, “I think the turning point for me was when I decided to do a cleanse, one summer in the early aughts. I abstained completely from murder, from violence of any form, really. I went vegetarian, if you will. It changed my relationship to killing, cleared my head. Now, if a knight comes to challenge me, I can dispatch him if I want, or leave him be. It doesn’t have so much power over me anymore.”

“A cleanse,” I mused. “I suppose I could try it. Anything is better than waking up one more day feeling like I did today. But what do you do with them if you don’t kill them? I have to say, it never even occurred to me.”

“I know,” Arria laughed. “I don’t bring this up in company often because it’s so outside our culture practices - sometimes I worry others will feel like I’m judging them for murder like I’m some kind of holier-than-thou, boring teetotaler. But there are options. You can trap them, trick them, pick them up, and fly them off to distant land. I’ve even been able to convince a few to abandon their quests entirely, just by talking to them. And of course,” she adds, after taking her final sip of tea, “sometimes I kill them. It’s fun, as long as you're in charge of the bloodlust and the bloodlust isn’t in charge of you.”

“You’ve given me a lot to think about,” I say, as I start to gather my things in preparation for the flight home. “I appreciate your honesty and your vulnerability in sharing this. It means a lot to know that I’m not the only one of our kind who has ever felt like this. Maybe I will try abstention, say for a month, and see if it offers me any clarity, any respite.”

We embrace, and I let out a burst of fire in farewell as I take off. It burns red to blue. The sun is setting behind the mountains as I reach home. The purple of the sky unlocks something in my heart, and all of a sudden I am crying again, so thankful for the beauty of my homeland, so grateful for the friendship of Arria. I’ll do it, I vow to myself, as I land on the mountain peak where I have made my home for millennia. A one-month cleanse from murder, no matter what temptations cross my path. Thirty days should pass by in the blink of an eye for someone my age. How hard could it possibly be?

My first opportunity to learn exactly how hard this could be was named Ronald. He woke me up from my midafternoon nap on January 3 with the clattering of his horse’s hooves as the pair made their way up to the entrance of my cave. I took three deep belly breaths as I walked slowly to meet him, trying to bring my heart rate down. Just the smell of him had me hankering for a kill. It’s not worth it, I reminded myself, willing my mind to conjure up memories of how I felt the morning after indulging in murder, rather than the thrill of the slaughter. 

The knight flinched when he saw me and then quickly assumed a fighting stance, legs quaking. His voice boomed with false bravado. “Lo, gruesome beast. It is I, Sir Ronald of Herrixka, come to slay you.” My eyes started to roll reflexively and images flashed through my mind of several satisfying ways I could correct this puny human’s insolence. 

“New year, new me,” I mutter under my breath. To Ron-Ron, I let loose a blast of fire, aiming for six feet to his left. He dove dramatically, in the wrong direction, and almost got caught in the flames. I covered my face with my talons, cringing at his idiocy. Two days into my cleanse and it was almost ruined by this fool. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.

Gathering myself, I turned back to the knight. “Today is the luckiest day of your life, mortal!” I thundered. “I am going to extend you an opportunity that none of your brethren have ever been granted. Far better warriors than you have tried to win glory by defeating me. For thousands of years, not one has ever returned. Not to Herrixka, no any other kingdom, village, or hamlet on the continent. But today, you will not meet the death you so justly deserve. Because this is not about what you deserve, Ronnie. It is about what I deserve. Leave now. Tell whatever story you choose to your people. But do it now, before I change my mind.”

The knight looked up at me, then back to the trail he had just ascended, and back to me again. He swallowed hard. Come on, Ronald, I thought. Make this easy on both of us.

Trembling, the poor fool raised his sword and began to advance on me. “I have come here to slay you, monster on the mountains,” he declared, teeth chattering. “I cannot return to Herrixka untested. No one would respect me!”

“What does it say about you, and your accursed community, that you have to come and threaten an obviously superior being who is minding her own business, to win respect?” I hiss, quickly losing patience. “Is there no useful, practical task you could complete to prove your manhood? No actual act of service you could accomplish?”

“I am a knight,” Sir Ronald says, rather dumbly. “It is what we do. Knights of Herrixka slay the dragons of the Pirinios. It has always been so.”

“Knights of Herrixka climb the Pirinios and die trying to slay dragons,” I correct him. “Do you not find it a waste? I’ve killed so many of you at this point that I find it wasteful. Why do you value your life so little?”

Sir Ronald looks at me for a beat, before lowering his sword and breaking down in tears. “My whole life, this is what has been expected of me. What I have trained for. What everyone in Herrixka requires of me. Of course it is a waste. But we all have our roles to play.” Still sobbing, he gets to his feet and faces me. “Please, be merciful. Make it quick, if you can.”

Revulsion rises in my chest, accompanied by another, less familiar emotion. Pity. Even if I wasn’t trying to abstain from murder, the knight’s confession, and acceptance of his fate ruined the fun. Sighing, I advanced on the knight and took hold of him in my front talons. 

“This is not about mercy, fool knight. This is not about you. I will deliver you, unharmed, to the Kingdom of Arreinua, three days journey from Herrixka. You can return to home, and make peace with your life as a failed yet living knight, or you can stay in Arreinua, and make a new life for yourself there. I care not. I will not kill you this month. For me. That is all you need to know.” I leap into the air and Sir Ronald screams in terror. I fly as fast as I can, till the wind rushing in my ears blocks out the knight’s cries. Checking in with myself, I feel, underneath my annoyance at the mortal, a sense of accomplishment, of pride. I have passed my first test. Maybe I really can make it through the month. 

And make it through the month, I do. The rest of January is not without its challenges. A week after depositing Sir Ronald in Arreinua, another knight darkens my doorstep. Before I can even get my first argument out, he trips on his steel-covered boots and impales himself on his own sword. I didn’t cause his death though, so it doesn’t break my streak. It’s interesting to note, as I dispose of his body and clean up my entryway, how different it feels, dealing with the aftermath of death without the shame, or the crash of adrenaline. I feel calm, centered, and connected to myself. I’ve finally made a commitment that I’m keeping to. Being a reliable friend to myself, rather than fulfilling the role these knights want me to play. 

By the time the final week of January roles around, I feel like a new immortal being. By stepping away from my usual cycle of planning for murder, committing murder, cleaning up murder, regretting murder, I have opened up all these new pathways in myself. I start to paint, something I haven’t done in centuries. I watch the sunrise every day, go on long flights just for the joy of it, and visit Arria to help her in the garden. When I return home after one of my flights and see yet another knight waiting atop my peak, I decide to skip the whole rigamarole and just sweep down, knock his sword out of his hands, grab him up, and deposit him on a nearby mountain top. I don’t even stop to think if he’ll be able to make it back down to his village, if he’ll die from exposure, and if that would break my streak. I’ve finally embraced the understanding that I can’t place humans and corrupted ideas about honor and violence at the center of my life. By the time I return to my home, the first stars are starting to dot the sky, and I have already forgotten about the mortal. The night air is glorious and my cave is warm and cheery. I sleep the sleep of the righteous that night and wake up refreshed and restored.

It is the first day of February. I have made it through the entire month and I do truly feel cleansed. I recognize the familiar sound of horse’s hooves on stone and smile, knowing that today I can choose to kill the knight or not kill the knight, that I am now in control of murder, and it no longer holds the power over me.

I kill him. It feels good but I don’t go overboard. I don’t let it take up my whole day. The clean-up is way easier than it was in the past and afterward, I sit in my bloodless (and limbless) meditation corner and try to get in touch with what I’m feeling. A pleasant buzz. No perceptible guilt. Am I the type of dragon that can dabble in violence without letting it take me over? Time will tell. If this month has taught me anything, it’s that I can count on myself to figure it out, one day at a time.