This week, I mentally mangled Padre’s prompt of “The manger scene doesn’t normally look like that…” and remembered it as “the unusual manger scene.” And that’s when I wondered, what if the Christmas Star had been a dragon, stretched across the sky? Which brings us back to the postwar world of the dragon Princess Miranda, recently returned from intentional self-exile to unwilling court life after her father’s untimely death, along with her stalwart shapeshifting companion of catlike curiosity.
“What on earth is that?” Greystone’s fur spiked as he planted his paws and halted just as they reached the entrance to the Lesser Hall. His tail lashed violently across the hallway.
Miranda nearly planted her claws into his spotted back as she stumbled to an unexpected halt. “What is what?” She regained her balance and peered her long neck around the corner. “It’s the same castle it’s always been, even if we’ve been gone for a few years.”
“Or a decade,” Greystone muttered. “Give or take a year or two.”
She frowned. “You meant the display?”
“Tiny creatures.” He lifted each paw, shaking it as he went, fur still floofed. He sniffed at the display, where several figures rested “Fake, inedible tiny creatures, made of wood. Birch, I think. What a waste of syrup.”
“Your sweet tooth will not help us solve this puzzle.” The dragon tapped a finger against her fangs. “Oh, I know. It looks different from what I remember. This is called a barn scene. No, a manger display. This time of year, there is a religious story that goes with it. You only visited in the summer when it snowed, so you never saw the celebrations.”
Greystone’s white and grey fur sleeked itself with another cautious sniff at the intricately carved figurines. “What’s the story?”
“Er –” She felt her wings twitch. “Well, understand this isn’t my celebration. I won’t do the story justice.”
“But you know the highlights?” Greystone persisted.
She took another step closer. The carvings were exquisite, clearly the result of significant time and expertise in bringing life from dead wood. Miranda winced at the mess she was about to verbalize. “Um. Well, you can see the three main figures. The dark blue is the papa dragon. He’s not the father, but he agreed to be because the egg needed one. The light blue dragon is the mama, who birthed a miracle egg.”
They both stared at the smooth wooden egg that rested in a crib filled with straw. Greystone broke the silence. “Why’s it a miracle egg?”
“Why do you have to ask hard questions?” She pursed her snout. “I’m thinking.”
“These are your people, Princess,” Greystone said softly. “You need to know.”
“I left that life behind,” she snapped, and felt the tension in her flattened wings.
“And yet here we are again.”
She closed her eyes and thought back to her favorite tutor, killed during the Nemali attack so many years ago, during the opening salvos of the war. “The Miracle Egg will save the world once he hatches. He is a great dragon wizard, and kind. He teaches other people to be kind, too.”
The words were simple, appropriate as her tutor had taught the child she once was. She blinked away a tear before it could crystalize and ruin the glittering scale art her lady’s maid had spent so much time designing. It would be an insult to destroy her work for the sake of a memory, beloved though Erris had been.
“The miracle egg was prophesied by other great magicians of the age. The kings at the time were unhappy, because it meant they were less important. Some tried to smash the egg. The parental dragons were no match by themselves for the armies brought to stop the Miracle Egg from changing the world, so they fled.”
“What’s this around her neck?”
“The mother dragon carried the egg in a pouch full of warm sand, but it grew cold by the time they landed each evening. She despaired of ever hatching the Miracle Egg, because they were forced to take shelter in drafty barns along the way, and it was already a risk just to have fire-breathers around hay and straw, let alone light a fire for extra warmth.”
The barn looked cramped to her. Perhaps it was intentional, given the artist’s otherwise detailed care. “Most inns aren’t made for dragonic sizes, obviously.”
Miranda pointed to the backdrop attached to the back of the miniature barn. Here, the painted wood was less skilled, though still reflective of the same style. “Only the Great Dragon in the sky could find them. The constellation pointed the way. It was part of the prophecy that the sky flamed, and the Dragon’s Eye dimmed since.”
Greystone sniffed derisively. “A miracle they survived at all. I’ve seen less obvious meteor showers. Though I suppose I’ve never tried to follow one to its landing. Nor a constellation.”
Miranda let her nictating membranes slide closed for a moment in a slow blink. “Ah. Right. The Miracle Egg could be more easily hidden from his enemies once he became the Miracle Hatchling. It was so cold, he was one of the last eggs left from the season, and that made him easy to track. This barn was the one that was warm enough for the hatching to begin.”
Greystone lifted his lip to display fangs nearly as large as her own. “Hatching can take a while. Especially cold starters. Days, even. Right?”
She nodded, and traced the face of the pale blue dragon, wondering if the artist had known her mother. There was something in the snout, and the tilt of her eye ridges, that seemed this side of familiar. “Long enough the three least hostile magicians were able to catch up. These mages were more curious than anything else.”
“Well, don’t stop there. Those figures in the distance look like cats.”
She looked down to discover Greystone had settled in front of the manger scene with crossed paws and an expectantly twitching tail.
“Curiosity loves a cat, you know.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much more, you insatiable, inquisitive fiend. Maybe they were in the cat family. Maybe” – she booped his nose – “they were camels. Whatever they were, the three mages warmed the barn with their magic. The innkeeper’s barn didn’t burn, and the hatching was successful. Plus, they knew the armies were still coming, and did concealment magic to hide the Miracle Hatchling. It worked until he grew old enough to control his own powers and start working his kindness miracles.”
“Seems an odd thing to protest,” Greystone grumbled, and settled his head atop enormous paws. “Silly kings.”
“They caught up to him later,” Miranda admitted. “In a darker tale. This story is about hope.”
A noise caused her head to turn, and she found a kitchen wench in a dark dress with white cap and apron standing in the doorway to the Lesser Hall.
The girl’s mouth and neck twitched with poorly stifled giggles. She raised a hand to her mouth and smoothed over her expression, though her amber eyes continued to dance. “I’m Sass, and if you’d like to hear the proper…er, the full story, please let me know. In the meantime, lunch is served, Princess. Sir Greystone. If you’ll come with me.”
Read more Odd Prompts over at MOTE.
