Travelling By Dragon By Mind

20260825

Written for “Smogust’s Story Hoard”, prompt 17.

Alflonzo looked up with a smile as his reading was interrupted by a familiar blotting darkness. Sure enough, a giant eye was peering in. He impatiently flapped a hand, and Basil moved back enough for Alflonzo to open the window.
“Hello, friend!” Alflonzo called, leaning on the sill. “How have you been?”
“Wonderful!” Basil rumbled, settling himself comfortably - which meant being wrapped around the house, like a lizard snuggling up to a sunwarmed rock. Soaking in the magic which radiated from an elven living dwelling. “Yourself?”
“Ah, well…” Alflonzo rubbed his chest with a grimace. “As well as when you left, I suppose. Joints still aching, and dreadfully tired. You’d think I was six centuries old!”
“It does seem dreadfully unfair.” Basil mused sympathetically.
Alflonzo shrugged. “The Fates work in mysterious ways, and all that. And their demands of me are less painful than some. At least, no matter how my ill health plagues me, I have my poetry.”
“Oh, speaking of which!” Basil grinned, an expression most people would find frightening, involving a wall of teeth as it did. But Alflonzo had known the dragon since he was a student and Basil had been barely longer than a cart. There was no fear between them.
So he beamed in return and hopefully prompted “You have stories for me?”
“Such stories! Let me see…” Basil rested his chin on the porch roof, his eyes narrowing in thought. If he was having such trouble choosing a place to start, that was promising indeed! “Have you ever heard of the ribbon festival of the northeast Firelands?”
“Never. What is it like?”
Basil eagerly began “The entire city was wrapped in colour. The slightest breeze and it was as if the buildings themselves danced! Then, at noon, a parade gathered…”
Alflonzo leant back against his pillows and shut his eyes to listen properly. Letting his friend’s words paint a vivid picture across his mind.
Oh, how he wished that the plans they had made in youth had not been ruined by his body turning against itself! He would dearly love to see these places for real. But at least his dear friend was not so hindered and always shared as much of the trip as possible. Recounting even the slightest detail for him.
For Basil knew that details were what fed Alflonzo’s poetry. He was always pleased to hear a familiar snippet echoing back at him from his friend’s works. An image. A phrase. A local quirk he’d noted and passed on.
Often turned about to a strange and intriguing angle, and used like a mirror to cast light on something entirely unrelated, but that only made it more fun.
So he relayed everything he’d painstakingly memorised, and Alflonzo countered each new story with one of the poems he’d written while Basil was away. All partially inspired by the last crop of stories Basil had brought, for Alflonzo’s personal experience was largely limited to his home and garden. Or the letters he sometimes received.
It was a dreadful shame for him to be robbed of youthful vigour like this. To be practically a prisoner, forgotten by so much of the world and frequently confined to his bed. But sadly no magic nor mundane cure had yet been able to help.
Basil had never given up searching.
And while he searched, at least he could hold in part to that promise they’d made, two centuries ago now. At least he could help his friend travel in spirit.

I took the prompt as “A bedridden character talks to a dragon outside their window”.

Click through to see the beautiful art which inspired this story (and maybe read some other stories written for it while you're there).