Dragons exist. I know this because my mother tells me one lives on our island. They sit curled up in the dormant volcano. The village long ago put them to sleep with soft songs and gentle caresses. When they went to sleep, so did the volcano.

We tell this story only amongst us. No one talks about it in school or in public. It’s a duty to protect the dragon. If we wake them, there’s no way they can find peace enough to fall back asleep in this new world.

There are others in existence. The ones deep under the ocean that live down there in the darkest parts. They act as mobile heat sources for other creatures of the deep. If they come up just high enough to be caught, people confuse them for megalodons, krakens, or giant squids. However they have no interest in socializing with any people or animals. They enjoy being on their own and they kill only to eat.

Though there do exist dragons that enjoy socializing. Maybe that’s why the virgin sacrifices started in the first place. I read about them in the literature. I see it in the paintings. All these young women dressed down in white gowns as gifts for dragons. These young girls as valuable as the gold and jewels, practically glittering in the eyes of the dragon.

I ask my grandmother about the women and she tells me it’s true, but not how we think. Some were voluntary pets. Others enjoyed the company of a specific human, and they stayed for life.

None went unwillingly, she said. Though some dragons were more demanding of the people than others, it did not make the people unwilling. She said, the women just happened to be the bravest most of the time. She says, they went because they loved gold and jewels just as much as the dragon who collected such things.

Others enjoyed the eternal heat and wished to live cozily by a dragon’s fire.All different types of dragon hoards enraptured many different people who enjoyed the things a dragon collected. Sometimes multiple people volunteered, of all genders and ages. The decision came down to who the dragon picked, and sometimes the dragon picked more than one.

Some even stayed with their dragons when they went into their eternal sleep. Though they are long dead by now, at least they died with a creature who cared for them.

I begin to ask about dragons on a frequent basis. My parents and grandparents warn against talking about the dragon too much, because the more you call them, the more likely they are to wake up for you. They can hear all things on this planet, but the only way to force one awake is to talk about them and they will stir. So I limit myself to one question every birthday, always about the dragon stuck in our mountain that once was a raging volcano. Eventually I gather the entire story as best I can.

The dragon had been born from the earth, deep within where they are welded together with metal, jewels, and minerals, as all dragons are made. They are the guardians of nature and earth. This island once the shell they broke free from in order to enter this world. The volcano was both a womb and a tomb. When the dragon reawakens, the volcano will become a womb once again.

As a baby they lived inside the volcano, unable to eat on their own. The people should have fed them and socialized with them, but no one could bear to go near the lava. They were afraid without trying to understand, and because they allowed themselves to be afraid, the dragon grew up to believe they needed to make all fear them.

The dragon had starved all those years, never eating anything except what happened to fall into the volcano. Sometimes burning the birds that flew overhead, so they would fall into their mouth. This took precision. If done with too much fire, there would be no bird left to eat.

When the dragon realized they possessed the same ability to fly, they took off out of the volcano. For the first time, they saw mankind. All of them wandering upon their cradle without ever once helping them. So they set villages aflame, the likes of which were so hot not even typhoons could not put them out.

Other islands nearby heard of the chaos from survivors, who washed up on their shores. One of these islands contained a dragon, who told the survivors to return to their homeland. The other dragon told them the only way to put out a dragon’s flames was with the dragon’s own tears.

The islanders did not want to leave, they begged the others to let them stay there. They did not believe they could move their dragon to tears. But the other island refused.

They had abandoned their dragon once, and they would not be allowed to do so again.

So they went back, but they went home angry. This anger formed violence in the people, and when they returned, they struck back at the dragon with all their might.

The battle waged only for a single night because the dragon knew nothing of the island outside of his volcano. The people were adept in ambushing the creature as the dragon blindly lit fires in the shadowy light they had created.

Several wounds dripped from the dragon and the villagers came to find tears were not the only thing that could put out a dragon’s flames. Yet when they fell to the earth, the people did not feel triumphant. The earth turned hard and cracked beneath their feet. The plants wilted. All the wildlife had gone quiet. Even the people felt sick, all of them lethargic and depressed.

There was no one single person who stepped forward first. This had been a collective movement as each person reached out for the dragon to help heal them. Though the dragon protested and snapped at them in defense, no one backed down.

When their wounds healed and the dragon came back to full health, the island flourished. The village learned to live in harmony with the large beast, though they still held a fiery temper and demanded like a spoilt child. Yet no one complained.

The dragon never asked for any favors and they never asked the dragon for any as well. But when they climbed back inside their volcano, the people rushed up the mountain to tuck the dragon in to sleep. The dragon tossed and turned constantly down there, afraid to fall back asleep in the place where they once were neglected. So the people sang to them and lived there with them until the dragon felt safe enough to shut their eyes.

Ever since, the people have kept quiet about their dragon beneath the mountain. The mountain that once had been a volcano.

They say the longer a dragon sleeps, the more content they had been with their time awake. It means they went to sleep knowing they had lived their time fully. If a volcano erupts, then somewhere nearby is a restless dragon that cannot find peace in their slumber.