The Dragon who Lost her Fire

A #Therapeutic #Story on #Healing, the #Individuation #Journey, filled with #Jungian #Archetypes and other interesting things. #Hope, #Transformation, #Enlightenment and #Awakening. Conversations under the sky-

Between a wooden dragon and a boy.

CHAPTER 1: THE DREAM

The little boy took his first steps, after that he spoke his first words.

"Dad, I have a dream. I would like to build a ship and sail the world. I will make a fortune!"

"You are the son of a timber farmer. We are hard-working and loyal. We don't dream the dreams of little boys taking their first steps into the world."

The boy was sad and asked his father many times as he grew older, but the father insisted on this loyal responsibility to follow in his footsteps.

CHAPTER 2: THE SECRET

One night the little boy's grandmother called him aside. She whispered softly in his ear:

"My little boy, let me tell you a secret...

Your fortune is hidden under the pile of timber in the timber shed. Tomorrow morning, I will go and show you exactly where it has been hidden."

That morning when the little boy ran to his grandmother's bed, she had left one world for another.

The little boy ran off to the timber shed where he could hide his tears from the world. Sadness and anger came to visit him, making his fists strong and his legs kick while he cried and screamed. His anger and sorrow made him so strong he kept on kicking the pile of timber, carrying on until nightfall.

"Leave the boy," his mother said. "The boy is mourning for his grandmother."

But in the morning the little boy was nowhere to be found.

CHAPTER 3: THE VOICE

That night, at the bottom of the heap of timber, the boy came across a very old, odd-shaped log of timber with burned imprints. And as he was about to fall asleep next to it from exhaustion, the boy heard a gentle voice speaking to him.

She spoke with a soft and husky voice, foreign but somehow, he understood her like only a child could.

"Little boy, please drag me to the river," the voice said.

"I can't," the boy replied.

"You can."

"Show me how strong you have become... Only drag me to the door, then you can roll me downhill."

For the boy couldn't resist a challenge, he dragged the log to the door. As the door swung open, the momentum of the downhill swallowed them both, and he rolled down with it, tumbling down and landing next to the riverbed bellow.

The flow of water was enchanting and calming, and the boy nearly fell asleep, but then the log spoke once again.

"Just give me one more push into the water, that's all I need."

As the boy gave one more hard push, the current of the river was so strong it dragged him in as well, and both of them drifted downstream. The boy was clinging on.

"Take me to the shore," the boy said.

"Please I beg you," he pleaded, but the log was not responding.

They drifted further and further downstream till the boy could hear a loud thunder of water.

"Hold on tight," the log said,

"and take a deep breath, for we are going down a big waterfall."

The boy was so scared he clamped his legs and arms onto the log and closed his eyes in fear.

As the log dived down the fall of gravity, it opened its wings and glided down the fall, taking even a deeper dive. Deep, deep down as they hit the water till the bottom of the fall, surrounded by a timeless silence.

The wooden dragon swam till she surfaced into an underwater cave.

As the boy opened his eyes, he wasn't sure what was more beautiful: the beauty of the dragon or the sparkling glitter of the cave. Her eyes were shining and reflecting the lighting in colors of gemstones he had never seen before. It was a dance between light and shadows, vision and void. The wood carvings were beautiful patterns reflecting the boy's thoughts in shapes he had never seen before.

"I nearly drowned," the boy said.

"But you didn't," the dragon replied.

CHAPTER 4: THE PROMISE

The boy loved it down there.

"This could be worth a fortune," the boy said.

"You are definitely right," the dragon agreed. "But fortunes are only a fortune when you claim it."

"How am I going to get all the beautiful stones home?" the boy asked.

"You can take it all," the dragon said.

"It's all yours."

"But how?" the boy asked.

The dragon and the boy had long conversations about dragonflies and fireflies, and she told him all the stories of the forest. She explained how she had sacrificed her inner fire to save the woodland from destruction, knowing that as a creature made of wood, keeping her flames would have meant burning herself to ash along with everything she sought to protect. Now her fire lived on in a different form—trapped within the gentle glow of the fireflies that danced through the trees during dark moon.

But some time later the boy started to respond with sayings like, "I'm hungry, how am I going to get home?" "It's not funny anymore, I'm over it!" "This sucks!"

But the dragon kept quiet the moment the boy spoke like this because she knew he was only a little boy.

"I need you to make me a promise," she later said.

"Whatever, just take me home."

"I can't take you home, for I can't dive deep from here. Don't you remember, I'm only a dragon made of wood? But I can tell you how YOU can, but you just need to make me one promise before I will tell you how to get home."

The boy agreed.

"Promise me you will find my fire. Vow to me " Her voice filled the air like deep rumbling thunder.

"Vow to me, little boy." she insisted. The boy vowed.

"Take a deep, deep breath and swim in this direction." She pointed with her tail.

"The current of hope will take you to the surface. Tie this hag stone to your neck. It's for you not to forget the promise you have made to me"

She retreated back into the shadows of her cave. But before the boy could leave, the dragon spoke once more, her voice drifting over her shoulder: "But I must warn you: if you don't keep your promise, your life will turn into a curse of struggle, because you have seen the unseen."

The stone was heavy around his neck, but the boy took a deep breath and with all the energy he had left, swam out under the underwater cave, and the current took him to the surface.

CHAPTER 5: THE VOID

Days later, wandering villagers found him on the banks of the river. He nearly drowned, he was not responding and uttering foreign words while he was in a deep sleep for days.

"Poor little soul," the village people said. "The boy was so sad about the death of his grandmother that he had tied a stone around his neck and tried to drown himself."

Time went by and he grew up under this stigma, not knowing any of what had been said behind his back.

He was hardworking and a loyal timber farmer, just like his father. He fell in love, married and had children, but his life was shadowed under a cloud of disappointment. a Life of lost dreams and despair about his lot.

His wife got fat and ugly and she annoyed him and his children and became a nuisance to him. By the time he had grown into an old man, the ancient forest had been nearly stripped bare, its trees felled, and its wilderness nearly destroyed. He didn't even feel like going deeper into the woods to find more timber to log. He somehow, gave up, to his fate and lived under the shame of a hopeless man.

CHAPTER 6: THE QUEST

When his mother was on her deathbed, he sat next to her. He had run out of words and asked her to tell him the story just once more of when he nearly drowned as a child.

She told him they found him on the riverbanks after the death of his grandmother.

"Did I say anything while I was in the deep sleep?" "Not that I can remember," the mother said, but there was something, and for the first time she mentioned the stone around his neck when they found him on the shore.

"What stone?" the old man asked. "You never told me about a stone."

"It was a heavy stone for a young boy to carry around his neck."

"I have buried it to spare you the thought and shame," the mother said.

"Where did you bury it, mother?" he asked. Throughout his life, he had convinced himself that the dragon and his promise existed only in his dreams, during his deep slumber.

The old man took the stone and went into the forest as the dragon told him. He remembered she told him he would find the stand of trees covered in a thick layer of webs, almost wrapping it in a white silky veil. She told him they would come to him. The dragonflies, the biggest ones you have ever seen. All you need to do is show them your patience and wait, and they will find you.

And so, it happened. He waited and waited, and as nightfall and darkness covered the forest, the stand of trees lit up, and from behind the veil they came: big, enormous fireflies, circling around him, lighting the forest shapes, playing in the silhouettes of ancient trees of wisdom.

"They will come to you," he recalled her saying. "Only at dark moon will you see them, the fireflies who stole my fire from the dragonflies. You need to catch them," he recalled her saying.

"And how will I do it?" he asked. "With the net of your thoughts," she replied.

"But how?" he remembered him asking her ,in their long conversations.

"Thoughts of gratitude about your life, thoughts of happiness, thoughts of hope and thoughts of love and kindness."

CHAPTER 7: THE SHIFT

The man sat under the silky trees and reflected on his life.

At first, there seemed to be nothing he felt grateful for.

Then a smell of burning ash reminded him of his grandmother when she stoked the fire, the scent of fresh baked bread, and her bedtime stories.

He recalled the touch of freshly cut timber and the pride in his father's eyes.

He remembered his first glimpse of his wife and the love he had felt in the beginning. He recalled his daughter's face when she laughed and his son's contentment when they fell asleep after long days of playful adventures on the farm. And then he remembered her: the beauty of the wooden dragon lying in her nest of gemstones, the beauty that glanced in her eyes and the promise he made to her.

The earth trembled as the flames returned to the dragon's chest, and she burst forth from the cave of shadows. He saw her soaring above the ancient forest, the fireflies transforming into her fire breath as they danced around her in the night sky.

In that moment, the old man was filled with enlightenment.

CHAPTER 8: THE AWAKENING

The little boy woke up next to the river.

He coughed the water out of his lungs and ran home...

"I'm back! I'm back!" he shouted. "I'm back, I have found a fortune. I have found dragon's fire!", and he embraced the moment.

He lived a blessed life full of love, happiness and fortune, following his dreams with ships built from wood and dragon fire.

Till he was old and grey as the sky, he went back to the silky trees, in the middle of the forest where she lived.

Where he spoke to her, in gratitude.

© [2025] [Corlia Hellberg]