The Dragons' Beads: A Treasury

By Teresa Garcia

What do you get when dragons combine their hoards? What do you get when you take a little slice of dragon lore?
“The Dragons' Beads" features the work of Elizabeth Buckley, Niels Van Eekelen, Athena Garcia, Ollie Lambert, Douglas J. Moore, Meghan Proctor, Jo Anne Spiese, Kristina Stumpf & Michael Camp, and Rachel Wookey. Edited by Teresa Garcia, cover art by Victoria Davis.
This is the first volume of what is hoped to be a multi-volume project highlighting essays, art, poetry, and short stories featuring and/or about dragons. Originally it was supposed to be a contest to highlight the best dragon stories and poems from young authors. The project had to be adjusted due to an initial lack of submissions. Perhaps future volumes will be able to have more competition, and it is hoped that in the future THG StarDragon Publishing will be able to afford having cash prizes to fuel writer's interest in exchange for featuring the “beads" of their stories.
Submissions for the next volume are open, and instructions can be found at www.thgstardragon.com for those interested in participating.

• Language: English
• Publisher: THG StarDragon Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301046768

Teresa Garcia

Teresa Garcia (once Teresa Huddleston-Garcia) is a 30-something mother of two children with special needs, raising them "alone" in the small mountain town of McCloud, CA. Just because she is on her own though, does not mean that she is "alone." Many thanks are due to the McCloud Community Resource Center, to her brother and his family, and her mother, for all their help. She loves to text role play, write stories, hike, paint, meditate, and play games or read with her kids. She also writes quests for, and helps to maintain, the online browser-based RPG Dragon Hearts. As Amehana, Teresa volunteers time for the Trotsdale Public Library in Second Life. She was raised in another mountain community, which she visits as often as she can spare time and gas, though not nearly often enough for her wishes. Her parents always encouraged her writing and artistic talents. In 2005, she decided to pick up the dream of writing and publishing a novel once more, having shelved that (and the "Shadow Chronicles" manuscript) in her early college years due to the time constraints of motherhood at the time. In 2006 she released to the public her first novel in the "Dragon Shaman" series, "Taming the Blowing Wind," and has since published a second book in the series and a poetry book. She likes to deal with multicultural themes because of her own background. Currently Teresa has several manuscripts to work on, such as her "Dragon Shaman" series of novels and her current favorite serialized story, "Selkies' Skins." She is also currently narrating "The Ian's Realm Saga" trilogy by DL Gardner, expected to be available April 2018. Teresa writes short stories for children in the Adventures of Lightning the Cat series. Her other titles are intended for more advanced readers. Her personal blog is located at http://rainstardragon.livejournal.com You can check out what she has available for her patrons at her Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/Amehana In addition to finding her in print on Lulu, she can be found at Amazon Author Central. http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B009Q938VE

Book preview

The Dragons’ Beads:

A Treasury

An Anthology of Dragons

Edited by Teresa Garcia

Published at Smashwords

by

THG StarDragon Publishing

Copyright 2013. All rights reserved.

Cover art by Victoria Salaiek Davis

All poems, essays, and stories remain copyrighted to their respective authors, who have submitted them for publication in this anthology. Some poems have copyright years prior to publication, in which case they are noted when provided by the author. No part of this may be redistributed, save for short excerpts in the case of reviews. For permissions other than excerpts please contact the publisher and your request will be forwarded to the appropriate copyright holder. We thank you for respecting the work of these authors.

If you have not purchased this for your own use or have shared it with another, please help support the authors, artist, and publisher by purchasing a copy. A great deal of man hours went into this and into the cover art. Thank you for your support and helping to make a second volume a possibility!

Contents

Title Information

Dedication

Introduction and Pondering the Stereotype of the Dragon

Children’s Works

Poetry

A Dragon’s Memories - Elizabeth Buckley

Damage – Athena Garcia

Good or Bad? - Ollie Lambert

Short Stories

The Gem - Meghan Proctor

Damage – Athena Garcia

Adults’ Works

Short Stories

At the Air Show - Douglas J. Moore

The Dragon Herder’s Daughter – Niels Van Eekelen

Of Dreams and Nightmares – Kristina Stumpf & Michael Camp

Poetry

Rachel’s Dragons – Rachel Wookey

Earth Beats – JoAnne Spiese

Thank you

Contact

Dedication

To children young and old, and all lovers of dragons. Also, many thanks go out to Rowan Wookey and the staff and players of Dragon Hearts. The players of Dragon Hearts, and the discussions with them, were a large part of the inspiration to help get young authors published, which started this collection.

Introduction

This anthology was first purposed to be a collection of stories and poems by and for the youth, and to be a contest wherein the best submissions would be featured. Since submissions were slow, I opened it up to writers of all ages, hoping to see the project get finished this way, though still preferring to have the bulk of the material submitted by children. It was important to me to allow a springboard for young writers to venture into the publishing world, a first step on their own journey.

Hopefully the next anthology will have more submissions so that there will be competition for spaces. It is my intention that every few years there will be a new collection of the best submissions and to offer cash prizes in addition to the spaces. Whether the cash prizes happen depends on how much competition there is. I wanted this to be a free contest, but I may have to instate fees in order to fund a prize fund.

Each of the poems, essays, and stories in this book lists the author and their age at submission of the piece. If you particularly like one piece, please feel free to write, and your letter will be forwarded to the author.

As I write this, there are much fewer submissions than I had hoped for, but I do hope that in the future there will be enough interest to do a second collection.

With that said, let us journey together and listen to this collection of dragons, and follow the beads of treasures from the various dragons’ hoards. First though, lets take a look at the dragon.

~Teresa Garcia

THG StarDragon Publishing

Pondering the Stereotype

of the Dragon

What makes a dragon a dragon?

Is it the fear they can inspire in the heart of their prey as they swoop from the sky or lunge from the churning sea? Is it the vast hoards of gold that some hoard, guarding from those foolhardy enough to venture into their lair? Is it the obscure wisdom that some hold dear and share with those that prove worthy and with hearts pure enough to understand the subtle nuances?

Does a dragon really have an alignment? What makes a dragon Good, Evil, or Neutral? Does any of that really exist? Perhaps it is merely a matter of perception, both of the dragon itself, and of those observing the dragon. Nothing is purely Good or purely Evil, if the two polar opposites exist, every action perceived as one contains the seed of the other.

Let us take, for example, the stereotypical image of the fearsome Western dragon. Many tales paint this being as evil and bloodthirsty, and the stereotype has been used by the Medieval Christian Church to depict the ways of the Pagan tribes. Even some of the Pagans themselves depicted them as fierce killers, creatures of greed and destruction. And yet, these same beings in some tales are shown to have family that they care for and defend.

The vast piles of treasure are now seen to be heirlooms, or the only beds capable of withstanding their great heat or freezing hides. Pieces of gold stick between scales and provide extra armor against those that hunt them and their offspring. Humans that oppress become food, while those that win the confidence or respect of the dragon are granted power or wisdom. Lesser humans, as well as cultural heroes, are also seen overcoming the dragon and using the parts of their prey or those they have betrayed for weapons, a classic motif of the conqueror.

In such cases, perhaps some of these dragons are painted as evil not by their own inherent evil, but that which humanity