Babafarsangra készült ez a maszk :) Nagyon egyszerűen színes kakaóvaj és ecset segítségével festettem.
Once
upon a time, there was a city. It was a quite ordinary city with bigger and
smaller houses, pigeons on the streets and bridges arching over the river. And
in the middle of this city stood a white castle. And in the green park of the
castle stood a small bench, from where a stunning view opened on the old town
and the river.
This
was the contemplating spot of the Dragonmaster-Without-Dragon. The
Dragonmaster, unlike the other ordinary citizens of the city, could see the
shadows of kings who had once trodden the paths of the green park, he understood
the whisper of the breeze and when he woke up at dawn and heard the roof tiles
rattling, he knew that the night creatures that walk the roofs in the
moonlight, are climbing back into the darkness to hide their delicate skin from
the rays of the sun.
But
even though the Dragonmaster perceived the creatures of the otherworld, he was
lonely, because none of his friends, not one other person in the city could see
them, and he was lonely as he had no dragon to tame and train.
One
fine spring day the Dragonmaster was sitting on his bench, contemplating and
waiting for something – even he himself didn’t know for what. The sky was
crystal clear above him and the sunshine was warming the white walls of the
castle that still kept the winter cold. Around, in the park, the trees and bushes
pampered their tiny sprouts and sparrows squabbled among their branches. The
fingers of the wind caressed the still dry and yellow grass, then it danced
around the bench and whispered in the ear of the Dragonmaster.
He
looked up and among the other, ordinary people, he saw a figure approaching.
She
was a Barbarian, in ragged clothes and with long, unkempt hair. As soon as they
cast an eye on each other, they knew their meeting was not a coincidence. She
sat down on the bench of the Dragonmaster and in her presence he felt all her
years spent with wandering in distant, wild lands, the wars that she’d fought
in the past, and a strange yearning.
'That is right,' said the Barbarian. 'I come from a long journey, from a far-away
kingdom. The wind told me that I would find you here.'
'Why
were you looking for me?' asked the Dragonmaster.
'Because
I have something that will complete both our lives.' She tossed her long
hair back. 'I’ve been through many adventures and saw many places and knew many
people. But my greatest wish, the one thing I crave for, I have never been able
to get hold of, no matter how hard I tried or how far I went. But now that I found
you, you can help me and in exchange you will get something that you have been
yearning for.'
She
dug into one of her deep pockets and took something out of it. This something
was round and coarse and shone like a ruby flame in the sunlight.
The
heart of the Dragonmaster skipped a beat.
'A
dragon egg!' he whispered. 'I’ve been looking for dragon eggs for so many
years, I went through the Devil’s Tunnel in the underworld, I swam in the depths of the Stormy Ocean, I even climbed the Fiery Peaks, but to no avail! Where did
you find this one?'
'In
the most unexpected place of all: after a battle I entered a calm, beautiful
forest in the search of new adventures, when an old peasant crossed my path and
warned me that there still might be dragons in that part of the wilderness. So
I followed his direction and arrived to a pleasant clearing where a thin creek
was flowing and flowers were growing in the river bed. But around the field the
rocks looked like molten drops of metal, and I saw a red sparkle behind one of
them.'
The
Dragonmaster looked at the egg.
'I
wonder why they left it behind. Can I hold it?'
'I
will give it to you, but first you must promise one thing.'
'What
is that?'
'When
your dragon grows up, whenever I will want to fly with him, you will have to
allow me, for that is my greatest wish of all.'
'I
promise,' said the Dragonmaster and the Barbarian placed the egg in his hand.
'Now
we have to wake him up and hatch the egg. You must stay with me, the dragon has
to see you, otherwise he won’t let you touch him.'
'All
right then. How do we wake him up?'
'We
need the Midnight Fire for that.'
'You
have a Midnight Fire in this city?' looked around the Barbarian frowning.
'No,
not here, but I know where we can find it.'
So
when the night descended on the city, the Dragonmaster and the Barbarian
returned to the castle. Their path led to the excavations at the back of the
park. They climbed through the fence and quickly made their way to the tunnels
and holes that looked like dark cavities in the stone teeth of the ground. The
Dragonmaster entered a narrow tunnel that ended in a dome-like space. He turned
to the right, where a thin crack opened in the wall. Inside it was darker than
in the vast space, darker than in the stomach of the Great Leviathan. They crept
slowly in the thin, dark passage for a long while – they lost track of time, it
seemed as if they had been walking for days. Sometimes they took a turn and the
air got hotter and hotter as they approached the center of the earth.
From
the fumes and fires of creation came forth the dragons and as the center of the
earth still kept the heat of creation, its flames were able to give life to
gemstones called dragon eggs. These flames broke to the surface in places where
magic concentrated, but the Dragonmaster knew that he could find them only far,
far below his city.
'We
are almost there,' he told the Barbarian, and in that instant they arrived in a
great hall, whose walls gleamed in red. The fire roared below them, the heat
was unbearable, even breathing was painful.
The
Dragonmaster crossed the hall and on the other side he found a tunnel leading
even further down. In the next cave the stones were glowing and they could not
proceed any further because poisonous steam filled the air. So the Dragonmaster
built a nest of the burning stones and he placed the egg in the middle. They
covered their noses and waited, their eyes fixed on the egg.
Nothing
moved, only the lights were dancing on the walls and sometimes new flames
flared up on a stone.
The
Barbarian shifted from one foot to the other.
'Maybe
the dragon died?'
'Shhh,
it takes time,' replied the Dragonmaster.
'I’m
not a patient person, especially in a place like this.'
'Do
you want to fly with the dragon or not?'
To
this question the Barbarian closed her eyes and immersed in a dream about
flying while the Dragonmaster kept on waiting, leaning even closer to the egg.
The
only sound that remained was the silent purring of the flames of the Midnight
Fire and the snake-like hissing of fumes, and sometimes the earth tolled like
an enormous gong whose sound resonated in the guts instead of the ears.
'There
you go! The first crack!' exclaimed the Dragonmaster.
They
were both staring at the egg while tiny cracks appeared, one after the other,
and ruby pieces of the shell fell on the rocks like drops of blood. First the
nose, then the head, the long, graceful neck and the body wriggled out of the
egg. The newborn dragon was not bigger than a hand and he curiously looked at
them with his shiny, golden eyes.
The
Dragonmaster crouched down and held out his palm towards him.
The
creature timidly smelled his fingers but he seemed to like the smell because he
quickly ran up the Dragonmaster’s arm, to his shoulder, where he nested himself
close to his neck and after all these hardships, fell asleep.
The
Dragonmaster stood up, he smiled at the Barbarian.
'We
can go back now,' he said.
They
left the great halls of the center of the earth and walked up the dark passage.
When they arrived to the excavation site, it was still night: the light of the
stars mingled with the lights of the city, but in the East a faint grey stripe
glistened.
They
stood there for a minute, absorbing the sight of the sleeping city, then they
walked down the hill of the castle: the Dragonmaster-With-Dragon and the
Barbarian.
