I am hardly ever able

to sort through my memories

and come away whole

or untroubled.

It is difficult

to sift through the stones,

the weighty moments and know

which is rare gem,

which raw coal,

which worthless shale or slate.

So, one by one,

I drag them across the page

and when one cuts into the white,

leaves a trail of blood,

no matter how narrow the stream,

then I know

I’ve found the real thing,

the diamond,

one of the priceless gems

my pain produced.

“There! There,” I say,

“is a memory worth kee

historical fantasy • survival • slow life

The dragon princess was barely an eleven year old girl who’d spent her entire life inside a secluded castle, when chaos broke out in her kingdom and her mother ran away with her. Promising to come back for them after she finds her father, Sonata’s mother left her with her sister in an unfamiliar cave in an unfamiliar land to fend for herself. Helpless so stop her and not even sure what was going on, she could only wait...Alone, in the cold, in the ice, in the desolate snow. Weeks passed, months pass. Their food has run out, they’ve been captured by enemies, her sister won’t wake up. No one ever comes back for them. They’ve been abandoned, they’ve been forgotten about and left to die, and all that awaits them is a pitiful death in a cell like this, victims of tragedy to be swallowed under with the identities of countless others war claims. A fully grown dragon is around 150 years old, and dragons can’t have children until they’re closer to 300. Yet this is where her life cuts short, as a pitiful, lost princess who will never grow up. No, she can’t die like this. She refuses to die like this! The abandoned dragon princess will stay alive!!!