The Chesterton Challenge: Day 31

Welcome to Day 31 of the Chesterton Challenge! Believe it or not, we've reached the final day! If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the creations linked in the notes of yesterday’s post (or add to them, if you wish).

Today’s Optional Prompt is: Conclusion

In his many articles, essays, books, and stories, Chesterton presented plenty of conclusions--and our Challenge reaches its conclusion today! Use the word however you like--explore the conclusion of a mystery, present a conclusion about some issue in life, explore endings of all kinds. Be creative!

Whatever you create, make sure to show us or tell us about it by reblogging or replying to this post. (Don’t forget: anyone is allowed to join in the fun at any point during the Challenge.)

Now go forth and create!

The sun slowly set, like a ball of fire sinking into the golden hills. Stars began to poke through the fabric of the night sky. Crickets chirped, and small animals rustled through the grass, emerging from their dens in the twilight.

Shard leaned against the warm, firm side of his best friend, who watched the sunset in silence with him. He was bigger than the largest horse Shard had ever seen by now, his enormous wings stretching out like a huge black tent when he spread them before surging up into the sky. No longer was he the scrawny, adorable little baby who'd clawed his way out of an egg on Father Mark's table.

And yet, Shynael was still the same as he'd ever been. He curled his long neck around until his head rested in Shard's lap, nuzzling at Shard's hand until he started rubbing the smooth scales on his nose.

His purr was getting deeper and stronger, just like his voice. The baby dragon was growing up.

Shard wondered if this was how Father Mark had felt through the years, watching him as he grew taller, as his voice deepened, as he began to grow hair on his chin. The day swiftly approaching when no one could say he was a child anymore....

Shynael had been alive for a much shorter time; he wasn't even a year old yet. But already he was so much bigger than Shard—too big for Shard to simply scoop up in his arms and carry to safety. Not that a huge, flying lizard with sharp teeth, claws, and a spiked tail needed much protection. Shynael was the one protecting him now, more often than not.

The firelight danced across the dragon's scales, as smooth and black as obsidian. Shard could see a miniature campfire reflected in each individual scale. His whole body seemed to flicker, like he was a being made of the fire beneath his skin.

For a moment, Shard seemed to step out of himself, looking down at the two of them in that vast empty space. The two unlikeliest of friends, a human and a dragon slowly falling asleep wrapped around each other. Anyone who saw them—anyone in the whole entire world—would take one look at them and call them abominations. It was unnatural.

And yet...was it? As Shard's eyelids tugged downwards and his thoughts unraveled as he slipped closer to sleep, he looked at those thousands of flickering flames. He thought of the bonfire in the village square that they would light during the Phoenix Festival. The fire that burned the Eagle-Son alive for the sake of all humanity. That was unlikely too. Unnatural. The son of the Great Eagle, letting himself die a horrific death for people who didn't even have wings? Why should he care?

And yet...he did.

Maybe, just as those little fires in Shynael's scales were faint reflections of the campfire, so were the flames of affection that burned in his and Shynael's hearts. They were a dim reflection of the blazing inferno that had consumed the Eagle-Son. With love.

Shard's eyes slid shut, and the thread of thought was lost and long forgotten by morning. But his hand still rested on Shynael's head, and Shynael curled a little closer in his sleep.