{"id":2606,"date":"2013-09-23T14:25:54","date_gmt":"2013-09-23T22:25:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2606"},"modified":"2013-09-23T14:25:54","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T22:25:54","slug":"life-blood-09212013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2606","title":{"rendered":"Life Blood \u2013 [09\/21\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"dragonkin_by_ironshod-d5lrzxu\"<\/a>Fairy tales are important not because they teach children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales are important because they teach children that dragons can be beaten.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Any dragon can be beaten. No matter how fierce their claws, or how poisonous their breath, no matter how they roar or in some very rare cases\u2026how they seduce.<\/p>\n

They can take many forms, dragons, transforming their scales into whatever you want most \u2013 or at the very least what you think<\/i> you want most. They are not all slithering, leather-skinned beasts. They can be beautiful, seductive, shining creatures, promising release and forgiveness for whatever ails you in the world. They can take over<\/i> your world, rob it of color, reduce everything to shades of grey until the only color in your universe is the crimson shine of their scales in the perpetual darkness. They can reduce your weapons to dust and your willpower to non-existent; until nothing in your life exists except them.<\/p>\n

A soft, hissing, seductive voice in your ear<\/p>\n

Let me in, I\u2019m the only one who can understand you. I\u2019m not going anywhere, I\u2019m not leaving you. I\u2019ll never leave you. Let me in. I\u2019ll make it all go away. I\u2019ll teach you how to fly\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

They can take over everything. If you let them<\/i>.<\/p>\n

They are in the end, only as large as you allow them to be.<\/p>\n

And then in the middle of all that, you have a discussion, less than half an hour long that lifts their weight from your chest, even though you didn\u2019t realize that they\u2019d been sitting directly on top of your lungs. And the words sting like lemon juice in a paper cut, but they heal more than they hurt. And while there is someone sitting across the table from you, you realize you are more conversing with yourself, because this is something you have to sort out with yourself, as much as you have to have someone listen.<\/p>\n

I have to trust someone; I know this isn\u2019t something I can deal with strictly alone. But as for the future, I\u2019ll cross that bridge when I come to it, like I have all the others, one step at a time.<\/i><\/p>\n

You\u2019re stronger than you think you are. Remember that.<\/i><\/p>\n

And you realize that they\u2019re right. As real friends so often are. You realize that you are a helluva lot stronger than you think you are. That you have your own wings, ones you were born with, and have strengthened and tempered with love and support and an infinite amount of patience with yourself. You remember that you can fly all on your own. And sure, you might fall once in a while, but there\u2019s never been a time when you don\u2019t get back up, and there never will be.<\/p>\n

And after the sting is over, you back away from yourself, and you realize how close you came to diving off the edge of that cliff with only a dragon to catch you. A dragon that would \u2013 eventually \u2013 drop you, devour you and otherwise render you helpless. Who would consume everything you care about and not give it a second thought.\u00a0 You give yourself a long hard shake and you find that you\u2019ve suddenly come back to your senses, come back to yourself. You look around you and see that the color has started seeping back into your world, the sky looks blue instead of black and flowers are multicolored again, food has taste and you can smell the salt off the ocean.<\/p>\n

You realize just what you came so close to losing, and you turn around and stare at the beast that seemed so huge not so long ago and you realize \u2013 more importantly \u2013 that it is in your control, not the other way around\u2026and you quirk your head to one side and try to think of the right thing to say, and all that you can come up with, as you look at this slithering, rasping creature who suddenly doesn\u2019t look beautiful at all, is<\/p>\n

Not this time\u2026you don\u2019t fool me anymore.<\/i><\/p>\n

And you turn on your heel and walk away from the edge, and as you do so, you swear you hear a desperate hissing voice behind you, a creature clinging to life, clinging to its existence. A parasite that has long lived off your passion, your blood, your fear, your love, your life.<\/p>\n

You think I\u2019ll ever leave you! <\/i><\/p>\n

NO! But. I. Can. Leave. You. You are far from the first of your kind I have slain. And in the end? I always win.<\/i><\/p>\n

Any dragon can be beaten\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fairy tales are important not because they teach children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales are important because they teach children that dragons can be beaten. Any dragon can be beaten. No matter how fierce … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-reflections-below-the-waterline"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-G2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2609,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions\/2609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}