Welcome to the Dazed Starling: Unbound
Immersive Experience
​This year's theme, "Dragonwings," features a collection of pieces about magic, myths, and, of course, dragons! Readers, prepare to embark on a journey studded with fantastical adventure, quiet reflection, and appreciation for the art of creation.
...Click the arrow to take the journey yourself!
"The king has returned!”
The Messenger
Rebecca Harrel
Trish cupped her hands around her mouth to shout the call as her hooves beat against the stone streets.
It all happened so fast. In earlier days, she watched with vigilance, always ready to send out the call. For generations, the centaurs offered their fastest messengers to the front lines, awaiting the day of the king’s return. Being chosen was the highest honor a young messenger could receive, but after so many years, hopelessness stirred into ambivalence. Now the time had come, and she awoke to trumpet blasts.
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Long lost anticipation beat through the city...
Leap
Clarissa McLaughlin
“The king has returned!”
Metallic Reflection
Kaci Rigney
Camouflage:
kaleidoscopic
metallic
reflection
of forest, water, field, sky dragon wing
colors.
Ben Dragon
Jacob Seavello
The Lonely Dragon
Jenelle Hekman
The dragon had flown a long way, searching for someone to be his friend. He had seen this village from the air, found a lovely marsh not too far away, and thought he would settle here. He walked to the town, hoping to find someone to talk to. Alas, the villagers only heard his roars and snarls. The dragon sat outside the village walls for a long time, not understanding why the little humans had run away from him. They could not see that he was friendly. The next day, he tried again. He found two sheep waiting outside the walls.
He was happy, for he thought they were giving him a gift to welcome him. He thanked the guards on the walls, who dropped their weapons to cover their ears, for his roar was so loud. He brought the sheep to his marsh and ate them, thinking the villagers would talk to him the next day. There were no villagers that day, but there were two more sheep. This continued for weeks, and the dragon was no closer to having a friend, though he was very full.
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On the last day of the month, the dragon woke up and began his walk toward the village. Standing outside this time was a young girl and a man dressed in silver. The dragon was so happy that he raced toward them, confident they had finally decided to be his friends. He held his claw toward them in gratitude, but the man sliced it with a sharp silver stick. The dragon cried in pain, reptilian tears falling to the ground, forming two deep pools. He had never done anything harmful to the villagers. They had given him food gifts for weeks, but now they had turned on him.
The dragon pushed the man backward and flew into the clouds. He now understood that little humans did not want to befriend a dragon. He flew to the top of a mountain, where he cried, rivers flowing until they reached the sea. He is still there; his tears cause great floods in summer and avalanches in winter.
Guarded
Clarissa McLaughlin
Dragonets
David Isaacs
They come one by one,
ruby throats glowing like fire
in a dragon’s belly.
They fight for the sugary stuff,
beaks stabbing into columbine
like teeth seeking meat.
They hover in the garden,
thrumming wings beating a rhythm,
fanning the drooping fuchsia.
Chirping and hovering,
these dragonets drink and dart,
slurping up sweet nectar.
They leave as a group,
Waiting for the next day
To hunt their prey.
Nature's Mini Meteors
Rebecca Harrel
Vine
Isabella Contreras
Once upon a time, there lived a girl from a village with spotless opal skin and raven hair soft as silk running along the riverside in search of a drink. That was until she came upon the most magnificent creature sipping among the clearest lake water she had ever seen. Its body was longer than any snake or bug she had ever seen, yet it exerted a nobility like that of a royal steed. Its white scales ran along its body in near-perfect symmetry, complementing its horns that emitted a dazzling glow before completing its look with the most captivating sunset eyes.
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After noticing her, its perky nose and slitted pupils studied her with profound curiosity before halting and transforming into the most gorgeous boy she had ever seen. It wasn’t long before the two fell in love and had a child, one more beautiful than both the girl and dragon combined. His skin, in conjunction with his sunset eyes, amassed into an unexplainable radiance that shed tears if anyone were to look away from him. The boy was named Oriana.
One day, a witch disguised as a common resident was traveling through the village, looking for livers to put in her next potion. Just as she was about to pick her first victim, she noticed a golden glow emanating from the window of a house. When she looked inside, she found the young Oriana lying in peaceful slumber. The witch's heart melted with affection, causing her warts to fade, voice to soften, face to smooth, and heart to grow a thousand times. At that moment. . .
Dragon Child
Jeremy Cheng
The Infernal Coronation
Ryan Reyes
“If only I could be king for a single day,”
the boy said, “if only to become the most important man in the realm, to feel that I matter to someone beyond these four walls.” As the last of his sorrows slipped into the fading light, the day surrendered to night, and in that quiet transformation, the orphan crossed the threshold into manhood.
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Yet, as fate, or perhaps something far more cunning, would have it,
his plea did not go unheard...
Cautionary steps
obscured by turbid chaos;
each fog-laden path
both difficult and different.
Shifting silhouettes
following; hounding me past
bound’ries, set in stone.
Sacred stones we’re not to move.
Would that shadows lift—
journey veiled in hidden steps—
darkness drowns my way.
The misty trail forks:
which way? The easiest one?
Or a rocky climb?
Throw caution into the void;
Path Easy it is,
for dark mystery intrigues.
Playtime on the path—
ghosts and goblins—laugh them off.
Shadowed confusion,
haunting screams deep in the copse
halt me in my tracks.
Girl? Surely, a curlew call.
Trembling fear steals my breath.
Cloudy vapors hang;
sulfurous, rank, and deadly.
Limbs crackle, echo.
With iridescent glitters
inviting his prey,
awestruck by shimmering wings,
the dragon awaits
unwitting victims, he feeds,
salivating slime.
Darkness devours, swallows.
Does the path seem easy now?
Easy Path
Kaci Rigney
Roasted
Clarissa McLaughlin
Sometimes words are not enough:
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The rage as
Burning flame
In blue heat
The dragon scratches
In blue ink.
​
Burning down fields of wildflowers.
The Dragon
Harley Schechter
Burning Tree
Rebecca Harrel
Yellow Dancer
Hannah Noel
What do you want?
You want to be beautiful?
Give me your hands.
I’ll fit them for silver
And labor and sand.
I’ll trim down your fault lines
And paint you in gold—
And give you the weight
Of the silence to hold.
You want to be magical?
Give me your dreams.
Net me those crystalline
Trembling things.
I’ll carve them like gemstones
And teach them to fly—
But don’t blame my hands
When they come home to die.
You want to be brilliant?
That one is new
Not what I expected
From someone like you
But since you’ve been patient
And since you’ve been smart
Come close to me
And I’ll teach you the start.
You want to be brilliant?
Give me your nights.
Give me your failures
And anger and spite
Give me your shackles
And give me your brands—
And then when the iron glows
Stretch out your hands
Hammer your past
Down to carbon and dross
Fire the furnace
And count it no loss
When the faces of yours
That are dead call your name
For there is no gold
Like what’s born of the flame.
What Do You Want?
Aliya Beaupain
​The man ascended the snow-coated mountain, holding his child close. With the other arm, he dug his walking stick into the ground. The ice cracked under the stick with each step he took. His child shifted under the bundle of blue blankets, coughing. It whined as another icy wave passed, forming icicles along the man’s beard. They were still several hundred feet from the cave, the healer’s house.
The man recited the poem his father had told him, one the whipping winds uncovered amidst the rubbish that buried it:
“Soft snow falls in flakes
Each one filled with woe.
But when one breaks
Will we not grow?”
The child calmed, and its tiny green eyes closed. The man recited the poem again and again, the words opening his lungs. They would make it.
The Wounded Healer
Michael Vass
Dreams
Michael Vass
I dare to drown in dreams,
There fantasies become fact;
Life is more than what it seems.
I am alive under moonbeams,
Beyond the bed is what I’ve lacked,
I dare to drown in dreams.
Is not reality what one deems
But under the dreary contract,
Life is more than what it seems.
I’ve passed mortal extremes
To drink Eden’s extract.
I dare to drown in dreams.
There no one stops my schemes,
And all goodness is compact.
Life is more than what it seems.
I choose the better of the streams
Recovering the ancient artifact.
I dare to drown in dreams
Life is more than what it seems.
Lavinia did not consider herself a motherly figure of any sort. By most accounts, she was quite the opposite. She was fierce and swift, each stroke of her wings brought sweeping terror to the villages below. In her youth, she felled armies with the rage of a wildfire and the deadly precision of a lightning strike. Her roars made the forests shake. She was a bane, a terror, a nightmare.
Yet, somehow, she found herself in the possession of four young human girls.
Well, one wasn’t so young anymore. Selia was leaving. Something in Lavinia stung at the reminder. Even as she watched the girls surround Selia and her new husband, saying their goodbyes and wishing them well, Lavinia could not stop the rush of protectiveness. It was silly, she supposed. Vince was a good man; he truly loved Selia, and he agreed to let Lavinia question and pry at every aspect of his life for proof of the fact. Even though the man’s knees had shaken in Lavinia’s presence, his hand clutching Selia’s in a white-knuckled grasp, he had answered her questions, looking her in the eyes like the polite young man he was. It was endearing.
Nevertheless, he was taking one of her girls away.
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A Dragon's Hoard
Hannah Noel
Scorched
Clarissa McLaughlin
The Dragon King's Pursuit
Zachary Conquest
Onward he hurtles,
slicing through winds undaunted.
Though exhausted, flesh and sinew strain
in tandem, refusing defeat to volleys of rain.
Forests become miniscule dark
patches far below his sweeping shadow.
Tearing at clouds with great mighty
Scratches, the air bends to his will.
Beads of wetness, weigh his scales
Down. Yet by some bright, golden flicker
Through slit, ancient eyes—the Dragon King prevails.
Writers Block
Clarissa McLaughlin
During some year in my youth, I can’t remember which, I was in the car with my mother and sister. A bag of crackers and a Fuji apple sat on my lap. The ride was quiet, except for my nibbling of that large apple. At that age, I could never eat the whole thing, but I still thought some fruit would be nice. Halfway through, I was ready to be done with it. 
I let go. The apple fell into the empty grocery bag, our car’s make-shift trash can. A heavy thud. 
My mom turned. She looked into the bag. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened. I don’t remember exactly what she said, only an outburst of how she couldn’t believe I just did that. She told a story. My mom and her sisters with my grandmother, my Popo, at the grocery store. My aunt wanted an apple, but with their budget, Popo refused to buy it. 
“She begged, and begged, and cried for that apple. She was crying. And you just threw it away,” my mom said. She grabbed my bag of crackers and looked at my sister. “No, she doesn’t get to eat these snacks after throwing that away. You’re not going to eat for the rest of the day.” 
The Last Bite
Audrey Smith
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We hope you had fun. Don't stop creating!
- The Dazed Starling Editorial Team
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