Well, I was looking at the forums today, and saw the Storybook Project, which looked pretty interesting. I figured I'm pretty busy, but I still wanted to help out in some way, so I went to ReNaeNae's page, and saw that she was still looking for people to contribute stories, so I wrote one:
The Dream Maiden
Long ago, though recent it seems,
Past misty vales, and moonlit streams,
An elf maid sat, and nightly sang,
Of shadows and dreams.
Silver was her hair,
Pearl were her eyes,
She shone as a gem,
Under turquoise skies.
She sang unseen for days unnumbered,
Her voice filled the forest unencumbered,
But fires smoldered in hidden places,
And her destiny no longer slumbered.
Beneath the hills and glowing rocks,
In pools of lava, spun curious blocks
Their runes alight, they stirred the pools,
Watched by dwarves with eyes like hawks.
In reddish glows, they saw the maid,
Her tapestries of dreams all laid,
floating on wispy threads of verse,
They saw the power to forge a curse.
In dark desire, they danced and chanted
They beat their drums till their wish was granted
And from the pools emerged with rage
A dragon in a marble cage.
The gate swung back, and out it flew
The hills exploded as it burst through
The forest shivered, the elf maid paused,
And saw the sky no longer blue.
Blackened clouds with obsidian rain
Wrapped the dragon in a royal train
As it descended, the elf maid knew,
That soon the trees would all be slain.
So she sang a song with beauty unmatched,
And by the rocks, not a leaf was scratched,
And in the shadows while she was snatched,
Her final hidden dream was hatched.
With its query, the beast returned,
And the dwarves rejoiced at the prize they had earned,
But the dragon would not relinquish its prey
And upon its masters the dragon turned.
And so the age of the lizard began,
Red was the sky, and black was the land,
It's breath turned to scorching lava and steam,
What once was white stone and winding stream.
Many a year passed in sadness,
But the forest stood on, surrounded by madness.
And in darkest dale, nurtured in shade,
The elf's last dream, in slumbering laid.
Until finally, fully grown, it awoke,
And gazed past the forest at fire and smoke,
Spreading its wings of opal and silk,
The great bird shed its shadowy cloak
It blew back the clouds and brought back the stars
It cooled the lava, and closed the earth's scars,
And when it found the dragon, it let out a cry,
An oath that the dragon this day would die.
They fought in the sky with fury and might,
Like a tempest, they twirled and tumbled all night.
But when came the golden aurora of dawn,
the dragon, with all of its nightmares were gone.