There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.  In fact, the Valley wasn’t always a valley.  Before the two Morganite moons joined as one, what is now known as Wind Tunnel Valley was a tepid, underwater lake, tucked in neatly under a thin layer of molten rock that stretched itself out to keep its secrets safe, black veins crumbling slightly and mixing with windfall to produce soil rich in minerals. 
 
Mermaids hid their burrow holes under clumps of duck grass, so they could pass undetected between land and water.  They would emerge leafless from the bubbling bracken, sun their scales, and stretch before weaving themselves green play dresses out of moss and scampering around on the hot, blacktop.
 
They had no idea they were atop a fire-bellied mountain.  To them, kissing the sky was, well, quite natural, and not at all extraordinary.  The thick air and the smell of sulfur in their tangled tresses felt solid.  A reality that had stood the test of time.  Arms out-reached, skin flecked with black and silver, they made sparkly silhouettes, as they spun arpund in the wind  . . . ring-around-the-rosy-ashes-ashes, painting arches in the sky in much the same way they made whirls of bubbles under the depths.  
 
But standing above the molten crust of their crater lake allowed them to lavish in the feel of gravity on their heads, shoulders, and buttocks, challenging them to push their muscles harder in resistance.   And when they snuffed themselves away through their grassy little secret trap doors on the surface and returned to buoyancy, they were that much more lightning-fast - danios, flashes of tungsten, silver, and green parting the water molecules and ionizing the mountain air.
 
 
So, in the beginning, there was no valley.  And there were no dragons.  Just heat bubbling underwater in the sky . . . and gentle merfolk.  
 
Unless . . .
 
 . . . unless everything already is what it could dream of being at any given moment, waiting for the right urge to break the barrier . . .
 
Would it disturb your sense of the world too terribly much if I made the audacious suggestion that these spirited merwomen were the predecessors of dragons? 
 
Bear with me here. . . .
 
Now,  - imagine the scales  - simply displaced in a casual moment of liminal identity and reconfigured to serve a different purpose. 
 
Thousands of iridescent gems, just as easily spun into fins and tails wrapped tightly around muscular legs as they could be draped from sinewy arms to rebel against the wind. 
 
 
 But as you know, magination always finds a way to the surface of everything.
 
 
Perhaps one moonlit night of folly carried over into a particularly colorful and provocative sunrise.  Perhaps, the pinks and oranges and indigoes rising from the mountain gave the suggestion of vastness.
 . . .and maybe a certain mermaid, drunken on sunrise, got to wondering. 
 
And quickly, . . . wondering became dreaming. 
 
Then, dreaming begat urgency . . .
 
and urgency became rebellion against the confines of what is and isn’t - as
 
 It often does, among spirited creatures like you and I, so why not her?
 
Perhaps this one very unremarkable mermaid shed her scales, stretched her arms, and suddenly felt her own enormity. 
 
Perhaps she saw the towering shadow and flicker of her arms pulsing against the wind in a pool of water.
 
 Maybe the glistening and a chance gust of wind set her heart afire and the iridescent scales reconfigured themselves as wings and rose to challenge the force of gravity within her.
 
And would it disturb your sense of the world too terribly much if I told you with every iota of certainty contained within my small being that this urgent rebellion against the bounds of ‘what is” is the force behind all shape-shifting - land formations, evolution of species, and the very splitting of universes that give birth to life upon life and age upon age, permutation upon permutation, each with its own alchemy of urges? 
 
It’s not just mermaids that think themselves into becoming dragons and crater lakes who accommodate by transforming themselves into wind tunnel valleys.  It’s everyone and everything all at once, the stuff legends and changing the face of reality.
 
I know you don’t want to believe it.  The responsibility of being so capable is a tremendous weight to bear.  And that is why we have story collectors and tellers.  Someone has to demystify it all for the fearful ones.  This book contains the implements of your liberation. 
 
Scales to Scales (song). 

Bug is sitting in the middle of the field, weaving dandelions into crowns, when Bee alights on her ear to tell her a story. Bug didn’t hear Bee approaching—of course—but she knows she is there by the tell-tale butterfly kisses against the shell of her ear, the gentle whisper of a sextet of legs curling up the arch to nestle between cartilage and Bug’s untamed tresses. A bird’s nest, her mother had always called her hair when she let it fly wild through the woods, catching twigs in the tangles. But no, it is not a nest for birds—Bee is who finds herself safely tucked away in the curls of Bug’s hair, settling there for a quiescent period or two whenever she needs a rest.

In exchange, Bee shares all the secrets of the world with Bug.

It’s true that Bee—who is not, in fact, a bee, but a beautiful monarch—can’t speak to Bug with words, but Bug has little interest in hearing anyone’s words at all. Human animals try to speak to Bug all the time, and she hears little and acknowledges less. Oftentimes, she would rather hear nothing at all.

Instead, Bee tells Bug whatever she wants to know through insectoid means. Through scent and touch and dance—the latter, funnily enough, more commonly associated with bees—the little butterfly regales Bug with tales of gliding through the wind, of daring escapes from spiders, of which trees are bearing fruit and which are ready to shed their pines. Bug doesn’t know how it is that she understands what Bee tells her, and truthfully she doesn’t care to think about it—she follows adventure on butterfly wings through the woods.

Today, Bee nestles into the crook of Bug’s ear, her antennae brushing against her, disguising her orange and black wings as a decorative earpiece. She could sleep soundly there, safe from any predator, and Bug would protect her. Today, her antennae tell a different story: one of her own curiosity, of wanting to know more about Bug and where she comes from.

Bug is surprised—and hesitant to share her world with her friend who lives a much more exciting life than she does. “I’m afraid it would be boring for you, Bee. What would a little town have for a beautiful butterfly like you?”
Bug feels Bee’s wings flutter, and she detects a wash of warm, living scent that tells her exactly what Bee is hoping to find: home, most of all. And how could Bug ever deny Bee the chance to learn something new about what it means to be home?

Bug completes her dandelion crown and rests it in her wild brown curls. One weed-flower dips low to rest against Bug’s ear, and Bee crawls up to rest on that flower, always close by.

I’ll be with you, Bug understands Bee to want to tell her. Don’t you worry.

Honie carefully stepped over the searing, burning brimstones, which sent up an acrid, sulphurous effluvium that irritated her nose and throat.  It was the same thing every day. Peering into the meadow next door, she was relieved and surprised to find neatly manicured lawns and murmuring brooks and idyllic pastures. She was still more startled and pleased to observe myriad creatures who had the run of the green space.
 
Honie had never ventured this farm from home till now, having been told that the nether realm was benighted and dirty and harsh.  And dangerous.  Peeping into the fields, Honie spied pixies, clearly identifiable by their small, butterfly-like wings, their bright green apparel, and their pointy ears.  Honie waved a hand at the little
creatures but they paid her no mind. Arrayed amongst the many pixies were fewer, but still a significant number, of fairies, who resembled nothing so much as lovely, diminutive females, with long, slender fingers and tapering limbs, but without wings. instead, they whooshed along on the backs of large, obliging birds. The fairies were
clad in dreamy, diaphanous gowns and brandished tiny silver wands with which to conjure their magic.  They were stunningly beautiful, thought Honie.  Finally she saw the tall, fleshy, hirsute ogres, practically walking on their knuckles; they seemed so stupid, she thought with a laugh.  How could she join the other creatures? she
wondered.  They all seemed so joyous, so content, living together in apparent harmony. 
 
She, on the other hand, endured a hard scrabble existence without enough food or fresh water and, more urgently, no companionship.  In her own land she had not a friend.  She bit her lower lip, thinking, then Honie looked down at herself, was unhappy with what she found. She was a boring normal size, not a perfectly formed miniature like the fairies or the pixies; not huge and strong like the ogres; not an adept huntress like the daughters of Artemis. She grasped one of her brown tresses, examined it critically: boring!  Everything was just so darn average, she thought miserably.  Why couldn't she have what they all had? she wondered enviously. But Honie had always been admonished by the authorities of her own domain, to keep to her own kind.  Combining different kinds of creatures, she had been told endlessly, was not only impractical, it was evil.  But no one had told her that recently. She was for the first time tempted to join this weird, marvelous menagerie, and was wondering how to go about it when a faun, with its brown, furry legs and sharp little horns, took notice of Honie. It neared the spot where she stood and put its cloven hoof over an imaginary line of demarcation between the two kingdoms. Upon which the creature disintegrated and scattered into a billion atoms. Honie froze, horrified. That was what she had been warned about, she supposed.  Before Honie could even think, another creature, an old troll, approached the line as the faun had. Honie wanted to warn the creature away--for every life form had a right to live, she believed--but before she could act, the troll touched the line with its large square foot and a loud crackling noise shocked them both. The troll quickly withdrew his foot and shuffled awkwardly away into dense undergrowth. It wasn't so bad that time, thought Honie.  Perhaps, over time, it would be easier for "others" to cross over to each side. This experience taught her something: the first time is always the hardest, but with increased contact and familiarity, obstacles could be overcome. Making up her mind, Honie defiantly stomped her foot down on the line and waited expectantly. There was a light humming beneath her foot--but that was all.  Stepping over the line and into the forbidden realm, Honie took herself to where there was food and water and, most importantly, the precious friendship of the other creatures.