The Calling

A very hastily penned short story based on a random prompt I read in a forum.

Being summoned to the palace of the Dragon King was an unusual honor. The King called only those believed to have a special skill, purpose, or power. The kingdom was in turmoil: crops failing, disease spreading, and the land itself groaning as if dying. The fates promised a “called” one who could heal these fractures, but portents only revealed their arrival�"not their gifts or how they might help. The group adjusted to life under the kingdom’s revered elders, tasked with uncovering their hidden talents. In time, Abi, Cora, and Elia began to show their callings. Abi had a strange connection to crops; fields thrived wherever she walked, and a mysterious plant she cultivated promised to be a superior food source. Cora excelled quickly, showing an uncanny talent for military strategy and reading political opponents. Elia, however, surpassed them all. Wherever she went, unrest eased: the land stilled, animals grew harmonious, citizens softened, and blighted land healed. Confident in her abilities, Elia worked tirelessly to strengthen her power and fulfill her destiny as the obviously intended savior of the kingdom.




Marie, in contrast, seemed a mistake. She could faintly hear sounds from plants and stone but couldn’t communicate with them meaningfully. Her gift seemed quaint, perhaps suited for fortune-telling, but little more. And she was content with her meek destiny. As Abi, Cora, Elia, and the older called ones battled to stop the land’s decay, it became clear that none had the Calling which could save them. The struggle drained their strength and some, their lives. Meanwhile, Marie withdrew deeper into the castle and her own mind. The sounds she had always heard grew deafening, overwhelming her until the King himself dismissed her as mad�"a weak gift paired with a weak mind, tragic but irrelevant in the face of the kingdom’s impending doom.




On the morning when all seemed lost, the land fell silent. The ground broke apart, the air filled with putrid gas, and life itself seemed to rot. Trees crumbled to ash, animals lay down and died, and birds fell from the sky. As the kingdom braced for annihilation, Marie emerged from the depths of the castle. She was calm, her face glowing with serene understanding. The sounds that had haunted her now took form as words. She sang softly, an eerie yet beautiful lullaby, as if soothing a frightened child. Her song grew, reverberating across the land. A great thunder rolled, shaking the world to its core, and then�"silence. The land stilled. Its decay slowed, settling into a natural pace. The kingdom rejoiced, realizing salvation had come�"but the time for celebration was not yet. The land, Dragon, their home, was dead, and the people needed now to mourn him. Marie, fully grown into her calling, led the kingdom in its mourning. She guided them through the deathwork, clearing away the dead predecessor’s remnants from the fleshy infant land beneath.




In the end, it wasn’t a hero, a cure, or some great power that was key to saving them. It was their desperate attempts to resist the natural death of their land first that nearly destroyed them. For even creatures so great as an earth dragon fear death, yet must eventually surrender to that gracious host when she comes gently singing, guiding to silence the sound of their agonal prayer.

Author's Note

The writing is rough and hasty, penned in a short time on a whim. The concept is what I’m more interested to see if anyone relates and connects to. It’s the kind of concept I know most about and want to write on more, but my family’s response as usual, is to mostly suggest I’m not going to church enough or maybe need to go on meds. Looking for artistically open minds who don’t find exploration of dark yet important concepts to be disturbing or repulsive.