Dragon

The dragon squirms its way through the streets of the largest town in the province, fire at its mouth, as it has every year for as long as anyone can remember - maybe back to the days of the old emperors. It winds its way to the square at the centre of the town where it meets the other dragons in a frenzy of circling fire.

The dragon is only a thing of tissue and bamboo and twenty men, from Tiu at the head to Sa-Wen at the tail, following Chen as he swings his basket of fire. But, for a few short hours, the dragon is real. It is a dragon.