Starry, starry night. High above Arizona’s Mojave Desert, two spectral forms appeared to float among the stars of the Milky Way, their wing beats making a noise like thunder. Were these the mighty thunderbirds of ancient Hohokam myth? No, they were Ramóna and her BFF Desdemona, two damsel dragons on a jaunt to the legendary realm of Las Vegas. On a dark desert highway below them, a few long-haul truckers seemed to have the same destination.

The daring damsels had left their Sonoran Desert homes near Tucson early that evening. After skirting the big city of Phoenix [named after a cryptid of Persian myth], they used Highway 93 as a navigational aide as they flew northwest. Between Wickenburg and Wikieup, they overflew fifty (or so) miles of the Joshua Tree Forest. South of Wikieup and west of Bagdad was the ghost town of Nothing(really just an abandoned gas station/convenience store); there was certainly no reason to make much ado about the place. Near Dolan Springs, north of Kingman, they espied the glow of Sin City’s bright lights on the horizon. Minutes after crossing the Colorado River at Black Canyon, they reached Las Vegas.

As the saying goes, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” so we don’t know much about the next few days. To be fair, the girls might not remember much of that time anyway, except that they did consume quite a few margaritas – ah, firewater with crushed ice! Giggle Juice! (“Hey, ya know, those guys from Area 51 were kinda cute!”) But, on their last day, they went to an outdoor concert on the shores of Lake Mead. Hot August night, and when you’d almost bet you could hear yourself sweat, he walks in; Puff, the Magic Dragon made his entrance to the music of “Chariots of Fire.” Eyes black as coal, and when he lifts his face, every ear in the place is on him. What a sight! His scales glowed iridescent by the light of the silvery moon, as he sang a collection of classic tunes. Members of the audience were dancing in the moonlight, while others signaled their approbation with their cigarette lighters. Ramóna and Dezzy were positively glowing as they sang along with “Steam Heat”. Soon, they were smokin’ hot when Puff sang “Great Balls of Fire.” Unfortunately, they were ejected from the concert, indeed from the State of Nevada, when they accidentally set fire to two cottonwood trees during the performance of “Burning Love.”

So, here they were, exiled to the far side of the Rubicon, er, no, the Colorado River, not far south of the Grand Canyon and near the western end of the Mogollon Rim region. Their trip to Las Vegas had been cut short, but they weren’t yet ready to return home. The girls just want to have fun! Just for kicks, they took jobs roasting chili peppers at a roadside stand on Route 66, east of Kingman. After a few days, they continued east to Flagstaff and the San Francisco Volcanic Field. Somehow, along the way, they acquired flags of the nations of Wales and Bhutan, each bearing the image of dragons which represented those countries. They carried these flags with them as they flew south to their homes in the Sonora Desert.

Lorcan Laverty, a very well-dressed leprechaun, galloped through the desert of Saguaro National Park on his steed, Toby the wolpertinger. Toby looked similar to the native jackalopes, except with saber teeth and feathered wings. Those wings were currently folded up on account of the sand blowing lazily through the air, which got caught in Lorcan's ruddy beard as they traveled.

As some well-educated people know, leprechauns are the masterminds behind many casinos in Las Vegas (the key exception being the Luxor, which is owned by an ancient sphinx with the power to peer through time). This is natural--their two special talents are good luck and the ability to hold on to money, both very useful in the trade. Lorcan was still a young leprechaun, being only about sixty-four years old, but he was hoping to one day inherit the family business. And right now, he was hoping to deal with a major problem.

He squinted and held his hand up to his face, peering through the wind to see flashes of fire near the top of Mica Mountain. With an ear-splitting honk, Toby took to the skies and flew towards the flames.

Ramóna and Desdemona were playing a game of aerial basketball, trying to shoot fireballs through holes in the clouds. Ramóna was winning, twenty to eleven, though Desdemona claimed it was only because the wind was against her. Ramóna had won the last five games they played. They were just taking a halftime break, refreshing themselves by cracking open some cans of Monster Energy (brought to them by a friendly Gila monster) in their favorite cave. The drinks were "Rio Punch" flavored, which reminded them that they had always wanted to go to the Carnaval in Brazil. Desdemona suggested that they could stay over with her cousins, the feathered serpents of the Yucatan, on the way. Ramóna, a fan of the cumbia dance, suggested a stop in Cartagena. It would be a much farther flight than Las Vegas, but maybe one of these years...

The damsel dragons were interrupted from their vacation plans by the approach of a leprechaun wearing a tuxedo. Lorcan shouted something at them, but they couldn't hear him well over the wind. "What was that?" Ramóna asked, holding a claw up to her ear.

"I said, I'll see you in court!" Lorcan shouted. "You dragons! Always taking our gold!"

"He said there's a bee in his shorts?" Desdemona wondered out loud.

"No," said Ramóna, "I think he said he's taking us to court. He wants to play basketball with us."

Desdemona blew a fireball and twirled it on the tip of her tail. "I think he's a lil' bit too small for that. And too flammable."

"NO!" Lorcan flew right up to Ramóna's ear. "I work for the casino you visited last Saturday night! One of you, or maybe both of you, swooped in and took our treasure! I'm talking, of course, about cheating at poker. We're down half a million dollars because of you, and the casino is suing!"

Now the damsel dragons were puzzled. It was true that they had been very drunk during their Vegas excursion, and their memories had more than a few gaps, but Saturday night was the concert. That part, they remembered very clearly.

"That wasn't us," Ramóna said. "We were at Lake Mead listening to Puff the Magic Dragon."

The leprechaun took a tablet out of Toby's saddlebag, which the dragons had to squint to see, and showed them a video of a young damsel dragon walking into the casino. Much like Ramóna and Desdemona, she had glittery scales and fiery green eyes. But it was clearly a different dragon, because her tail was thinner and her claws were painted cobalt blue. "This is the dragon that swindled us," he hissed. "Does she look familiar to you?"

Ramóna looked at Desdemona, who snorted a puff of black smoke. "Yeah, actually, she does." Her claw scraped across the red sandstone as she growled, "Forget the Brazil vacation. I'd love to pay that flaming fleabag a visit. It's been much too long."

Ramona fumed sulphurously. Desdemona growled in a voice that would drive Minotaur mewling back into his labyrinthian lair. "That's Obsidia, a distant cousin of mine. She is evil, through and through, and she has brought shame upon all upright dragons."

At the sound of that cursed name Toby, the wolpertinger, whimpered and then skittered into a tight space among some rocks and tucked his head under his left wing.

Lorcan snarled in a dark, menacing voice, "Obsidia! That evil being is feared and hated by all leprechauns. She murdered or drove away all of my people from their desert basin home in central New Mexico. AND SHE STOLE MY GOLD!"

Ramona spoke, "Her concealed nest-den is in the caldera of the sleeping Jornada del Muerto volcano."

Dezzy: "We must do something about her. But, what? She carefully guards her hideaway; she is crafty, sly, and cunning."

Lorcan:: "We will need to weaken her before we try to eliminate the danger she poses."

Dezzy: "If we could fill the caldera with ground limestone, it would smother her brimstone. Let's recruit an remada of great flying beasts to bomb her lair."

Ramona: "You said 'remada'. Didn't you mean 'armada'?"

Dezzy: "Oh, yeah, of course."

Lorcan: "Could we injure or kill her with dragonbane?"

Ramona: "NO, you green fool! The dragonbane would kill Dez and me and any other dragons that try to handle it.:

Lorcan: "Oh, I'm so sorry. I obviously wasn't thinking. I blame the hot sun in this desert where there is hardly a green plant in sight."

Dezzy: "Could we enlist some desert animals to carry dragonbane into the caldera after we bomb it with limestone?"

Lorcan: "Maybe that would work. I like the idea. I could gather a flock of desert bighorn sheep to do the job."

Ramona: "Where can we get enough of that wonderful herb? Could an army of wolpertingers gather the stuff? No, probably not; they're too small."

Dezzy: "I know. Let's ask the beavers and the marmots to help. Those rodents are the champions of plant-gathering."

Lorcan: "Beavers? In this deadly desert?"

Dezzy: "There are numerous beavers living in the forest southeast of the volcano. I think they would help us rid the region of that treacherous beast."

All three valiant warriors spoke together, "Let's do it! ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL!"

The evil dragon Obsidia awoke as the ground below her shook. Eerie creaking and crashing sounds echoed through her underground chamber. White dust swirled through the air; it tasted a bit like limestone.

Disoriented, confused, and still a bit sleepy, Obsidia struggled to comprehend what was happening. Slowly, she came to realize that the tremors and crashing sounds could only mean one thing – an earthquake! Yet she could not understand why the tremors lasted so long. Surely this event must be a great cataclysm!

After a hellish eternity, the great tremors stopped, although there were still lesser ones that might have been caused by falling rocks. Obsidia wished to go out, to see what had happened. The tunnel which connected her chamber to the surface was blocked. The obstruction seemed to be too massive for her to dig through it. She thought it might also be unstable.

What should she do? Her grotto was located on the northeast side of the mountain; she would try to dig a new tunnel in that direction. Damn, and she had just had her nails done!

After she had dug for a while, Obsidia realized that the familiar smell of brimstone was absent. How very strange! Maybe the earthquake had created new fissures through which the fumes now vented into the outside air. Item for her ‘To-Do’ list –seal those fissures.

Obsidia obstinately continued her excavations. After much effort, her crawlway broke through into a lava tube. Hooray! She hoped the lave tube would lead to the surface, or at least close to it.

Yes! She was now at the surface, immersed in the hot, dry desert air. As she looked about, she observed that the volcano’s caldera was now filled with great limestone boulders and that there were also large amounts of limestone dust. Now where could this have come from? There’s no limestone nearby!

Obsidia was hungry after her long ordeal. She looked about; there’s not a living thing in sight. Oh, wait a minute! There’s a bedraggled, wretched wolpertinger limping across the slope. She blasted it with a ball of flame to kill it; a second flame burned off the fur and feathers. She ripped off the unfortunate creature’s antlers and then enjoyed her meal.

Well, that was a good snack, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and she was still hungry. She looked about again and saw something promising – there were countless hoofprints of desert bighorn sheep in the dust! Now, one of those magnificent creatures would be the kind of meal she craved!

Obsidia was a supreme predator who studied the many hoofprints. She selected one set of prints which seemed to be the spoor of a large, healthy animal. She followed the animal’s trail and saw that it was headed for the forest east of the volcano. In a short time, she had gotten close enough to the sheep to see it clearly. Yes, a gorgeous prey!

The hungry dragon saw that her target was following a well-worn game trail. She knew a spot where she could get ahead and upslope of the sheep; it was an ideal spot for an ambush! Obsidia took up her position and waited there in concealment. The sheep ambled along the trail. At just the right moment, the hunter launched her attack – a flying tackle striking the sheep’s left shoulder.

The sheep let out a restrained bleat; his breath had been knocked out of him. Obsidia shifted her weight and gave her captive a mighty shove. The sheep fell over onto his right side. The hunter quickly dispatched her prey and burned off its fur; then she started to eat.

The meat tasted a bit strange, with a faint aroma of sulfur mixed with petroleum. Obsidia’s hunger was so intense that she just ignored the taste. She ate until she was full and then left the remains for the coyotes. In the late afternoon sun, she turned to head home and take a nap.

In just a short time, her stomach became rebellious and uneasy. Unexpectedly, she did what bears do in the woods. Pee-ew! That’s awful, and embarrassing, too. Although she felt a bit woozy and lightheaded, she continued her way home.

As she crawled through the lava tube, she suddenly curled up in agony and vomited immensely. Oh! How disgusting! Then she let out a dragon-sized belch accompanied by a mighty fireball. The fumes from the vomit proved to be flammable, and the lava tube was soon filled with flame and a horrendous stench.

When she felt able, she resumed her crawl to her den. At home, she curled up on an old Hudson Bay blanket, moaned, and fell asleep.

Of course, Obsidia couldn’t know that the sheep she had eaten had browsed on the dragonbane. No wonder the meat tasted strange! Now the story comes to an end, and the reader doesn’t know if she recovered or died.