Step into the Dragon’s Parlour — a realm of forgotten wonders, rare curiosities, and vintage treasures. Discover unique pieces that whisper stories of magic and time, found only at Journey to Soul.
🐉 Dragon’s Parlour
Step beyond the ordinary and into the Dragon’s Parlour, where magic lingers in the dust and every relic tells a tale. Here, amidst shadows and shimmer, you’ll uncover a dragons hoard of stories, myths and curious artifacts, vintage oddities, and forgotten wonders waiting to capture you for a time .
Each piece has its own story, whispered through time and gathered into the dragon’s collection of the extraordinary. Whether you seek a charm of the past, a relic of mystery, or simply something that stirs the imagination, the Dragon’s Parlour invites you to explore… and perhaps, take home a little magic of your own.
A short tale from the dragons parlour.
The Sword of the Moon Empress
A Myth from the Lake of Heaven’s Mirror
I. The Lake of Heaven’s Mirror
In the time before dynasties and emperors, when the moon still spoke to the waters, there was a lake so still it reflected the heavens perfectly.
The people called it Heaven’s Mirror.
One night, as the moon bent low over its own reflection, the Moon Empress, guardian of balance, looked down upon the mortal realm and saw only war and greed. Her heart wept silver tears that fell into the lake.
From one tear, she drew forth a shard of moonlight, and with it forged a sword , a blade of calm and clarity, meant to remind the world of harmony.
She named it Yuelan, The Moon’s Tide.
The Empress called upon Lóngyuè, her sacred Water Dragon , a being of shimmering jade and cloud and said.
“Guard this blade until the hearts of mortals remember to seek the place of peace.”
The dragon bowed and sank into the moonlit water. The lake closed over her coils, and for a thousand years, no one saw her again.
II. The Children of Smoke
Centuries passed. The lake faded from maps and memory, until only old songs spoke of its glow. Farmers farmed and traders came and went as they travelled their wagon worn paths.
Then once again came a time of fire .
Mongol raiders swept through the river valleys, burning villages in their path. One night, a small village called Hanxivanished beneath flame.
Through the smoke fled two children , Liang, son of a potter, and Mei, daughter of a herb healer and singer of stories from distant times .
They ran barefoot through mud and ash, clutching each other’s hands, chased by the thunder of hooves.
They hid and ran for days and at last, the smoke gave way to mist. Before them stretched the still waters of a lake that glimmered faintly under a rising moon.
Mei gasped. “It’s the lake from the stories…”we are safe and they lay down on its bank and slept and dreamed of mythic times until sometime later they were awoken by the vibration of hoofs through the earth.The riders too had happened upon this place .
Liang turned, wild with fear and grief.
He plunged his hands into the water and holding his wet hands aloft shouted to the heavens,
“If mercy still exists , let it hear us now!”
III. The Rise of Lóngyuè
Thunder cracked across the valley. The air trembled. The lake began to glow from within.
A column of mist rose, spiraling into a form, of a Water Dragon, vast and magnificent, scales glinting like polished moonstone.
Her eyes were as deep as sorrow and as endless as tide.
The Mongols’ horses screamed and bolted, scattering into the night.
Only the two children remained, trembling by the water’s edge.
The dragon’s voice rolled through the air like distant thunder:
“Grief and fears heartbeat is the drum that calls me home.
Will you bear the mother’s gift even though the world has forgotten?”
From the stormlight and spray, a sword took shape water hardening to metal, moonlight forming its edge.
“One hand shall wield, one voice shall guide,” said the dragon. “Together, you are its keeper.”
Liang reached for the hilt. As his fingers touched it, Mei felt something stir inside her a music, a hum that resonated with the dragon’s pulse.
Then, as swiftly as she had come, Lóngyuè dissolved into rain, leaving only ripples and the faint scent of storm.
IV. The Journey of the Sword
The children became wanderers.
By day, they walked through ruined lands, carrying the sword wrapped in silk. By night, the blade glowed faintly, its light chasing away beasts and nightmares alike.
Sometimes, Mei sang to calm its hum; other times, Liang stared at it in silence, feeling the pull of something larger than fate.
At an old monastery in which they sort refuge one night ,they met a dying monk who recognized the sword and whispered:
“When empire burns and shadows reign,
The moon shall summon her heirs again.”
Mei began to dream of the dragon coiling around the moon, and of a silver tide rising to wash away darkness.
Liang dreamed of fire, and of the weight of destiny pressing against his heart.
V. The Last Battle
The final storm came at the shores of the same lake that had birthed their fate.
Mongol banners darkened the hills. The sky hung heavy with clouds.
Liang stood at the water’s edge, sword raised high, its light reflecting the moon now breaking through.
Beside him, Mei lifted her voice a song that carried across the valley like the call of the wind itself.
The lake erupted with silver light. Lóngyuè returned, vast and radiant, her scales shimmering like rivers of starlight.
Her roar drowned out the thunder. Water rose in waves that swept the land clean of flame.
As the storm raged, the dragon turned to Liang and whispered:
“To end the darkness, the light must return to its source.”
Liang looked to Mei, smiled through his tears, and said,
“Then let the lake remember us.”
He stepped forward and the sword dissolved into mist, carrying him with it. The dragon rose once more, wrapping herself around the moon, then vanished into the lake’s reflection.
The storm ended.
The world fell still.
VI. The Dynasty of Tides
When dawn came, Mei stood alone by the lake.
The waters were calm again, the reflection of the moon unbroken. Beneath its surface, a faint shadow a dragon’s coil drifted like memory.
Mei built a shrine by the lakeshore and it became known as “The Voice of the Moon.”
Her teachings spread: that strength , harmony and peace are one, and that no empire endures without the balance.
Generations later, the people founded a new kingdom “The Dynasty of the Silver Tide”its banner marked with a dragon coiled around a crescent moon.
And even now, they say:
When the night is still, and the moonlight lies unbroken upon the Lake of Heaven’s Mirror,
a boy and a dragon stand together in the reflection, guarding the world’s balance.
Yuelan “The moons tide”
🌌 The Hidden Fifth: The Breath of Soul
A Lost Chapter of the Celestial Loom
(Companion to the Fourfold Harmony)
⸻
I. The Whisper Beyond the Loom
Before even the Loom of Heaven spun its threads,
there was a stillness ,a silence that watched.
From that silence came awareness not form, not sound, but the knowing of existence itself.
When the Loom began to weave, this awareness flowed unseen between the threads.
It became the space within the pattern, the pause between tides,
the moment before thought.
The dragons called it Ling, the Fifth Breath “the Energy of Soul.”
The gods called it the Mirror Between Worlds.
And mortals… they would one day call it spirit.
⸻
II. The Balance of the Fivefold Current
Each element flowed in rhythm,
but it was Ling that made rhythm into meaning.
• Water taught reflection, yet without soul it would drown.
• Earth gave form, yet without soul it would harden into stone.
• Air carried freedom, yet without soul it would scatter into chaos.
• Fire brought passion, yet without soul it would consume all things.
Ling was the fifth thread that bound them invisible, but essential
linking motion, memory, and purpose into harmony.
It was through Ling that emotion became compassion,
Breath became prayer,
Energy became life that knows itself.
⸻
III. The Gift of Consciousness
When the Moon Empress and the Earth Mother shaped the first mortals from clay and breath, they sought to bind Water and Earth, Air and Fire into balance.
But the dragons whispered to the Loom,
“Without the Fifth, they will live but they will not awaken.”
And so Lóngtian, the Air Dragon, carried the Breath of Soul into their chests.
The first humans opened their eyes and for the first time, creation looked back at itself.
Thus was born the human gift and the burden to hold the Fifth within.
To feel every element in conflict and to seek harmony not by nature, but by choice.
⸻
IV. The Hidden Fire
But balance, once known, can also be forgotten.
As mortals grew clever, they reached for the four powers shaping wind, water, stone, and flame ,yet they neglected the Fifth.
Their creations became hollow, their empires vast but empty.
The Moon Empress wept, for she saw that the Fifth had gone quiet in the hearts of men.
Only the dragons remembered and even they spoke of it only in riddles.
Lóngyuè called it the Reflection of the Heart.
Lóngdi called it the Root of All Things.
Lóngtian called it the Breath Between Worlds.
Lóngyan, the sleeping Fire Dragon, dreamed of it as the Eternal Spark.
Together, they whispered a prophecy:
“When mortals remember the Fifth within themselves,
when compassion wields power and awareness guides flame,
the world will no longer need gods to keep its balance for it will awaken as one living soul.”
⸻
V. The Return of Ling
Some say this awakening began with Liang and Mei,
for when the Sword of the Moon Empress sang beneath the storm,
it was not only water or moonlight that answered it was the Fifth Breath itself.
The ancient awareness recognizing its reflection in human courage.
In that moment, for the first time since creation, the elements obeyed not gods nor dragons but the song of a human soul aligned with all five currents.
And from that harmony, a new possibility was born ,that evolution is not the conquest of nature, but its remembering.
⸻
VI. The Circle of Five
Now, in the temples of the Silver Tide, monks still chant:
“Four are the pillars of the world
Water, Earth, Air, and Fire.
But the Fifth is the breath that binds them,
unseen, eternal
the soul of all things.”
They paint the Circle of Five Currents
a spiral of dragons chasing one another, and in the center, a single eye of stillness the symbol of Ling, the awareness that holds the world in harmony .
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