On the Origins of Winged Storms

Before the first kings forged their crowns,

before the first swords knew their names,

the earth still soft as new-made clay

bore footprints no man could explain.

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Deep in the molten belly-caves

where time dripped slow as honey gold,

something stirred in sulfur pools—

half flesh, half myth, and wholly old.

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The mountains heaved them coughing forth

in clouds of ash and sparking breath,

their scales still glazed with cooling stone,

their eyes bright with second death.

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Some say God made them just to prove

He too could craft imperfect things—

too wise for beasts, too wild for saints,

with hurricane beneath their wings.

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They taught the rains to fall just so,

the rivers where to bend,

and in return demanded naught

but one small mortal end:

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"When you see our children slain,

their bones turned into trinkets,

remember how we shaped your world

before you made us wicked."

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The first knight's sword was forged from fear,

the second from greed's ore,

until a thousand dragon-hearts

paved every castle floor.

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Yet when the last great wyrm did bleed

beneath some northern star,

the rivers rose in mourning floods,

the winds forgot their paths.

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Now scholars scoff at dragon bones

behind their glass and dust,

but miners swear when tunnels deepen,

something breathes in crust—

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a warmth no torch can mimic,

a rumble through the stone,

as if the earth remembers

what man has tried to disown.

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The oldest trees still whisper it

to those who pause and strain—

dragons never truly die,

they simply wait for rain.

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For when the final drought comes,

when man's last well runs dry,

the cracks will birth familiar shapes

against the burning sky.

From the Subterranean Annals of

The Lost Books - "Libri Perditi"

Where the earth keeps its own ledgers.