Prologue
The stars shone down on the lands below, their meager light failing to pierce the heavy, cold fog that lay upon the forest. Beneath the fog, animals stirred uneasily. The entire valley seemed to be waiting for something.
Suddenly, a footstep shook the earth. Then another. And another. The thunderous crash of ancient trees falling under a tremendous weight woke each and every animal who called the forest their home. An ancient, pain-filled roar sent tremors through the air, pulling birds in flight out of formation. The obsidian head of a dragon rose above the canopy of the forest, high, higher, higher still, on a neck that seemed to be a column that held up the heavens themselves. Into the clouds it extended, a solid, immovable pillar of scales and flesh.
With a rumble as of an avalanche in the highest peaks, the monolithic dragon spread his wings. And oh, such beautiful wings they were, of darkest night, speckled with fire and ice, the colors of the stars in the sky. With a sound like the splitting of a mountain, the dragon flapped its wings. Once. Twice. Again. The trees in the valley bowed and bent, dancing as if to a song only they could hear. Slowly, painfully slowly, the black dragon rose. An inch, then two. A foot.
It roared to the heavens, claiming all the night sky as its domain. Gradually, the animals of the windswept forest joined in, adding their chirps and howls, growls and squawks to the bellowing of the black dragon.
Together, they sang the dragon into the clouds, where it was borne away by coastal winds, and never seen again.
