Dema loved that story, but it wasn’t her favourite. No, Demas favourite story was the one that told the tale of the birth of dragons. 

Like many other things, like most other things, like Dema herself: they began in a storm. That particular storm was one that was more than anything a dance between the heaven and the earth. A terrible, terrible dance and so, so far from mediocre. This storm waged for centuries. It waged for so long that generations birthed and died as it ruled, knowing nothing but the terrible wind, and the terrible rain, and the terrible lightning. It waged in the heavens. And it also waged in the seas. The great water thrashed and turned endlessly and the mountains that grew under there, much like the mountains in the air but larger and more mysterious, creaked and cracked with the push and pull in the dark deep. And as the great rocks creaked and cracked, they grew angry. Mountains were proud beings. They burrowed deep and rose high and lasted longer than anything else. They were the steady ones and generations of being pushed and pulled, and having to brace and bend to not break, started something deep within one of them. This particular mountain stood far from any land, and had stood there for so long, it remembered the gods. And it grew angry.

It’s anger churned like fire. Until it was not like fire, but real fire. Burning inside it. Fire that grew hotter with each passing day. Building with the rage of the mountain. One day the storm was especially terrible, and the sea with it. They were both tearing mountains down, evening them with the ground one after one. But not this mountain, not this mountain of fire. Inside, it burned and flamed and thrashed and, in an explosion that nearly turned the ocean to steam, great winged beasts burst from the deep fire. 

They roared. They rose into the sky, filled with the rage of the mountain that had birthed them. That had placed fire in their bellies and their throats, and power in their bodies. The storm could not touch them, for they were as great as it was. 

For three long days, they battled the sky. They flapped their giant wings against the wind, and the wind pushed back. But the wind was tired. It had blown for centuries. And these winged beasts, these dragons, they were young and strong. They breathed fire. With great flaps, they drove away the clouds and with them the rain. With great roars, they silenced the wind. And the wind fled. 

Since that day the dragons have ruled the sky. They say that some storms, the ones that come rough and quick, are the result of the dragons’ tumbling through the sky and stirring the air. When Dema first heard the story, she dreamt that the storm of her birth had been a dragon storm.