The following is a tale from the Twelve Dragon Gospel, the holy book of several major Deeprealms (including the Ylissean and Hoshido-Nohr Deeprealms). Historians are currently trying determine where the story falls in the Twelve Dragon timeline, and are thus unsure of where or when it might have taken place.
🐉
The Hearth Dragon
In a certain country, in a certain place, in a certain time, there lived a dragon god. He was neither young nor old, powerful nor weak, and was a spirit of home and hearth. He had a shrine high in the bluffs of a mountainside, north of a tiny village, where the air was cold and thin and frost rimed the rocks, even in the summer.
Not many people visited the shrine. At that time, very few even knew that it was there. So the god was very lonely.
One day, tragedy struck the village. Enemies came and raged, pillaged. The Fire Dragon, Patron of the Mighty, was strong in the vagrants, and they set the entire village aflame. Women and children were driven from their homes, and the men were killed with swords and clubs. Then, the ruffians burned the people's stores of crops and grain, and slaughtered their livestock. They took everything they had. Then, they left, leaving smoldering destruction in their wake.
The village lived in agony for a great time after that. Most of the men were gone. Those that had survived were bedridden with injuries. Most of the food was gone, the homes destroyed. Winter was coming. Many of the women wanted to move what remained of their families to the nearest settlement, but they had no oxen to carry their things or help them on the journey. Those were dark days for the village. The spirit of the Fell Dragon Grima settled heavily over them, circling like a flock of vultures.
Only a few men survived the village attack. One of them had a son. The son knew about the hearth god's shrine. One day he decided to journey up the mountainside to the shrine. He wanted to make an offering to the hearth god. His father, though alive, was dying from his injuries. He wanted the hearth god to save him.
So he packed his things into a large sack. He took with him incense and prayer beads. He also packed what little meat he had, food that his family was to eat that week. He packed water and extra clothes, and heavy coverings to ward off the cold. Then he set off for the shrine on foot, making his way slowly up the mountainside.
It took him three days to reach the shrine. Many times, the son almost died. The pass up through the mountain was rugged and treacherous. Grima saw the boy climbing the high rocks and was displeased. The god sent fierce wind and driving rain to push the boy back down the mountain. But the son held on, and made it to the shrine. His tenacity enraged Grima.
So Grima turned the mountaintop dark. He poisoned the air with the stench of death and decay. He made shadows leap and slither across the rocks. He wanted to scare the boy. He wanted to drive him home.
And the boy was scared. He was greatly afraid. He thought, "This mountain is evil. Surely this is no place to appeal to the gods!" But then he found the hearth god's shrine. It was small and humble, hewn from marble and sheltering a niche for a candle. The air was purer there, warmer. To the boy, it felt safe.
So the boy lit a candle and placed it into the shrine. He also lit three sticks of incense. He started a small fire. Over the fire, he burned the remainder of his family's stores of meat. The burning meat purified the air. It drove away the stench of death and terror. It went up to the hearth dragon.
The boy called out to the hearth god. "Hear my plea," he called. "My father is on the precipice of death. Lord Grima's hold on him grows stronger each day. He has no strength to resist. His wounds are great. He is a good man. He is one of the only men left in my village. We will die without him. Help him. Give him strength. Open his eyes. Let him walk, and speak, and direct us. Heal him so that we may rebuild. Heal him lest we perish."
