Dedication, Foreward, and Signature
The Dragon Keeper's Memoirs
edited by Pretty Prose
rewritten for Humans by Merne
For Garnet, my late mate,
Zazel, my lost companion,
Milady Tianna Destros, may she yet forgive me her kidnapping,
Timofei, whose spirit could not bow,
Chuckling Chaps, and his everlasting smile,
Zhanna, as she soars above all of us,
Honest Greed, may she have left something to her children,
Fumble, my closest friend,
Andrew Faarthing, without whom I would have never learned letters,
and Bob, whom without this story would never be.
Let me preface this recollection of mine with this: Every single being involved with this war, each and every one, faced decisions and actions that I hope this world must never face again. I will spare you the details now, should you not wish to know them, but know this. We Dragons have been illustrated as the bringers of the highest doom, but this is only scale. As large as I am now, a city would be turned to slag if I casually released my fire, and I have eternally been the smaller of my Age. You must think in terms of scale.
In a decade, should we be raised such, we could reach the size of a large town. Such is not usually done, but it is possible. Humans, on average, take seventeen years to grow to about six feet tall. This is quite the disparity in terms of workable standing forces and their strength. Yet Humans killed more of anyone than any other species.
Anything is possible.
The point I am trying to make is that the War, glorious and romantic and brilliant as it may be remembered, is a terrible occurrence that should never happen again. The War That Shook The Mountain, we Dragons call it. Begun in the year 211 A.D. By Pony Calendar, 427 A.D. Human Calendar, The End of the Seventh Cycle by Griffon Calendar, and in the midst of the Dragon Fourth Remembered Age.
The War killed thousands. It broke our continent, brought forth demons from Tartarus. It destroyed the existences of species, and, most remembered by my kin, shook the Mountain. The rivers of blood that ran through the land were deeper, wider, and faster-flowing than any skirmish we called war before made.
The rest of this tome is dedicated to my life, a significant portion of which The War encompasses. I will relay to you what I remember, how I remember it. There will be as little bias as I can manage, and as much truth as I can tell.
Read and learn well. The War may yet recur, and you will need the wisdom of the experienced to guide you.
Dräcnu Víal, Achdù Tríal.
Fallke, son of Fault and Ruby
Dragon Keeper of The Vault
