What are you, you cinder, you white light, you chaser of Sol? Pyre of twilight and bringer of dawn…
The legends of Edä name you ‘Evil Archon,’ and ‘Light Bearer.’ Why is this so? What have you done, you majestic, gleaming diamond of the sky? Why did men of Edä loathe you so? Why did they regard you the perpetrator of ruin?
But then, there are the myths of Meä— that cold and desert realm, her dynamo, within, a fading heartbeat. To their ancients, you are the beacon of their hope, the pyre that guides the way for the ship in shallow seas. ‘Come, follow me! I shall lead ye to bounty and salvation!’
There is one matter upon which these legends all agree. That this silent light, this symbol they call, ‘Vé,’ is birthplace of that glorious, and mighty, and foulest of all beasts— the dragon.
Oh, dragon. How men love and hate you so. How they hope to tame your fires and bend you to their will. Yet, never is it done, for thy will is thine and thine alone. You foul, filthy, oozing wyrm, you. You snake. You reptile, slithering in sultry darkness. Descending unseen and unheard, like a bolt of lightning from a cloudless sky. You hunter. You slayer. You contriver. Men are such fools to think they can contain you. Fools!
Only a dullard would deign to harness a thing so evil and soulless. Only a blind imbecile would deign to control a beast he cannot even perceive all at once. Dragon: ‘The root of all evil,’ they say. And yet, what would man be without the beast? Mindless, naked savages, clanging rocks together and breeding under the palm shade, I suppose. Perhaps that would be better for us, dare I say! But no, that is not man’s state. The dragon teased out our lusts! Power. Glory. Wealth. All these be desires beyond the carnal, and all can be obtained by paying the dragon’s price.
Oh, dragon. How men love and hate you so. How they beg and bid you do their will. ‘Save us! Save us, oh dragon!’ And so many times you’ve done it, by thy will, and thine alone. Glorious, winged, glinting majesty, terrifying all the hunters of men. But what would you be without men? I’ll tell you, oh dragon: A flying lizard, lording over the thoughtless beasts of the jungle, a god of nothing but your appetite, or worse, burned into molten oblivion, with no one to honor your memory. Such a waste that would be.
And so here we are, back to where we started. Vé transiting the firmament above, chasing Sol only to catch it beneath the earth and drag it up into the sky again at dawn.
Little has survived of these legends that has been scribed. Almost all of it endures by word of mouth. That which remains inscribed is chiseled into stone monuments and painted on cavern walls. Occasionally, written in velum or parchment that lies and rots in a forgotten section of an ancient library. Is the legend of Vé a story of hope? Or a cautionary tale? I have gathered and summarized all I could find, so that you can read and make up your own mind.
—Veronicus
