The Smoke Dragon

A Smoke Dragon sits on a mountain.

Crawling curlicues of smoke circling

The mountain top

Colliding and colluding with the clouds

So thinly stretched they are transparent;

Tears appearing as in old worn sheets.

The people lived in a dampened form of

Permanent terror

Caught in patterns of forgotten fear inherited

From unmet ancestors:

No one alive had seen the smoke Dragon.

No one alive doubted the existence of the Smoke Dragon.

At the foot of the Mountain

Lived the girl who ate books:

Onkei had begun life

Caught on the currents of curiosity

Catching knowledge like the sails of a

Boat courting the breeze.

She lived a heightened life of

Brightened discovery.

Curating the skills of generations

Of unmet ancestors:

No one alive knew as much as Onkei.

No one alive was as aware of their lacking knowledge as Onkei.

As inevitably as time moves through moonlight

Onkei became aware of the dragon

Dancing thoughts drifted up the mountain to tangle

With tails of tepid smoke.

Dragon smoke.

Silly slaying soldiers

Enigmatic exorcisms

Were rejected

So she continued consuming text

Until the answer drew clear

Clear as a smokeless mountain

The dragon lived on fear.

Epilogue: there is nothing to fear but fear itself. Books are good.
Onkei continues to eat books. The smoke Dragon is gone.