Crescent

The new stone was being raised, just one in a series of hundreds, thousands, breaking the bleak white land like a horrid black spine being raised from the earth. Before it, Mother of Magic, the Great Oldest One, made her declaration.
“War comes to us now, the gods who have spat on our way of life grow malcontent with their riches and temples, seeking ever more. Their endless coffers and piling feasts are not enough, their lands of plenty never providing the prey they crave. The divines of the world sneer at our lands, barren and wasted, having not taken yet enough of what was once ours!
Destruction comes, my children, in the bodies of these gods who would destroy the world for shows of their might. Are we not deserved to live? Are we not deserved to be in peace in a horrid land no one else wants for life, of nothing but ice and death? Must we cead our might and piety to so-called gods we do not worship and do not aid us but cast their fury upon us just the same?”
Discontented roars and snarls erupted from the flights perched below, on cold, wet, frostbitten icy cliffs in her audience.
“No, for where is the line, my children? We are many, but we are starved. We are starved of our legacy, our temples, our own great hunting grounds we once knew! The grasses, trees, flowers and warm pools we once called home! Where is our great sea of fish and whales? It is ruled by a bird no bigger than my talons with no children to inherit it! What has become of the towering snow capped mountains full of prey to feed our winter nestlings? It has been taken from us, our ancestral caves and gullies we once taught our children to soar from are but empty dwellings, the summer homes of mortals!”
The cries grew louder with her words, as she stalked in front of the stone, covered in the leather scalehide that obscured it. The decaying leather stunk with the wines it had been washed in, giving the appearance of fresh blood rolling down, freezing in the perpetual howling wind that echoed the pain she evoked.
“We once knew of land filled with great sloths, easy prey to fill our bellies, times in which we could eat to our fill on great beast that have become myth to even us. First the humans came and slaughtered us in our dens, and then the gods chased us to the ends of the world. When was the last time any of us were able to go further south than the glacial line? When was the last time the sun on your back was more than but a reprieve from endless chill?
It is time, my children, for the good times of old to no longer be nothing but stories. It is time for us to rise again and put fear into those who scorn us. Those who seek to kill us, to use our lands we created for ourselves, to plunder and burn our hard work before our very eyes, they shall know again what it means to be a child of the moon.”
With her final word, Neia tugged away the hide from the massive stone, revealing its carvings. Lunar dragons, by the hundreds, in flight under a full moon, setting fire to the gods. The wolf. The orca. The tuna. The horse of death and elk of life, boar wrapped in fire and serpent of drowned seas, bird of storm and toad of deep places, all reduced to embers.
It was a warning. A message. A declaration of war, of conquest, what was to come for all who stood in the flight’s path.
“No more shall dragons like us be reduced to the scraps of the world. Our symbols, our heritage, our birthrights shall be ours again. We shall take it back and leave the world trembling at the sight of us, reformed in the image of our former glory. No more shall we scramble for dignity! For respect we have earned! “