This is not the direct follow-up to Chapter I. It is not known at the time where this will be placed.
*
His parents named him Jerome and they wished he would follow in their footsteps. They immersed him in the arts and the histories. Theology and medicine. Yet the most crucial aspect of his upbringing was that his father took him to boxing lessons when his mother was away. The father understood what would happen to his son if he did not develop physicality. His round glasses, his straight posture and his airy gait, his haughtiness. His ego. All grounds to make him a target.
The boy known as Jerome took to boxing lessons. And then he learned to ride and his natural talent became apparent and his parents knew he was not destined for the libraries. He rode all sorts of beasts. Horses, namely. He dallied with riding birds. He heard of the dragon riders and he could not go a week without talking about them, but his parents were insistent that dragons were of fantasies and story books. Their existence was not in question, but their prevalence.
And they were right, to an extent. Fewer than 500 dragons survived the Industrial Revolution and modernity. And most of these dragons were named dragons. Claimed dragons, in other words. A few were wild. Allegedly feral. But they kept to their lairs and avoided civilization. They lived in the mountains where the hunting was good.
He read about a dragon named Calamity. There had been multiple dragons through history named Calamity. In a fortunate sense of irony, all variations of Calamity were remarkably docile. They had the disposition of a smiling, golden-haired shaggy dog. Of course, they were - are - capable of destroying cities. Countries. Life as it is known. Few creatures were capable of such devastation.
For example, Sanna has an Elite General named Tykon. And Tykon has a dragon named Doom, and Doom is a destructive force to be sure. A City-Destroyer. But Doom could not go toe-to-toe with any Being considered to be an Elder.
For a dragon to receive the name Calamity, they first had to meet the typical physical characteristics. They were sleek and midnight black. They had soft, pale, emotive orange eyes and crescent horns turned upwards, parallel with their skull rather than an outward protrusion as you see in longhorn cattle. There was a iridescent sheen of blue or green. They were best described as a draconic leopard. In terms of the skies, they were closer to a fighter jet than a cargo plane. They were not small by any means.
According to the stories, they are capable of traversing realms. They use their horns to open portals and bring their foes into some sort of mystery realm. For fairly obvious reasons, no one has been able to describe this mystery realm. I reckon it could be an euphemism that Calamity vaporizes the target on contact. Then, there are a few stories have the dragon leveling brick buildings with shockwaves. Shockwaves from the speed at which it travels. This is the reason they are called Calamity.
Their name in the Thunderer’s dragontongue, for a lack of better term, is a bit more complicated. I cannot reveal their real name - their ancient name. I have never been told and I will never be told it. I am not a Thunderer.