When the worlds and the community I loved were treated like a line item, something to sunset, optimize, and move on from, this is the myth I built to stand against that. The dragoness doesn’t come to beg the empire to explain the cost; she comes to guard the memory of everyone who found a home there. It’s grief turned into fire, and a promise: you can rename the gates, but you cannot make the village unborn.
Lyrics
[Verse 1] I climbed the hill with lava in my ribs And winter in the letters they sent down Behind me, all the lantern-built villages Ahead, the polished empire and its crown I knew the old name buried underneath The first soft word they gave the dream to wear I knew the new one forged of chrome and distance I knew the king who learned to breathe that air [Pre-Chorus] So I called the hidden names And the valley changed its sound Because memory is a creature And it wakes when truth is found [Chorus] Dragoness on the hill Whip of fire, throat of frost I did not come to beg the empire To explain away the cost I came to mark the broken promise I came to guard the living dead All the worlds they planned to bury Rose like stars around my head [Verse 2] Below me moved the armies of abstraction Metrics, road maps, maintenance, "for now" Above me, old ghosts circled like witnesses Waiting for someone to teach the sky how To hold the names of those who found their bodies To hold the names of those who stayed alive To hold the names of all the tiny temples Built in a realm they thought would not survive [Pre-Chorus] I was not born for empire I was not carved for war But every time they touched the sacred I became a little more [Chorus] Dragoness on the hill Calling emperors by name If you build a throne from distance Do not curse the ones who came To strip the gold from off your language To drag the marrow back to light I stood where they would end the story And turned the ending into sight [Bridge - Spoken / Ritual] Before the mask, there was a promise. Before the promise, there was hunger. Before the hunger, there were people. And people remember. You can rename the gates. You can salt the fields. You can close the road. But you cannot make the village unborn. [Verse 3] Now every comment is a bell in midnight Every witness sets another stone And what began as grief became a border No king can cross and call his crossing home Because this ground is made of lived devotion Of tears and jokes and meetings after dark Of worlds inside of worlds inside of bodies Of one true wound that learned to answer back [Final Chorus] Dragoness on the hill Not because I wanted flame But because the dead were speaking And somebody had to name The hand, the mask, the shattered covenant The cost beneath the polished throne If the empire fears my memory It's because it knows what it has done [Outro] So let the banners tear in weather Let the gilded chambers ring I am not here to haunt the kingdom I am here to guard the spring

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