dragons being born with no teeth and using swords from the knights they eat as teeth, getting more as they grow older and stronger until they have hundreds of mismatched shining swords with their hilts embedded in their gums
the image of row after row of collected swords, each with different heights and widths and cultural features all leading into its throat like a field of dead trees; a living, moving graveyard
dragons that are centuries old with swords in the back of their mouths so ancient they’ve rusted and chipped; the light of their inner flames catching on the gleaming metal and reflecting it hundreds of feet away until sunbeams become an omen of incoming destruction and death
hatchlings too small to kill or fit swords in their mouths so they steal knives from travellers which is where the belief that dragons hoard treasure and shiny things comes from
parents fusing the fractals of chipped metal from their older swords with hatchlings’ scales as protection, covering their soft scales with armour until they grow and their skin hardens and it naturally falls off
