#poml

"How so?" he asked, turning to a new page and beginning to write.

Clouds create stars. Stars create density. Density creates new worlds.

"That's not nature," he protested, "it's..."

The dragon beside him turned its bright gaze upon him with painful languidity. Slowly, it tilted its head.

Isn't it?

"Fine, then," he allowed, begrudgingly, "what's the purpose of a dragon?"

A terrible, uncanny mask of a grin overtook the creature's visage.

A dragon, the air sang, is a thing that cleans up after.

As if that made any sense at all.

"What?" he asked, not at all patiently.

It is the same, even here.

There was an odd quality to its voice. Something he couldn't place.

Your machines are powered by motion, it explained slowly. You spool up as much of it for storage as you need, and then some, but the process is imperfect. So it is with stars.

"...Really?" he rasped, suddenly uncertain. Something...

Heat, it explained, or rather, it didn't. And light, of course, but even that is the same in the end.

"Is it?"

It is. Until a dragon finds it.

"Ah," he said, as if he understood.

What escapes is never lost, it said, fixing him with its expressionless, unblinking stare.

"Of course," he said, for want of anything better.

But, it allowed, it can still be found again.

His pen scratched softly against the page. The dust danced in the light, playing with the flutter of its shadow.

Dragons are seekers, it continued, silent as always. When we find, we chase. We make new clouds.

"What are you doing in my office, then?" he asked, almost afraid to know.

Fool, it said, and he knew its alien affection. One does not have to bask in sunlight in order to eat the sun.