Eirthe

The weekend was Thursday/Friday this week.
I have decreed it.
I feel the ndeed to once again remind people that having started thsi blog to try and get better at writing to a schedule, and I know I'm probs beating myself up about it more than any of my readers, but I'm still really sorry. To be fair, yesterday *was* St. Patrick's.
Anyway, this one was really hard to write, because I'm pretty sure it needs illustrations. I can see it in my head, and I haven't described it very well. I may actually come back to it.

The gnomes and the gnomes have been at war for years. One of the great mysteries of the world is exactly how this started - the gnomes live underground, and the dragons spend most of their time airborne. But they hate each other a lot, and at this point, that is enough.
As one might expect from two races who have been at war for generations, the societies of both dragons and gnomes tend to be highly militaristic - at least in those areas where encounters with the other species are reasonably likely.
Beyond this, one might think that it would be difficult to characterise an entire species, any more  than it is possible to characterise humanity. But if one thinks about it, there is quite a lot one can say about humans in general. For example, they tend to live in buildings made of stone which are planted firmly on the ground. Whereas the aerie-cities of the dragons are built in mid-air. Or, to be more precise, they are  built of the lightest available materials,  in the jet stream.
Now, anyone with even a passing familiarity with… really any of the concepts involved will probably realise that the process of building a city which will be held aloft by the wind without breaking apart, falling, or crashing into something must be a ludicrously complex feat of engineering, bordering on the impossible, and that being constantly in motion probably makes the cities rather difficult to. One may wonder exactly what benefit could possibly be worth such an extravagance.
One might point out, of course, that such cities are safer from the actions of the dragons who, living as they do underground, might be expected to collapse any structure built upon the surface by their mortal enemies.
However, although this may indeed be the case, it is ultimately incidental to the real reason, which is one which it is unfortunately one which tends to be difficult for humans to understand. The fact is, the dragons detest the ground, with an intensity and universality that goes beyond mere ethics or religion, and  into the realm of of the biological. It is simply anathema to them - most spend all their lives  without touching base Earth.
Thus, building cities on the ground was never going to be acceptable to them - and so, they had to be airborne.
Their distaste for the surface also extends to those who dwell there - although their hatred of the gnomes is unique, they consider those who live on the ground - whether they be humans, elves, dwarves, goblins, or anything else, to be scarcely better than animals. Though they have never really warred with the surface races, they certainly shed no tears if their war against the gnomes leads to collateral damage.
And it would be remiss to end this without describing what the dragons look like. They are vast, lizardlike creatures, with great, powerful wings, and sharp jaws. Their back  legs are short and rarely used, and their forelegs have developed to be used mainly as hands.
They are also very nearly lighter than air. You see, a dragon’s body is riddled with sacs. The heavier parts of the air are naturally filtered out by the dragon’s metabolism, and the lighter elements then stored in these sacs, which are made even lighter by the heat of the dragon’s body. The dragon, thus, acts most of the time essentially like a blimp -  although they do not in themselves provide enough lift to stay airborne, they allow the dragon’s wings to keep her airborne essentially indefinitely.
When hunting, they can expel the heated gasses from these sacs, a process reminiscent of the fire-breathing of the dragons of other worlds. Having done so, they are capable of diving at nearly a hundred miles an hour, and snatching an entire cow from the ground. At which point, they are forced to land while they eat, and whilst their air-sacs refill.
They are, frankly, less than pleasant creatures, but given their ability to swallow me whole, I have neglected to mention this to them.
Then, there are their enemies, the gnmes. They live in great caverns gar below the ground - if they can’t find one, they build one.
Their cities, vaster even than the great aerie-cities of the dragons, are some of the most spectacular sights in the world, if one ever has the chance to see them.
Because the gnomes are obsessed with art. They carve the rock into shapes which seem almost impossible to the human eye, their streets are lined with sculptures, their homes things of beauty. Where it seems some magic must be involved in much of what the dragons do, I am certain that the process by which the structures of the gnomes must be constructed by magical means. Certainly, both are able to use powerful sorcery, because they regularly do  so in their war with each other - in general they aren’t otherwise able to even touch the cities of their enemies.
And they take great interest in the surface races. They are in theory, benevolent. They will help those who are in need without question, share what they have, all those things one would expect from a race with nothing but good intentions.
Except for one thing. To the gnomes, cities are unbearably ugly things, scars upon the world. And though they attempt to be understanding, a city which grows too big will almost certainly incur their wrath -  in  general, most such cities find the earth beneath them has been dug away, and collapse into the ground.
It is for this reason that the surface races have never been able to develop as a power in their own  right. They are no match individually for either the strength of the dragons, nor the magic of the gnomes, and so they scrape out a living clustered in small villages, attempting always to keep out of the way of the more powerful races.