The Great Dragon Butterfly

One day there was a Great Dragon, it looked scary, and had a big roar. Then some king decided something should be done about this dragon, and marched a small army off to fight the great Dragon. When they got to the Dragon, it turned out to be docile, and playful. It wasn’t a terrible monster, as they’d assumed. It’s roar could be heard miles away, sure, but it preferred to eat fruit and the occasional fish, rather than people and their livestock.

So, the king declared that the Dragon was no threat, and that they wouldn’t be attacking it at all, and would instead gather baskets of fruit and fish to give to the Dragon. After they’d brought a huge pile of food to the Dragon, and it had eaten its fill, it then presented them with a dazzling display. It began to glow brightly in brilliant colors all over its body, shining in the night, casting light for miles around. At the end of this great dance, it transformed. Into a butterfly.

The butterfly gave a great flap of its tiny wings, glowed as bright as a star, and flew away into the night sky. The king and his army cheered in delight. Upon his return to his castle, the king declared that the butterfly would be revered as sacred forever more. The kingdom devoted itself to caring for butterflies. Beautiful works of art were created all across the kingdom depicting butterflies.

Around the world, though, there was an evil empire that had been gathering up its forces and preparing to invade the lands of the other side of the world in order to rule the whole world. And just as they launched their greatest fleet ever, carrying every weapon in their arsenal, a great storm came upon the fleet. The storm decimated the fleet, and only a few ships managed to limp back home.

This storm was declared, by the Emperor, to be the Breath of the Dragon, the greatest storm ever witnessed by man. The empire soon crumbled, having lost all its military might in just one night. Before the Emperor was overthrown he declared that the Great Dragon had punished the Empire for its great evil.

When people from the other side eventually traveled across the world with the tale of the Great Dragon Butterfly, the people who had witnessed the storm, and survived the fall of the Empire, decided that the storm had, indeed, been caused by the Great Dragon of lore. From that day forward the people of the former Empire devoted themselves to butterflies, just as the people of the other side of the world had. And so the whole world was conquered, quelled, and made at peace by the Great Dragon Butterfly. And butterflies ruled the world from then on.