DRAGONSKIN SLEEP PRAYER

A pale and knobby hand wiped the summer night's oppressive sweat from his star-shined and liver-spotted head. A baby's fatty fingers toyed and tangled in the white beard between them.
He tucked his granddaughter in a blanket of the flayed-off skin of a once-dragon man. And he said:

THE CHIMERA EATS UNTIL IT REACHES ITS HEAD

Hush child, soften your cries and hearken:
This swaddle is the skin of tyrants,
And while you sleep tightly in its embrace,
No vicious tooth or thundering wing or psychic breath can harm you.

PEACE IS BUT A FASTER WAR

For I have wrested this for you, from the flesh of dragons,
That when you've grown and I am gone,
It will be your mail,
And my lullaby, your sword.

TWO SWORDS SWUNG THE SAME WILL CLASH

Sleep now in the armor of our foe,
For it will guard you as surely as your own skin,
And know that in your dreams you are fearsome as a dragon.

THE SHEPHERD IS NOT THE CHRIST