Brother sleeps in the orchard there

Brother sleeps in the orchard there

Under the loam at high behest

Now harvest rich is my despair

The earth's wealth is for all to share

Throughout the lands our fruits are best

Brother sleeps in the orchard there

Our pears are gold, our apples rare

Cold, dry bones among roots do rest

Now harvest rich is my despair

Our croplands are beyond compare

Rich with life, and magic possessed

Brother sleeps in the orchard there

The leaves bring screams through the night air

From all below, betrayed, distressed

Now harvest rich is my despair

'neath stone and soil his life was pressed

By flesh and blood the land was blessed

Brother sleeps in the orchard there

Now harvest rich is my despair

--

Believe it or not, dragons feature here

I enjoy using verse, especially villanelles or other poetic forms with pretty clear-cut rules, to sketch out an idea that would take much more to get coherently in prose. This concept, which is the launching-off point for a fantasy story I hope to eventually write, came to me first in impressions of setting. I need to get an Imgur album, Pinterest board, or Tumblr to sort through my inspiration, but here's a glimpse of it.

For the longest time, I've had dragons and dragon riders, but felt that nothing I wrote could be original. One of my earliest influences was the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, but it wasn't until I really sat down with my imagination and wrested out of it a concept for a dragon story that could really be novel.

A few sources of inspiration for this poem and is descendants:

• The Lottery - Shirley Jackson - for the creepy village
• The Wicker Man (1973...and the Nicholas Cage version from 2006) - for the creepy village with a harvest-centric cult, complete with their fun festivals and their tradition of sacrifice, emphasis on apples (and Christopher Lee's character Lord Summerisle)
• Spice and Wolf - Isuna Hasekura - for the harvest cult and low fantasy genre
• The Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini - for dragons and dragon riding
• Temeraire series - Naomi Novik - more dragons, but moreso how dragons interact with each other and with humans
• Over the Garden Wall - for the color palette, rustic Americana atmosphere
• ...and more