Wings of the Earth (And Other Dragon Stories)

Wings of the Earth is the first of a trilogy about dragons I intend to produce within the foreseeable future. The last two books are not yet named or in production, but the first, Wings of the Earth, is in beta-stage writing; the story is complete, it only requires further polishing!
The plan is to heavily illustrate these books. I will yet see if illustrating every single facing page is reasonable. I certainly *would* do it, it just depends on whether the content really calls for it.

Summary: The primal elemental forces birthed by the Planet toil at odds with each other for time unmeasurable... until they noticed that new life-forms - wild animals - had sprung up as a result of the scars of their struggle. Curious, and on some level yearning for change and evolution, the Great Elementals took aspects of the beasts' forms and gave those features to themselves, becoming the first Draconic creatures. The element of Earth, ever cherishing living things, created the first Dragon in her image; the other elementals, not to let one of their sisters be at some novel advantage, followed suit. What would happen in the the first two generations of Dragons would change the hearts of the elementals forever, along with, ultimately, the fate of the world.

The verbal style of the first book, Wings of the Earth, is intentionally verbose and condensed; it is a historical account written in great reverence, literally carved into stone, that had been passed down by oral tradition over many generations. As such, it is as flowery and verbose as possible while still trying to preserve reasonable readability, and condensed for of course no one knows the unimportant details anymore.
The second book is planned to be a more casual account of the Harmony of the "Modern" (at time of writing) dragon age; the third book is slated to return to relatively formal language, as it is an account by one of the [redacted] of the end of the elemental deities' world, and the end of all [redacted].

If clans of dragons and their elemental gods seems familiar, well... don't tell Flight Rising staff. Yes, it is derivative of my FR original characters & lore I made up for them. However, I intend to worldbuild fully on my own, making the series familiar to but tangibly different from others' intellectual property.

Wings of the Earth (Beta): Excerpt
Nattaki’s little voice was drowned out by the sound of rushing water as Terramandi stirred, rose, and moved forward through the lake towards him. Before anyone knew what was happening, the colossal elemental had scooped up her little protege and brought him closer to her face. Her voice grew quiet, so only Nattaki could hear.
I hope you keep asking these questions forever, she said. Here, your curiosity will always be rewarded in great measure. As I always have, tiny one, I will be watching. Listen to your parents who are made of trees, listen to your clan leader who is my daughter, listen to your clanmates who have learned so much from experience, and listen most of all to the sound of the wild, she said. I have a whole domain to care for, and the eternal work of protecting it, but I promise we will spend more time together, and it will be precious indeed.

Early Development Illustrations (character designs FAR from final):