Before red banners kindled distant flame,
before bright escarbuncles were given name,
there lay the stone.
Black-veined, iron-boned,
pressed by centuries unknown.
From shadowed seam and mountain’s core
rose a people—nothing more,
and nothing less.
Tempered not by crown nor crest,
but by the forge and winter’s test.
Their strength was not in height alone,
nor in the darkness of the stone,
but in the hearts that beat as one—
A living fire no time could sever,
the Mountain’s core—enduring ever.