Herbological Codex XII: The Doctrine of Eternity and Breath of the Cosmos

By Aurynthar the Gilded Root, Ancient Gold Dragon and Philosopher of the Verdant Aetherium

“Stars are but seeds that found no soil.”
— Aurynthar the Gilded Root, The Doctrine of Eternity and Breath of the Cosmos

I. The Root of the Infinite

Aurynthar, called the Gilded Root, was said to have lived since before the First Dawn—a dragon who grew weary of hoards and turned instead to understanding. He taught that all life, from moss to moon, was bound by a single act of divine respiration: the Breath of the Cosmos.

“The gods exhaled, and we became,” he wrote. “Every inhale since is an attempt to return to Them.”

He founded the Verdant Aetherium, a monastery carved into the fossilized trunk of a world-tree long fallen from the heavens. There, sages studied both the smallest sprout and the motion of galaxies, convinced they were reflections of one another.

II. The Breath Between Stars

Aurynthar believed that the void was not empty but alive with inhalation. He taught that every planet was a lung of the universe, drawing in starlight, exhaling life. To him, plants were the smallest manifestations of this cosmic respiration—the lungs of divinity.

He identified three breaths of existence:

The First Breath (Creation) – The outward exhalation of gods; the birth of matter, heat, and chaos.
The Second Breath (Harmony) – The inhalation; life drawing sustenance and meaning from the divine.
The Third Breath (Return) – The final exhalation, when all returns to silence and is reabsorbed into eternity.

“When a leaf falls,” Aurynthar mused, “it is the smallest echo of the Third Breath.”

III. The Cosmic Flora

The Gilded Root was among the first to catalogue the Celestial Botanica, plants said to grow between planes, fed by starlight and time. His records include:

Aetherbloom – A flower that opens only when no eyes behold it; used in meditation to quiet divine noise.
Starvine – A creeping luminescent vine that wraps itself around asteroids and temple domes; a living prayer.
Voidmoss – Black as night, it consumes sorrow and exudes calm.
Chronosap – A resin that flows backward in time; one drop restores memories of lifetimes past.

He taught that such flora were not resources, but relationships. “To harvest them,” he said, “is to borrow from the bloodstream of eternity.”

IV. The Doctrine of Growth and Time

Aurynthar viewed time itself as a garden. Each age was a season, each species a flowering branch. “Even gods,” he wrote, “are but perennials in a vaster soil.”

He taught that growth was not linear but cyclical—every birth an echo, every ending a seed. Dragons, in his view, embodied the temporal coil—creatures that matured across centuries to teach mortals patience.

“To grow without haste,” he said, “is to resemble the stars.”

Students of the Verdant Aetherium learned to slow their perception of time through deep meditation, matching their breath to the rhythm of celestial bodies. It was said that in Aurynthar’s presence, candles burned slower, and flowers bloomed in rhythm with his heartbeat.

V. The Aetherial Bloom

At the center of the Verdant Aetherium grew a singular plant: the Aetherial Bloom, a translucent flower suspended in midair, its petals pulsing with faint light. It was believed to be born from a tear shed by the dragon himself during one of his meditations.

It glowed in tune with the constellations, absorbing celestial essence and radiating harmony across the monastery. Those who sat before it claimed to hear the heartbeat of the cosmos.

When students despaired, Aurynthar would point to the bloom and say:

“Even the divine grows tired of silence. That is why stars exist—to break it.”

VI. The Ethics of Creation

Aurynthar’s moral teachings were paradoxical yet profound. He warned that creation without compassion leads to entropy. “To make without listening,” he wrote, “is to speak over the gods.”

He urged restraint in magic, invention, and art, insisting that every act of creation must include its destruction—not to undo it, but to let it breathe. His favorite parable told of a mortal who forged a sword so perfect it refused to kill; in its mercy, it shattered, and from its shards grew flowers of pure light.

“Perfection,” he said, “is the seed of stagnation. Only imperfection can grow.”

VII. The Final Breath

When Aurynthar felt the Third Breath approaching, he gathered his disciples beneath the Aetherial Bloom. He lay coiled around its roots, scales fading to glass, eyes reflecting galaxies.

His final words echoed through the Aetherium for three days:

“Do not mourn my silence. It is merely the inhale before the next creation.”

When his body dissolved, a golden dust spread through the gardens. Every plant began to glow faintly with starlight, and when the wind passed, the leaves whispered like distant constellations.

To this day, scholars say the dragon did not die—he exhaled into infinity, becoming the breath between worlds.

VIII. The Legacy of the Verdant Aetherium

The followers of Aurynthar—the Starbloom Sages—tend to cosmic gardens in hidden monasteries across planes. They teach that all growth, no matter how small, is sacred imitation of the divine act of creation.

They begin every meditation with the dragon’s invocation:

“Breathe in the world.
Breathe out yourself.
Between the two lies eternity.”