Lullaby for a Dragon
The mountain was quiet now.

Once, it had thrummed with the roars of dragonkind, their shadows darkening the skies like passing storms. But time, as it does with all things, had taken its toll. Hunters, wars, and creeping cold had thinned their numbers. Now, only one remained.

Sereth, the last great dragon, coiled herself around a single, obsidian egg nestled deep within the heart of her cavern. The walls shimmered with old magic, glowing faintly blue where the ancient runes pulsed with her breath. Outside, the wind howled across the peaks, but it could not reach them here.

She closed her eyes and pressed her snout gently to the shell. Inside, a flicker of warmth pulsed — slow and uncertain, like a heartbeat still learning its rhythm.

“You must be strong,she whispered, her voice a low rumble. “Stronger than me. Stronger than all who came before.
Every night, she sang.

It wasn’t a song of fire or fury, but one of stars and storms, of wind beneath wings and the deep thrum of the earth. Her lullaby, woven from the memory of sky-dances and firelight, wrapped around the egg like a spell — not of protection, but of hope.

She sang of clouds that held dragons like dreams, of rivers that mirrored their flight, of ancient glades where hatchlings once played beneath sapphire moons.

And though the egg was silent, it listened.

As the days passed and the shadows of men crept closer — axes, steel, and fear in their hearts — Sereth stood guard. Wounded but unbroken, she scorched the skies and shook the mountains, buying time with every beat of her wings.

Until, one evening, she did not rise.

Her body lay still, curled protectively around the egg, a final barrier against the world.

But the cavern pulsed with a new warmth now. A faint crack whispered through the stillness. Then another.

From the shell, a claw emerged, tipped in molten gold.

The last dragon opened its eyes.

And from somewhere in the stones, faint and ancient, the lullaby echoed on
— the song of a mother who had given everything, so her child might fly.