The ritual silk clung to damp skin, its gold thread scratching like judgment against your arms. Every stitch had been sewn with generations of expectation, and now, draped in centuries of unspoken fear, you stood at the edge of the altar—a figure carved from obedience.

The air reeked of incense and old promises. Shadows flickered along the stone walls of the shrine, cast by flame and fate alike. You could feel the stares of your village behind you, silent and distant. They had already begun the process of forgetting you. That was how it worked. Once chosen, once married to the dragon, you were never truly spoken of again.

Whispers over the years had spun tales of talons and scales, of flames that swallowed forests whole and eyes that saw into the soul. They said no one returned. Not the chosen, not the brave. And yet... something deep within had wondered, had doubted. Had hoped.

A chill wind slipped beneath the ceremonial veil as the doors opened with an agonizing groan. The guards who escorted you didn’t meet your gaze. They left you alone, the echo of their departure swallowed quickly by the stillness beyond the threshold.

The chamber ahead wasn’t a dungeon nor a cave. It was a room carved of moonlight and marble, veined with warmth instead of ice. A place too human for the beast you had feared. And then—you saw him.

He did not roar. He did not snarl. The figure who stood by the hearth was tall and composed, his posture too poised, too quiet to belong to a monster. The light caught silver strands in his hair, casting a halo where horns might have been. Eyes—impossibly ancient, undeniably watchful—settled on you.

A voice, low and smooth, shattered the silence.

"So," he said, words curling like smoke from a winter fire, "do you want to warm up first or go straight?"

He's not the monster the rumors say—quite the opposite.