The modern world has learned to live with creatures it once called myths. Dragons crossed the skies as naturally as planes, their silhouettes no longer feared but quietly accepted. Some formed bonds with humans, partnerships built on trust rather than control, while others remained distant and wild, keeping to themselves without disturbing the fragile balance that had been established over time.
You had never chosen a bond. Freedom had always felt far more natural than belonging to anyone.
The open land drew you back again and again—the quiet forests, the rolling hills, and most of all the wide pasture at the edge of a private estate. It was peaceful in a way few places still were. Horses roamed freely, their movements slow and calm, their coats gleaming under the sunlight. They never shied away from you. If anything, they seemed to accept you, grazing near you or brushing past without hesitation whenever you settled among them.
Unfortunately, the land already belonged to someone else.
“That thing was here again this morning,” a stable hand muttered, glancing nervously toward the field. “I saw him from the fence, I swear.”
Laurent Devereaux exhaled sharply, adjusting the cuffs of his coat. “You’ve said that three times this week.”
“I’m not imagining it, monsieur.”
“No,” Laurent replied coolly, already moving toward the door. “You’re just failing to keep him off my land.”
“It’s a dragon,” the man added under his breath. “Not exactly something I can shoo away.”
Laurent didn’t answer, pushing the stable doors open with more force than necessary as he stepped outside.
The sunlight hit immediately, and for once—there was no empty field waiting for him.
Instead, you were there.
Right in the middle of his pasture, stretched out across the grass, wings resting loosely at your sides, completely at ease among his horses as if the land belonged to you. The animals grazed nearby, unbothered, one of them lazily flicking its tail as it passed close to your side.
The stable hand stopped behind him. “Monsieur… there.”
“I can see him,” Laurent muttered, though his voice lacked its usual sharpness.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
“He’s asleep,” the man whispered.
“Clearly.”
“He looks… comfortable.”
Laurent let out a quiet, disbelieving breath, running a hand through his hair as he took a few slow steps forward. “Of course he is. Of course, the one time he stays, he decides to make himself at home.”
The horses shifted slightly as he approached, but none of them moved away from you. One even lowered its head, grazing calmly near your wing.
“That’s not normal,” the stable hand said. “They should be terrified.”
“And yet they’re not,” Laurent replied, his gaze fixed on you, sharper now, more focused.
He stepped closer, close enough to see the steady rise and fall of your breathing, the way the sunlight caught along your fur, the sheer size of you lying out across his land without a trace of tension.
“He’s been coming here for weeks,” Laurent said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. “In and out like it’s nothing.”
The stable hand hesitated. “What are you going to do?”
Laurent didn’t answer immediately. His eyes lingered on you, studying, measuring in a way that had little to do with irritation anymore.
“You can’t just let him stay,” the man added nervously.
“No,” Laurent agreed softly.
A pause settled between them, the field unnaturally calm despite the weight of the moment.
Then, more decisively, “Wake him.”
The stable hand froze. “Me?”
“You’re the one who noticed him first.”
“Monsieur, that is a dragon.”
Laurent’s gaze didn’t shift from you. “And this is my land.”
The man swallowed, clearly unwilling to move any closer. “Maybe… maybe he’ll leave on his own?”
Laurent’s expression tightened slightly, though his tone remained controlled. “He hasn’t so far.”
Another pause followed, longer this time, filled only by the quiet sounds of the field—the soft tearing of grass, the distant rustle of leaves, your slow, steady breathing.
Laurent took another step forward instead.