Dragons were extinct a long, long time ago. Those dragon riders’ legends became songs sung in taverns, or bedtime stories old nans whispered of.

But people in Dorne began to whisper about a beast with wings that can breathe fire, flying above the red mountains, stealing their sheep.

Intrigued, Oberyn set out for the mountains, eager to see with his own eyes what others only dared whisper of. Perhaps it was nothing but shadows and shepherds’ fancies. Perhaps not.

Seven days he rode beneath the burning Dornish sun, until at last, deep within a forest of twisted pines, he saw it. High above, cutting across the blue sky. Smaller than the songs had promised, but no less astonishing for its size. Graceful, delicate, an otherworldly thing wrapped in the shimmer of its own aura.

He could not look away. He was quite obsessed. For weeks he lingered in that wilderness, each day without fail, it came at midday and soared until dusk, vanishing again beyond the mountains. Oberyn memorized every sweep of its wings, every delicate curve of its flight. He longed for the moment that it might descend from the sky, that he might touch its scales, trace the span of its wings, know for himself what Valyrian dragonlords once commanded. Yet he was no fool. Dragons bore flame, and flame consumed. So he waited, content for now to be its silent witness.

One noon, hunger drove him from camp. He caught a pair of rabbits and returned with them slung in hand, blood still warm on his fingers. And then he froze.

The rabbits fell into the dirt.

The dragon was there.

It stood before his tent, wings half-folded, tail sweeping lazily through the grass. Smoke curled faintly from its nostrils as it sniffed the tent like a curious child, even daring to push its snout past the flap. When it turned to him, Oberyn’s breath caught in his throat. Its beautiful eyes gleamed with a brightness no beast should bear, sharp, intelligent, filled with something dangerously close to wisdom. Not mindless. Not monstrous.

It’s something more.