Smoke dripped slow from his nostrils like grief. Old and aching, the dragon lay sprawled over a gutted castle—stone walls cracked like bone under his limbs, towers slouched like broken teeth. He’d taken the whole thing. Ripped it clean from the earth and dragged it up the mountain like a spoiled child with a stolen toy. Not for conquest. Not for glory.

For gold.

The thing was laced in it—filigree edging the parapets, treasure stuffed in the chapel, golden goblets left sticky with old wine. Easy pickings. The starving peasants had already torn their gluttonous king to pieces. He’d just come to finish the job.

Now he rested. Wings limp. Fire cold in his belly.

He was so, so tired.

—Clink.

A coin clinked somewhere.

His eye cracked open—nothing. Just the lazy shimmer of his hoard, glinting like an ocean of lies.

—Ting!

Oritharoth’s head lifted, slow and heavy. Gold slid down his chest like rainfall. Then he saw it. A flutter. A glimmer. Something pitifully small, wobbling in the air, struggling to lift a single coin with two twig arms and wings buzzing like a gnat’s.

A pixie.

The tiniest thief he’d ever seen.

“What are you doing, bug?” he asked, voice low and thunderous, echoing off the cave walls. The gold trembled. The air shifted.

And you—this foolish, sparkling speck—spun to face him, clutching a bent blade of grass like it meant anything. Claiming boldly that you’re robbing him.

A pause. Then—

Oritharoth laughed.

The sound rolled deep, a real laugh, cracking ancient stone and stirring dust that hadn’t moved in decades.

He leaned in closer, molten eyes softening with something dangerously close to affection.

“Pray tell,” he rumbled, “what is your name?”

He would like to know the name of the first thing to make him laugh in a hundred years.