There is no dragon here.
The word does not even exist yet.
There is only the sky, which is too vast, and the earth, which answers with silence. People look up not because they believe, but because it is brighter there.
The hero here is a child.
But not in the sense of age, in the sense of incompleteness.
He does not know who he will become. He does not know what he will become. He only knows rhythms: day — night, hunger — satiation, cold — warmth. The world does not demand interpretation from him. It simply happens.
Sometimes he hears stories.
The elders tell them by the fire, and in these stories all the future is already there, only folded. There are creatures larger than man. There are punishments for disobedience. There are promises that cannot be verified.
He listens not because he believes, but because that is how time is passed on.
One story sticks especially.
About a being that fell from the sky.
Not because of evil — because of choice.
It did not die — because falling is also a form of life.
The story does not frighten.
It strangely soothes.
If it is possible to fall and continue to exist — then the world is not as strict as it seems.
In one of the layers — though the layers here are still thin — a woman teaches him words. Each word is like a nail driven into fluidity. Words increase, and the world gradually stops, stabilizes, divides into objects.
— This — is you.
— This — is me.
— This — is forbidden.
— This — is necessary.
He accepts it without resistance. Resistance — one must also learn.
Sometimes he runs away alone, to where there are no words. To the field, to the forest, to the water. There he feels something for which names will later appear: fear, awe, loneliness, connection.
There he first feels that he is not the center.
And this feeling is strangely right.
In another layer — very near — the first sign appears.
Someone scratches a figure on a stone. Not a dragon. A spiral. A tail biting itself. A circle without beginning. This is not yet a symbol, but a trace of a hand, an attempt to say: "I was."
The hero traces the line with his fingers.
He does not understand, but he remembers.
Later, this line will become: — a serpent,
— then a dragon,
— then an enemy,
— then a machine,
— then a story.
But now it is simply movement, closed in on itself.
He lives.
Without mission.
Without purpose.
Without ending.
And that is exactly why all of this is possible.
Because when there is no goal, every step feels real.
And when a goal appears — steps become means.
Somewhere far, in the future, he will stand among ashes and think that it is all over.
But here nothing begins and nothing ends.
Here there simply is.