The bonfire blazed, casting a reddish glow on everyone's faces.
The smell of alcohol mixed with the aroma of roasted meat in the cold night wind. Brin's brother, Wear, his face flushed, was waving his arms, spitting as he vehemently argued with everyone.
"I really saw it! A dragon!"
Laughter erupted all around. Someone sprayed mead on the ground, while others slapped their bellies.
Another one of Brin's brothers slapped his thigh, laughing so hard he could barely breathe: "Wear, can you still drink? You're already bragging to this extent; I think you're truly drunk."
"It's true!" Wear stomped his foot in frustration, his face growing even redder. "I'm not lying to you all!"
"I really saw a dragon!!!"
The crowd grew, and more laughter filled the air.
"What kind of dragon?" Arthur didn't laugh. He spoke softly, setting down his silver goblet with a heavy thud, the bottom of the cup clinking against the rough ground.
This was truly bizarre, because just now he had seen another anomaly in the flames: a gigantic serpentine eye staring at him.
The sound wasn't loud, but it was like a stone dropped into a noisy pond; the laughter and chatter ceased abruptly.
Everyone's gaze converged on him.
"What kind of dragon?" Arthur asked again, his voice calm, yet carrying an undeniable weight.
Wear swallowed hard. The first time Arthur spoke, he doubted if Arthur was truly calling him, but when he spoke a second time, he confirmed that Arthur was indeed asking him.
The camp instantly fell silent, with only the crackling of burning firewood remaining. After all, Arthur had spoken.
Seeing Arthur ask him directly, Wear's drunkenness seemed to recede by a third, and he straightened his back excitedly:
"It…it's entirely made of stone! Motionless!!!"
He tried hard to gesture, wanting to make his description more convincing.
"A body of stone! Like a giant High Mountain! It was coiled in a huge cave! Motionless!"
He paused, swallowing a mouthful of saliva.
"At first, I also thought it was just a rock that looked like a dragon, but…."
Wear's voice lowered, with a trembling hint of lingering fear.
"Although its body was stone!! Its eyes were moving!!!"
"Long, narrow eyes!! Like a cat!! And like a snake!! Flashing in the darkness!! Wherever I walked!! It looked there!!"
"That's why I said it was a dragon! Not a rock that just looked like a dragon!!!"
To prove his words were true, he puffed out his chest, with a sense of pride from having survived a great ordeal.
"I even…I even touched it!"
This sentence once again caused a suppressed stir. The crowd held back their laughter, only because Arthur was present, they dared not make a sound.
"That stone! It felt icy cold to the touch! No different from the stones in the cave! If it weren't for those eyes! I would never have believed it was alive!"
These words plunged everyone present into an eerie silence.
They looked at Arthur, then at the earnestly swearing Wear, their mocking expressions long since frozen into suppressed smiles.
The Lord acted maturely, but he was still a youth, and youths were always interested in such legendary tales and mythical creatures.
Brin and his brothers exchanged glances, unable to understand why Arthur would question a drunkard's ramblings, and were confused by the situation.
Arthur did not press further. He picked up his goblet, took a small sip, and gently swirled the liquid inside, lost in thought.
This small interlude quickly passed, and the clamor of the crowd rose again, though the atmosphere now carried an indescribable nuance.
Arthur's thoughts, however, had drifted far away, his mind filled with countless ideas.
In Westeros, the known missing dragons were few, and only one was related to the Vale.
If the dragon mentioned by the drunkard referred to the sheep stealer, then if that dragon lived to this day, it would likely be older than Vhagar the Black Dread.
How could that be?
Furthermore, the power of magic had receded, and the world generally believed that the dragons of the Old World had long been extinct, until Daenerys hatched three new ones in the flames.
Arthur frowned slightly. Could it truly be just a drunkard's nonsense?
He looked up at Wear, who was still arguing with his companions, his face flushed and exasperated, yet his words were so firm, not like simple bragging.
Stone-like, dormant, motionless… only the eyeballs moved.
In the Eastern stories in his memory, there were indeed such tales: bodies cast in stone, souls unscattered, sleeping like mountains,
Awakening once every hundred years, life eternally frozen within the rock's confines.
Could it be like these stories, frozen as a magical creation of the old era due to the receding tide of magic…?
But what about the moving eyes?
And what did this have to do with him? Arthur frowned, why was this anomaly shown to him?
He didn't have Targaryen blood, nor did he understand magic, nor did he believe in the Lord of Light, and he certainly didn't possess a horn of dragonbinders.
Brin noticed Arthur's prolonged silence and tightly furrowed brows, a somewhat dazed state, and felt a brainstorm brewing.
Brin's heart tightened, fearing that the young Lord was falling into some kind of trance. He quickly leaned closer, his voice very low:
"My Lord, a drunkard's words are not to be taken seriously."
Arthur's gaze shifted from the flames to Brin: "When did he see it?"
"Roughly…a few months ago, I suppose." Brin recalled, "At that time, we were still in the wildlings' controlled territory, always being cautious not to be discovered."
"Only he, due to drinking to numb himself, got into this situation."
"But after he sobered up, he kept claiming he saw towering flames."
"In the flames, he saw his family waving to him, which is why he went there."
"But we hadn't lit any fires at that time."
"Be more specific." Arthur's voice was devoid of emotion.
Brin frowned, thought for a moment, then turned to ask his brother beside him.
A moment later, he gave an answer: "It was about two months ago, when the weather just started to turn cold."
Arthur's fingers, holding the goblet, suddenly tightened.
Two months ago was precisely the day he piled the heads of those wildlings into a mountain and set them ablaze, causing the anomaly to appear.
Brin, seeing Arthur's sudden change in expression, also suddenly remembered something:
"In the wildlings' legends, there was indeed mention of a special cave. They…they called that place Dragon's Body Mountain."
He hastily added.
"It might truly just be a giant rock that looks like a dragon. Besides, this kid Wear has never seen a real dragon. How would he know what a dragon looks like?"
"Right." Arthur slowly uttered the word, his eyes brightening. This generation of Westeros hasn't seen dragons, so whether it's drunken nonsense can be known by simply asking.
Arthur tilted his head towards Brin:
"Bring him over there."
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