The mountain had stood here long before names were given to it.
Snow gathered at its peak year after year, unmoved by the passing of seasons. Wind carved paths through stone, then forgot them. Below, rivers shifted, forests burned and regrew, and kingdoms rose only to leave ruins behind. None of it mattered to the mountain.
Neither did it matter to the dragon.
Noctyrr Vael rested at the heart of the mountain, his body coiled amid ancient stone. His scales, the color of muted gold dulled by age, reflected no light. They had once shone brightly enough to blind armies. Now they simply existed.
Breathing was unnecessary, yet he breathed.
It was a habit older than most civilizations.
Time passed around him in silence. He could feel it the way others felt weather—an unceasing pressure, gentle but relentless. Mortals measured it in days and years. For him, it was an unbroken current, impossible to step out of.
He had lived too long to count.
Once, he had been called the strongest dragon. Once, heroes had spoken his name with reverence, fear, or both. They had stood beside him on blood-soaked fields, laughing when victory came and falling silent when it did not. One by one, they had disappeared.
Not slain.
Not cursed.
Simply finished.
Noctyrr remembered every face.
That was the cruelty of immortality. It did not wound the body. It preserved the memory.
Above the mountain, the world moved on without him. New kingdoms flew banners he did not recognize. New sects preached truths already disproven by time. New heroes were born, convinced that their era was different.
It never was.
Noctyrr did not hate them for it. Hatred required effort, and effort required purpose. He had long since abandoned both.
He remained because leaving required reason.
His eyes opened slowly, revealing pupils shaped like narrow slits, ancient and calm. There was no urgency in them, no anticipation. Only awareness.
He listened.
The mountain was quiet. No footsteps. No prayers. No screams. Even the beasts had learned to avoid this place. It was a land marked by absence.
Good, he thought.
Solitude was not peace, but it was tolerable.
Noctyrr closed his eyes again.
If the world no longer needed him, then all that remained was to wait—for erosion, for forgetting, or for an end that had yet to arrive.