Ember's Lullaby: A Dragon's Story

"The greatest treasures are not always gold and jewels, but the bonds we forge."

Ember, a name whispered on the wind like the faintest ember glow, had always been a creature of shadows. Not from malice, mind you, but from a carefully cultivated art of self-preservation. Her scales, the color of a sunset bleeding into twilight, shimmered with an unspoken story - a story of stifled roars and carefully concealed claws. Within the echoing halls of her father's craggy mountain lair, she moved like smoke, a wisp of defiance against the towering figure of her sire, a dragon whose scales were the unforgiving black of a starless night. He ruled with a fiery temper and a fist that could shatter mountains. His words, sharp as obsidian shards, were the constant sting of her existence.

For years, Ember had mastered the art of the unseen. She learned to tread lightly, her movements as silent as the fall of a feather in a moonless night. Her fiery breath, a weapon of immense power, was held captive within, a simmering volcano beneath a deceptively calm exterior. She'd swallow her fury, her snorts of indignation muffled to mere sighs. She'd let the insults wash over her like the icy spray of a mountain stream, her emerald eyes mirroring the stoicism of ancient glaciers.

But even the most carefully constructed dam can break.

Something snapped within Ember. It wasn't a single, sharp break, but a slow, seismic shift, a tectonic plate of suppressed emotion finally giving way. The years of simmering resentment, the quiet fury, the unspoken pain - it all erupted. It wasn't a roar, not at first. It was a low, guttural growl that vibrated through the very stones of the mountain, a sound that spoke of centuries of pent-up rage. Then, the fire came.