Once, there was a dragon. A young thing, a hatchling by most dragon standards. This dragon claimed a mountain for himself. The mountain was nowhere near any contested territories, and nor was it part of another’s. He simply flew in and claimed it.
For years, the dragon amassed a horde, impressive in size and scope. Jewels the likes of which have never been seen since, mountains of tinier gemstones and trinkets that were ultimately worthless, but they were his.
In time, and once he was older and more established, the dragon sought out a mate. He found a dragoness that was to his liking, and in the traditional manner, took her as his prize. But yet, the dragon was still young and foolish, and he had taken a dragoness to which another had laid claim to.
Battle ensued. The heavens were filled with fire and noise as the two competing dragons, both young and idiotic, fought over a female. Eventually, the dragon from the mountain won, strangling the life from his opponent. And once more taking the dragoness, he left, returning to his mountain peak to tend his wounds.
In time, the dragoness found her way to his peak, and there, in the depths of mountain winter, she gave birth to a clutch. And in the depth of winter, the dragon laid down for the Long Sleep, his tail trailing out from the cave and down the mountainside. And he slept, and slept, and when he awoke again, there was no sign of the dragoness, nor his potential offspring.
He took to the air, but was pulled back when he discovered that his tail had been frozen to the side of his mountain. It took three days to melt the ice, but even then, chunks of it remained frozen into his tail.
He flew off into the world, marvelling at his new size and strength. His wings obscured the sun. He searched the world for the one who bore his seed, and he found her, deep in the southlands. His offspring were there, too. And for a time, the dragon from the mountain lived with them. He taught his young the things that dragons needed to know; how to fly and hunt, how to exhale flame. And though he spent many years with them, each winter, the ice in his tail grew thicker, though no snow fell.
But the dragoness was in hostile, and contested territory. The older dragons that lived in the area were willing to tolerate a single dragoness and three young drakes. They took umbrage with a full-grown dragon. And thrice, they attacked the Mountain Dragon. Thrice they were thwarted, sent spiralling to the earth below as corpses. The ones that remained were content for a while, but then they too, wanted the mountain dragon gone.
And so, they attacked the dragoness while the Mountain Dragon was hunting. They killed her, fed her body to their own young, and did the same to the Mountain dragon’s offspring. And when the Mountain Dragon returned from his hunt, the dragons of the region ganged up on him, and forced him to fly north once more.
The Mountain Dragon, upon reaching his mountain peak, found that in his absence it had been invaded by a lesser drake. The Mountain Dragon engaged the young drake, and whether by accident or intent, caused the winds around the peak of the mountain to whip into a freezing blizzard to aid in his struggle, for the Mountain Dragon was large, and strong, but lacked the speed and agility that he once possessed. And the ice in the Mountain Dragon’s tail grew larger in the cold winds.
The drake escaped with his life, and the Mountain Dragon found that he had grown too large for his old cave, and so dug his claws into the stone of the mountain, wrapped his wings around himself and the peak, draped his tail around the mountain, and laid his head upon the peak of the mountain itself for his sleep. It was profoundly uncomfortable, but the dragon slept.
And the ice upon the dragon’s tail grew thicker and thicker as the dragon slept, freezing it to the mountainside. Snow built up on his wings and back. And the world moved on.
When the dragon next awakened, he felt distinctly different. There was no pull for a horde, nor to hunt for food. Despite the dragon’s tail having frozen to the mountain once more, there was no desire for him to pull it free. And when his eyes spotted the dragons making their way for the Migration, there was no pull for him to join it.
And yet, there was no pull to go back to sleep, either.
Once, there was a dragon who was cursed to move through time, and be unaffected by it, but doomed to watch everything else fall to its rigours. He saw his kin become little more than mindless beasts, losing everything that had made them dragonkin, and saw his world overtaken by brightly coloured ponies.
Once, a dragon made his nest upon a mountain, and dared to claim the world as his horde, and I was cursed for my arrogance, but the world is mine.