It feels all too fitting to begin this tale with a near-death—figurative perhaps, but no less real. I'd just finished my bachelor's degree (half of it lived through the haze of the pandemic) and drifted, code in hand, through the job-market void. In the lonely days of 2020 I binge-watched every show I could find—yet it was Game of Thrones that set my imagination ablaze. When House of the Dragon roared onto the screen, I fell in love all over again…only to discover that more than a hundred fanfictions still left me wanting.
Back then, while I was carefree, everyone else hurried to build skills. A handful landed the college placements we'd been promised; the rest of us waited. The IT sector's golden promise felt like a lie: I'm a programmer, yet never imagined I'd end up dying over coding a game.
Those thoughts live rent-free in my brain now, as I find myself trapped in a cramped, stifling darkness. I don't know if this is hell or some terrible rebirth, but the pain tells me one thing for certain: it feels like the former.
A Crack and a Breath
Sleep was my only refuge from the agony—until a sharp crack split the darkness. My head snapped back, and for a moment I tasted dust, stone, and something eerily warm. Then, at last, I drew air into lungs that felt brand-new.
Warily, I forced my eyelids open. The world shimmered in wavering shadows. A low heat pressed against my skin, and the acrid tang of burning rock stung my nostrils. I lifted a hand—and froze. My fingers brushed ivory-white shell, mottled with crimson veins. I was inside an egg.
Panic flared, but I fought it down. Brick-hard shell pressed every inch of me; I stamped my foot hard enough to crack a hairline fissure. It widened. I thrust my shoulder into the shell, and it shattered with a hollow roar.
Emergence
Blinding light flooded my vision as I clawed my way free. Lava-glow stones lined cavern walls; drips of molten rock hissed where they fell. I staggered onto solid ground, rain of hot ash sizzling at my boots.
I looked down at myself: I was small—no infant, but scarcely more than a child by Westerosi standards. Damp hair clung to my shoulders. My clothes were gone, replaced by taut skin marked with swirling runes etched in faint violet light.
A voice, neither male nor female, spoke inside my mind:
System Online. Bounding Protocol Activated.Current Luck Units: 3.
I staggered back, heart pounding. Luck? Units? The runes pulsed under my palm when I touched my forearm.
Fragments of Yesterday
Memories—distant, tangled memories—flooded in. A code file on my laptop, lines of Python that I'd perfected before the world went dark. Friends celebrating placements I'd watched from a distance. The roar of a dragon, the hiss of flame. A Valyrian prince's laugh. And always the nagging dread that I might never wake.
I shook my head, dispelling the fragments. Here, in this volcanic womb, yesterday's worries felt both absurd and achingly close.
Standing on Dragonstone's Edge
I took a tentative step forward, the cave's mouth yawning before me. Beyond, Dragonstone's jagged cliffs caught the first pale light of dawn. The sea crashed against ancient basalt—an endless rhythm of birth and destruction.
I drew a deep breath. I didn't know who had placed these runes on me, or why I had hatched from a dragon egg. I didn't know how to bind Luck, nor even the shape of the days to come. But I knew this: I was alive, and this world—dragons, blood, and all—was waiting.
With trembling resolve, I stepped out of the cavern and into my new life.