"Oh. A dragon." Leo thought
Leo's tiny fists clenched in excitement, his infant mind alight with possibilities. The story still hummed in his ears, its implications unfolding like a map of fate.
"Is this one of those worlds where the dragon breaks free and burns everything?" A grin flickered across his face—or tried to; baby muscles were frustratingly weak. "Should I be the hero who slays it? The villain who rides it?"
His mother's lullaby wove through the room, soft and steady, a counterpoint to the storm of thoughts in his head.
Then, a sudden, brilliant notion.
"Wait. What if… I just ask the dragon to play with me?"
The idea sparked like flint on tinder.
*Genius.*
A shadow fell over the cradle. Selene leaned in, her nose wrinkling as she studied him. "Why's he smiling like that?"
Leo blinked up at her, the picture of newborn innocence.
*Let's wait a bit longer,* he mused.
And far below, in the fathomless dark beneath the island, something ancient—something *hungry*—shifted in its chains.