The red dragon.
It was kilometers away, which made it appear approximately human-sized—and that scale relationship alone communicated how massive it actually was. Walking. Not flying. Moving in a single consistent direction with the slow, heavy pace of something that had stopped making decisions and was simply continuing forward because forward was what came after the previous step.
Its body was covered in wounds. The battle had taken from it without restraint, and it had given without reservation in return, and the accounting of that exchange was visible in every movement. Not debilitating—a creature of that power didn't become debilitating from one battle—but present. Real. The evidence of what it had spent.
It wasn't moving toward survival. It wasn't moving toward anything in particular. It was moving the way things move when the alternative is stillness, and stillness is where the weight of everything catches up.
Leon asked without looking away from it.
