The Dragons – The Rising East

• Symbolism: China (primarily), with echoes of other Asian powers.

• Traits: Silent, coiled, patient, immense fire hidden within.

• Conflict: Waiting for the Lions and Eagles to tire, then uncoiling to claim its place.

• Theme: Patience, ambition, the quiet strength of time and numbers.

Beneath the mountains, where rivers coiled like silver serpents and the earth still remembered dynasties carved in stone, the Dragons stirred. They did not rush to the Round Table as the Lions once had, nor did they sweep the skies like the Eagles. Instead, they coiled in patience, their scales glistening with the weight of centuries, their breath faint with fire not yet released.

The Dragons were ancient — older than the Lions, older even than the Bears.

They had once ruled in splendor, their flames feared across the valley. Kingdoms had bowed to them, and the very air had trembled at their might.

But storms of invasion, famine, and humiliation had driven them into the caves. For a long time, the world believed the Dragons had slumbered forever.

Yet at the Round Table, their shadow grew again. Slowly, deliberately, a great Dragon uncoiled and took its seat. Its scales shimmered crimson and gold, its whiskers brushed the edges of the table, and its eyes glowed with an eternal patience that unnerved even the proud Eagles.

The Lions roared in protest: “You come too late. The table is already ours, the seats already taken.”

The Dragon only narrowed its eyes. “The table is round. There is no head, no throne, no place that cannot be claimed again.”

The Eagles flapped their wings in defiance. “You rise because we allow it. We guard the skies. Do not mistake our tolerance for weakness.”

The Dragon’s mouth curled into a faint smile, smoke curling from its nostrils. “The skies are wide, but the earth is vast.

"While you circle above, I build below. My rivers carry trade, my mountains forge steel, my cities burn bright long after your wings tire.”

The Bears growled in recognition. They had felt the Dragon’s stirring on their borders, its claws reaching into frozen soil. The Wolves whispered of its generosity, how the Dragon shared its treasures with packs too small to be noticed by the Eagles or Lions. The Elephants, long silent, began to shift their weight, sensing a fellow ancient rising from slumber.

At the table, the Dragon spoke little. It listened more than it roared, observed more than it struck. But when it did speak, its words carried the weight of inevitability:

"The river never rushes, yet it shapes the land. The fire never announces itself, yet when it comes, all bow before its heat. I do not rush to claim this table. I will let time bring it to me."

The Eagles scoffed, but unease rippled through their feathers. The Lions, once kings, bristled — for they knew the sound of inevitability when they heard it.

And so the Dragon coiled at the Round Table, not as a challenger, but as a presence that could not be ignored. It did not roar like the Lions, nor cry like the Eagles. Its silence was its strength, its patience its greatest weapon.

In the valley beyond, the younger beasts watched with awe. They saw the Dragon trade, build, and grow. They saw the way it expanded not through war but through hunger — hunger for influence, for space, for the table itself.

And in their hearts, they wondered:

When the Dragon finally uncoils its full length, will the table be large enough to contain it — or will the fire consume the table altogether?