In the distant northern mountains, where even summer cannot fully defeat the snow, lived a great black-blue dragon named Azar. His eyes burned like molten gold, and his wings could blot out the sun over an entire valley. Yet Azar's true strength was not in his fire or his claws — it was in his loyalty.
He had a master. A boy named Kai.
Azar had found him many years earlier in a broken cart in the middle of a savage blizzard. Kai was small, frozen, and completely alone. The dragon could have ended his life with a single snap of his jaws, but instead he curled around the cart and warmed the boy with his own heat. From that day on, they were inseparable.
Kai grew up under the dragon's wing. He learned to fly without fear of heights, to understand the language of the wind, and to heal wounds with mountain herbs. Azar, in turn, learned to hold back his rage, not to frighten the villagers, and to carry his rider gently on his back. Together they fought bandits, together they sat in silence on long winter nights, and together they laughed when Kai tried to teach the dragon to sing human songs (he was terrible at it, but it was joyful nonetheless).
"My brother of the sky," Kai called him.
"Mine," Azar answered without words.
But one spring, when the snow had only just begun to retreat, they flew through the Southern Pass. In the narrow stone corridor, they were attacked by harpies — ancient, vicious creatures whose nests Kai had accidentally disturbed the year before. There were too many of them.
Azar fought fiercely. Blue flames poured from his maw, burning the winged beasts by the dozen. But one harpy, the cleverest and fastest, did not strike at the dragon. She struck at the rider. Her claws sank into Kai's shoulder. The young man — no longer a boy — fell from thirty meters onto the sharp rocks below.
The dragon caught him at the last moment, but it was too late.
Kai died in Azar's claws, quietly, almost without pain. He only looked into the dragon's golden eyes and smiled — the same gentle smile with which he had first climbed onto Azar's back many years ago.
After that, the dragon lost his master.
He returned to his icy cave and lay there, coiled tightly around the old, tattered cloak that had once served as Kai's saddle. The cloak still carried a faint scent of campfire smoke, wormwood, and the boy. Azar did not eat, barely slept, and never rose into the sky. People in the valleys whispered that the Black-Blue Dragon had died or gone mad.
Brave souls came to the cave. Some offered gold, some offered power, and some even brought their own children, hoping the dragon would choose a new master. Azar did not touch them. He simply stared with empty golden eyes and remained silent. In his mind, the same thought echoed endlessly:
"I already had a master."
Years passed.
One late autumn, a little girl came to the cave. She was no more than ten years old. She was thin, dressed in rags, with frostbitten hands and a face blue from the cold. The blizzard had caught her in the mountains, and she could barely walk.
The girl did not ask to become the new master. She did not even know she stood before a legendary dragon. She simply walked up to Azar's enormous head, pressed her forehead against his cold scales, and whispered in a trembling voice:
"I'm… so cold. Can I just sit next to you? Just for a little while…"
Azar looked at her for a long time. The cave was silent, except for the howling wind outside.
Then, very slowly and carefully, he lifted one huge wing and covered the girl with it, just as he had once covered Kai during that first blizzard many years ago.
He did not call her master.
He did not let her climb onto his back.
He did not teach her the language of the wind.
But when she fell asleep, curled up like a small ball beneath his wing, Azar did something he had not done in many long years. He quietly breathed out a thin stream of warm blue flame, so that the air around her became softer and warmer.
The dragon was still waiting for his master. He waited for Kai to return one day — in a different body, with a different smile, but with the same kind eyes.
Until then, he had only a small, freezing girl who was cold.
And that was enough for the old dragon's heart to begin beating just a little louder than it had the day before.