“Hey nonny, nonny, oh sweet boy,
Father was a kind man, blind man
Hush little baby, sleep, sleep away,
Never look at mummy, fin-fen-fan,” sang the scaly lad as he skipped back along the path. He ran a lazy finger across the statues as he passed them: heroes, thieves, and wanderers.

A rumbling growl welcomed him back to the clearing, but the boy did not flinch nor pause. He merely skipped along to the clutch of massive eggs, three stone orbs as large as he. He tapped them, for the hundredth time expecting a hollow sound and for the hundredth time being disappointed by the dullness.

“It’s okay, you big silly,” the boy teased, “They always stop. They always look. They always die, but not you. Oh no, not your kind.” He considered the stone eggs and wondered if that was why. Everything else he turned to stone, but dragons, perhaps coming from stone would not return to taht state. If only mother were still around to answer such questions.

The sun set. The wind blew. And the boy slept among the eggs.