**Prologue: Death and Awakening**
Marcus Orion had always been drawn to the stars. Even as a child, he would stare up into the vast night sky, his mind swirling with questions about the universe. His passion for astrophysics was more than a career; it was a calling. He had spent years peering into the cosmos, searching for answers among the constellations. But he could never have imagined that his deepest connection to the cosmos would come not in life, but in death.
It was a typical evening at the observatory when the news broke: a rogue comet, one unseen by the eyes of any telescope, was on a collision course with Earth. Panic ensued, as people around the world looked up in terror. Marcus, though, was eerily calm. In that moment, he understood the comet in a way that no one else could, its random trajectory a fatalistic whisper from the universe.
As fate would have it, Marcus was not at the observatory when the comet struck. He was in the park, enjoying the fresh air after hours of study, when he saw it—a bright streak in the sky, growing larger with every heartbeat. Chaos erupted around him as the comet neared, its tail ablaze with a sinister beauty.
Then, time slowed. A child, lost in the pandemonium, stood frozen in the comet's shadow. Marcus acted on instinct, pushing the child to safety. There was a blinding light, a deafening roar, and then darkness.
In the void, Marcus felt himself drifting. He was not scared, nor was he relieved; he simply was. The darkness gave way to a field of stars, and he felt a deep pull, a gravitational siren song that beckoned him forward. It was a dance of cosmic proportions, and he was one with it.
When awareness returned, it was not as he knew it. He could feel the vastness of space around him, the cold burn of starlight against his... scales? With a shock, Marcus realized he had form—a new, powerful form. He was immense, a creature of legend. A dragon.
But this was no Earthly myth. As he flexed wings that spanned solar systems, he knew he had become something else entirely—a dragon of space, an entity unbound by physics as humanity understood them. He could feel the fabric of space-time under his claws, a tapestry he could now weave and alter.
A voice, deep and ancient, echoed through the void. "Rise, Draco Stellaris. Your journey has only just begun."
As Marcus, now Draco Stellaris, contemplated his new existence, the stars whispered to him of his purpose. He was to be a guardian, a protector of the cosmos. And so, beneath the watchful eyes of a billion suns,the dragon's tale began.
In the darkness between the stars, Marcus—no, Draco Stellaris now—sensed the remnants of his human thoughts, like the last glimmers of a distant supernova. His mind, once confined to the inner workings of a single planet and a single form, now spanned galaxies. Each thought was a ripple across the cosmos, each breath a solar wind caressing the face of nebulae.
He remembered Earth, the blue marble that had been his home. He remembered the comet, the child, the rush of the end. And yet, as he contemplated his immense, scaled body and the power that coursed through it, he understood that this was no end. It was a beginning, an ascension into a form that the universe had carved out of the void just for him.
The voice that had spoken to him was silent now, but the echoes of its message reverberated through the dark matter that now coursed through his veins. He was to be a guardian, but of what? The stars kept their secrets well, and Draco Stellaris knew that unraveling the tapestry of cosmic truth would require more than just the instincts of a beast.
He turned his great, star-filled eyes to the systems that lay spread out before him. Planets circled their stars in a delicate balance, life teetering on the edge of possibility and oblivion. And there were dangers, too, lurking in the shadowy pockets of space—rogue asteroids, unstable stars, and black holes that hungered with an insatiable gravity.
With a flick of his tail, he moved through the vacuum, the space around him bending to his will. He could feel the pull of something greater, a path laid out before him by the constellations themselves. It was a path that would lead him to the answers he sought, to the role he was meant to play in this grand, unending symphony.
Draco Stellaris was more than just a title. It was a destiny.
His first test came swiftly. A red giant, swollen and volatile, threatened to engulf the planets that orbited it. Civilizations that had looked upon their star as the giver of life now trembled at its impending wrath.
The dragon approached the dying star, understanding instinctively what needed to be done. With a roar that resonated through the void, he inhaled the star's coronal mass, absorbing the energy that threatened to explode. He willed the star to shrink, to cool, to return to a state of stability. His intervention was a temporary measure, but it would give these civilizations time.
Time to evolve, to grow, to take to the stars as he had, in a manner of speaking.
In saving them, Draco Stellaris felt a surge of purpose. This was what he was meant to do. This was his charge. As the dragon of space, he would stand as the sentinel against the chaos, the shield against the void's cold embrace.
And as he soared away from the grateful chants of a billion voices reaching up from the planets below, Draco Stellaris embraced his new life. The stars no longer whispered; they sang.