It’s gone! It was here! It was right… You search frantically through the treasure of entire lifetime, knee-high on the floor. Baubles, trinkets, toys and tools and wondrous artefacts fly left and right as you become more panicked.

My bag! Of course.

You reach into the Bag of Hoarding, rooting and searching. But your hand keeps going, down, down, your arm now, to the elbow, to the shoulder, and still you reach. Further now, your head and shoulders in the dark pouch, and you are falling now, tumbling through the dark, falling, falling, hoarded treasures falling with you. And then you are still, on your back, resting outstretched on shiny stone… no, shiny scales, golden and gleaming, the scaly palm of a dragon, impossibly large, its talons like watchtowers surrounding you.

Whisper… The Voice! Absent for so long, the familiar sibilance rushing in the air around you like the wind. Warden of the Court of the Whisper King, it sighs, Why do you struggle and search for that which is before you? The Dragon is here, in front of you. More than a Voice, now; a single golden eye, big as houses, its three-chambered iris regards you. You have only to follow the Dragon, and listen for my whispered commands. Go, my Warden.

You feel a slight tickle on your skin as your feathers ruffle, and there, marching across your chest is a tiny clockwork toy, wood and metal, painted to resemble a platinum wyrmling. You awake, startled, and marvel to find the same toy from your dream regarding you with its painted wooden eyes, perched upon your bosom.