Chapter Text
Tibet – July 1933
Dr Erich von Gruber cursed Himmler silently under his breath as he hiked over yet another ridge in this godforsaken hellhole. He was in Tibet, July, and he was on mission funded by Himmler and the SS, who had sent him and his team to search for ancient Nordic runic carvings on Tibetan Monks. The SS Leader was convinced that the Hyperborean Master Race had once ruled the Himalayas.
They’d been here for 3 weeks so far, and so far, they hadn’t found shit, expect for frozen Yak dung, altitude sickness and wet socks. Von Gruber regularly found himself cursing Himmler under his breath. His photograph 22yo Hans was shivering next to him in wet wool, and the pair of them along with their two SS escorts had been trudging through snow, with Hans on the verge of frostbite and the two escorts wondering why the fuck any of them agree to this if it meant hiking up vertical ice sheets.
At around midday they sat down on some rocks, Hans sat on his and then jumped up swearing in Bavarian realising it was wet, and tried to wipe condensation off the lens of his brand-new Leica II Camera.
Suddenly the ambient wind died down – it was replaced by a deep, low-frequency thrumming sound. Not an engine, but a heavy, rhythmic WHUFF-WHUFF-WHUFF…that vibrated directly inside their ribcages like a sub-woofer.
They looked up just as a massive cloud bank, some 300 yards about the ridge split open. A shape broke through the mist, it wasn’t a plane, there were no propellers, no roaring engine. It was a sleek white-and-gold body, roughly 25ft long and it was banking hard on a pair of vast, leather-thin wings that were catching the blinding alpine sunlight like liquid silver. Sunlight was flashing off two-inch long teeth as the head turned. A long snake like tail whipped through the air, steering the creature effortlessly into a steep dive towards a lower valley.
Hans didn’t even aim the camera properly through the viewfinder. In pure, frantic, unthinking instinct, he raised the Leica, pointed it at the cloud gap and slammed this thumb down on the shutter button twice – CLICK-CLICK – just as the creature swept back into a thick bank of grey monsoon fog and vanished.
For about six seconds nobody spoke, moved or breathed. Then Von Gruber dropped his leather notebook into the slush, one of the SS guards raised his Mauser and aimed it at the empty fog, and his hands were trembling so hard the metal barrel was rattling against his buttons.
The thin air combined with the sheer, unadultered absurdity of what they had just seen sent all four men into mild hyperventilation.
Hans immediately thought to himself I am having a high-altitude stroke. My brain has melted and I am hallucinating a giant flying lizard.
Von Gruber meanwhile was thinking If I tell anyone in Berlin about this, they will put me in a padded cell next to the asylum patients.
Then the mood shifted from miserable expedition to unhinged, paranoid terror.
Van Gruber grabbed Hans by his wool collar, screaming over the wind, “What did you see, what as that,”
Hans was stammering, clutching his Leica to his chest like a holy relic, crying “I pressed the button! I don’t know if it caught it! I just pressed the fucking button!”
They sat on that frozen ridge in complete silence for around twenty minutes, they didn’t talk about runes anymore, they didn’t even care about Aryan history. The four grown men simply sat staring at the fog, terrified that whatever that thing was would turn around and come back.
Von Gruber didn’t even tell the team to pack up the camp properly. He ordered them to leave the heavy tents, take the camera film and start heading down the mountain toward Lhasa immediately.
They walked in dead silence for the next twelve hours. Every time a gust of wind whistled through the rocks, all four men jumped out of their skins, expecting a white-gold shadow to drop out of the clouds and swallow them whole.
They got back to Lhasa at stupid o’clock. Their guesthouse smelled of rancid yak butter, wet sheepskin and the cold sweat of four men who felt like they’d just run a marathon through hell.
It was nearly 1am. Outside, the miserable alpine rain was lashing against the thin wooden shutters. Inside a single kerosene lamp flickered on a rickety table, casting long, nervous shadows across the peeling mud-brick walls.
Dr Erich von Gruber sat on the edge of a sagging cot, his tweed jacket soaked, staring a blank leather notebook with a fountain pen hovering in his hand. He had been trying to write the first sentence of an official report for 45 minutes.
On the table sat Hans’s Leica II camera—and next to it, the small, metallic cylinder containing the exposed roll of film. It looked like an unexploded grenade sitting between two tin mugs of cold tea.
For nearly an hour, nobody had said a word. The two SS guards, Otto and Fritz, were sitting on the floor with their backs against the locked door. Otto was frantically running an oily rag over his Mauser rifle, over and over, until the metal clicked in the dark room like a neurotic clock.
Von Gruber finally slammed his pen down, splashing ink across his cuffs and said, “"We will report it as a high-altitude atmospheric phenomenon. A thermal updraft carrying a large specimen of Gypaetus barbatus—a bearded vulture—magnified by cloud distortion and oxygen-deprivation fatigue."
Hans was sitting in the corner, nursing a bruised knee, shivering under a damp woolen blanket. He let out a dry, wheezing laugh that sounded like a dying dog, and replied “A vulture, Herr Doktor? A bird with a forty-foot wingspan, metallic scales, and a tail like a fucking crocodile?"
Von Gruber glared at him, his voice dropping to a harsh, dangerous whisper, "You shut your filthy mouth, Hans. You are an assistant photographer, not a zoologist. You suffered mild hypoxia at seventeen thousand feet. Your brain manufactured details to fill the gap."
Hans replied, "My brain didn't manufacture the noise it made, Herr Doktor! You heard it! It didn't sound like feathers flapping—it sounded like a steam locomotive passing ten yards over our heads!"
"Then it was a Soviet test aircraft! A prototype glider dropped from a bomber over the border!" snapped Von Gruber.
Otto stopped rubbing his Mauser. He looked up from the floor, his face pale in the yellow lamp-light, his eyes wide and bloodshot, and said “With respect, Herr Doktor... Soviet gliders don't turn their heads and look you in the eye before they dive into a cloud."
"Silence, Otto!" hissed Von Gruber
Otto just shrugged, "I’m just saying, sir—I’ve shot deer, I’ve shot men, I know what a flying machine looks like. That thing wasn't made of canvas or aluminum. It was alive."
Von Gruber stood up, his face flushed red despite the freezing room. He leaned over the table, pointing a shaking finger at Hans and said, “We are representatives of the Reich! We are funded by the Reichsführer-SS! We do not send reports to Berlin claiming we saw mythological monsters in the clouds! Do you know what Himmler does to scientists who make him look like a lunatic? He doesn't fire them, Hans! He puts them in an asylum or sends them to a camp!"
Hans shifted slightly, pulling the blanket tighter, and said “It was a dragon."
The room went dead, suffocatingly silent.
Even the wind outside seemed to drop for three seconds. Fritz stopped chewing on his thumbnail. Von Gruber froze mid-gesture, his jaw slightly open, looking at Hans as if the boy had just stripped naked and shitted on the floor.
Von Gruber stared him and in a low murderous hiss asked, "What did you just say?"
Hans looked back at him, “You asked me what I saw. I’m telling you. It was a dragon. A white and gold dragon. Like in the old German fairy tales, except real, massive, and capable of eating this entire hotel for breakfast."
Von Gruber growled at him, face flushing, “You hysterical little Bavarian shit—"
Hans shrugged again, "Call me whatever you want, Erich! But that roll of film is sitting right there! I didn't take a picture of a Soviet glider or a fucking vulture! I took a picture of a dragon! If those negatives develop properly back in Berlin, you can tell Himmler it’s a big pigeon all you want, but the pictures don't lie!"
Von Gruber stared at the little metallic film canister on the table. His arrogant demeanor finally buckled, replaced by the cold, creeping terror that had been gnawing at his stomach since 2:15 PM.
He slowly sat back down on the creaking cot, burying his face in his hands. The logical trap.
OPTION A: Report a "Soviet Glider / Vulture" --> Film develops in Berlin showing a literal giant dragon. --> Sent to a concentration camp for lying/incompetence.
OPTION B: Report a "Dragon" --> Himmler thinks they've lost their minds before seeing the film. --> Sent to a Salzburg asylum for schizophrenia
Fritz then spoke up, "Herr Doktor... if that thing... if that creature is out there in these mountains... where does it sleep? What if it's near Lhasa?"
Von Gruber without looking up from his hands snapped “Shut up, Fritz."
Hans then spoke again, “We leave for India in two days. We keep our mouths shut. We don't talk to the locals, we don't drink in the taverns, and we guard that film with our lives. Because if anyone else in this city realizes what's flying around in those mountains, a bunch of sweaty German scientists are going to be the absolute last thing anyone cares about."
Von Gruber reached out with a trembling hand, grabbed the little metal film canister off the table, and shoved it deep into the inside pocket of his wet coat, buttoning it tight against his chest, and said,
“Nobody uses that word again. Not 'dragon'. Not 'monster'. If anyone asks tomorrow... we found nothing. We are just four tired tourists looking at temples."
He blew out the kerosene lamp, plunging the room into pitch black darkness.
None of them slept a single wink that night. Every time the tin roof creaked under the Himalayan rain, all four men reached for their knives.
The Next Morning
By 6:00 AM, the four of them were sitting outside a miserable market stall in Lhasa, staring into cups of steaming, bitter Tibetan butter-tea like men awaiting execution.
None of them had slept. Not a single wink. They were shivering, twitchy, and operating on pure nerve-damage.
Von Gruber spent the entire walk down from the hotel trying to gaslight himself and his crew. He was practically chanting it under his breath: High-altitude hypoxia. Thermal atmospheric distortion. An unmapped species of giant Himalayan vulture. That’s all it was. A big fucking bird.
And for a brief, glorious ten minutes, the hot, greasy tea was almost working. They were actually starting to convince themselves that they were just four overworked, exhausted German men who had a collective mental breakdown at seventeen thousand feet.
Then they turned a corner into the main wool market—and reality slapped them directly across the jaw.
The market was a chaotic, noisy sea of Tibetan traders, red-robed monks, sputtering yak-dung braziers, and the stench of raw wool.
Von Gruber was striding forward, grumbling under his breath about the filthy dust, when Hans stopped dead in his tracks.
BANG.
Von Gruber walked straight into the back of Hans, sloshing burning butter-tea all over his tweed coat and wrists. Von Gruber’s frayed temper instantly snapped into a white-hot rage and hissed,
"Gott im Himmel, Hans! Use your fucking eyes, you clumsy little—"
Hans didn't answer. He didn't even apologize. He just stood frozen like a statue, his arm slowly rising, a shaking finger pointing straight through the crowded market aisle.
Von Gruber followed his finger, opened his mouth to scream at him again—and the words died in his throat.
Standing no more than twenty paces away, talking casually to a local Tibetan wool merchant, was a girl.
She stood side-on to them, completely unbothered by the filth and noise around her. She looked no older than sixteen, standing around five-foot-eight, but she held herself with an effortless, terrifying level of aristocratic arrogance. She didn't look like she belonged in Lhasa. She didn't look like she belonged on Earth.
She wore impeccably tailored black-leather riding breeches, high, dark leather boots polished to a dull shine, and a dusty travel cloak draped over her shoulders. The cloak was a deep, striking crimson and black. Stitched in dark red thread across the black wool of her cloak was an intricate, terrifying symbol Von Gruber had never seen in any history text—a three-headed dragon.
Von Gruber, an antiquarian who had studied European heraldry for twenty years, stared at the emblem. It wasn't British. It wasn't Russian. It wasn't Chinese. It was old, dark, and regal as hell.
Then the sun broke through the low Lhasa clouds, catching her profile.
Her hair was a thick, shimmering braid of pure, liquid platinum-white hanging down her back, gleaming like beaten silver in the morning light. Her skin was pale as alabaster, completely untouched by the harsh Himalayan sun that usually turned local cheeks leather-brown. As she turned her head slightly to examine a bolt of sheep's wool, the light hit her face—revealing eyes of an unmistakable, striking, pale light purple.
Von Gruber’s heart hit his ribs like a sledgehammer. The butter-tea mug slipped from his fingers and shattered on the cobblestones. He viciously drove his elbow straight into Han’s ribs.
“THE CAMERA! HANS, THE CAMERA, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!"
Hans snapped out of his daze, his hands trembling so violently he nearly dropped the Leica II. He jammed the viewfinder to his eye, adjusted the focal ring with a panic-frenzied twist, and fired.
CLICK-CLACK.
Photo One was a crisp side-profile shot. The tailored leather breeches, the three-headed red dragon emblazoned on the red-and-black cloak, the silver braid hanging down her spine, and her tall, regal posture against the muddy market backdrop.
“ANOTHER ONE! GET HER FACE!" hissed Von Gruber, looking like he was about to implode.
The girl turned her head slightly more toward the street, as if sensing the clicks over the market roar. Her light-purple eyes narrowed just a fraction in their direction.
The second photo was a three-quarter portrait. The sharp, high cheekbones, the flawless pale skin, the silver hair framing her face, and those impossible, light-purple eyes looking almost directly toward the lens.
Von Gruber didn't wait. He shoved past a row of monks, yelling in terrible German-accented Tibetan, waving his arms: "HALT! Sie da! WARTEN SIE!"
The girl didn't run. She didn't panic. She simply glanced at Von Gruber with an expression of mild, disgusted boredom—the way an Empress looks at a stray dog barking in the gutter.
She turned her back, stepped casually around a massive stack of stacked yak-blankets, and rounded a narrow brick alleyway.
Von Gruber shoved his way through the crowd three seconds later, throwing traders out of his path, and burst into the alleyway.
It was a dead end.
Ten feet of mud brick, a sleepy mongrel dog lying in the dust, and a high, blank wall. She was completely, impossibly gone.
Von Gruber stood in the alley, panting, his face pale as a sheet.
Hans staggered up behind him, clutching the Leica to his chest like a holy relic, hyperventilating so hard he was practically crying.
“Herr Doktor... Herr Doktor, did you see her?! The hair! The eyes! The skin! It’s the bloodline! It's the pure Hyperborean blood! Himmler was right! THE THULE SOCIETY WAS RIGHT! It’s the Aryan god-race, Herr Doktor! She had a dragon on her coat! Yesterday it was the beast in the sky, today it's—"
Von Gruber whirled round and grabbed Hans by his throat shutting him up instantly, "Shut your filthy, hysterical mouth!"
Von Gruber looked at Hans, then at Otto and Fritz, who were standing at the alley mouth with their hands white-knuckling their Mauser rifles.
Yesterday, they saw a 25-foot white-gold dragon flying through the clouds. Today, they photographed a sixteen-year-old girl with silver hair, purple eyes, and a three-headed dragon emblem on her coat, who vanished into thin air.
The "vulture" theory was officially dead. The "Soviet glider" theory was dead.
Von Gruber reached out, took the Leica from Hans’s shaking hands, removed the roll of film, and shoved it into his suit pocket alongside the first one.
Von Gruber finally calmed down enough to say “We are not going to India.”
Hans looked at him, “Sir,”
Von Gruber responded, "Cancel the steamship. Cancel the itinerary. We are taking the first train to the coast and the fastest boat back to Europe. We go straight to Berlin. Straight to the Reichsführer-SS."
He looked back down the empty, dead-end alley one last time, a cold sweat breaking out across his neck and murmured, “God help us all if Himmler realizes what we just found.”