XX. Dragons Return Wearing Jetpacks
At the far edge of the future, myth stopped pretending to be separate from engineering.
People built theme parks full of animatronic dragons that breathed stage-managed fire and occasionally unionized.
Cities floated advertisements the size of cathedrals across the clouds.
Children attended schools staffed by robots, ghost historians, and one dragon named Professor Blazington who taught economics by burning pie charts.
Tourists visited Mars and complained the gift shops were overpriced.
Knights came back as influencers wearing carbon-fiber armor with sponsorship deals.
Castles returned as orbital fortresses because humanity cannot resist rebuilding old nonsense with new materials.
Sword fights happened in zero gravity, which was elegant for about seven seconds and then mostly looked like panicked swimming.
Cats still ruled the internet.
The only difference was that now the cats had jetpacks and moderators.
The dragons hated this, because a jetpack cat can yoink treasure from a hoard with humiliating efficiency.