Luck dragon

Screenplay draft

Title: LUCK DRAGON
Credit: Written by
Author: Working Screenwriter
Draft date: October 2024
Contact: via representation

FADE IN.

INT. TOURNAMENT FLOOR OF THE SOLSTICE - NIGHT

Sodium-vapor light pools across bone-white felt. A single four-leaf clover spins on the green roulette table, its leaves catching the blacklight glow. The wheel turns beneath it, clicking in slow rhythm. Stacks of chips line the rail like small green altars. No players sit. The table waits.

JORY RENN stands in the deep shadow between two support pillars. Late thirties, oil-stained fingers, frayed dealer’s vest buttoned wrong. His cropped hair shows uneven shave marks at the temples. He watches the clover without blinking, shoulders tight against the pillar.

The wheel slows. The ball rattles in its track, then drops. Zero. The clover stops spinning and wilts at once, edges curling black against the felt.

Jory exhales through his teeth. He steps forward one pace, just far enough for the rotating chandelier to catch the left side of his face. His squint tightens. One hand rises, palm up, as if to catch the dead clover, then drops again.

The barge lists a few degrees. Distant slot chimes ring from the next deck, muffled by bulkheads. Jory stays where he is, eyes fixed on the withered stem. His fingers twitch once, the motion of someone used to palming dice he never gets to throw.

A soft current of air from the vents stirs the wilted clover. It slides an inch toward the wheel’s rim and stops. Jory’s jaw works. He mutters once, voice low and quick.

JORY
Luck isn’t carried. It’s spent.

He steps back into the pillar shadow. The chandelier turns on, leaving only the green felt and the dead clover under the single bare bulb that never stops swinging.

INT. BILGE OF THE BARGE VERGE - NIGHT

A single bare bulb swings on a wire, casting sodium-vapor yellow across rusted crates stacked against dripping hull plates. Three dead slot machines sit bolted to the wall, reels frozen on cherries and zeros. Deep teal shadows pool between the stacks.

JORY RENN crouches on a stained blanket spread over wet metal. Oil stains his fingers. His frayed dealer’s vest hangs open. He holds a stack of bone-white chips under the bulb and practices the palm again, sliding one chip behind the others with a quick twist of the wrist. The motion repeats, faster each time.

JORY
(whisper)
Again. Come on, again.

He sets the chips down, picks up a deck of cards from a rusted egg crate, and deals to an invisible opponent. Every card lands face-down with a soft snap. He flips his own hand, studies the spread, then sweeps it back into a neat stack.

JORY
They always blink on the river. You wait for the blink.

Jory reaches into his cuff, produces a loaded die, and rolls it across the blanket. It lands on six three times in a row. He stares at it, jaw tight, then palms it back into hiding.

He stands, checks the padlock on the nearest crate, tests the hatch above his head, then lowers himself onto the blanket. The bulb swings harder in a draft. Jory pulls the frayed vest tighter around his ribs and curls on his side, one hand still closed around a single chip.

JORY
(mutter)
Tomorrow they pay out on twenty-two. They always pay on twenty-two.

His eyes stay open, tracking the swing of the bulb until the light cuts across his face in slow pulses. The only sound is the distant creak of the hull and the soft rustle of his own breathing.

INT. BILGE OF THE BARGE VERGE - NIGHT

A sodium bulb swings on its wire above three dead slot machines. Their reels sit frozen on cherries and zeros. Rusted crates form a crooked bar top. JORY RENN wipes a dented tin cup with the hem of his frayed vest. Oil stains his fingers black. Aurex perches on his collar, clover scales pulsing faint emerald in the shadows.

Footsteps echo on wet metal. TESS VANE steps into the light, one sleeve rolled tight over a wrist counter. She slides onto a crate without asking.

TESS VANE
You still palming the same loaded dice?

JORY RENN
They pay the rent? 

Tess watches Aurex’s wings twitch. The dragon exhales a single glitter mote that drifts toward the cup and dissolves.

TESS VANE
That thing on your collar. It’s not a charm. It’s breathing. I counted three payouts on the Solstice floor before the reels jammed.

JORY RENN
You followed me down here to count?

TESS VANE
I followed the glitter. Holt’s already asking questions about sudden jackpots on a barge that hasn’t seen a winner in six months.

She leans closer. Her voice drops to a precise whisper that still carries over the drip of water.

TESS VANE
Luck isn’t something you carry. It’s something you stop strangling.

JORY RENN
Strangling gets results? 

Aurex’s scales flip copper for half a second. The bulb flickers. One slot machine coughs a single crumpled bill onto the floor, then nothing.

TESS VANE
Keep treating it like a tool and the next time the color changes you’ll be the one sinking.

Jory lifts the tin cup. The dragon’s breath turns the surface of the liquid into tiny spinning clovers that melt before they reach his lips.

JORY RENN
You offering help or just taking notes?

TESS VANE
I’m offering to watch what happens when you finally put it down instead of clipping it to your shirt.

She stands. The rolled sleeve catches the light, revealing the faint edge of a counting tattoo on her wrist. Aurex tilts its head. Emerald returns.

TESS VANE
Your call. But the barge lists harder every time you force another spin.

Tess walks back into the green-tinged dark. The bulb keeps swinging. Jory sets the cup down untouched. Aurex exhales another soft puff that makes the single bill on the floor flutter, then lie still.

INT. BILGE OF THE BARGE VERGE - NIGHT

A single bare bulb swings above rusted crates. Sodium light cuts across green-tinged shadows and dripping hull plates. JORY RENN crouches in his frayed dealer’s vest, oil-stained fingers working a bent poker chip against a padlock on a dull green crate the size of a footlocker.

The lock snaps. Jory lifts the lid. Inside rests a grapefruit-sized egg veined with pressed clover, its shell the color of tarnished copper under the swinging light.

JORY
Jackpot?

He taps the shell once with a knuckle. A hairline crack races across the surface. Emerald glitter leaks upward like disturbed pollen, swirling in the damp air.

Three corroded slot machines bolted to the far wall suddenly whir to life. Their reels spin without coins. Bells chime. Crumpled bills spit into the empty trays.

JORY
(whisper)
Don’t you dare be a dud.

The egg splits cleanly down the middle. AUREX, palm-sized and ethereal, blinks once. Clover-shaped scales glint emerald. Translucent wings unfold, veined like dried leaves. The dragon exhales a soft puff. The falling glitter turns into tiny four-leaf clovers that melt on contact with the wet floor.

Aurex’s scales flip briefly to copper, then back to green. Another exhale. Glitter drifts toward the slots. All three machines hit jackpot in sequence, reels freezing on triple bars. Bills cascade onto the bilge grating.

JORY
You’re real.

He reaches out slowly. Aurex tilts its head, watching the hand. Scales stay emerald. The dragon crawls onto Jory’s palm, weightless as a handful of leaves. Its wings brush his cuff. Another exhale sends a thin stream of glitter toward Jory’s vest pocket, where a single loaded die sits.

The die rattles once on its own, then stops.

JORY
You’re not leaving my sight.

Aurex’s scales hold steady emerald. The slots continue to spit bills in soft mechanical rhythm. The bare bulb swings. Glitter settles on the wet metal like luminous dust.

INT. BILGE OF THE BARGE VERGE - NIGHT

A bare bulb swings on its wire, throwing sodium-yellow arcs across rusted crates and three dead slot machines bolted to the hull. Water drips somewhere behind the plating. JORY RENN crouches in front of a cracked shaving mirror propped against a crate, oil-stained fingers gripping the edge. Aurex perches on his shoulder, clover s

… (sign in to read + edit the full draft)