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The Awakening of Dragons

Chapter Eight

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by NomexGlove

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Peace could not last forever and it was Arya’s mother, Trish, who rushed to their meeting point at a small plateau with an overhang at one end with company one day, just after noon. It normally took a lot longer for her to hike from the trailhead (the main trail not stretching too far from the parking area and information centres for the wild park), but those that had come with her had helped clear additional routes – with the help of the dragons, of course. It made it so it took only a couple of hours to hike from the trailhead to the meeting place, if one knew where it was, a stone’s throw into the mountain range.

But those that had uncovered them had no concerns for easy access, only restricting them. Perhaps it had been the trip out with Trish, even though the dragons had not been the ones to go into the actual town, to buy pillows to more comfortably rest their heads, or the time they had gone deeper into the mountains, where a remote ranger’s station may have still been set up for surveillance, even though they had not thought it would be manned for the full year. Either way, secrets did not remain such forever.

“Get off me!”

She growled, blonde hair whipping around her face, though the weather was warmer by that point on the cusp of spring. Arya snarled and lunged, leaping into the air, though the humans there were no true threat – not against dragons, anyway. But she didn’t know that when they had her mother surrounded, everyone but her mother uniformed and looking far too serious to be favourable, Arya’s dragon family at her back, Darius at her side, a hair’s breadth away.

The humans cursed and held their hands up, releasing Trish, though she scowled and wrenched herself away anyway, the windy day the perfect forlorn backdrop with grey clouds filling the sky to a revelation. They would never find out who had told someone with connections or how the information, quite simply, had been found out by the authorities, but they knew that their existence was not something that the government could simply ignore.

Arya lifted her wings, threatening to lunge.

“What do you want?” She growled, eyes intent, fixed on the small group of six, not too many. “If you’ve come to hurt anyone, you’ll find that it won’t be as easy as you think!”

Her eggs… Her thoughts locked onto them, the eggs she had to protect. Her mother’s instincts were there, seeing danger in their green coats, badges denoting who they were, though Arya did not care to know even as Tilsa, formerly Isla-Rae with her pearlescent, shimmering scales, came to soothe her.

“Relax, Arya, there’s no danger here, we knew this was going to happen…”

“Wait! We just want to talk!” One of the men spoke up, his flat had pushed back, revealing a balding head. “Will you talk to us?”

It was over. It was all over, Arya’s heart sinking even as she bundled her mother further away from the intruders, a growl rippling over her lips. She had everyone there and it was only a small group of humans, one that held out a tablet sort of computer – god, it had been so long since she had even looked at one of those – and tapped on it, as if reading from a script.

“Welcome, dragons,” he said, tugging at his collar, shifting his weight. “Now, we understand this must be very strange for you, but we come with reassurance. You are not the only ones and we come to you also, as we have the others, with the intent of no harm. We intend no harm to you and ask that you extend the same to us.”

Arya glowered, though Tilsa was quicker to answer.

“Of course. This was going to happen sooner or later, that everything came out. We are a caving expedition, we probably went missing months ago… Well, we’ve been here ever since. But, please, don’t come any closer. Some others found us and they’ve been transformed into dragons too. This is a safe spot to meet though, as the magic does not seem to reach here.”

She paused, something moving in the corner of her eye: a drone. That it hovered around, like a giant, buzzing insect, had her tail twitching with unease.

“Ah, quite… Yes… Hm.”

The man didn’t seem to know what to say, though it did not escape their notice that he fussed and fiddled, hardly at ease with anything. Yet the dragons had learned patience and they settled, waiting, allowing him to continue. Only Arya seethed quietly, her protective instincts not quite yet settled.

“We request a meeting with you, seven days hence, where we will discuss where you are to remain, how your rights are affected, and pass on select information to the media regarding your experience here.”

It was rigid, formal, so much so that Arya could have rolled her eyes. Like they cared anything about that, really… He didn’t even seem interested in them, not like the other people that had come to see them so far, but that couldn’t just be because they were family. It set her on edge even more so than she already was, how he spoke to them, for Alan and her had, at the very least, thought that scientists and more would be tripping over themselves to learn about them – in a good way. To have that disconnect… It was disconcerting.

But he was still talking, droning on, reading from his set script.

“You will be given sustenance and allowed to rest. The meeting will be at the ranger station on the lower slopes.” He hesitated, obviously uncomfortable and coughing into his hand. “Do you require the coordinates?”

“No, we know where it is, thank you,” Tilsa said with a smile. “Is there anything more that you’d like us to prepare?”

Alan shuffled her feet, not wanting to give up too much of what she had learned too soon, but the man shook his head and stepped back, setting the tablet to the side. It didn’t seem like they were hungry for knowledge, not when it was not something that would immediately serve humankind.

“No, no, that will quite suffice…thank you.” It was as if the words didn’t come naturally to him, sludging their way out through his mouth. “That is all for the moment. I trust this is the best location in which to contact you when required. Of course, you will be under surveillance at all times and will not be able to leave the established territory.”

Brent scoffed at that, Alan exchanging a glance with her. They were sure they could knock a drone or two out of the sky… Accidentally, of course. But no one wanted their privacy to be invaded like that. Tilsa’s jaw tightened a fraction, thinking of her dragon family, everything that they had grown and all that they had become together.

“We would enjoy our privacy too,” Tilsa said, her head level, some of the softness gone from her eyes. “I am sure you understand.”

No one had heard that firm edge from the small dragoness before and the man stuttered and stumbled, trying to find the right words and coming up blank. It was not as if, quite clearly, he was at all used to dealing with dragons, one instance where they had the upper hand – or claw, perhaps.

“Er, yes, very good then…”

He muttered, the others ogling the dragons, though that could have been a couple of the less expressive looks they were getting. The dragons did not have typical eyebrows and did not make facial expressions like people, after all, which had meant they were a little more difficult for their human friends and family to read. It was sure to cause problems from time to time, but that was simply something that the dragons and humans dealt with.

Where tensions had crackled, the encounter had ended up rather anti-climactic, a sense of unease curling between both parties, things left unsaid that would come to light, surely, at the meeting at the rangers station. They all knew exactly where it was, for it was something that they patrolled, from a distance, from time to time, keeping an eye on the infrequent comings and goings. It was not often manned and most often deserted.

They watched the unwelcome group of officials make their way back down the mountain, Alex and Jenson flying high above to make sure that everyone left, that there were no more unwelcome surprises to come. Even though they could not retreat fully to rest, Trish still being there, they settled on the bare plateau, made a little more comfortable with some chairs and human comforts that helped their human friends feel a little more at home there. All outdoorsy and the sort of thing that would handle the elements better than an armchair, but a little human “softening” was pleasant, nonetheless.

“Mom – what happened?” Arya said, a little calmly, lying down while she invited her mother to sit with her. “I thought they were going to be armed or something the way they were dragging you about!”

Her mother let out a sigh that carried the strain of far more than what had been discussed in it. Santino let out a whine, seeking comfort from Seb.

“It all came out today, Arya,” Trish said, sitting down with her back against Arya’s leg while Darius kept an eye out for anyone else approaching, even the drones. “I don’t know how they did it, but they’ve somehow got footage of you – they must have had smaller drones or something out too. The media’s got hold of it and everyone wants to know what’s happening, whether it’s a hoax…”

“What did he mean “others” though?” Arya asked, tail sweeping back and forth along the floor in unease. “That doesn’t make much sense…”

But her mother was as clueless as she was on that matter, laying her hand protectively on Arya’s leg, though the dragoness was far better placed to protect her than her mother was the other way around.

“Well, it looks like you’re not the only ones to turn into dragons.” Against herself, Trish managed a chuckle and a watery grin, however shaky it was. “Isn’t that something? Well… A big something. It looks like there was something…at Machu Pichu, I remember the name. A group of tourists were in the ruins there, though the rumours say that the caves were artificial. I don’t know what the difference is myself, but, well…it happened to them too. They transformed, becoming dragons, though I think they’re struggling with it a lot more than you are. It’s hard to tell when all you’re getting from that side is fed through the TV and you’re right here, talking to me.”

They took a moment to digest that information. That they were not alone was a revelation, but it had not felt like they were alone, anyway, not with their friends and family.

“So…” Alan said, breaking the silence, her interest in learning overcoming all else, as if she could claw everything to her and find a new way of understanding the world around her. “There are…more like us? What do you know?”

Sadly, she didn’t know that much, though she had watched and recorded the news on her phone, pulling up the articles for them to read. Following that sort of thing on an admittedly small phone screen, however, was not always the easiest of things, especially for dragons.

It didn’t look great, however, something about a mining operation (more a rumour than anything else) falling prey to the same phenomenon, though it didn’t seem to be as much of a phenomenon anymore. The pictures of the miners that might or might not have transformed (it was so hard to tell what was a hoax with so much going around the internet) showed the dragons to be pregnant from the light swell of their flanks, even though they were a bit grainy and shot from strange angles, though there were no credits as to where the photos had come from. That didn’t help, not really, but they could only try to understand what they could.

One bit of information that did come to light, however, was that the differences in those that were deemed pregnant were more obvious to see in a larger group, simply put as there were males amongst them too, a little smaller than the dragonesses, at the point of their initial transformations and as they grew. Still, it was impossible to know, at that time, how much was speculation and how much was the truth, how far along, even, they were in their pregnancies.

Only the true details of how and why that came to pass would be told when the world delved into dragon biology, how and why they were as they were, why, if it was true, males had appeared in other larger groups of transformed dragons and not their little group. Alan would have a field day when it came to digging into all the fresh information laid out at her claws, when she could converse with the wider world.

“With others transforming, maybe two flights of dragons,” Tilsa said, “there might even be more to this. People… Wow… They’re going to have a lot of trouble taking all of this in.”

Trish stilled. Arya’s head shot up.

“What is it, mother?”

Her mother pursed her lips, turning away.

“I didn’t want to tell you… It’s… Well, you are right, Tilsa, they are trying to understand this, but not everyone is seeing it the same way. Some say that you’re gods, others think you’re the coming of the apocalypse. You’re not, are you?”

“No!”

They would have laughed at that, if the moment was not as serious as it was. Arya prodded her mother, eyes intent.

“Go on.”

Trish’s fingers curled into the scales of Arya’s leg. The dragoness stiffened.

“Well… Some want to see you. That’s normal. That’s why not more have been let through, though I think you’ll be able to make sure that you can see family soon, others that didn’t come through. We’ve set up a group chat and we’re trying to pull everyone in. Jonathan, Brent’s father, he’s trying to keep it all secure. We don’t want things to leak, you know?”

They all knew that, though there was something more sinister still lurking behind her words. Sensing that she wasn’t going to get away with not saying what had been said, Trish sighed and rubbed the back of her neck.

“There are people that want to experiment and lock you away, like animals in a zoo. That you’re still people hasn’t filtered through yet, but it’s all a mess at the moment. There were even those that thought they could get their guns out and put a price on you – but I don’t want you to worry about that!”

She leaned more firmly against Arya, the closest she could get to a hug as the dragoness did the same. Of course, there was plenty to worry about there, but a mother’s love would always try to shield her child from the gruesome truth, as much as she shuddered against the leg of her daughter.

Tilsa growled, eyes darkening.

“They would never hurt us or get to our eggs,” she hissed, though it sounded like a promise as well as a statement. “Some people don’t change.”

“But some do,” Usuakusu added, formerly known as Kelvin, her mottled blue and white splashed hide calming to look at under such stressful circumstances. “I’ve seen it both ways. We just have to talk to them. If we don’t talk, we will not get anywhere.”

They all knew it to be true, though it didn’t help things, not really, not while preparations for the meeting that would change everything, and dictate the course of their years to come, were in motion. But they would tackle it all together.

That didn’t mean, however, that it was going to be easy, that anything at all for them during their lives as dragons had proven to be easy. Usuakusu sighed, laying her blue muzzle down on her forefeet.

“It seems like a trial sometimes, doesn’t it?” She said forlornly, perhaps the quickest of them to slip into a melancholy state of mind. “There’s always something. I suppose we’re lucky things didn’t escalate more sharply, they even could have when we were in the city.”

“Don’t worry, Usu,” Anniyah murmured, twisting the end of her tail around Usuakusu’s softly, holding her there like she might have held her hand, before. “There will be something we can do, there’s always something, like you said. Have faith.”

Yet that faith was more and more difficult to hold close to their hearts, unsettled and restless with all that could come. Still, they had to prepare, had to rest, had to allow their bodies to settle before they faced the truth of where their place in the world, ultimately, was to sit.

*

One speaker, shaking with fear, returned to give them instructions, though they didn’t seem all that confident about the fact that the dragons had resisted surveillance. Evidently, him coming alone, middle-aged with a touch of grey winding into his trimmed moustache, was something that had been trialled with the dragon colonies that they had spotted earlier, apparently, but kept under wraps for a time. Maybe there were even more dragons that had managed to hide their existence beyond the three that had been identified.

“Y-you may still have visitors from your list,” he said, trying to keep his voice strong while Tilsa sat patiently before him, so much bigger even though she was the smallest of the dragons. “But no one outside that. They will be v-vetted and monitored.”

She met his eyes calmly.

“No, I don’t think that will be possible,” she said smoothly. “We need our family and friends to visit – we are not prisoners. We are merely humans, who have become dragons. Nothing more and nothing less than that, I assure you. No surveillance is needed when we have done nothing wrong. You agree, surely?”

She smiled, though showing her teeth was probably not the best thing she could have done under those circumstances. He stuttered and pulled anxiously at the sleeve of his jacket, too lightly dressed for such an expedition. If things had been more favourable, Tilsa might have offered to build a fire for him so that he may warm himself through before making his way back down. But things were not so and she was not as favourable towards him as she could have been. There were times for softness and there were times for a mother’s steadfastness, how she raised her head in challenge, tongue flickering out, telling him, without any words at all, that there would be no objection to that.

He moved on quickly, assuring her without saying it directly that all would be well, that there would be no further surveillance. They hadn’t hurt anyone, of course not, but tipping the drones out of the sky and easily disabling the cameras with an “accidental” swipe of tail where they had been fixed to trees in their territory was not something all that trying to them.

“Ah, yes… Quite so… The region now, from tomorrow, will be closed to humans. I trust you will be able to inform those that we are not that trespassers will be taken to the ranger station and back to the city from there to face the justice system, the full extent of the law.”

He bit his lip, Tilsa narrowing her eyes at him. There was no question as to their concern. Having such large, powerful creatures in the world that were intelligent, as humans, proved a problem for a species that had long seen itself at the top of the food chain, the pecking order of the world. Their presence changed everything. But what to do about them was another question entirely and not one that Tilsa could answer for herself too.

She and the dragons would discuss it and come to an agreement. That was all she could focus on. It was bound up in legalese and field specific lexicon that those outside military operations and law enforcement were unfamiliar with, but anyone familiar with the American armed forces knew how swift they were to use weapons to make their point quite clear, something that had become more and more evident over recent years. They would come in with weapons, force them to comply – and yet how would the dragons even respond to that? They had differing powers to humans, of course, but to be violent simply was not in their nature, didn’t feel right, even though lethal force, it was sure, would be used against them.

That, in the end, left them with the only suitable weapon left to them: words. In words, there was power too, more so than bullets, more so than anything the forces could throw at them. Where the humans that they expected to deal with them were prone to knee-jerk reactions and resorting, very swiftly, to aggression and violence, they had more at their disposal to try to circumvent what was so often what those in power resorted to.

That would take time, time that they didn’t quite have, and consideration. Fortunately, there was more than one dragon there, able to share their ideas, once the official had left, of course, working together as a group, never alone.

However, with the last of their human visitors that day, they did uncover, as a group, that there had been two confirmed reports of dragon transformations, including the group of miners, who could have been considered lucky or unlucky for the fortune of their fate. Who knew where their lives would go from that point, truth be told, but that the dragonesses had not only been female, but composed of a more even male and female group, surprised them. It could have been as simple as it being a larger group, of course, that had transformed, but there were still so many questions to be asked.

“It would make more sense if the transformations were the same,” Darius mused, busying himself thinking about it, Arya and Alan with him, though he was always more aware of Arya, heat rising to his scales. “But they’re not… And they’re most likely stuck there too, whether they have laid their eggs or not. Why?”

Alan grinned.

“I would have liked to sit down and talk with you before, if you ask questions like that. But we can now…”

Arya half-listened to them, her mind busy with worries, though there were other things brewing, a tickling tingle deep inside her that had her eyes drawn back to Darius again and again. She would have blushed at the attention she was giving him, if she had been able to do that anymore. Dragons didn’t blush, not like that, but the memory of heat under her skin, as a human, remained, a ghost of a sensation.

Still, she eyed the drake out of the corner of her eye as they spoke of the transformed, what they knew of the other groups, though some information, apparently, was not to be trusted. As they settled into a spirited debate over how long their isolation would be, courts and legislature coming into play as to what was to be done with them, she laid her head down, easing into a light doze. It was comforting to hear them talking over and around her, feeling safer with Alan and Darius there, though the heat of the male had her attention, tail twitching back and forth even in slumber.

In time, she would understand the draw to him, though more than one thing was going to come to a head before the meeting in three more days.

Still, before then, Arya spent time with her mother, her head bowed reverently over the nesting sites, for there were some things that were never supposed to be hidden from family, not when she was as close to her mother as she was. Of course, there were some dragons there that were not as open with their families, some still with things to process, but she would not have hidden that.

She stood, her head bowed, her mother holding her head gently – the only way that Trish could cradle her daughter anymore. The nesting mound that belonged to Arya and her eggs rose before them, though it was a moment of joy, even though Arya trembled. Soon, she would be a mother, just like Trish, only never like Trish. And yet Trish would still be there for her, as she always had, even though the situation was different.

“I’ll always be with you, my darling.”

Arya swallowed, trembling, pressing in a little closer to her mother.

“Thank you, mom… Always.”

Together, they stood, though the precipice of change, even then, was upon them.