Who We Are

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Mere months ago the Washington monument stood tall where the colorful creatures swoop low and trample now. The marble obelisk nothing more than rubble beneath their claws, cracking and chipping with each landing. It was one, then five, and more arrived with each passing day. Each unique in color and shape, with their own special abilities, which they exhibited on live broadcasted television. Their leader, Signe, broke the terrified silence first.

“We want nothing but peace,” Signe said, in her human form, naked apart from a makeshift toga wound like a bandana around her neck before she’d shifted. “My fellow drifters and myself only want our existence to be known and accepted.”

They’d been met with protests, which eventually turned violent, but even in the face of attacks, the dragons refused to stoop to their level. Even when the military got involved. The government took the side of the fearful and brought tanks and other powerful weapons to the Washington Monument, prior to its downfall.

There were peaceful human supporters who came to keep a line between the fearful and dangerous protestors and the dragons, though no one could claim they needed the buffer. During one assault from a fearful, a gun’s blast pierced through the crowd, ricocheting off a dragon’s scales, flying back into the crowd and sending some innocent bystander to the hospital.

After that, things only got worse. Realizing how seemingly impenetrable the dragons were, the national guard, army, and air force had been brought out in full force. They’d asked the dragons to leave peacefully while the government assessed their existence. The president made a statement about the United States being a melting pot that accepted everyone as they are, part human or fully. The dragons and the protestors remained at the monument. After, that, there were no more peaceful negotiations to be found.

When the first military firing happened there were sixteen civilian casualties, all caused by the spray of bullets aimed at the mystical creatures. They’d been armor piercing rounds they’d believed would penetrate the scales. They’d been horribly wrong. Over fifty other civilians were injured and evacuated. This attack led supporters and protestors to abandon their posts.

So, it became the dragons versus the military. And the military had no idea how to approach them. Bullets hadn’t worked, so the next obvious weapon of choice was bombs. It had been a last resort due to the historical site at which the dragons had inhabited. However, desperate times and all that.

Signe tried to reiterate their wish for peace and acceptance, but now they’d become a challenge and escalated fear within the United States. Across the world, other countries were handling the coming out of the dragons, and other fantastical creatures, in their own ways. Many violent. Many not.

The onslaught of bombs raining from the sky brough the first reaction out of the dragons. One of the hundreds of creatures exhibited the ability to protect themselves and the others with a powerful forcefield. It spanned the entire valley, shielding everyone beneath it with ease. When the bombs did nothing to the dragons, the president spoke again.

While the dragons were nonviolent and hadn’t counter-attacked, their resistance to the military’s firearms and refusal to leave the monuments site left him with no option other than evacuating the area and resorting to more serious measures. They threatened the use of an atomic bomb, sure this would be able to break through their forcefield and defeat the creatures. However, Signe responded directly to the president upon hearing this. They offered to leave the area, but requested a meeting with the president to explain their stance and desire for peace and acceptance.

The problem was that by this point, no one trusted the dragons though they’d technically done very little wrong. They hadn’t hurt anyone or acted in any sort of defense against the military or protestors. They’d only protected themselves.

It was this next strike that exhibited their true strengths and massive defensive abilities. Upon the release of the bomb, which was projected to damage hundreds of miles of land and buildings, one of the dragons flew into the air, the color of the sun, aflame and bright blinding yellowish-white, and in one quick motion swallowed the projectile whole. A small burst of smoke came from its mouth in what appeared to be a burp.

He landed amongst his comrades and looked up defiantly at the sky, searching for his next snack. And many more came. But each of them was defeated in some incredibly magical way. One was turned to a sprinkling of flowers upon one dragon’s breath. Another crashed into the ground, sure to destroy them all but instead exploded into the largest tree in the area, at least six stories tall, shading the dragons and bringing fresh life to an otherwise desolate area. The final one was sent back up to space with the swift kick of a dragons back legs and rerouted to the sky, where it collided with a collection of satellites, causing a media blackout spread throughout seven states, all on the east coast.

Upon displaying their abilities to the world, people became more frightened. They still pushed for peace, but humans had to strike back against these powerful creatures in order to assert their dominance. The problem was, they were no longer the dominant species. Not in reality. Not when there were so many powerful creatures that existed in the world, creatures ten times more powerful than a single human. More powerful than one thousand humans, in fact. And the more that humans fought against them, the more magical creatures came to fight beside them. There were no longer just dragons, but other things, too. Werewolves, witches, vampires – who of course could only aid their friends at night and were far too flammable to be on the frontline -, Fae, gnomes, elves, you name it. The world was abound with creatures long thought non-existent.

People from all over the globe became increasingly depressed and terrified of what this meant for them. Would humans become slaves to these more powerful creatures? There had to be millions of them. And that was only the ones who’d come out. Who knew how many stayed hidden? Who knew how many could blend in with humans?

As it turns out, a lot of them can. I should know.