The Guardian Dragon

Legends

My head rests gently on my rough paws. My deep breaths rumble through the walls of the cave. Misty tendrils reach out from my nostrils dancing into the air, disappearing without a word. The peaceful plink! plink! of drops of water falling against the rock floor continues with a steady beat as I dream of hunting deer through the forest. I never truly sleep; dragons are too cautious for that. I am aware of my surroundings, but still I rest, letting my mind wander. I lay peacefully, my tail curved around my body, my scales protecting me from the coolness of the cave. This is my home, the place that I rest, the place that I can go to when I need peace and safety from the difficult ever-violent world of the dragons. However, recently I have spent more time here for a different purpose, and it is one I do not enjoy. I have begun hiding from humans.

The humans have quickly been taking over our world, they began as harmless wandering tribes, and then they settled down. The moment they settled down was the moment history changed. No longer were these humans harmless, they were monsters. Dragons were oblivious to the change that took place in the humans; they did not realize how much trouble they were in. As human empires rose and fell, their twisted minds decided it was a ‘courageous’ act to hunt down a dragon and kill it. It was partly our own fault, but it was a problem that could have been solved easily but for human’s tendency towards violence and murder, even more than that of dragons.

There was once a black dragon named Kränon. Kränon was extremely strong and powerful, he was known to be able to topple forest with the sheer force of his roar, and his claws could cut through solid rock. But despite his size and all his power, he was not the wisest dragon, which was his undoing. Kränon lived near the place that would soon become human civilization of Mesopotamia. One day a large mass of armed humans passed through his territory by chance. At this time he was out flying and saw the humans hunting and setting up places to rest deep in the land where he lived. Afraid that they were going to build a settlement there and force him to leave because of the dragons’ law against interacting with humans, he decided to chase them out. Before this moment, dragons had mostly kept to themselves, out of sight of the humans. The law had been put in place in order to prevent things like what happened next from happening, but Kränon did not understand this. Kränon landed with such force in front of the humans that the ground shook from the raw power. The majority of the humans fled in fear, but one remained. Oh the stubborn creature! If only he had fled with his comrades, this would have been avoided. Offended by this human that stood his ground and refused to flee before his great power, Kränon released a powerful roar that caused the ground to crack apart, leaving in its place a river that would soon sustain the civilization of Mesopotamia.  However, the human continued to stand his ground. Puzzled by this human, Kränon bent down his head to examine him closer. The human, with his ignorant murderous heart interpreted this as a threat and took the opportunity to stab Kränon through the eye with his spear. The spear punctured his brain and Kränon, with roars of pain that are still remembered by all the land, slowly died before the cold, dark eyes of the human. In time, the human’s companions returned to behold this murder. Instead of weeping and mourning at the great creature’s death, they celebrated and rejoiced. They made the murderer their king. Ever since that time, the news spread around the known world of humans. From that time onwards, dragons have avoided humans, but that wasn’t enough.

For centuries, bands of warrior humans hunted us, following us into the deepest reaches of our vast territories. They killed many of us. There were many that remained hidden, but they had to stay that way for fear for their lives. The dragons could have joined together to rid the world of humans, but it was not our custom to work together. We have leaders, but we are not unified. Each dragon has its own territory, delegated by the leaders, as they need to allow us a large enough area to hunt, while keeping us a safe distance away from large human settlements. The dragon leaders are known as the Guardians, they are the ones that protect us from the humans, and ourselves.