If you can hear me, raise both arms.Axel’s volume is set rather rudely to blast, but I have to hand it to him.After realizing only the brights could hear him yesterday, I still didn’t think of this.
I should have.
More than a hundred humans raise both hands—not as high a percentage as yesterday, but still really, really high.
I didn’t prepare the humans here today as well as I did yesterday—we didn’t hike up together.Before Axel can say more, I step in.“If you heard that command, please move to the far left.”I force a smile.“I also want to thank everyone for coming today.Our time is short, but I want to make sure everyone understands why we’re here, and what we’re asking of you.”
“We want to bond a dragon,” one man in the back shouts.
He’s not one of the ones who raised his hands.That makes me sad—almost two hundred of them are already not eligible.
“A few months ago, my entire world imploded,” I say.“A dragon bonded me against my will.I was angry, and I had been trained to fight.”I slide off Axel’s back and walk closer to them.“I did what I knew how to do, and I fought the dragon who bonded me at every turn.I was surprised and disgusted, honestly, with every single human that had been bonded who wasn’t fighting.”
Some of them laugh, but a lot of them look distinctly uncomfortable.
“Our government knew what I also knew—the dragons were our enemies.”
Everyone’s dead silent, including most notably, Axel.
“But in spite of my irritating and often stupid attacks, my dragon, my bonded, never hurt me.He never fought back.He never made my life worse.He bore all of my temper tantrums with grace.”I glance back at Axel.
He looks...curious.
“I didn’t relent, though.And an old friend of mine joined me.I convinced my bonded dragon not to kill the rebel in our midst, and we pretended to be shifting our allegiance to the dragons.”I snorted.“Secretly, I still wanted them dead or gone—both were fine as long as they never came back.”
Now the humans look actively alarmed.
I launch into the sky and begin to fly in a slow path along the humans who have gathered.“But with a little more time, as my bonded dragon learned about my past, I came to see him differently.Instead of being the enemy, he protected me.He was angry at the way the humans in my past had behaved, and he told me the dragons hadn’t come to conquer.They had lived on Earth before, for thousands of years.They were back to collect something they’d left, something they needed, because without it, they were unable to procreate.They had no future, and when they came, they had no idea what exactly they were even searching for.They’d been told only that they’d know it when they found it.”
I land now, all their eyes still on me.
“And since their arrival, the blessed have done everything they could to recover this object they call the heart, but the humans have attacked them at every turn.Naturally, they fought back, and they’re well equipped to do that.”
A few people laugh.
“But I started helping them, and we’ve had a breakthrough of sorts.We located a volcano in Iceland that held clues to what we needed.In the process, something changed.The earth dragons, who had no wings and were at the bottom of the dragon hierarchy, got a massive upgrade.Part of that upgrade resulted in them being unable to eat.In fact, none of the dragons can eat now, not without growing violently ill.And without food, you can imagine what happens next.”
“They’ll die?”Jean looks vested now.“Really?”
“Every last one of them,” I say, “unless they bond a human.Something about that bond allows them to metabolize our food sources here.”I smile.“My little brother’s favorite dragon’s a green earth dragon named Gordon.Do you know what his favorite food on earth is?”
No one answers.
“I thought all dragons would eat cows, or goats, or humans,” I say.“I probably got that idea from movies, which always have them flying down herds and devouring them, but Gordon loves tunneling in the earth, and he finds grubsdelicious.”It makes me laugh.
I’m not the only one.
“Once he had one stuck on his cheek.”I shiver.“When I pointed it out, heoffered it to me.”I shake my head.“I said no thanks, and he popped it in his mouth himself.”
They’re listening now.
“The first time the dragons bonded humans, they did it all wrong.They can force a bond—it’s called being ensnared.They can fly into any human settlement, search for brights, and then bond them against their will.But they don’t want to make a mistake like that again, even with their very lives on the line.”
Some of them do,a water dragon I don’t know says.
“That’s true,” I admit.“A great many of the blessed want to take action now, before they grow too weak to find enough humans and force them to bond.They want to justtakethe humans they need, but I envision something better.I want dragon-human pairs that will be strong.Humans brave enough to teach and guide the dragons who have come back to Earth—teach them about our ways and our life.I’m looking for warriors who will help usandthem, but I know that it’s complicated.”
No one flinches.
