The History

historic recap, might explain the story so the reader isn't confused

The History

I should probably explain myself, who I am, the history of life as I know it, and how I got to be in this situation. My name is Krista Bellasaris, and I am a human. Well, at least what humans have become. After World War III broke out on Earth, humanity was nearly lost. As atomic and hydraulic bombs were released in many areas of our atmosphere, the Earth became uninhabitable. To survive, humanity uprooted within a year, packing into space shuttles and space stations that were hurriedly built in a hope to travel to a ‘new’ and habitable planet that we could call home. The space craft we resided in, due to that amount of time given to construct them, were not, up to the code set by international space organizations, and began to break down in the first few years. Because of the break down, people would die because of the ships falling completely apart, or enough matter coming in through the craft to cause space radiation. Those that survived mutated and we became to look more like the elves from the stories told on Earth.

            After years of searching we found a habitable planet to land on, twice the size of Earth, with half of the gravity. We landed quickly, forgetting to do land surveys and find if there was any major predators we needed to worry about when settling here. We watched in awe from windows made in the side of the craft as we descended to the ground, ignoring the rainbow like streaks of color around us. After a safe landing, with only one shuttle exploding high in the atmosphere due to bad integrity, the doors open and everyone exited the crafts, our minds being bombarded with many loud voices. Everyone imagined that they were going insane, suffering from space madness, the voices asking a thousand questions a second, like who were we, where did we come from, why did we come here.

With a sudden silence, and the mountains nearby shaking, the voices stopped, and the cloud that had appeared around our minds cleared as two sole voices, in perfect unison, began speaking. They had a near perfect voice, with a crystalline ring to it. The voices asked for a space to be made, the area of about two football fields, with everyone in a circle around that space. When the last person is back in the circle, two massive flying creatures, which we could only name as dragons for they were too majestic to be called reptiles, landed in front of us at the same time, every single move perfectly in sync. Together these two creatures explained everything they knew about how we were able to speak to them, and explained their planets history as well.

The dragons were the only creatures that they were aware of, who were symbiotic beings on this planet, and until today, the universe. They explained how they could fly, and their abilities to breathe fire, ice, acid, noxious gases, paralyzing toxins, and to our greatest surprise, plasma. Humans, in all of our technological advances, had never been able to harness the power of plasma. We had been able to create it yes, as electrical discharge, but it became a hindrance because it was too difficult to be handled, too unstable. We, the beings who had traveled across the universe were being showed how inferior in evolution we were to these creatures that have yet to even dream of leaving the planet, just because of their natural ability to breathe powerful substances.

Their intelligence shined like the sun, when they explained that they knew we were only half of our total surviving population, and that the other half had landed on another continent, most likely having the same conversation with the dragons over there. The dragon’s, we were told, on that other continent, were enemies to the ones we were with, rivals, as they were the same in every way except for their body shape, and the way they flew. They fought over who was superior, and over who got the best hunting grounds. The dragon’s before us were winged, and flew through the combination of gas intake, muscle, and their own breath ability. The others were serpent like, and relied solely on the gas intake and breath ability to fly. While the others had slight more agility, being able to wind themselves in circles in the air, their breath ability was taxed, having to use more of it to fly instead of fight. The dragons we were with, who had wings, gave up the ability to do tight spins in a space just barely containing them to be able to save their breath, and becoming more powerful.

When realizing that they needed our help, which we were sent by the stars, and we would be thrown into their war anyway, they asked us if we knew or cared for anyone on the other continent. When no one knew anybody, they asked us for assistance. We said yes, though we didn’t understand yet why they needed our help. Those who had strong bloodlines, mostly military families were able to bond to the dragons, and beams of starlight matching the dragons color poured down onto them. Upon awakening, they had taken a similar color to their dragon in their hair and eyes, and were able to throw the dragon’s breath ability with their dominant arm. Those who couldn’t bond swore to serve in whatever way they could, and they for some reason, passed on this trait of not being able to bond to their children, and their children’s children, for reason’s still unknown to us. The trait to bond only was passed on when both parents were bonded to a dragon, and those two’s dragons would mate, and from the dragon’s eggs the child’s partner was hatched. Sometimes, the two humans would copulate, but the dragons would not, and that child would bind to a hatchling from another dragons nest.

Not even a full year later, a year equaled 568 days, a war between the Alanasterian, winged, and Korjian, serpent like, dragons began. The two fought over a pair of golden eggs, said to bring the dragon’s who would decide who was superior to life. There was supposed to be a godlike dragon in each egg, and would only be able to tell who was superior if they were raised together, and whoever raised them would more likely gain their favor. Once they decided, all dragons would transform, and become the superior species. The dragons had a blind spot, directly behind them, and above them, so they asked us for help to watch those spots, warn them of an incoming enemy. Also, a dragon’s claws weren’t meant for holding onto the eggs, and they would be dropped crossing the ocean because there was no place for them to readjust their grip. So humans, when fashioning harnesses for them to stay on safely during long trips, as well as armor, so that dragons were protected by more than their scales, they created sacks in which they could put the eggs, so that the dragon’s claws were free. The eggs would now be safe, unless the dragon that was carrying them was killed.

In exchange for their help, no human was approached by a dragon with hostility unless it was from the other faction, or during a Hatching Day, a public spectacle when eggs that were laid were known to hatch, and a child would bond with their dragon then, or a Bonding Day, where children who were unable to attend the Hatching Day were given a chance to bond with hatchlings before it was too late. Mentally fresh and starving during Hatching Days, if a hatchling was approached by the wrong person, they would get violent, in a majority of cases, mildly injuring the person, and in the most extreme, ripping them to tiny little pieces before eating their flesh. No guarantees could be made over a person’s safety during these times, because of how unpredictable it was. The hatchling’s who don’t bond on Hatching Day, are kept at a nursery until the official Bonding Day of the early or late season. Early season, is from the beginning of the year, to the middle of summer, late season was the opposite, middle of the summer until the end of the year. On bonding day, the hatchlings were even more aware of what they were supposed to not do, but, would easily get angry if a person continuously approached them, sometimes even killing them as well.

The most successful bonds would happen at a Hatching, with a beam of starlight coming from the sky, and connecting the two bonded. The longer a hatchling waited to bond, the harder it was, sometimes not even fully bonding with their partner after hours of trying. Those that didn’t bond within 5 years would learn a skill to otherwise help the community, and some would become scouts, partner less members of the military force, out to watch for the eggs or incoming attacks. These dragons could still produce eggs that could bond to humans, so it didn’t become worrisome when the humans would have a child able to bond with no known nest to bond from.

After a few age trials, the strongest bonds came when the child had just turned seventeen, and the hatchling was just born, so eggs would be kept at a temperature just low enough to keep them from hatching before their partner was ready. At the age of seventeen, the human would be intelligent enough to be aware of what they had to do, how to be careful, and mentally strong enough that they would perfectly match their hatchling. Just hatched hatchlings would not yet be mentally strong enough to overpower their human, but would not be overpowered either; assuring that it would be a mutual partnership, not a dictatorship on either side.

The golden eggs weren’t normal eggs, and weren’t ever laid by the dragons themselves. The golden eggs were laid by Jormangers, small dragon like creatures that didn’t appear to be intelligent at all. Jormangers remained smaller than a horse, and could fly, but didn’t have breath abilities, with dull coloring, and at one point in the history been prey to the dragons, until it was found out that Jormangers were the ones that laid the golden eggs. Because of their fear of the dragons, Jormangers would abandon the eggs, large and shiny gold, they resembled the dragon’s shiny scales and scared them when they were laid, a hundred years after the gold dragon or dragons died, or their eggs were lost.

Abandoned eggs last at most a week before the hatchlings inside died from lack of heat. Unless laid by an ice dragon, the hatchlings cannot last more than an hour under body temperature, which an egg will hold for just under a week’s time by itself. The eggs need to be kept above 300 or more degrees, eggs can take years to hatch, and will never hatch within the first week of being laid. If not found within the first four days, the hatchlings inside the eggs die more often than not.

Though one side may find both eggs, it was impossible for it to be kept secret, there for lead to the wars, and the eggs would be broken in the skirmish, or one would be lost, or stolen, and they could never get them both to hatch together. The scouts would be watching the eggs, and when collected, the scouts would either help escort, or would go and say that the other side found the eggs. Scouts couldn’t be differentiated by color, or size, only by their shape, and some used their breath abilities to look like the others, and use glamour.

For the first few years, humans were only passengers, securing the eggs and keeping a look out. Soon, it was realized that the breath ability they could toss could be used as a weapon, and they would throw it at the humans on another dragon, or the straps around a dragons harness. After an accident where a human fell off of his dragon and landed on another’s back, then the human jumping back onto their dragons in an act of desperation, we figured out we could use the breath abilities to float across the air, and jump from dragonback to dragonback, and found the balance to fight on the dragons back, becoming an extremely dangerous force, able to jump onto the back of an enemy and disarm them, forcing them to surrender or die, and most of the time they chose die, in which the human would kill the dragon’s human, and then stab the dragon’s brain with a sword, then jump back to their owns back.

As this continued the war advanced, having unbound humans become foot soldiers, similar to the scouts of unbound dragons. The bound pairs became an elite force, and a school was formed for their special training. The school was named Sky School, located somewhere that could only be reached by flight. When a pair bonded, they would go to the school for five years, learning everything about each other, how they moved, how they thought, how they made their decisions, and then they would be put into Wings, teams of pairs that were formed from the start to never be separated, to be brothers and sisters to each other and completely trust each other.

Another effect soon found as caused from the bond, is that the humans would age three times as slow, so that a dragon would not be giving up the majority of its life to die with its human, who would have died of old age. If one died, the other could still live, but would be so wrapped up in sorrow they would go insane, or become so depressed they would kill themselves, or just forget to eat or drink anything. Women would fight for the first twenty years after training before being forced into a temporary leave to go through pregnancy and raising two children who could bond. To keep from revolting, they were treated with honor and respect, and were paid twice as much than if they were fighting, because they were needed to give birth, to continue the bond with the dragons.

Women were allowed to remain in leave after having two children bond if they wished, though they would no longer be paid double, and could return to the school to either learn, or help instruct if they wished, or could leave entirely, with a promise that unless they reached the age of retirement before they were needed, that they could be called off of reserve if they were threatened by major war. Every year men were given a three month period of leave, so that they could go home to their families, and otherwise rest. Both men and woman nearing the age of 150 were required to retire, to live in honor for another 500 to 100 years, as the ruling council in government.

My mother was in the position I am in now, twenty years ago. Just barely 17 years old she bonded to the ruby red hatchling Isabelle, who could breathe fire. After their 5 years of training together they made a mistake, accidentally mating early and being forced to begin mothers leave early, because they didn’t realize what they were doing. My biological father they would never tell me, but mom married my dad, a chef who convinced her to love him through chocolates he made. Isabelle has taken care of her eggs for seventeen years, and mom has taken care of me. I was always spellbound by the stories my mom would tell me and by the dragons I would see flying during air shows and the games that are to keep the active forces from getting rusty during times of peace. I knew from the started that I wanted to be in the Wings. As soon as I developed my ability to, I took every opportunity I could to stretch my mind telepathically, talking to some of the nice retired couples and their dragons around town, expression my hopes. I went as often as I could to Hatching Days and Bonding Days, absorbing everything, the gore instead of scaring me off made me want to be a Winglet even more.

Now here I am, staring into the eyes of Isabelle’s amethyst hatchling, a little frightened but excited as I hear a tiny little voice in my head, as if in the distance, as his siblings fight over the meat they have left, ignoring what is still clutched in my hand.