"Feeling better?"
I blush and look away, pointedly ignoring the amusement dancing in the older girl's eyes. Yes, being hand fed in her lap while she pet my head felt nice and helped to calm me down, but it's still embarrassing! Especially since she didn't stop after I went back to my normal size!
"Shut up," I mumble under my breath, still too scared of how much stronger she is to actually say it to her. Not that I'm actually upset at the question, I actually appreciate that she cares enough to ask.
Except that it's still embarrassing for me considering she's so much smaller than me.
"So, um, who are you? And how'd you make me shrink?" Information. Information is good. Especially since it could help me learn more about myself.
She smirks like she knows what I'm doing, but she still answers. "I'm Haley Long: current Eldest Dragon." She raises an amused eyebrow at me. "And the only ones that can change a dragon's form are the dragon themselves."
I flush heavily, the unspoken words coming through clearly that I'm the one who made myself small earlier. But 'Eldest Dragon'? That sounds like an unusual title. Self-explanatory, but still unusual.
"Izumi: Emerald Dragon." I nod in greeting to her, twisting my head to the side to bare my neck to her. I don't know why, but it just feels like the right thing to do. "What does it mean to be the Eldest Dragon?"
She shrugs, kicking her feet on the couch in my game room. "Pretty much exactly what my title says. I'm the oldest dragon on the planet," something dark flickers in her eyes for a moment, but it's gone so quick that I'm not sure it was even there in the first place, "so it's my responsibility to care for and guide you younger ones. Whether it's helping you with your territories, moving Lairs, or mediating between disputes."
She tilts her head and regards me curiously. "I'm also the one who has to educate you about what we are."
"We're dragons," I say easily, curious about what else she can mean.
"Correct," she says with a lazy nod, "but what about what dragons are?" I stay silent, acknowledging that I don't actually know much about being a dragon apart from being a carnivore, loving my Lair, and wanting to expand my Hoard. Seeing that I'm paying attention, she launches into my history lesson, and I take a seat on the armchair at an angle to the couch.
"Long ago, in a time before quirks, or even humans, there was magic." I really want to snort at that, but she looks absolutely serious and I'd prefer she doesn't beat me to a bloody pulp because she thinks I'm laughing at her. That's never pleasant. "Magic was in everything. The air, the water, the plants, the stone, and the vast variety of beasts living off of the land. Magic was everywhere, and it was in everything."
She sighs, looking down at herself while she pauses to think. After gathering her thoughts, she continues. "From what I could find out myself, this changed at some point during the Renaissance, if not before. The first one, at least." She moves past the point before I can question what she means by 'the first one'. "As humanity moved farther and farther away from their roots and started viewing the planet as nothing more than another resource, magic began to fade from their cities. Humans abandoned magic, and magic abandoned them in turn."
She looks up and I nod in understanding, even though I have some doubts about the whole 'magic' thing. I'll at least reserve judgment until I hear the end though. Besides, even if this ends up being more of a religious explanation instead of a historical one, I'll at least learn more about what type of person Long is.
"Magic does not fade away, so the shift in its flows caused… mutations, in nature." She shakes her head. "Plants gained special properties and animals mutated, gaining special traits or otherwise unique properties. Many were benign, or at least harmless unless someone had bad intentions to them. These became the first magical creatures, and when humanity came to their homes to feed the never ending machine they called 'progress', the magical creatures fought back."
I can't help the shiver that crawls down my spine at how cold her voice is. "Humanity lost. Badly." She bares her fangs in a savage smirk, darkly amused. "In fact, they lost so badly that they were forced back into the previous age, history rewritten in an effort to pretend that it never happened. But there are always remnants, and today's history refers to the missing time as 'The Dark Ages'."
She chuckles. "Funny, what humans are willing to do to not admit how pathetic they are." Her amusement is abruptly replaced by a scowl. "But despite what might have been preferred, magic is always balanced. Humans were born who were stronger than the others. Smarter. Better." She shakes her head, her pigtails whipping the air. "Many are known throughout history, such as Da Vinci or Alexander. Others are not, for they didn't choose peace between humans and magic, but war."
She slides off of the couch and starts to pace in front of it, my eyes following every agitated move. "They chose to push back against the magicals, just as their predecessors did. This time, they succeeded. Magical creatures were forced into hiding out of the fear that they would be exterminated, and for a time humans thought they had actually accomplished the act. Then the Industrial Revolution came, and magic came to humanity once again."
She sighs tiredly, shoulder slumping and back arching. "It wasn't the first time that humans who could use magic were born, but in the past they were able to hide themselves more effectively. They used to have people who could guide them, teach them. But with magic having been absent from humanity for so long…"
"There was no one left for them to learn from," I finish, earning a nod from her.
"Correct. Not to say that they were all found immediately. A number managed to grow to old age and live fulfilled lives." She grimaces. "But the old order of warmongers hadn't disappeared, just faded into the background with no clear enemy to go against. During this time, they resurfaced. They formed cells in different countries dedicated to hunting magicals. Have you heard of Jack the Ripper?"
I nod, the famous serial killer's name still widely known despite the individual having lived and died several centuries ago. It's extraordinary, especially considering all the information that was lost during the quirk wars. "He was the leader of one of these cells. But unlike the others, he saw the magic his foes had access to and decided that he would fight magic with magic." Her grimace deepens.
"The women he killed were part of a ritual that was meant to make him immortal, so that he could continue the hunt for magicals he so enjoyed."
"What happened?" I can't help but ask, my stomach roiling at the thought of someone like that still being around today. I'm relieved when her lips twitch into a small amused smile.
"The other cells learned of his plans and declared him worse than the magicals they faced." The smile vanishes. "He wiped out three cells, hundreds of hunters, before forcing the magic he'd accumulated from his sacrifices to overload his body and resulted in Mount Everest becoming unchallenged in its claim of being granted the title of the world's tallest mountain. Its sole competitor was reduced to less than half its size, and the cells had to put in years of effort to trick the world into thinking that it was always that way."
I gulp at the display of power that would have been put on display during that fight. If the mountain could have rivaled Everest and was reduced to half its size…
I'm very glad that I wasn't born during that time period.
She continues after a moment's pause. "With the cells reduced to mere fractions of their powers, it was decided that they'd condense into a single group so that never again could one of their own be tempted by magic." She meets my eyes, and the only thing that stops me from flinching back is the fact that the utter loathing and hatred burning in her eyes is the fact that they aren't aimed at me. "They called themselves the Huntsclan, and they hunted anything that showed even a hint of magic… and any humans that stood in their way."
I'll admit, I can't help but snort. "So much for being loyal to their fellow humans," I muse darkly, getting an equally dark chuckle from Long.
"Indeed," she drawls before moving on. "They were good at what they did, the few magicals who'd occasionally poke their heads out to get a read on the world were swiftly hunted down and killed. But just as magic gave humans the huntsmen, it gave the magicals dragons."
The sheer weight of wonder, the awe and respect in her voice, has me sitting up straighter, pride filling me at sharing a race with her and those ancient beings. At knowing that someone so strong thinks so highly of what we are.
"Dragons were protectors of the magicals, they ensured that they weren't wiped out. They maintained the presence of magic outside of humanity and did all they could to ensure that neither side would again need to be granted a boon."
She deflates, stopping her pacing and climbing back onto the couch. She sighs, the weight of what she's about to say forcing the breath from her lungs. "Eventually, their efforts weren't enough. All because of him," pure, unadulterated hatred is put into the word, as if every crime, every atrocity humanity has ever committed, can be laid at this single person's feet. "The Huntsman," she snarls, "was one of those born with what is now known as the mark of a dragon slayer. He'd made it his entire mission to eradicate magic and had a personal vendetta against dragons specifically. Under his leadership the number of magicals depleted rapidly, and many dragons were killed after he found and trained a significant number of dragon slayers."
She closes her eyes as if the memories pain her, and I have no doubt that they do. "He gathered all thirteen pieces of an artifact known as the crystal skulls, which granted him the ability to make a single wish. My brother and his friends managed to stop him before he could wish for the death of magic, and everyone had thought that with the sacrifice of one of his friends, the Huntsman's threat was ended for good."
She looks at me with tired eyes. "It was only years after quirks appeared, decades after the end of the Hunt, that we discovered that it wasn't, and by then it was far too late. Nearly every magical was dead, leaving only my brother and I." Her fingers change into claws that she digs into the couch, tearing deep furrows into the leather. "The bastard gloated about what he'd accomplished, at the head of those he'd recruited to form a new Huntsclan. Not that he let them know that's what they were, oh no. He let them believe that they were hunting the first quirked individuals, not magicals."
She shakes her head sadly. "What he failed to realize is that with magicals essentially extinct, magic had no choice but to shift once again. This time to humans. Unlike the magicals who'd previously had magic's boon, their bodies hadn't been given the chance to adapt to its presence, and as a result, humans mutated on a far larger scale."
She leans forward with her elbows on her knees. "Quirks are not a natural human evolution, but an artificial one they underwent to accommodate the sudden introduction to something they'd previously been bereft from." She gives me a sad smile.
"Those of us who'd already been granted the boons of magic weren't affected as strongly by this, as we were already perfectly capable of holding magic within ourselves. But with only a single one of the original magicals, a single dragon, an even larger change had to be made, or else the humans would eventually explode from all the magic they'd eventually be forced to hold, forcing magic to regress to what it was at the start of the world. Which means dragons were no longer protectors."
She leans back and stares up at the ceiling, leaving me on the edge of my seat. "As the only dragon, I felt the change immediately. While a single individual came to my aid, protected me, magic changed what it meant to be a dragon. And once it was done," she bares her fangs at me, and I can see a tinge of insanity in her so far clear eyes, "I made sure to show those worthless wastes what the new meaning of being a dragon meant."
I swallow, my throat dry. "What- what does it mean?" I have to ask, even though the intensity in her eyes frightens me.
"Dragons," she says slowly, "are now fonts of magic. It could no longer be contained within nature, within humanity, but dragons? Magic created us with far more magic than any other, and now we ensure that the world does not fall to an overflux of magic." She grins sardonically at me.
"Dragons used to be the protectors of magicals. Now? Dragons are the reservoirs and protectors of magic itself, and thus, the world."