Excerpt from the journal of Sirogane Ichirou, unpublished.
I remember the first humans.
I remember I thought them bloodthirsty, constantly fighting one another over tiny perceived differences, nearly as blinded by their hatred as Inryuu’s cursed brood. And yet they worked together. Like a pack of wolves they hunted together, lived together, and built kingdoms together. Alone, or even in pares, as my own species prefers, they were weak, even pathetic, but together… oh what they could accomplish together.
I remember when my brothers and sisters in Yoryuu approached them, though I can’t remember if we were the first, or if Inryuu’s children had made that first regretful move. I remember they were afraid of us, perhaps rightly so, though we meant them no harm. With our evil cousins joining one side, it was only right that we should balance the scales, otherwise honorable Hengist might have lost their entire following.
Many of us took their forms, walking amongst them in human skin, though always our magic gave us away. We taught them, guided them in the ways of magic, only for the humans to take the concept in directions we could hardly imagine. They were wondrous. It's no wonder that Yoryuu loved them nearly as much as he did his own.
But war, it seems, is just as much a part of human nature as their teamwork and ingenuity, for soon we found ourselves pulled into their conflicts. I found myself on one side of a seemingly constant campaign of carnage, as the children of Hengist and Horsa fought each other as well as us.
I remember the first dragon hunters, entire groups dedicated to killing us both on and off the battlefield, though I dare say it took entire groups to bring down one of my kind, often with great casualties of their own. At first the hunts were as divided as the humans, and admittedly us as well. Those allied with Horsa specialized in killing the dragon allies of Hengist and vis versa. At first.
I don’t know what is truth, and what is rumor, but now there seems to be a particular band of hunters sworn to our extinction… a band led by a man named Giorgos. A warrior with no affiliations, him and his companions have killed both metallic and chromatic dragons with impunity and more than a little skill. It is said that his village was destroyed by a pair of fighting dragons, and that he blames them both for the accident. Assuming it was an accident… I dare say even my own siblings can have little regard for the bystanders living in the homes they crash through in their scuffles.
I wonder sometimes if that is our greatest mistake, or if we never should have contacted the humans to begin with…
