THE IMMORTAL: Dance with the Dragon

5: Dragons

When she was a child,  Samara thought the visits with Kalahari were just because she and  Samara's parents had been best friends most of their lives. That was  true, yes, but Samara's parents and Kalahari were together often also  because they had been part of a conflict that most  normal humans didn't  even realize was going on.

A silent war between humans and dragons.

Long ago, dragons and  humans had been allies. However, some of the humans began to fear and  distrust the dragons simply because they knew the dragons were more  powerful than them. This led to attacks against the beasts, which then  turned the beasts on the humans.

In the beginning the dragons were the victor, easily overpowering the humans before magic became widespread.

After losing so many of  their kind, the humans went into hiding. They built cities beneath  mountains, above swamps in the trees and on stilts, and in dense  forests—anywhere the dragons had difficulty reaching in dragon form.

Soon after going into  hiding, however, the humans learned to make weapons that could kill the  dragons; they did so in secret for years until they were confident  enough to rise up against the beasts once more.

The humans started a new  war and this time they began to overpower the dragons with their new  weapons and latest technology. In addition to their dragon-killing  weapons, Nature gave more and more humans the power of magic, which also  helped in the fight against the beasts.

Dragons fell from the sky until there were so few left that it was their turn to go into hiding.

Most of the dragons  stayed in their human form and made clans far from humans in caves at  the top of the highest mountains and the most secluded areas of the  planet. Eventually, there were so few dragons sightings that humans  believed them to be extinct.

That belief soon turned to humans never believing dragons ever existed in the first place.

Dragons were now a myth to ordinary people.

The exception was a  group of humans with unique gifts: the magic users, who called  themselves Conjurers. They knew dragons were still very real and  remained a threat to humans. The Conjurers formed small groups of  defense, as Kalahari and her friends had done, in case the dragons ever  decided to attack again.

The older, more powerful  Conjurers were known as The Council, mainly comprised of Erasers, who  were most powerful in mind manipulation. They were in charge of making  sure humans stayed ignorant of the dragons' existence. If humans knew  dragons weren't just a myth, there would be worldwide panic. Any time  there was an incident involving a dragon, Erasers came in to remove the  memory of the humans that had been involved.

Meanwhile in today's  world, some of the dragons had braved emerging from their hiding places,  staying in their human form and never transforming, so they could live  among the humans. With the new trend of humans dying their hair every  color of the rainbow, a person with green, blue, or bright red hair  wasn't enough to cause any suspicion.

Most dragons that lived  in the cities kept to themselves, but there were some exceptions. On  occasion a dragon with a bad attitude would attack humans and have to be  dealt with by The Council.

These isolated conflicts kept the battles going between The Conjurers and the dragons.

Fifteen years ago, Cyril  the Black decided he had had enough of dragons hiding. He waged a war  against The Conjurers. In that war Marianna, Samara's mother, had been  killed. Both sides suffered a huge loss.  The dragons went back into  hiding. Even Cyril had retreated.