Red Writing Hood: The Last Dragon

Prompt: "What you know" doesn't necessarily always mean "your comfort zone." For this week, take what you know out of your comfort zone. Try a new genre, a new time period, a geography you've only dreamed of, fantasy or historical instead of contemporary fiction, try the male POV if you usually write women. Or vice versa. Of course this is fiction. No actual dragons were harmed in the making of this blog post.


In the beginning, there were dragons.

We were many.

Majestic creatures we were, proud of the sleekness of our bright rainbow scales, and the way our wings cut through the air.

And oh, what magnificent flames did we breathe across the sky as we flew!

We were many.

We were content.

We lived in our caves with our clans, guarded by our largest males. We mated for life. We birthed children, as warm-blooded mammals do, not by egg as the legends about us say.

We recorded our long history in the language of our people, written on rocks which were laid deep within the caves where we lived.

When the first Men came to our attention, we discussed what we would do at our yearly meeting of the clans. There were some who wanted to kill, others who wanted to show ourselves and strike fear, but the majority of us were determined to remain hidden, to watch and see.

We watched as the Men grew numerous upon the earth, and at first we did not understand our peril. We did not understand that Man did not eat the fire and rock of volcanoes as we did. We did not understand their need to hunt and kill. We did not understand their hunger to conquer.

We were fools.

And thus it was, that after so many thousands of years, our race began to die. One by one, we perished.

Those dragons who killed men were hunted down and killed themselves. Those dragons who appeared in the sky to seek food were also hunted and slain, and those were our strongest males, our Guardians. The mates of the Guardians grew despondent, and threw themselves at the Men so they could rejoin their mates in death.

Without our guardians, the smaller of us were defenseless, and were slain in turn. We hid deep within the mountains, but Man dug into the mountains for gold and silver and discovered our hiding places. Some of us entered the Sleep of Ages through our ritual magic, never to awaken until the world ended. The rest slowly died of despair, since we could no longer fly. There were no more pure dragons.

Except for me.