I stretch my wings, pushing down hard against the air. I feel the familiar thrill of flying, feel the wind brushing my every scale, feel the air against the leathery membrane of my wings.

I see the rest of my clan flocking out to their caves, the small home sections that we have that branch off from the main cave. All of the adults look out from the edges of the ledges of their caves to observe the nightly dragon council meeting, where they discuss possible visitations from other dragon tribes, human activity that could be possibly threatening, current leaders of other clans, and so on and so forth.

I let my wings carry me to my cave, the one I share with my family. There are perhaps one hundred or so dragons in our clan.

Swooping into my home, I land lightly upon the cold stone floor. I feel a growl of hunger in my stomach, but the hunting parties have long since come back for the day, and if I wanted dinner, I should have either gone with earlier or gone hunting on my own.

You can hunt on your own or with a party if you want to, but you must always be back by the time the leader, in this case, Kynym, roars to summon together the dragon council of the clan. Sometimes you will be appointed to a party(if the clan is running low on food stores, several different parties will be appointed a leader and sent out), sometimes you can choose your own party(if you and some friends are hungry, it is often easier to hunt with a wing of dragons, so you can just head out). And, of course, if you can't find a hunting party, you can always hunt solo. It is always quieter for just one dragon to hunt than several.

The only dragons who don't have to hunt for themselves are the sick, the elders, and the hatchlings too young to fly or not trained to hunt yet. They rely on family or fellow clan members to bring them fresh kill. Like my little brother.

Suddenly I feel a small but powerful force ram into my wings and knock me over. Think of the devil.....

"Seriously, Tinym?" I grumble playfully. "I gotcha! I gotcha! I finally gotcha! Hey, Kyziss, I did good, right!?'" He squeaks excitedly.

I notice he has lifted his talons from my back in his celebration, and, using this temporary attention lapse to my advantage, I roll over and pin my little brother beneath my claws.

"Never loose focus." I say. He groans in exasperation. "Noooooo. I finally won and then you pinned meeeeeeeeeeee." He whines.

"I know. I was there." I say jokingly. I lift off of the little rascal, crossing the soft fur carpet and entering the small hole that is my room. Our cave consists mainly of a living room furnished with a fur carpet, three smaller caves that branch out from it, and a small kitchen.

By "small" I mean large enough for four dragons and a moose carcass to sit comfortably with some room to spare. So actually fairly large.

My room is made up of several animal pelts that serve as a bed, a small pool for water, and a blood-stained and ash-smothered corner that I use for carving out the pieces of a meal I don't like and roasting my meat.

Just thinking about it makes me hungry. Dang it. I should have eaten while I had the chance. Maybe Cherim has something to eat left over.......

I head out of my room and out the door. "Hey, Kyziss, where are ya going?" Tinym asks me.

"To Cherim's" I reply over my shoulder. Cherim is my best friend, a sky-blue dragoness my age that I have known since I was one moon old. The rule is that you can't fly or leave the nest after the leader gives the roar and until he gives another roar in the morning.

But, it just so happens that dragons are extremely skilled climbers. At this time, you can find lots of dragons swarming the walls of the cave, doing a variety of things such as going to friend's homes, getting a closer look at the meeting, and just climbing for fun.

A group of younger drakes, about my age, are playing a game where they try to push each other off of the cliff-face to get each other in trouble by using their wings to catch their fall. They laugh, and a red one gets pushed so that he is dangling by one claw before recovering. His laughing gaze meets mine, then suddenly turns solemn. "Hello, Nanden." I say out of pure politeness.

"Hello, Kyziss." he replies flatly. I roll my eyes, proceding along the rock face.

As I get closer to the edge of one of the exit tunnels, I catch a weird smell. I can't seem to place it.

Then I see it. A human..... how is that possible? They are murderous, evil, dishonest, and heartless........they cannot come into a sanctuary like the the nest!

I climb up above the tunnel and watch it, hanging upside-down, my tail curled around an overhanging rock above me to keep my self from falling, because my claws are curved inwards, I cannot hang like this by my claws.

I keep my wings tucked close to my body, silently observing as the human leans farther and farther out of the tunnel, staring at Nanden and his friends as they play their ridiculous game. Stupid human. Doesn't even notice me.

Suddenly the human slips and falls, an odd, panicked sound coming from it's throat as it scrunches it's eyes shut and holds on for dear life.

I have a strange urge to help it, as it looks so, well, helpless just hanging there, soft flesh instead of hard scales, no wings, no claws to dig into the rock, and those puny, flat little teeth grinding against each other in effort! Such easy prey. Any other dragon would have killed it by now...

I should too. They are evil! They killed our Queen! Suddenly the old story comes rushing back.......

Once, there was a queen. She was beautiful, and had a lovely daughter that she loved more than anything. Her scales were golden, and her daughter's were a luminescent silver.

And, of course, like all golden dragons, she had a strong prophetic power.

She ruled fairly over the dragon kingdoms, and appointed just and fair leaders to each of the nests. One day, a gray dragon attacked a herd of cattle out of pure starvation. Although it is against dragon law to attack human livestock(the dragons had a treaty with the nearby human kingdom), he was driven mad by hunger.

This dragon was severely punished, and the queen sent her apologies and explanation to the human king. The king agreed, and the treaty stood firm. After all, it was only one cow......

But the king lied. That night, a group of human villagers raided the Queen's nest, killing hundreds of dragons, and stealing the Queen's treasure.

After the raid, the Queen went to check on her beloved daughter. She went to her room, only to find that her sweet, loving, kind, daughter had been brutally slaughtered.

Her beautiful silver scales had been painfully ripped out, one by one, leaving only soft flesh, dripping with scarlet blood. Her wings had been shredded. Her tail was broken at a painful angle, and she had a long spear protruding from her heart.

Why would anyone do this? The dragons had tried everything we could, we had made peace treaties, made laws against killing humans and their livestock, we had loyally given the humans jewels and service to build their castles. We were nothing but generous, helpful, and kind.

And one rogue and a cow(a single cow!!!) had brought the humans to reveal their lying, cheating, evil, selfish selves. Not to mention, the humans had made sure to torture the princess before killing her, making her death slow, painful, and drawn out. Why would they do this, if not to personally seek revenge on the Queen?

Enraged and hurt, her golden scales faded to a saddened black color. She flew straight to the palace. She wanted to speak with the king before making any rash decisions, and she roared to let him now she was there. But her sorrow and misery had transformed her roar into a grief-stricken, terrifying thing.

Instead of a the beautiful, awe-inspiring, majestic roar it once was, it was now a cry of pain and loss. She swooped towards the castle, and was suddenly attacked.

The knights guarding the castle fired at her, and, in her panic, her tail lashed out and her claws flailed, accidentally destroying towers. Cries of pain and betrayal rang out in the night.

The Queen knew that she had one ally in the palace: the human Queen. They were practically best friends, laughing and socializing constantly whenever there was a chance. She went to the Queen's bedchamber, ripped a hole in the wall, only to find the queen laying dead on the floor, a knife wound in her chest.

The Queen of the dragons reached into the room gently, the blood from her many wounds smearing the walls, and she gently lifted her friend into her talons and flew away to bury her. One of the traitorous humans must have killed her, the Queen thought. They do not deserve to mourn at her funeral.

The Queen died of her wounds soon after. The humans had killed her, her beloved daughter, and too many of her subjects. To this day the dragon kingdom remains separated, divided among different nests, different leaders without a Queen and King.

But legends speak of the Queen's final prophecy, of a dragon that will return to the lost city of the Queen, and become the ruler of the dragons.

All humans should be dead! But i just can't bring myself to kill this one......why? What's wrong with me? Mother would be so disappointed.

The way I see it, I have four choices. I could hang here, and watch as the human eventually falls off and dies, I could kill it myself and eat it, I could abandon it to either gravity or another dragon(whichever comes first), or....... I could, of course........save an innocent life.......

Innocent????!!!!!! What is wrong with me????? Have I gone soft!!!!????????

But I know there is no real choice. I know what I will pick. I am no murderer, I cannot even just watch something die either(unless it's prey, but a dragon's gotta eat.......besides........this is different than prey). Besides, this small human couldn't hurt me if it wanted too. For some strange reason, I trust it.

I clamber off of my rock and make my way down to her(at least I think it's a "her"........ I've heard that human females like to keep their head fur long.....)

I climb up below her, silently, and she still doesn't notice, her eyes scrunched shut. Suddenly she can't hold on any longer, and she falls, right into my waiting talons.