I met the love of my life, a dragon keeper, when I attended college.
I was studying biology. There wasn’t any particular reason for my choice; like most youngsters, I took the decision that influenced the rest of my life out of my gut. I had a mild interest in plants, so why not try, I told myself. Naturally, there was much more than just plants, once I got there. First of all, there was still maths, and tons of chemistry exams. Only after some months did they teach us something about plants, and by then any fascination I had for them had vanished, killed by my evenings on books, or in laboratories. But I moved on, as I managed not to hate any of the topics. I’m very glad I did it, because otherwise I wouldn’t have met him.
***
It happened during the second year. Each semester there was a group project to make; on the year’s second semester, I struggled terribly to decide which project to take, as I was no more sure what really interested me. It was a bit like a midlife crisis, but I wasn’t in the middle of my whole life, only my college life’s. But I had a deadline to respect, so one day I just asked one of my mates to let me join their group, through an internet chat. It went like this:
“Hey Chell”
“Sup Linda”
“You have found a group project?”
“Yeah I’m with Chris and Helene”
Of course there would be Helene: they were best friends, and I never saw them doing different projects ever. While Chris...I hadn’t gotten to know him much, although once in a while I found myself looking at him from a distance, because he was quite the cute boy, with his brown, short, straight hair and his blue eyes. But if there’s something I’m not, it’s definitely an extrovert person. Besides, I imagined such a cutie to be already with some blonde girl that suited him, not a black-haired nerdy with normal brown eyes like me.
“Mind if I join you? Didn’t find a group yet” I texted Chell.
“Think so, let me ask them”
I didn’t even ask what they were going to experiment on; everything would be fine for me. Chell didn’t ask me either whether I was truly interested or not: most of us just decided according to the company anyways.
None of the others had any problem. I wasn’t talkative, so never got into much trouble with anyone, and groups could have up to four students, so it was all set up. However, soon only two of us remained: me and Chris. Linda and Helene, at the last moment, decided to take another project, all of a sudden, at the day of deadline. I didn’t talk much about it to them; in fact, I never talked much with them for the rest of my college days. Although without them, I would never have met my love...and his dragons.
However, it didn’t happen like in movies, where the protagonists either fall in love at their first sight, or first hate each other and then they find out they have a lot of things in common. For the first two months, my exchanges between me and him, outside what needed to be done for the project, never let the sphere of hello’s and goodbye’s. Chris didn’t look like the talkative guy either, and with my personality the chance to reach any kind of relationship that went beyond the one of necessity was close to zero.
Until one day, or I should say, one night. Our first night together.
I still haven’t specified what this project was about: fireflies’ reproduction. After making all the theoretical research, we needed to go outside, and do it starting from twilight until late night, in a large meadow with tall grass where there were plenty of them. But while it may almost sound like camping, most of the time we did absolutely nothing It was just the two of us, plus our professor who supervised our work, while we watched tiny lights in the air and some recording instruments that we used once in a while, or repairing ourselves from the other, more unpleasant, insects. In fact it was so boring, and the near-summer air made us so dizzy, it made both of us exit our comfort zones and, for the first time ever, have a real conversation.
It was our professor who started, while the lights of the fireflies kept dancing among the grass.
“So, guys…how did you decide to study biology, anyways?”
Chris turned to him. His beautiful blue eyes for a moment seemed to want to reveal something, while shining in the light of our torches.
“It’s a long story.” It couldn’t be clearer he had no intention of narrating such story.
“I see. What about you, Linda?”
“Well, I kinda liked plants during high school.”
Embarassed, I pretended to look for something inside my bag. As I opened it up, something fell out. It was a book; not a schoolbook, though, but one I was reading for my own entertainment.
What was surprising was his reaction. For a short moment my insecure brain thought he was mocking me internally, but when his eyes shone again, I knew it: he was positively surprised, like if my book’s cover had unblocked a very good memory. Then Chris spoke.
“You...like dragons?”
In the book cover, there was a tough black dragon next to a guy with an ax. I remember the story being alright, maybe a bit short, although while reading some funny passages, I wondered if the writer’s native tongue was English, or something else. The name was a strange word I don’t remember, although I’m sure it began with an L. But that is irrelevant. What matters is for some reason, that book cover unblocked something within Chris.
“Well, I’m a bit into fantasy if that’s what you mean,” I answered. Although I called myself a nerdie for fun, I was never super into that kind of stuff – I tried reading A Song of Fire and Ice once, but couldn’t make it through the first two chapters – but if I wanted to relax a bit, light fantasy stories were one of my most frequent picks.
“Nice,” Chris said.
“You’re into fantasy too, I guess?”
“Well...it’s a long story,” he replied, with a small flicker in his voice. The same answer he gave when our professor asked us why we decided to study biology.
I didn’t dare asking him further that night: it was evident he didn’t want it. But my mind had a very hard time holding my own curiosity. Somehow, he had decided to study biology because of dragons. What had mythological beings to do with his life plans? The only hypothetical answers I could come up with sounded too much straight out of Hollywood to be credible. But again, how could I come up with a credible answer by myself?
***
That event, however, made Chris much more friendly.
To begin, when we met at our reserved table, he didn’t limit himself anymore to just “Hello”. Instead, he would also ask how I was doing, what I did the day before and so on, and I would ask the same. Even during lunch break he was a bit chattier, although never too intrusive like some perverts that had tried to approach me in the past (but that’s another story). Sometimes, we would also talk about literature, especially fantasy books. Whenever dragons were mentioned his face seemed to suppress some kind of feeling, because his lips seemed to be ready to make a smile; but once we talked more in detail about said dragons, his eyebrows contracted, like for expressing disagreement. But overall, we started to like each other.
Yet I could perceive he had some kind of secret – a very big secret. It wasn’t rare for him to be unavailable during the next night sessions, giving only very vague motivations, so that more often than not it was only me and our professor in the same field. Chris looked unaffected by our professor’s reminds that there was an attendance percentage to pass the final exam: it was as if there were more important things for him than graduating. In the end, he managed to reach the minimum necessary, but that meant I had to worker way harder than him.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t stop being fascinated by him. His good-looking aspect and the mystery behind him encouraged my mind to think of him often, especially when I was alone in my dorm. But I doubted I would manage to invite him to hang out, considering his habit of disappearing. And I didn’t expect him to invite me: I had never seen him outside of the college’s main buildings, apart from the fireflies’ field.
Yet he did.
It was almost towards the end of the semester, when the work that remained to do was writing down the final report. We had finished working for that day, and already we had exchanged our goodbyes, when before I could leave the building I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned back: it was him.
“Yes, Chris? You forgot something?”
“I…” He paused one moment, panting. He had ran. “Well...I wanted to ask you...I wanted to ask if you’re free this Friday.”
I instantly felt the butterflies in my stomach (or should I say fireflies?). I had accepted the idea we could never do anything more than being college mates, due to whatever life had for him involving dragons. However, I contained myself, at least for the moment.
“I’m free, yes.”
“So...would you like to hang out somewhere? Just as friends, you know…”
With that, my natural shyness fell off and I could feel my own lips exploding into a large smile.
“Oh, I would like it very much, Chris.”
Now his lips were smiling widely too.
“Nice. I was thinking, you know the bar next to the maths department? I went there once in a while last year, when I could.”
“Sounds good to me, yes. How about 7 PM?”
“Sure.”
Part of me was inclined to believe he wouldn’t show up, a belief that was amplified by the fact he missed again from college the day before our date. In fact, after I got there at 7 PM on Friday, took a small table with two seats and waited, after fifteen minutes there was no trace of him. I was already about to leave and get back to my dorm when I got a message on my phone.
“Coming now. Had something personal”
I sat down again.
“Want me to order you something?” I texted him.
“A pint of lager, please”
So I remained, while the bar slowly got filled with other students and a lo-fi hip hop playlist played from the speakers. When he arrived, he was much messier than usual. His hair was uncombed and curls popped out of his head everywhere. His eyes had a slight hint of dark circles and I mentally noticed his left socket was a different color than the other.
“Hey there, Linda.”
“Hello, Chris. Here is your beer.”
“Thank you.” He sat down, sighing while doing it, like if he couldn’t have waited for a long time not to stand up.
“How was your day?” He asked.
“Pretty regular. Lectures, writing the report, having dinner. What about you?”
“Uh…” He passed a hand on his front. “Nothing much to say about it. Had to solve something personal, as I wrote you.”
“So, is it alright now?”
“Yeah, thank you.”
After he said that, I noticed something else. He smelt strange, a mix of earth and something else that had to be animal.
“Do you have pets?”
“What?” He looked absolutely lost, and a little scared. “No...why you ask?”
“Oh, it’s just, I had this impression.”
“In a way…” he laughed nervously and looked at the other attendants sitting at the tables, before turning back to me. “But it’s not something I can really talk about. Nothing illegal, mind you, but it’s a bit of...well, it’s complicated.”
He made a tired smile. I decided not to investigate further for that evening: it was our first date and didn’t want to ruin it. At the same time, though, my mind kept working frenetically. He had joined a biology program for reasons that involved dragons. He was often missing. He smelt like some sort of animal. If I had to use Occam’s razor, I would have to conclude he kept dragons, but that was of course ridiculous. Maybe he was involved with something like lizards, maybe iguanas, or bearded dragons...the latter sounded definitely plausible, given the name.
The rest of the evening went pleasantly. We drank, we chatted, and then we left the bar, which had become terribly noisy, and had a walk around the campus in the end. It was way more pleasant than the fireflies’ meadow, with the moonlight upon us and a pedestrian zone where we could walk. We talked about our usual favorite topics, plus some more details about our families here and there. I discovered his parents originally migrated from a small village in Wales, in a national park called Snowdonia, and that he went there during the summer. And that his favorite ice cream flavor was vanilla.
***
As time passed, we met each other outside of school more and more often.
The second date happened three weeks after the first time. The third, the week after. The fourth time, we decided to move away from the college bar and have a picnic on a nearby beach. It was a beautiful cloudless night, with the full moon over us, the song of the crickets coming from the bushes behind the beach, a towel for both of us, drinks and the best thing of all – him. None of us had dared admitting what our relationship was becoming, until then. But after a pair of beers, the night summer air did the rest.
“Linda?” Chris said at one point. His cheeks could have been red either for the beer or for the nervousness; it was hard to tell.
“Yes?”
“I...I think I like you. I mean, like, a lot.”
I put a hand where my heart was. I knew it already, and I knew I felt just the same by now, but having it confirmed by voice is an emotion like no other.
“I like you too, Chris.”
There was no more need for words: we had chatted enough during the night. Our first kiss followed few seconds after, while the low noise of the waves and the crickets made us our soundtrack.
But when finally our lips departed, he suddenly turned very depressed. His face turned down and a tear escaped his left eye.
“What’s wrong, Chris?”
“I...I can’t do it.”
My heart raced faster, but for the wrong reason. I couldn’t believe it. Our love, just born, was already dying?
“What can’t you do?”
“I can’t open myself too much to others. If I do it, I may end up...I may cause something bad.”
“What kind of bad things?” My brain immediately connected the dots. “It’s about that thing you mentioned our first date in the bar, right? When I asked you if you have pets?”
His eyes opened wide. Where there was love, I could clearly see fear.
“Yes, it’s that.”
This time, though, I couldn’t let it go and pretend there was nothing underneath. Our first kiss had just happened, which made me morally obligated to investigate.
“It involves dragons, right?”
Even his mouth opened wide. He was now sweating copiously.
“How...how do you…?”
“When we went observing fireflies in that field” I explained “I opened my bag one moment and you saw a book of mine. It had a dragon in the cover. We had barely talked to each other until then, and after that we got much closer. Plus,” I took a break, “when I asked you whether you liked that kind of books you said the same thing you told our professor, when he asked why we took biology.”
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Which is…?”
“It’s a long story.”
“How can you remember all this?”
“It was our very first night outside. How can I not remember?”
His smile came back. It was as if it had been covered briefly by a mask of terror, but had never truly abandoned his handsome face.
“You’re as smart as your beauty, Linda.”
I laughed amiably. Nobody had ever complimented me like that. But it didn’t last long. We had an issue to solve, and we had to do it now.
“Chris,” I said, “if we are going to stay together, I want to ask you only one thing.”
“Tell me.”
“That you involve me with this thing with dragons.”
The mask of fear returned.
“I can’t let anyone. It’s too dangerous.”
“Chris,” I repeated his name with more severity, “I am ready to whatever it is. I want you into my life, and I know this dragon thing is a huge part of you.”
The fear mask slowly fell down, melting like ice cream.
“Fine. But you must first understood something. Once you get to know it, you get bound for life. Effectively, you’re already bounded, since all those who have a glimpse of it need to be monitored by us. I just hoped I would manage to make you avoid such fate.”
“Fate?”
“Everything I do in my life, it’s for this thing, Linda. I have never been able to pursue any other kind of dream. The only journeys I can do is the ones I do in Wales, and it’s not just for visiting my family. This is what my life is.”
“I didn’t have any grand dream anyway, Chris. Let me join you.”
He sighed heavily, a small breeze passing though his hair.
“Looks like I have no choice, then.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. He smiled content.
“Just one last thing,” I told him.
“Tell me.”
“Are there really dragons in this thing? I mean, actual dragons?”
His smile faded out, while his face became impassive.
“Yes.”
***
When the semester ended, after we passed our fireflies project with a decent score, he left to Wales for summer break. I was unable to join, as it required an amount of money I still didn’t have.
“Aren’t you afraid I may reveal...well, you-know-what? Even accidentally?” I told him some days before, while walking around the campus with our hands together.
He laughed. “Nobody would believe you.”
He was right, of course. The implausibility of dragons made it a safe shield. Besides, I still hadn’t gotten to know what it really was about.
I spent my whole summer break walking down the town where my college was, thinking of him and daydreaming about dragons. Sometimes, I begged for feeling his mouth against mine again, and wondering if next time we would push ourselves further. Sometimes, instead, I felt scared for what was waiting for me. Dragons. He wasn’t joking at all. Was I really going to face creatures as formidable as a dragon is in your usual fantasy story? Was I going to risk my life? Sometimes, instead, I realized there had to be a more rational explanation. How could there actually be dragons? Was he tricking me into something else? During these moments, I would often find myself walking in circle, sweating coldly for my safety. Other times, instead, my imagination took me towards incredible journeys with my mind, where I, together with my mate, battled together against an army of creatures for the salvation of Earth…
It was unbearable to have to wait so long for discovering the truth.
I was there at the airport when he finally returned. As he came out into the main hall, I trapped him into a tight hug. He did the same, passing his gentle hand through my hair.
“How was Wales?” I asked him.
“It was fine. Lots of stuff to do though. What about you?”
“Oh, pretty chilling. You know, just walks downtown, visiting family…”
He smiled. We kept chatting during the whole trip back to our campus, mostly about his summer in Wales, which was way more interesting than mine. Through every sentence of his, though I could perceive all the details he was forced to omit, because of the fact we were talking in public.
We didn’t do anything else that day, as he said he was too tired and needed to lie in his bed; but before opening his own door and kissing goodbye, he spoke again.
“Now that we’re alone, Linda, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What is?” I said, unable to hold a tremble of worry..
“I have talked about you with my family.”
“Oh...what did they say? Is there any problem?”
“Only one,” he admitted, “now that you know I am involved with dragons, I have to involve you too, and I can’t let you refuse it. Therefore, keep yourself available next weekend. I’m going to bring you with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. When we’re there, I’ll be able to tell you everything.”
I spent the following days in an amplified version of the mix of excitement and scare that had accompained me through the summer. That week, the new year began, but it turned out I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all: every thought of mine was directed to the weekend. When I was supposed to sleep, I instead found myself looking at the small hint of artificial light that entered through my dorm’s window. I even ate more snacks than I was used to.
I had put myself through something that would last for the rest of my life, but I had no clue whether it was good or bad.
Chris announced me the day with a simple message: “Saturday, at 7 AM, in front of my door. Bring a packed lunch”. At 6:30 AM, I was already there. After a small breakfast together, we finally got into his car.
“So,” he said, while taking the motorway, “now I can tell you everything. Is there anything you want to know first?”
I reflected. It was impossible to choose: I wanted to know pretty much everything. In the end, I decided with the most practical question I needed.
“Where are we heading?”
“In a national park. My father works there as a wildlife biologist, he’ll take us with him when we get there. I need to get a job there when I’m out of college: that’s why I’m studying biology.”
“And there are dragons? In the park?”
“Yes, we keep them there, in secret.”
“How can people not notice them? I mean, they must be pretty big, hikers will see them for sure.”
“That’s my main task,” he explained, “mine and my family’s. We are dragon keepers.”
“Dragon keepers?”
“That’s right. We come from an old dynasty from Wales, that has been protecting dragons from the outside world since the Middle Ages. I have relatives in many countries around the world, but we all come from Snowdonia.”
The motorway continued leading the way through human civilization. Outside the window, my eyes saw a world of skyscrapers, billboards, planes, satellites. There was no way to hide creatures as big as dragon in the modern world. I felt a drop of cold sweat running down my neck.
“How can you do it? I mean, they must be huge...and…” I gulped “...pretty dangerous, right?”
Chris snorted, while turning the wheel right. “When you see them with your eyes, you’ll realize all those fairy tales are plain wrong.”
I just nodded. If he said so, I had to believe it, but I couldn’t control what my own instinct kept telling me.
He continued. “You don’t have to worry. I and my father will tell you what to do. Just follow us and it’ll be alright.”
“I will.”
He exited the motorway. Civilization began becoming more scarce: houses were rarer and larger, the road tighter, while the trees’ height increased. The terrain stopped being flat, leaving place to hills that soon turned into mountains. In the meanwhile, I kept asking Chris about dragons.
“Why do you have to protect them? What happened to them?”
“Humans happened. They hunted them to near-extinction. Few of them survived through the Middle Ages, but they were almost all wiped out. Those who managed to hide themselves resisted a little more, but without my ancestors, they’d be gone too.”
“Why keep them though?”
“Because,” he pronounced solemn, “a world without dragon is a sadder world.”
I didn’t know what to say. By then, the visible trace of human civilization around us was the road: all the rest was tall, green forests and wide, rocky mountains. I tried to let myself enjoy that view, trying to keep the rest of my questions for later. Probably, I told myself, I would get my answer once I’d find myself face to face with the dragons...or whatever horrible thing he was bringing me too.
***
The road ended abruptly in the middle of a forest. Chris stopped the engine and parked the car. It was time.
“Where’s your father?” I asked.
“He wrote me some minutes ago,” he explained, “he’s coming in few minutes...oh, here he is!”
I turned back. From the far side of the road, a gray Jeep was coming towards us. “Let’s go take our bags, shall we?” Chris said.
From the Jeep emerged a beefy, gray-haired man with a short beard, who must have been around sixty. His shoulders were like a football player’s. Every part of his body seemed to announce: I do a very heavy job. Despite that, on his face was a gentle smile, just like Chris’.
“You must be Chris’ girlfriend, right?” He said with a rugged voice. “I’m Tristan.”
“I’m Linda.”
While we shook our hands, I could feel heavy calluses pressing on my own palm, emanating his strength.
“So,” he started, “what did Chris explain to you already?”
“Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that,” I answered nervously.
Chris intervened. “I only told her a bit of information about our family for now. You’re way better than me at explaining things.”
“If you say so,” Tristan nodded, while he put an enormous bag on his shoulder, “but one day you may have to do the same. When you’re my age, you know.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“Are you ready to meet dragons, Linda?”
“Y...yes,” I said, shivering a little.
“Don’t worry about them. Just follow our instructions and everything will be fine.” Just what Chris had told me in the car some hours before.
“I...understand.”
Tristan took the lead, taking a trail that went inside a forest. I used to hike with my own parents when I was a kid, so the forest itself didn’t scare me much; even if there was a bear, I would know how to behave. But this time, I couldn’t tell what I was going towards. None of us talked while walking, leaving me alone with my dreadful thoughts. Neither the calmness of the trees around us, nor the gentle pats of Chris’ hand on my shoulder could relieve my nervousness. Inside of me, I knew that it couldn’t be true, that I had been foolish, that these two men were going to put me in trouble and I dared not escape. Probably, part of my mind whispered, they were going to do something horrible to me, leave me or – I gulped – my body in the middle of the forest...
Suddenly, Tristan left the trail, telling us to go with him within the dense forest. While Chris followed him like if the was just crossing a walkway in the campus, I stood still, frozen.
“Anything wrong, Linda?” Chris said, getting back to me.
“I’m...I feel scared,” I admitted.
He took my hands. They were so soft, his touch was so gentle, that for a moment I forgot the reason of my fright.
“Linda,” he whispered gently to my ear, “you’re not the first one we initiate to this. Even my uncle discovered them when he was an adult. My aunt used to tell me, before he saw them the first time, he almost tried to run back to his car. Now, well...you should see how they always want to play with him.”
I managed to make a smile. His touch on my body had the power of washing off most of my fears. At least, that’s what I desired to believe, but what made me take the first step outside the trail was not my love for him, but my fear for what would happen if I escaped.
More walking followed. Chris and Tristan seemed to know them like if they lived there, while I had lost any idea about where we were. My heart was racing faster and faster. I was getting closer to the truth, but I had no way to understand how much was left, nor what truth it was, whether giant lizards of lunatic criminals. I exited from a state of trance when finally the voice of Tristan announced:
“Here we are!”
In front of us, was an enormous bush. The forest ended abruptly.
“There’s a downhill beyond the bush,” Tristan explained. “Once we cross it, we reach the valley where we keep the dragons.”
I looked above. On the now visible sky, there was nothing but clouds. The absence of flying lizards encouraged my mind to prepare for the worst. I told myself I deserved it, after being so foolish to fall into Chris’ trap, his handsome face, his voice like chocolate, his hands so reassuring. I was ready to go to the downhill and descend to hell.
I crossed the bush together with them. Below us, was another wooded valley. No dragons. No dragons at all. I walked, without thinking of anything, without even giving one last thought to my own family, my friends, nothing but the inevitable…
“Now, Linda,” Tristan said, and I realized we had walked the entire downhill, “you need to let us do the first step. You are a stranger for them, but if you let us move first they’ll understand you’re with us. Don’t make any sudden move, this is the most important thing. Is it clear?”
“Yes,” I said mechanically.
“I’m going to call them.”
He put his hands beside his mouth and made a loud, screeching sound that resonated through the valley. I watched him in absolute disbelief while Chris smiled. A part of me, though, relieved. If they really wanted to hurt me, they would have done it already. Probably they were just charlatans. Tonight I would just get back home, write Chris it’s over and go on with my life…
Then something came out of the trees.
I knew what it was.
But it wasn’t what I expected.
Yet I knew, they weren’t charlatans at all.
***
In front of us, was a dragon.
It had wings like a bat, yes, its skin was covered in green scales, its eyes were like amber and its back was covered in spines; its mouth was armed with an arsenal of sharp teeth.
But there was something that made it completely different from what you normally imagine dragons like. Its size was the size of a sparrow. It couldn’t be bigger than the palm of my hand.
“W...what…?” I blabbed, stunned and petrified, no more by fear, but by shock.
The tiny flying lizard stopped in the middle of the air, sniffing. It was probably taking a hint of my scent, to have a glimpse whether the new human was a friend or a foe. Next to me, Chris and Tristan kept calling it with the same screeching sound.
Three more came from the trees. One was yellowish, a little bigger than the first one; the other two were pitch black. All of them lay on their arms, the green and the yellow one on Chris, the black ones on Tristan.
“W...why didn’t you tell me…” I said, a drop of anger now mixing with my disbelief “...why didn’t you tell me they were small?”
The two dragon keepers looked at each other.
“In a way, it’s a tradition,” Tristan explained, “when one of us gets engaged with an uninitiated – that’s what we call those who don’t know they still exist – we usually don’t tell them anything until we bring them here. If we told them by voice, they would think we’re mad, so we prefer to make them discover it this way.”
“But with you, it was a bit different,” Chris continued, while passing a finger on the green one, “because you figured out by yourself we did something with dragons. Still, it was important not to give you too many details before you’d see them by yourself. We can never know how risky is to give too many details to someone new.”
I just nodded, speechless, my eyes hypnotized by the tiny lizards on their arms. Tristan had now taken something out of his bag: it was a paper bag, from which he extracted something that looked like a dead mouse. Only my experience in the college’s laboratories held me from exploding into a “Yuck!”. When the dragons saw it in his palm, they jumped onto it and began to feast on its organs.
“How...adorable,” I commented, while watching their small mouths ripping off the mouse’s flesh with avidity, sometimes arguing about who would take a certain piece with small growls. Immediately, though, my biology student’s mind thought of something very wrong. “Shouldn’t you avoid feeding them? They will take too much confidence with humans.”
“I know what you mean,” Chris explained, “but dragons can distinguish us from other humans. One of our tasks is to teach them not to trust any other human but us. If you tried to feed them right now, they’d fly away.”
The mouse fell off the ground: the dragons had finished eating.
“If they’re so small,” I asked, “why does everyone believe they’re bigger than us?”
“Because they used to,” this time it was Tristan answering my question. “When they were exterminated in the Middle Ages, only the smallest ones survived, because they could hide themselves better. Our ancestors did the rest.”
He then gave me a very serious look which demanded attention.
“Anyway,” he said gravely, “I assume Chris already explained you what happens to those who discover us. You have to join us, for the rest of your life.”
“Yes, he explained me.”
“Very good. Therefore, you need to get accustomed to the dragons.”
“How?”
“By feeding them.”
“But…” I said, hesitantly “you said you taught them not to accept food from anyone but you-”
“We have a procedure. Don’t worry, it’s quite simple. You’ll just keep the next mouse in your hand together with mine.”
“And...and they’ll just accept it?”
“They may refuse,” he admitted, “but If you remain cool, it won’t happen.”
“What happens when they refuse?”
He laughed nervously. “Usually they bite the newcomer.”
I gulped.
“We’ll take them off you, if it happens. Anyway, I’m going to take another mouse.”
He grabbed the paper bag and extracted the second one, then moved the hand to give it to me. Hesitantly, I took it.
“No!” Abruptly, he put his hand on the mouse again. “Remember, we must do it together, or they won’t accept you.”
The dragons, who were flying in the air, spitting small flames on themselves for playing, stopped. Their heads turned to the new mouse. I let Tristan took one half, while I grabbed the other.
“Good, they saw you...now let’s see what happens.”
When dealing with small animals in laboratories, I used to do something that managed to keep me calm and concentrated: humming to myself. But there was the chance that if I did it now, it would be something wrong to do. Therefore, I tried to hum in my mind some funny melody. The dragons were now sniffing the mouse from a distance.
“Your body is too rigid, Linda. Take a long breath,” Tristan said.
I stopped humming mentally. I tried to think of something else that could make me more relaxed. Nothing. The dragons weren’t moving.
“Relax,” Tristan repeated softly, “relax…”
But there wasn’t any progress. If I failed this, what would happen, I asked myself? I got to be involved with dragons for the rest of my life. What would they do to me if I turned out not to be fit?
“You can do it, Linda.” It was Chris’ voice. Suddenly, I felt his gentle touch on my back. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
I couldn’t hold a smile on my face when he did it. Truly, his touch is what I liked the most of him. It was as if dealing with such little creatures constantly gave him a great talent at being soft with his hands. I didn’t even realize my arm, the one which was holding the mouse, had stopped being a wooden cue and was slightly swinging.
“Look!” Tristan exclaimed, a little after.
The dragons were getting closer. I rejoiced within myself: finally the situation was progressing. The animals were now above the mouse, sniffing it.
The seconds passed…
Then finally, the yellow one took a bite out of it. The other three followed immediately after.
“Well done, Linda!” Chris and Tristan cheered in unison. “Well done!” The quartet was now feasting on it greedily, just like before.
I watched at them, no more feeling disgust for the mouse, but the first glimpse of affection for the winged lizards around me. Now that the shock had passed, I was now beginning to think they were cute.
“Can I pet them?”
“Not yet” Chris answered “you need to develop a relationship with them. Dragons have excellent reasons not to give all their trust to a newcomer.”
“I will do my best,” I proclaimed, while the four dragons were fighting again over a piece of liver.
***
Thirty years have passed since my first encounter with dragons.
I and Chris got married the same year when we graduated from college. Both of us got jobs in the national park where his family has hidden dragons, although I won’t deny we had an internal help for our recruitment. It may be scandalous, but it was a necessary evil to let us be close to the creatures we swore to protect.
When I was thirty-one, we had our first child, a female we called Elsa. The second, Albert, followed two years later. They both followed our paths and are now enrolled in the same college I and Chris attended. They study biology, of course.
I have to admit, though, that they didn’t have a choice. Being tied to our family marks your destiny forever, and this leaves a visible sign on you. One of the most painful things in my life was hearing my children announcing they wanted to become car racers, astronauts, singers; I and Chris could do nothing but telling them that wouldn’t happen, and even though we didn’t cry like they did, I always felt like our pain was greater.
But I know they’re both affectionate to the dragons we keep, and that’s what counts. It isn’t always a pleasant journey. Constantly, our mission is threatened by hunters, entrepreneurs who want to bring “progress” by building a mega-factory on our land, politicians attempting to appease them; just like any other wildlife activist, with the main difference we’re forced to do everything in the shadows, unable to name why we’re so opposed to their proposals.
Overall, though, I’m happy. I’m happy I decided to study biology so I could meet Chris and have dragons in my life, even though they’re not what one would think. If I hadn’t, I don’t know where I’d be nowadays: probably stuck in some office in the suburbs. Could have still been a happy life though, maybe together with someone else, maybe alone. What I know is that it wouldn’t have given to me the special place Chris has given to me in this humanized planet.