The crowd loudly gathered in front of the large building, waiting for the great door to be opened. Beyond it, there were three dragons, about to meet them one by one for an audition for something that used to be possible only in daydreams: turning into one of them.

Only one month before, after centuries of hiding themselves, dragons had revealed their existence. In front of a shocked audience, three of them, the same now standing behind the door, told their story: long time ago, when their kind was persecuted, they hibernated for centuries to come, in the depths of the planet, waiting for the mankind to become less aggressive and more understanding of the world they inhabited. "But now we decided times are mature, and we want to help you re-building our beautiful world," announced Galdevan, a golden male dragon, talking to dozens of TV cameras in an European national park; surprisingly, he could speak in perfect English, albeit sometimes some archaic words escaped from his mouth. Then, he announced something even more spectacular.

"Still, we are too few in numbers to have good chances to make a living again, and that's another reason for our returning. We are looking for humans to join and become one of us."

"What do you mean?" asked the journalists as one.

"I'll show you." After looking around the grass for a while, he caught a mouse under his forepaw. Galdevan, holding the tiny creature, looked at it intensely, and after a while the mouse began changing shape, becoming larger. The reporters took photos with the fury of a buffalo herd as a small, gray dragon appeared where previously there was a mouse.

"I want to alert you," continued Galdevan in a harsher voice, "we are looking for people whose desire is strong and motivated. Becoming another being means forgetting all you have learned in your first years of life, and then learning them again; it means completely leaving your old lives behind, including your dearest loved ones. Think about it very carefully. We'll begin recruiting people starting from tomorrow."

One month had passed since then, and the three dragons had found some suitable people, but it would be a long time before they’d get a sufficient number to repopulate the planet again. Now, they lay on the floor of a big audience room, waiting for the first candidate to come in.

After some minutes a young man entered. Galdevan instantly noticed the t-shirt he wore, with a green cartoon dragon in it. Not a good sign.

"Welcome," the dragon greeted the newcomer, "what's your name?"

"J...James. James Campbell." His face showed high excitement and Galdevan could smell some sweat from nervousness.

"I am Galdevan. These are Veldavel and Shen." He pointed at the two females beside him.

Shen, who was silver-scaled, was the next to talk. "So, what is your motivation to become one of us?"

The young man seemed to hardly find the words, and in the end he talked in a trembling, yet high, voice.

"I...I love dragons. I've been loving them for all my life. Seeing you live in TV one month ago was a dream come true, and when you said about you looking for people to become...well, I felt in heaven. It would be the best thing in my life."

Galdevan showed no expression, but mentally he had already understood the kind of person they were interviewing, and it was unlikely to be who they were looking for.

"If you were elected," Veldavel asked, "you would be forced to leave your house, your family and your job, and never come back to human society again. Do you feel ready for it?"

"Well...yes." His tone had become less excited and his eyebrows had raised up their angles. He hadn't thought about it enough.

"Moreover, your life would be subjected to nature. You would need to hunt for eating, have to fly great distances to do it. Living in nature is harsh. Do you understand?"

"Y...yes...yes of course..." he was blabbing. No, thought Galdevan, this is not a good candidate. He loves only our appearance, but he has never reflected on what being a dragon is. They had met a lot of humans like him; after centuries of conflicts and persecution it was still an amazing improvement, but they were looking for someone who could - and want - to understand them in depth.

After some seconds of silence, Galdevan understood none of them had questions to ask. "Well, I think it's enough. Thank you, James. We need your address in order to trace you in case you're selected."

The second candidate was a woman in her thirties. Luckily, she wore no weird clothes. The three dragons introduced themselves again; the woman introduced herself as Theresa Brown and when she was asked why she desired to become a dragon she seemed determined.

"Because I want to help the others, those who suffer for injustices."

"And how would you?" Shen asked.

"With my dragon powers," the candidate answered, fiercely. "This world is rotten and corrupted. You have come back to improve it, and my desire is to help you."

"Well," Galdevan said, "we would have come back sooner or later, when we would feel we'd be safe again...but are you saying you want to intervene in all the issues of the world?"

"Sort of. We must re-build our world, you said so."

"We did. On the other hand, I didn't mean acting like a hero all the time. If we did, we'd risk to cause some incidents, and be persecuted again. You see, we are strong creatures; it takes years to learn how to control dragon strength. One could say our strength has been a curse."

"When we talked about re-building our world," Veldavel continued, "we meant helping you understanding the world we live in. We saw you've become sorry for damaging it, and that's good, but without guidance, you may take even worse decisions while trying to fix those damages. It's not scorn," she added, "we're sure you men have a lot to teach us, too. That is also why we're looking for men to join us. To collaborate, we need to know each other, but we can't visit your towns too often."

Theresa nodded. For what Galdevan could see in her eyes, there was a little disappointment.

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"Do you still wish to become one of us?" demanded Shen.

"Well...yes, if this can make the world better."

"And are you aware that living as a dragon has far less commodities than living as a human, and that you would have to leave all the ones you love?"

"Oh..." she suddenly turned uncertain. "No one?"

"No one," she confirmed. "Is there anyone your heart is bonded to?"

"Actually...actually there is one."

"Whoever this is, did he...or she...apply for being a dragon too?"

"Yes."

"What's their name?"

Theresa told them the name.

"We haven't met him yet," Veldavel announced, "if we think he's a good candidate, you two could join us together. What about everything else, though? Would you be comfortable about leaving your previous life behind?"

"I think so...I know first time would be harsh, but you would help me, wouldn't you?"

"Of course we would. Nobody will be left alone after such a great change," Galdevan smiled. "Well, I think your motivation is quite good, although it came from a little misunderstanding, and we're glad to see you're not scared about leaving human society. Unless you're now having second choices."

"I’m not. I have few contacts with my family. They're so retrograde. They were training me to be a housewife and nothing else...I couldn't stand it. My love has helped me leaving them out. He always encouraged me to continue my studies and being independent. I owe him what I am today."

"That explains a lot," he commented. In fact, many candidates came from dysfunctional families. Maybe, he thought, after being prevented from fulfilling themselves as humans, they wanted to fulfill themselves as dragons? Whatever was the reason, choosing such people could lead to bad, even evil, consequences. "Anyway, we understood it's important for you to have him beside you, so it's crucial for you two to be both good enough. Tell us your address so that we can contact you in case you can join us."

One hour later, after several disappointing candidates, they interviewed her boyfriend, but his attitude wasn’t strong enough; that meant no possibility for that woman to join them. Now it was the turn of a black-haired man in his mid-forties.

"Nice to meet you. My name is Sean Walker."

"I am Galdevan. These are Shen and Veldavel. Please, tell your motivation for becoming one of us."

“Before that, there's something I must alert you about."

"Tell us."

"Our government is planning a national park where to confine you," explained the man. "You wouldn't be allowed to leave it. Also, it's completely covered with forests. That environment is not suited for you, but they seem not to care."

Galdevan was surprised. "How do you know about our needs?"

"I'm a dragonologist. My occupation had been looking for your traces until last month."

"Had you found any previously?" Shen asked.

"Some. It was nearly impossible, but I managed to. I could get some information about you, for example your habitat, and I know in a forest you’d have a harsh time hunting due to your size; or worse, you may accidentally burn everything."

The three dragons became sincerely interested: had they never encountered a man like that. “You’re right,” commented Galdevan. “Do you mind if we interrogate you about some other facts about us, just to be sure?”

“No problem.”

After some more questions, the three dragons agreed that the man had an exceptional knowledge of dragons: from dietary habits, to their behavior, and much more.

“Impressive. Absolutely impressive,” Shen said. “Apart from some forgivable mistakes, you seem to know dragons very well. Your skills must be very high if you could figure all of this out only from traces.”

“Now, tell us about what your government is planning, please,” Galdevan asked.

“Since you came out last month,” the man began, “the world has gone crazy, both in good and bad terms. The problem is, usually the bad terms are stronger, especially when it comes to creatures as big and powerful as you. A lot of people are sure your true intention is prevaricating over our society and exterminate us all. What’s worse, many among them are in governments. Here, in order to find a compromise with those that instead support you, they decided the best thing is to isolate you completely, in selected wildlife sanctuaries. All full of forests. Without asking for your opinion.”

The three dragons looked at each other, worried.

“No one told us…” trembled Galdevan.

Shen turned suddenly to the man. “What do you suggest to do?”

“I have tried to earn some funds to stare an association for the improvement of human-dragon relationships. For now, I have succeeded in finding a quite large group of men to discuss this decision with the government; but we need you, the dragons.”

“If it’s how you say it is, we’ll come immediately when we’re done here,” Galdevan announced.

“But did you come here only for alerting us?” asked Veldavel. “Or do you really want to become a dragon?”

“I’ve thought about it a lot. I asked myself if I was able to sacrifice my human nature for your cause. Yes, human society isn’t very appealing to me, but wouldn’t I miss reading, listening to music, drink wine and so on, I kept thinking? But in the end I told myself I knew the truth. The most important thing for me are dragons. And if they need help, I am ready. It will be harsh, I know it, but I assure you, I’ll do my best to find my new mental balance as a dragon.”

“Well, we got pleasant activities, too,” Galdevan said, “we love to narrate stories and play, even when we become adults. Most of all, flying is the greatest pleasure of all. I myself love to travel. Anyway, does your family know of your choice?”

“I’ve already informed them. They were expecting me to do this, although they have never had a high opinion of my job, even after you have revealed yourselves.”

“So your family won’t be a big problem. What about your association? Will it stand up?”

“In the association, there will be dragon and human members. This is the only way to make it work. Listen, I can understand why you prefer to remain separated, and you’re absolutely right; but simply ignoring human society is something that would lead to incomprehension and bad decisions, like the one the government in this country is doing. We should at least meet together once in a while to take the best ways for both of our species, and to support the men that will have become dragons.”

Galdevan, Veldavel and Shen stayed silent for a long time. Eventually, the first one said: “I must admit you’re right. We’ll soon join your group. As for you, thank you kindly for informing us. You’re the best candidate we’ve had since we’ve started and you’ll join us for sure. Just don’t tell the other candidates, for now.”

Sean was looking at the sun going down behind the mountains. In front of his yellow eyes was a beautiful scene of dragons flying freely among the peaks. He spread his new wings and joined them, not actually Sean anymore, but Seanork, the turquoise dragon. The transformation happened only yesterday; it was very painful, and he felt like he wanted to die, but then, all ceased and the pain became a strange sensation, the sensation of being in a completely different body. When everyone transformed, Galdevan, Veldavel and Shen showed them how to move their paws and wings, and Sean immediately felt confident. In few hours, all the men who had turned into dragons learned to do the basic movements. Still, they had to learn how to hunt and all the rest, but they were not alone.

The days before that, he had taken care of protecting the dragons. After the interview, together with the three dragons and his association, he had managed to discuss with the government their infamous plan. Without Galdevan, Veldavel and Shen, it would have been impossible. Too many economic and political interests were behind, from businessmen wanting to confine dragons to expose them to the public like animals in a zoo, to demagogues constantly in search of easy approvals by the people. But when the three dragons appeared, their arrogance had disappeared, even though the trio had been gentle as always. The result had been this: the dragons would not be subjected to local governments, but at the same time the association started by Sean became international, and managed by both species in order to promote and develop friendship between humans and dragons. So it had ended in the best way possible.

Tomorrow there would be the first international meeting of the association, organized among those mountains, and Seanork would be the ambassador of the dracomos (so the men turned into dragons were now called); Galdevan would represent pure dragons, and a close friend of Seanork humans. That meeting would sign the beginning of a world of peace. For now, the turquoise dracomo enjoyed the air around his body while flying, thankful for his new life.