Page 38 of Riding My Dragons

It was hard to read the expression on a dragon face, but the way he nodded, I could almost sense that he was smiling.“You’re a bright human girl,” he said.“Nidaag is not my born name.It is an ancient name from the mytho-history of my species.Humans have their mythologies.We have our own.Nidaag was the name of a Scaler warrior king whose story is part legend and part fact.There are such figures in human history as well as in ours.”

”So is that what you are?” I asked.“Some kind of dragon king?”

He made a rasping hiss that reminded me of a laugh.It didn’t sound menacing, but it was unnerving.“We have no kings.You must know that since the time of Reconciliation, my kind and yours have lived in much the same way.That is something that some of my kind have set about to change.”

That was even more unnerving.“Change how?” I asked.Remembering what I heard before he came in, I asked further, “What is Reaffirmation?What does that mean?”

”Our cause—my cause and that of those who follow me,” said Nidaag, “is to reaffirm another way of life, a way of life long gone into history.There is a natural order of things in this world, Jenna, an order that has been ignored, neglected, forgotten, for longer than anyone has been alive.Our cause is to reaffirm the natural order and make it what it was meant to be, the right and proper way of life in this world.”

Hearing him say this made my mind flash back just a few days to an evening when I stood in front of another window looking out on another view with dragons flying by.I remembered that night in Elliot’s apartment, and somethingwe’d talked about before Elliot changed my life.He’d said something about some of his relatives, and things they believed about Scalers and humans.In my mind’s ear I heard Elliot say, …I never accepted that old idea about Scalers being the superior species because we have more than one body.And I had a sudden, awful suspicion.

“You’re not talking about…,” for a second the words caught in my throat, “Scaler supremacy?”

”I’m referring to the rightful order,” said Nidaag.“I mean only the place for which nature selected my kind.”

Surprising myself with how ready I was to argue with this intimidating being, I spoke like the scientist that I was learning how to be.“What I know about natural selection says every species is selected for its own niche in the environment.Some species thrive because they have an advantage over other species, and they’re selected to be dominant.”

”That’s exactly correct,” Nidaag said.“My species has an advantage, the advantage of two physical forms, one of them more powerful than the other—and more powerful than the physical forms of other species.Nature selected my kind for dominance.”

”Intelligence is an advantage too,” I argued.“Scalers aren’t the only intelligent species.”

”No, we’re not,” said Nidaag.“But we are the only species with two intelligent forms.”He spread his wings proudly.“Here in Reptos, we live only in our stronger, more powerful bodies—the bodies of the natural rulers of Tellus.”

Again, I stole a glance outside, then faced him again.“All of you who live here, or come here to visit—you stay in your dragon bodies all the time and don’t become human?”

”Correct.In Reptos we celebrate our dragon nature and put away our weaker, human shapes.We live as dragons only, as a reminder that we are the true masters of this world.”

Now all my earlier fears were forgotten.This was all so familiar.Nidaag was so much like some people back on Earth.Until now it had made me curious and fascinated that Tellus and my own world were so much alike.Now it just made me angry.But I had still better be careful about showing it.As a human girl in this place, I couldn’t have been more vulnerable.So, I minded my tone when I said to Nidaag, “It’s a dragon world and everyone else just lives in it.”

”That’s an interesting turn of phrase,” he said, folding his wings again, “but from our perspective, it’s correct.”

Carefully I asked, “So what’s my part in this?”

“Our cause, Jenna—our mission, if you will—is to correct the order of the world, to put things right,” Nidaag replied.“Your being here with us as our guest is our way of ensuring that we can accomplish that.”

”How?I’m just a human girl.You don’t think people like me should be running things.What am I meant to do for you and your cause?”

“There is an item that we’ve paid certain parties to procure for us,” said Nidaag.“Once we have that item, we can step up our plans and move forward.You are here, Jenna, to ensure that the item is delivered to us quickly.I hadn’t wanted to take measures like this, but some of my followers are restless and impatient.And I must admit, I find it appealing to act sooner rather than later.Once the item is in our hands, we’ll release you.”

”Use me to bargain with, but don’t hurt me,” I said, frowning at him, burning inside at being used this way.If I’d been a mythical dragon like the kind in stories back home, I would have liked to breathe out my fire right on him.

“If you’d like to think of it that way, yes.”

”And once you ‘move forward’ with your plans, as you put it…that’s when people will start to get hurt.”

”Some things,” said Nidaag, “can’t be avoided.”He actually seemed a little sad to admit that.But at the moment I wasn’t impressed with his sadness.I was seeing now what was really going on here.

”There’s a friend of mine,” I said, “that the authorities here are looking for.They want him because he went to the University, to my school, and took something from the warehouse.What he took—that’s the thing you want, isn’t it?You took me as insurance that my friend brings you whatever it was he stole for you.”

Nidaag said, “That’s correct.”

My need to know more, just like a scientist, began to replace all my other feelings.There would be plenty of time to be scared and angry later, and I was sure I would be.But for this moment I needed to know more.I asked him, “This is about your religion, isn’t it?”

The dragon being said simply, “We have a faith.”

”Right,” I said.“A faith that says what?Let me guess.Your faith, which you probably have written down in a book of old scriptures, says there’s a supernatural, magical dragon spirit who made your kind and gave you two bodies.And the leaders of your faith—you may even be one of them—say the Scalers are the favorites of the magical dragon spirit, that it likes your kind better than plain one-bodied humans.And they—or you—say that’s the reason why you should be the rulers of the world and plain, one-bodied humans should be under you.Am I getting that right?”

”You don’t appear to hold faith in very high regard,” he said.

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