Brightleaf

Some adapted to the change better than others.

Brightleaf was not one of them.

The dragon fled home to the swamps, seeking to bury herself in the life she had known before the 'civilization' of the city, to return to worship her forgotten gods and hunt alongside her never forgotten clan. But there was no clan to greet her, no gods to pray to, no swamp to sink into. The land had been beaten and tamed, worked by beasts and magics from the city, the few members of her clan who had not rallied against the land's new masters now lived in wooden barracks and served them.

To those in the barracks, she asked for the tales, for what had happened. To her, all but one watched with dully gleaming eyes, noting her city beasts and city dress and saying nothing. But one spoke as their needle darted in and out of torn fabrics, old and blind. They spoke of the hunters, swarms of beasts that ripped through the swamps to destroy those who lingered, and in such numbers that killing one would soon see a pack arrive. The magicians, wingless versions of themselves who wove magic as easily as they breathed and beat back the beasts, beat back them as the mages claimed the trees and temples and sodden ground. The the drop killers, who took those who might have avoided the eyes of the things that came before, their four eyes missing none. The settlers, who brought their own hunters and magicians, who beat back the drop-killers and tamed the hunters to add to their numbers, who dealt with the magicians in trade and were in turn able to tear and drain and kill the swamp-lands so only a plains remained.

Their masters arrived then, polite and curious about the city-dweller who had come to visit them, inviting her away from those who remembered her home.

Brightleaf ate with them, spoke with them, traded news and stories and set her beasts upon them as they slept.

It was like the old days when they came for her.