When Dragons Came

I was there the day they came, you know. The dragons, I mean. The day they started showing up in the skies all over the world.

You wouldn't believe the chaos. Not like now, with you kids growing up with them on the news, taking 'em for granted, hell even going to visit some of the lairs. Naw, back then nobody knew dragons as anything but a storybook tale.

If I recall, first one showed up right over New York. Elder Diamond, they call him now, still one of the biggest of the kind. All steel and crystal and straight out of the movies. Of course, the U.S. Government didn't care for that at all. Sent a bunch of fighters from the nearest base. After the fact, they said they were under orders not to fire unless attacked. But some young'un got scared and pulled a trigger he shouldn't have.

We learned real quick not to mess with the dragons, then. Fortunately for us, the Elder didn't seem to take it personally. He landed in Central Park, invited folks to go talk to him. Of course, right then, more were showing up all over the country, all over the world. The news was using the word “attack” and “invasion” a lot. Only violence I saw was 'cause of us being scared.

Anyways, first one I saw was the Ruby General, as they call him. Yeah, that one you saw on your field trip out to the mountains. He came straight to Appalachia and offered a deal for the local coal mine, long past shut down. Funny thing was, he refused to talk to the company that owned it. Said the people nearby had more rights to it.

Don't know if they'd been watching us or what, but there were very few heads in town that saw fit to disagree with that. I wasn't there for the final negotiations, but I sure as hell saw the results. That mountain's good and proper his now, the lot of us moved east with enough to live like lords for the rest of our days.

Once they started making deals, folks stopped bein' scared. Gold and gems are languages we all speak, I suppose. Calmed down real quick. The dragons got their lairs. The people got more shiny things to toss around between 'em.

There are still folks waiting for the other shoe to drop. Conspiracy nuts sayin' this is the beginning of the end. Me? I think they make better neighbors than half the people I've ever met.