A Dragon On Dragons

It is one thing to read about dragons...
and another to actually meet them.

Your kind view us as giant flying snakes with lions-heads. You look at our forms, but you do not truly see us. You see the scales, the wings, the fire-breath, but you do not see the dragon.

We are like cicadas

Silently dwelling under ground, organizing, biding our time, known only to those who know to look for us, but otherwise forgotten. For ages, to you, we slumber, until the time is right- and then we wake, filled with wrath and fury! Our wings fill the skies and block out your sun! Then, as suddenly as we appeared, we are gone again without a trace, returned to our saturnian dwellings, waiting once again, dreaming of the next great rampage.

We are like magpies

So enamored with the beauty of things, we adorn our nests, our homes, with all things gilt and glorious. Your kind whine, "Oh what could the big lizard possibly need such wealth for? He'll never spend it on a thing!" But I ask this of you: Of what value in exchange is treasure unworthy of possession? Treasure is valuable in its own right, for its own sake, for the pleasure it was designed to bring! Only fools and the weak would willingly trade a fortune in joy for a meal he could otherwise have taken. Like dragons, the magpies have no fools, far wiser than any king of man.

We are like house cats

If we dwell among you, it is because we choose to do so, and not because of any act of man. If we attack you, it is because it amuses us to do so, and not because of any personal slight. Those among you are thought of as "domesticated" despite your complete inability to control us, while those in the wild are thought of as "stray" and somehow more dangerous than the 50-foot death-god sleeping in the old watch tower. When we hunt, we kill for the joy of it, hunting in ways which extend the thrill of the chase, toying with our prey, letting them think that there is hope where there is nothing but our waiting jaws. We take territory, and protect it with jealousy, fighting fang to talon from others who would challenge our stake of land.

But most of all, we are like men

Filled with lust and violence, our skulls inset with lying tongues. Our minds are filled with cynicism and vitriol, our thoughts are devious and cruel, our desires are darker than any words can hope to match... And yet, somehow, despite all of this, we still manage to find the time to brew a pot of tea and have a polite conversation about esoteric philosophies and symbolic abstractions. While filled with hate, we sign treaties; while filled with rape, we sign laws. We shape the land and all who live within it to our will. Your kind are but mere pawns in the games the dragons play.