Lightbringer - Prologue, pg. 1

The year was 1943 when my tribe was uncovered by the Nazi regime.  For nearly a thousand years we were hiding underground, far away from the destructive wrath of the humans, only to be discovered by the madmen who caused the blackest spot in mankind’s history.

At first they sent their top scientists to secretly study us; I’m sure that they believed that we could be controlled, used as weapons.  But our conduct and our resistance to their black deeds seemed enough to bring them to the conclusion that we all were a threat to the Third Reich, that we would be useless to them, that we were dangerous to all humans, and that we must be destroyed.

I was only a dratine at that point in time, an adolescent dragon.  I can clearly remember fleeing with the remains of our tribe across a war-torn Germany, running and flying towards France.  I remember the night we sneaked past what once called the Western Front, Elsass-Lothringen.  I remember the rainy day when our tribe was attacked near the outskirts of Paris, when much of our tribe was scattered and destroyed.  I remember my father coming back to our burrow with the remainder of the survivors, numbering 43 in all, males, females, and youth.  Only 17 of the mature dragons were worthy to fight; the rest were mothering females, dratines like me, infants, and the elderly.

Most importantly, I remember when my father Terrsach told us all that we were going to break cover and flee to England.  I remember the histories taught by our patriarchs, of our ancestors fighting against those older human tribes: Teutons, Saxons, Angles, Prussians, Romans, Bretons, Gaelic, Scandinavians – I was thoroughly scared.  Those were the beings responsible for driving our kind underground for a thousand years, and we were to seek refuge in England?  I voiced my opinion to my father, who simply replied with, “Isracen, wouldst thou rather, that we remain in this land occupied by darkness, or seek out light elsewhere?”

I could feel the eyes of each dragon turn to me, waiting for my answer, reading me.  I could only say the truth: “Patra, I say only what I fear.  We surely face the same destruction there as we have already faced here.”

My father smiled knowingly, and his eyes softened as if, it seemed to me, they were melting.  “My son, I know that England is the winning side of this world war.  I feel truth emanating from those lands, and I see more light from across these waters than I have seen my entire long life.  I feel we must go.”

That was the end of that for me.  The important thing about a Lightbringer Dragon is that we can sense truth and light in a person.  In my father’s eyes was neither lie, nor guess, nor wish.  It was the truth, absolute and divine: our way was across the channel to England, if for a short while.