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She couldn't believe what was before her, "Dragons aren't real."
The serpent moved with the elegance of a coiling viper, wrapping a long, sinuous tail around his legs to sit regally on his haunches like a giant cat. She moved her head to gaze up at the platter-sized eyes — prismatic green irises that gleamed like jewels in firelight, and saw a myriad of reflections move in conjunction in the beast's black scales. "I am just your imagination, then? My forefathers were born in the first moment of time — Wyrms of Fire that swam the cosmos like sharks in the sea. Generations later, after the heat of the infant universe had ebbed, a family of wyrms found this world hidden in space, and became enthralled with happenings on Earth. They fell to the ground and shed the fire that was their substance, and became the Dragons of Stone. The cold and mass of your world made them lethargic, and they did not move, but they still saw all the things of this world. They live still, mistaken for mountains; you know nothing of them, though they know you."
Mathilda had been hiking alone in the middle of a mountain wood with only dim sunlight through the weeping clouds when the giant beast swooped down. The wash from the great wings knocked her back. Now on her rump on a muddied forest floor speaking to a beast of legend she was barely clinging to reason. She tried to slink back slowly.
The eyes blinked. Free of that transfixation she noted that the fanged maw could take her in a single bite. "The Dragons of earth are things of stone. It was when they began to collude with humans that my race was born. Dragons of Stone mated with humans to form the Dragons of Flesh — creatures of your legends. It was my kind that slew King Beowulf, gave weapons to China, and roamed the oceans as leviathans. We have always been here. Man and dragon lived together until our Emperor commanded the dragons to remove our history from humanity's. We tried to excise every hint of our existence, but could not. Humans hold to their tales too dearly. Legend remained, but still we hide. Until times we must reveal ourselves — times such as now."
Panicked thoughts bade her to jump and run into the scrub. He refolded obsidian wings behind his back, reminding her that there was no hope fleeing. She began to weep, "What do you want with me?"
His head cocked, "We dragons are born of humans and wyrms. We are dual of nature. Shapeshifters able to assume our heritage as creatures of the sky, or the other half of our blood — that of men. Some of us lead lives among you, in secret."
Enraged and terrified she screamed, "Why me?!"
Empathy crossed the devilish features, "Because there has been no one to teach you. You've lived in the dark — only half a life. Mathilda, you are a dragon also."
Jason Bellows lives in Orem, Utah, and is an avid consumer and creator of science fiction and fantasy. He is largely self-educated, and blames his multiple stories on a hyper-active imagination.