Chapter 1

"So now that everyone is here and the meeting is to be started, what is the consensus on the vermin called 'man' that seems to be spreading everywhere? What are the councils "thoughts" on them?" asked Gold as she looked around at the rest.

"They should all be exterminated! They have been trying to prey on us! It's rare that they succeed, but not all that long ago one of those men called 'mages' managed to kill one of us using magic! Magic! They are only infants when it comes to that, but they still managed to use the one thing they shouldn't have to kill one of us," said Red at somewhat of a roar.

"Just what are you going on about? If Beawfefl hadn't been killed by that mage that time, you wouldn't even be here among us. He was a greedy loud mouthed fool and a braggart! Wouldn't you agree?" asked Silver with a bone chilling smile at Red.

Red had the good gracious to look embarrassed and he looked away.

"Maybe that was so, but even still to have a human who uses what passes for that pitiful stuff they do and still call it magic kill him? But to also say that it was a human who managed to killed him with a single spell in the same breath?

"What's to stop them from going on a crusade and thinking that they could wipe us all out now that he somehow managed to do it? They are barely able to stop fighting long enough to come after us! Now they think they are our equals?! Unheard of!" said Green

"Those humans may be growing in power and soon we may have to do something about that whether we want to or not. We should all band together now and get them before they get us!" said Copper

"What do you suggest? We start to prey on them for food? Then they will all rise up in arms against us. It's not like there are as many of us as there are of them. Even though one of us is worth a thousand of them, we would still eventually die out long before we killed every one of them off. We need a better plan than just wildly attacking," said White with heavy lidded eyes.

He looked around as the rest looked away and couldn't hold his gaze. Only Black seemed to match his sleepy stare with one of strength of her own.

"What of you Black? What do you think?" asked Silver as she noticed the interaction.

"I think we should see if there are any among them who have any noble qualities before we talk of wiping them out," said Black as she gazed around at the rest.

"I'm surprised at you Black. Not that long ago you were talking about how we needed to prey on them more. You often spoke of how we needed to take back our hunting grounds before they found a way to take even our skies away from us," said White quietly

"I too wonder about the change of heart? Black, no more than a few centuries ago you were all for us raiding a few towns in the middle of the night to show them our power! Not more than a few centuries ago you were the one who led many raids on what they call livestock. Why the sudden turn around in such a short time span?" asked Azure curiously.

"I've been giving it some thought. With so few of us born per cycle, we need to make sure that we do what we can to survive. Other than when we meet here to discuss issues, it wasn't all that long ago that we all preyed on even one another's clutches. Before we were the ones trying to wipe each other out. Now we are asking man to do it for us? No I think not," said Black softly.

"What do you propose?" asked Gold as she looked at Black.

"I think that one of them should be offered safe passage and allowed to talk to us before we make a decision. That is before we even begin discuss what to do, we find out how intelligent they really are and if they have the capacity for reason," said Black.

"What then? Do we welcome them into our fold?" asked White softly.

"I won't stand for that! How do we know that they wouldn't try to kill us again? That they have not worked out a way to kill us off as a species?" asked Red.

There was a murmur as the others tried to quietly voice their discontent.

"Are you saying that among the most powerful of our kind that we can't subdue one "human" no matter who it is, if it came down to it? Are we that old and weak?" asked Black with amusement.

Suddenly there were roars and outcries at the very suggestion.

"I thought not. Before we can come to a consensus, we need to make sure we have all the facts," said Black.

"I agree with Black. Lets put it too a vote," said Silver.

In taking the vote, Gold abstained as the leader only to keep it fair, as there were eight of them and she normally only voted if another member wished to abstain so as to break a tie.

"It is so passed five to two, to question a mortal and see where we stand. Black I will leave it up to you. We will meet back in three new moon's time to discuss this. If no human will come then we are to assume that they do not respect the request and take that as an issuance of their intent to kill us off as a species," said Gold.

With that the others started to file out of the cave. Soon they started to take flight, one after the other and not too long afterwards Black was the last to leave. Before she did she looked around, as if looking around for the last time, before she launched herself into the air.

Not too long after he left, White dropped to the ground. He circled back around under the trees and was close to the base of the mountain.

Almost immediately a smaller darker green figure closed in on him, and if it was possible, seemed to bow his head before he spoke to White.

"So how did go? Are we ready to start preying on the human's soon?" asked the figure.

"Not just yet. Black, who I thought would be our best ally in this cause came up with a plan to talk with man first," said White.

The way he said "talk" carried with it disgust and irritation.

"So how do we handle this?" the smaller figure asked.

"Gold put a stipulation on her. If she can't find anyone to speak on behalf of the humans, we can proceed with our plans. We just need to make sure that that never happens," said White with a wry smile.

"I take it I need to make sure that she doesn't get too far?" asked the smaller figure.

"Ahh my dear Garphafdal, you have read my mind. If you would, take care of it please," said White before he launched himself in to the air and was soon gone from sight.

"The fool. Once they start the raid on the humans, we can start our raid on them and blame the humans. The only winners of this fight will be us and we will no longer be under their control," murmured the small figure before he also launched himself into the air.

Black, while lost in thought between returning home and finding a human that would be suitable to speak with the council, was riding as high in the sky as she could to keep from alerting anyone to her presences and completely missed the dark shadowy figure within the clouds right as it dropped out of the sky above her and attacked her left wing almost totally severing it from her body.

Having had the wing completely destroyed by the creature, Black quickly fell out of the sky due to her weight, and having no way to stabilize herself, and crashed extremely hard into the forest below.

Black, trying hard not to cry out in pain, was barely holding on to consciousness and could feel her life's blood seeping out of her onto the ground. Making any further disturbances could only cause more problems than she needed right now.

Magically reaching out she used her Dragon magic and tried to find a fairy creature, a creature of magic, someone she could compel and use to do what she needed.

Kathryn Stockton, who was known to her few living friends as Kat, was passing through the forest between towns.

At the last town she had once again managed to find those in need and once again she helped as best she could. While it was rewarding to see the happy faces of those she helped, it also was a sad time when she needed to move on after doing something too public to allow her to stay there.

Often at times like this she often wondered if it was time to try and settle down again. The last time had been almost twenty seasons ago, when the man she who impressed her enough to have as a husband had passed on after reaching just fifty seasons.

While she was sure could have children if she wanted too, she didn't know how they would turn out and she couldn't bear to watch them grow old and die before her eyes if for some reason they didn't also have her immortality.

She somehow and always made it known up front to any man she was involved with that she was barren, and she still almost always found someone that she felt close enough to, to eventually marry. There was always a man around who was willing to sacrifice a chance at a family to be with her.

A few of the men she had chosen had cheated on her over the seasons, but those few who had cheated on her were shocked and amazed when she always disappeared without a trace and never looked back.

The first few times it happened she didn't know what to look for and so she was always stunned that she was cheated on. She tried so hard to be the best wife and was shocked to know that it wasn't enough to keep her man loyal to her.

The first time she realized what was going on she was outraged that her husband would do that to her, but shortly after she thought about it later she ruefully understood that it was the universes poor attempt at humor to make her see what she did to her true love. She was to bear the pain of betrayal from someone she thought loved her too much to ever given to temptation.

When she faced that fact head on she decided to just disappear without a trace and start over without the man in question. She realized that those men's lives were much too short for her to take any revenge or make it more difficult than it needed to be for them.

She knew from personal experience that often those who lived like that eventually were their own worst enemy. Very rarely were they happy, but it no longer concerned her and she moved on.

Given her nature of never looking like she was aging, if she did find someone to have a long life with she always had to use her magic to appear to slowly grow older and had to eventually fake her own death so that others wouldn't catch on that she never really aged or grew any older.

It was a lonely way to live her life, but it was the only way she knew to do it so far.

But she wanted more than that.

While she always had some form of love for each of the men she had spent a life with, she wanted something more. She knew it was out there, but she just hadn't ever found another great love of her life.

The first man she ever had wanted to truly be with she never got to actually experience anything with him due to her own stupidity. But she knew, just knew, with enough time she could find someone who was just like him and that he was either out there for her to find or he would eventually come to her if she was just patience enough.

She realized that it had been just a little over eighty seasons since she had last been to this part of the continent. No one should still be alive that had known her when she was here last, or if they were they shouldn't possibly believe that she was the same person, so it should be safe to settle down here if she chose to again.

Lost in thought as she relived a few of the experiences since she was last here, she was knocked from her feet as something hit the ground quite hard. The noise that came with the force was deafening and she quickly looked the direction that the sound seemed to come from.

Suddenly she felt something in her mind.

It tried to find something to grab a hold of, but it slipped off without being able to get a good footing on it. She recognized it for what it was, because she often compelled men to do what she wanted, and she realized that whoever was trying to directly reach into her mind to get her to do something was in the direction of the crash.

Curious why they were trying to do this she raced through the trees while at the same time trying to quietly approach the scene. All at once Kat was startled to come upon the body of a very ancient and Great "Black Dragon" that was impaled upon at least three trees from what she could see that protruded out of the body, possibly maybe more that she couldn't.

Even still, while slowly walking forward, she wanted to see if she could help.

As she looked over the Dragon as she got closer Kat was in awe. While Maxwell's memory from when she merged with him and caused her to turn into a succubus was now her memory, and so she knew what to expect, this was her first time actually getting this close ever to a Dragon.

The Ancient Black Dragon was a very bright glossy black with faded yellowish scales on the throat and belly that might have been white at one time, but over the seasons had colored to a dull yellow.

Its head was almost twice as long as Kat was tall and just under her height in width. Even with its mouth closed Kat could see the rows of back teeth that escaped and jutted out of its lower jaw and protruding over the upper ones. It had large golden eyes with a color that seemed to swirl around and it was easy to see that they had intelligence behind them.

Kat also noticed that the Dragon also had two horns on its head that seemed to give the appearance that its head made a "U" shape as it head rested on the ground.

The Dragon's long serpentine neck was also resting on the ground. It was easy to see that it was in great pain from how it was impaled. Kat noticed that one of the wings was torn open with a large gaping hole and it was hanging at an extremely odd angle. She wasn't sure if it happened in the fall or not, but the other wing looked fine even though it was weakly moving around.

The legs and haunches were also equally as huge. The nails of the paws were almost as large as her arm and nearly as wide.

It was in all a very intimidating sight to wander upon in the middle of no where if you were by yourself. Even if you weren't it would still not be something you wanted to face on your own while the dragon was alive, but Kat still felt compelled to at least try to do something to help.

But Kat wasn't sure that there was anything that she could with this much visible damage and with Dragon's being naturally magic resistant creatures, but she would do what she could. She wanted to heal it but she knew magically she never would be able to.

Several large scales as big as her hands were lying scattered around them and there were several "huge" pools of blood all around it just soaking the ground and making it wet and sticky.

She had to make sure not to get to close to the spilled blood because everywhere on the ground that the blood had spilled onto had turned a sickly looking black as the acidic contents of the blood slowly killed everything it touched or flowed over. Even a few rocks appeared to be faintly giving off steam as the blood worked at trying to melt them.

With wounds like these there was no way it would ever heal on its own.

The thing she worried about the most was that Dragon's were temperamental creatures. One might welcome her help while another might try to take her with it before it died. The size of its head was almost twice as large as her body.

It could quite easily swallow and eat her whole as large as it was.

"Hello, are you still alive? Is there anything I can do to help?" asked Kat softly as she slowly approached.

"Good, I had problems contacting you so I wasn't sure if you would come but you were the only magical creature in the area. But child are you not you afraid of me?" asked the Dragon in surprise in Kat's mind.

"No should I be?" asked Kat defensively as she approached.

The Dragon didn't seem to be worried about her. Kat felt something that might have been translated into soft laughter in her mind as she kept approaching the Dragon.

"No child. I'm not much longer for this world anyway so you shouldn't. But as you come closer I can see that you aren't quite what you really appear to be, are you?" asked the Dragon, as one large golden swirling eye looked her over.

"I'm not what anyone expects," said Kat softly.

"You're not quite succubus and not quite human, but yet you seem to be even more of both. How is that?" asked the Dragon softly.

Smiling at the Dragon, Kat opened her mind and allowed the Dragon complete access of her life and what she had been up to over the last few centuries, and as the Dragon finished she almost appeared to nod, even though her head didn't rise from the ground.

"You just may be the one to help me with a few problems, but still not be the one I truly need to carry it out. If you don't mind I'll keep speaking with you in your mind because it takes less energy, but I need you to finish my mission," said the Dragon weakly.

"What do you mean?" asked Kat.

"Someone doesn't want me to find a human to speak with the Dragon council about the threat of humanity. Some Dragon's want to go to war and some do not, but it was held off on being decided upon, until a human spoke with the council first.