Histories

It was the first college lesson in the specialty classes for magical beings. That's one of the reasons you see more magical beings at larger colleges. We have to learn to blend in with the crowd of non-magical humans and we learn some of the people with whom we can discuss magical theory. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we can find a mate in this jumble of bodies.

We enter the room, and to me it smells like cinnamon and cumin - an odd combination, but not unpleasant. Nora and I took seats close to the front, while Kate, Sheila and Heather all sat in the back row. A gentleman briskly walks into the auditorium with a briefcase and sets it on the desk off center of the stage.

"Welcome to Magical History and Prophecy 101, my name is Professor Anthony Madrigal. Let's get settled." The students of the auditorium started to quiet down. "Many of you know the history of the First Families," the professor continued. "Let's hear it"

Some students start to mumble, others groan. This history is taught to us in grade school, and going over it is just tedious!

"I SAID, LET'S HEAR IT!" the professor's roar gives a glimpse of his dragon ancestry, though not full blood.

"The Seven Families of Seven Types, guard over the blessings of Magical Might," some of the students start to drone the lesson from memory, as enthusiastic as a crocodile going to the dentist.

"Okay. Stop right there." The professor stops us before we could go further. "Who are the Seven "Types" we refer to?

Several students raise their hands. "This is college, people. Just tell me when I ask a question."

"Werewolves!" shouts one student....

"Meh.... kinda," retorts the professor.

"Lycans," I contribute.

"Perfect!" The professor writes it on the dry-erase board next to him. "The infusion of two spirits, a wolf and a human, is kind of a big deal."

"Dragons!" pipes up another student. "Vampires!" from another. "Fairies!" yet another. "Unicorns!" "Demons!" The professor writes quickly.

"Anyone else?" he turns to the students.

"Druids and shaman," pipes up a voice I recognize with a wonderful chill up my spine. I was hoping to be in a separate class, but I guess we are just lucky to be freshmen together..... Perfect....

"I was hoping for something less specific, like 'magical humans,' shall we call them?" the professor shrugs his shoulders before writing on the board. "Okay. One left."

"Gods?" Nora says rather quietly next to me.

"YES!" the professor could hear a pin drop, like many of the magical predators. "Interestingly enough the Gods were here. However, they chose to separate the beings with which they were associated. There were Gods for most of the magical families, with TWO family exceptions deciding to watch over the humans, specifically."

"The Gods have a long, long history that will wait for further study, should your path lie in the Archives of your species. The human deities, for lack of a better term, chose to watch over their subjects closely at times, earning them many names and faces over the millennia. They changed their forms according to whom they are contacting. We will touch on mainly magical being deities as we work through each of the magical families. As I've said, there are advanced courses of study for those of you who find magical history is your true calling."

"Now, the second line of the history poem," he asked us to continue.

"The Strengths are divided and the Powers provided, Forms molded one magical night." We students showed a little more life.

"That's right!" the professor boosted our enthusiasm with his own. "All of us found our differences and our strengths when we were given our form at the beginning of our magical history, over 10,000 Earth years ago!"

"So, dragons have deeper Archives than, say, werewolves?" it sounded like Sheila was disappointed at this.

"Actually, the Fae, or fairies, as many of you know them, have more of a written history than any of us. That is one of their skill strengths, as a species."

"With that in mind, I want you all to write a little about the strengths of your own species and of your God or Goddess. One page will do." Groans and other noises of disappointment greet his decree. "Don't worry. I just want to know what misconceptions I need to dispel by the end of the term. But for right now, we will focus on my ancestors, the dragons, since I know none of you here have the same ancestry."

"Seven Dragon families are: Platinum, Gold, Silver, Red, Green, Black and White. ANY of the other colors are from merging, either from the original Families, or from other merging. My mother is a blue dragon, which was from a mating between a silver and green dragon. My father is human, which is why my dragon smell is diluted. And, by the way, the seven-headed dragon, Tiamat, is a fictional character.

"There is no single 'Mother of All Dragons.' The closest we come to that being is the Goddess of the Family of Aten, Sharifa. She helped with the forming of the dragon form, the wing structure and the fluid lines of the tail. Her husband, Maher Aten built the structure for the dragon's body, with both of them breathing the creatures to life. The human souls were bound to the dragon bodies, making them whole."

"Dragons, like all magical creatures, have a weakness. In the human form, there is a scar near the navel, or belly button, where a steel pointed weapon can penetrate the armor of a dragon and reach the heart. In the dragon form, it looks like a soft, or missing scale in the armor of the dragon. The weapon must be stainless steel in order to penetrate the skin."

"Dragons are more comfortable in the air or in the water, since they feel a need for the flow of these elements. Dragons gather treasure. Artwork, gold, silver and gems, all things of beauty appeal to dragons. They guard it with their lives and have lost their lives in defense of their treasure."

"The 'virgin sacrifices' that have littered the fairy tales have all been cases of mating ceremonies. The 'sacrifices' were both male and female. The reason that the 'sacrifices' never returned to their homeland, since they became a new addition to the dragon's family. The families were recompensed, as would happen with any dowry. Many royal families told their subjects that the dragon 'devoured' the sacrifice, trying to extort more riches from the dragon's collection."

"Dragons live thousands of years. They out-live any human companion. Many take several hundreds of humans as lovers in their lifetime. Some have 2 or 3 lovers at a time. When in heat, a female dragon can cause many humans to have a hormonal spike, increasing populations ten-fold for the following year. A dragon heat can last 3 to 5 months."

"While dragons are gestating, they sleep a lot. When a dragon feeds, he or she needs lots of meat. A dragon can till the soil and build fences and barns and houses. However, the barn animals get spooked by the scent of a dragon. Some humans come to work for a dragon without even knowing it.

"We don't need money, but we interact with the world around us discreetly. My mother herself has gone on 'vacation' for the time of her heat and for 'a sabbatical' when she becomes pregnant. After all, how many women become pregnant at her age? None that are human, I assure you." He ends with a smile and we appreciate his humor with scattered laughter.

The rest of the class is uneventful, learning the stages of gestation, the differences between full gestation of dragon egg or half-breed gestation of even a mostly human gestation. The rest of the History Poem interpretation would continue another day.