It’s been a while… This is just something I whipped up when I wasn’t doing anything else. It’s probably awful. I’ll decide later.
With a slight pressure from his left knee, Jason signaled his mount; the dragon dipped it’s left wing and banked over San Francisco, the bay gleaming blue to his right, the ruins of the city’s old Financial District on his left. He paid particular attention to the pyramidal shape of the Transamerica Building; the last time he’d flown by it, one of the scavengers that inhabited the old building had tried to snipe him off his dragon.
The building was little more than a shell; the financial district had been hit hardest by the earthquakes that attended the Return, and many of the city’s workers had died in the privations afterward, when the bridges into the city had been destroyed in the War and the peninsula to the south had become a wasteland due to the predations of the Returned. Only San Francisco survived relatively intact, and even then, that was largely due to the Dragons.
The beast on which he rode turned to regard him with a baleful eye. “Well, it was only right we help the City”, he rumbled, the deep bass of his voice traveling up Jason’s legs and into his core. “After all, it was our opening of the way that allowed the shik’aragh to return as well.” Jason patted his neck. The dragons still felt guilt over that; they’d tried to limit the species that returned from exile to those who could coexist with humanity, but they’d failed. The deaths caused by vengeful creatures angry for their centuries of exile still haunted them.
“Karg, it wasn’t your fault. My father told me how you tried to save the cities south of the Wall. But the War decimated your people, too.”
“All well and good, and I’m glad your father regarded me so highly as he did. But that does not change the facts. Had we stayed in the Shadowlands, none of this would have occurred, and your people would still number in the billions.”