3The beginning of something I want to write, and possibly will. As opposed to Some Kids, Gryphon's Gate will be taken much more seriously.
Anyways, enjoy and tell me what you think!
Prologue
She sat before the television, mouth agape. Every lover of the fantasy genre dreamed about mythical creatures coming to life, of their existence in the real world being discovered. But none had actually thought it would happen. Not until it did. Not until now.
The girl, not five years of age, was sitting on the couch, slowly leaning forward as her heart fluttered ever more rapidly, and spellbound by the news. The camera was aimed at a flying dragon from Canada barely a foot long. The screen changed to a large, four-legged serpentine creature from China before a unicorn from England took over. Last, a Japanese kirin, a gray-green horse-like creature that looked like a cross between a dragon and a unicorn. The reporter spoke about a small society dedicated to finding the roots of ancient legends. A few decades ago, they found a dragon in the wilds of northern Canada. Excited, they began to do surveys, and found that there were a very small number of these beings. So the society captured a few and began a secret captive breeding organization. Upon the discovery of the other creatures, the same fate followed. The organization slowly fed their rising population of the creatures back into their respective homes until the species' numbers were safe and stable. The news of the mythicals' existence slowly spread among colleagues and friends until the society finally deemed it safe to give the news to the media. The media's report was what she was watching now.
The show came to a commercial break. The girl jumped off the couch and ran around the house crying, "Mommy! Daddy! Come here, I need to show you something!"
She heard feet thundering down the stairs—her dad—and then her mom coming out of the bathroom. They rushed over to see what the matter was. The girl led her parents to the television set and said, "Back." Her mother took up the remote and pressed "rewind" until the girl gave the signal to stop.
"I love TiVo," the father sighed.
"Unicorn," the girl explained excitedly, "and dragon and phoenix and kirin. They're real, see?" And so her parents watched the screen, not wanting to believe their eyes and ears but believing them all the same. They watched until the commercial break, where the mother then skipped forward until the news broadcast was on again. They continued the story for a minute or so before finally ending, announcing that within a few years people would be able to buy these creatures as pets, even as transportation.
Three and a half years later, dragons were a common form of transport and several car companies had gone out of business or were on the edge of bankruptcy. Unicorns—and horses with horns strapped to their foreheads—were in style as well, walking the streets with kirin and land-dragons while larger flying dragons big enough to fly with humans upon their backs, soared in the skies overhead. Annual carbon emissions had fallen a drastic amount, making the dragons even more obliged to keep what they considered to be such a high position in human society. Meanwhile, the girl was at a new summer camp, learning how to ride dragons.
Once, children would ask for horses or ponies or cars for their birthdays and for Christmas. Now they asked for modern creature-mounts. Oftentimes they got them, too.
So, for her tenth birthday, the girl received a dragon. The black adolescent had almost feathery scales and young neck spines and gleaming ivory horns on his head. Behind his eyes sprouted great membranous frills that were his ears. She named him Caelum, the Latin word for the sky. By the time Caelum would be able to fly with her on his back, she would finally be able to fly him.
Her brain had a hard time accepting that the whole thing was real and not a dream, but with time she got used to it. Now she remembers not the world as it had been, when these creatures were all still considered mythical. All she remembered was that she had not always been able to experience the rapture of feeling the wind on her face as she flew upon the back of the night-scaled sky.