In a world not so far off from ours, in a time unimaginable to our current human race, a planet existed where several unusual races lived. Creatures of myth, creatures of legend, and like an evolution loophole: humans. They also existed on this planet.

There always was a debate about how humans came to be. Were they brought there? Did they form naturally? Were they like the crab, simple proof that evolution thought the shape of a human was the best mammalian evolution and thus, they tended to pop up at a certain point in the evolution cycle?

It wasn’t clear, but it didn’t really matter either. What did matter is that like the humans most are familiar with, they had relatively short lives, reproduced at a higher than average rate, and lived in communities that created close knit bonds between them.

At first, this was never an issue. Never a problem. That was, until humans began to get jealous of the societies that the other creatures on their planet had created. They hated that the others had richer cultures, longer lives, and an overall happiness that seemed to be lacking from human communities.

So, with their vast numbers, and the idea that they would be able to overwhelm everyone, they attacked.

They were foolish to do so.

Several times throughout history from that point on, the humans tried to rise up against those who they believed were oppressing them, and several times they were pushed down, punished. Until finally, they were oppressed. They weren’t allowed to flourish the way they wanted to because of their own actions. The other races were simply baffled by their behaviour. They could not understand why they kept doing what they were doing.

The darkness in some of the human’s hearts surprised many creatures around them. It was brought up amongst many of the other races. Someone had to watch over the humans, make sure that whatever was going on with them was monitored.

After all, they had wiped out races from the planet in the past, only causing harm to everyone else.

So, a group was formed, and discussion on who would take up the job of watching the humans started. It was going to be an interminable, arduous duty, and would have to be given to one of the longer-lived races. Slowly, the contenders for who was going to watch over them was whittled down, until the longest-lived race commonly known was the last group standing.

The dragons.

The Dragon King was a man who had lived through several human uprisings already. He was a strong man, a cautious man, who did not want the task of monitoring those damn roaches. He viewed them as insects, a problem to be squashed under his foot. For the humans, it would be painless if he dealt with them the way that he wanted to.

The humans would never know.

Thankfully, his son, the first Prince, was supposed to take over the throne soon. It was because of his opinions on the matter that the Dragon King decided that he was going to take on the task. He didn’t suppress the humans like he wanted to. He instead gave them a series of rules that they had to live by, and made sure that the leaders he left in charge of the humans followed them.

Anytime that they resisted what he considered ‘normal’ rules, he would replace the human in power. It was an easy thing for him, and with the power that he wielded, who would argue with him?

No one would. Not even his own son.

~

So, humans weren’t alone in this world.

That was a fact that most knew, but despised. They hated that their stories were entangled with the beasts, the creatures that they had to share the world with. Especially those that looked less than human, who changed and shifted and switched their forms easily. Without care.

They especially hated those that they couldn’t easily best. Those that were more powerful, even when they gathered their armies and tried to fight back. They hated them more when their armies were crushed underfoot by the beasts that surrounded them. Bitterness and hatred boiled under most humans' skin.

But there was no beast who was as despised as the dragons.

True ancient beings, who had god-like powers. They behaved as if they were never weak, never fallible. As if no matter what the humans threw at them, they would always be able to recover.

And for a long, long time, that was the case.

Until a new Dragon King rose, taking over after his father stepped down from the throne. For the 200 years after he had taken over the throne, the new Dragon King ruled fairly, democratically. He left the humans alone, something his Father before him had never done.

His Father had ruled with an iron fist, not allowing the humans control over their own people. He viewed them as weak, stupid, and ill-intentioned.

The new Dragon King didn’t think the same thing of the humans. He had seen them as scholars, artists, musicians. He had travelled amongst them in secret and got to see how strange and wonderful their ways of thinking were, given their short lives. Something that for such a long-lived race was new, fresh.

He thought that they could live in peace. He was wrong.

The humans turned on him, just as his Father had warned. As all of the other creatures had warned. Just as the Dragon King was thinking of settling down and starting his own family, the humans attacked.

Not only did they kill the dragon who had successfully borne him an egg, they then stole the egg that the Dragon King knew had formed. Their partner had told him that they had created an egg. Sent word before the humans had rushed the private villa they had been secluded away in for safety. How had they found the villa? The Dragon King had no idea.

He didn’t even consider that someone had betrayed him. It was his own ignorance, but, who would betray him for the pitiful humans? Why would they do something so foolish for a race that most of his peers considered as insects?

The fact that the humans had attacked him? Frustrating. The fact that they had killed his partner? Not unheard of, but still enraging. He had already lost several of them in the process of trying to have a child, trying to birth an egg. He was mildly immune to their death. But the fact that they stole his young?

Unforgivable.

Dragon eggs, unbeknownst to the humans, needed the life force of another being around them at all times. Especially a magical being. That was how they grew and developed. If the egg was kept around just humans, beings who had no magic interlaced with their DNA, the egg would die.

Not only would the Dragon King lose a child, they would also lose the last connecting line to their now dead partner.

The Dragon King flew into a rage. Whatever small bit of leeway that the humans had been given before vanished in the face of his anger. The humans, who had long since forgotten how terrible dragons could be in the face of 200 years of peace, began to scramble.

They had thought they would have the upper hand. They had thought that dragons weren’t a big deal. They had thought that they would be able to overwhelm them with numbers and take over the smaller dragon race easily.

They were wrong. They watched their towns burn, as the dragons enslaved their people, and as their Kings, Queens, and everything in between were taken hostage until the Dragon King’s child was brought back.

Little did the Dragon King know that the humans were scrambling.

They had lost the egg.

When? How?

During a transaction between the group that had stolen the egg after killing the birther of the egg, and the humans that had paid them to do so. A fight had broken out over the payment of all things, and a third group that had been waiting in the wings had swooped in to steal the egg.

From that point on, no one knew where the egg was.

And it was a high demand item.

Now, it wasn’t just the humans that were getting involved, it was all other beasts, monsters and creatures that were putting themselves out there. Everyone wanted this egg.

Most not for good reasons. They were selfish, full of themselves. Some were in it for the very same reason that the humans attacked. They wanted to prove that the dragons were weaker than them. All because of an egg.

There were those who were also in it for the money. The Dragon King, twisted by his own anger and rage, knew the best way to anyone's heart. Money. The Dragon King was offering a huge bounty for any non-humans that brought the egg to him. Any human that did? They would be killed on the spot.

This created a legion of creatures who were looking for the egg. Creatures with bad hearts. Creatures with good hearts. And creatures like the weak, hopeless humanoid that suddenly found themselves in possession of the very thing that everyone else was fighting for.

In the company of a bunch of humans who had no idea how important the very thing they had ‘found’ in the forest surrounded by dead bodies was.

Only they knew how dangerous this egg that had fallen into their hands was. It was also alarming how hard they had to convince them not to try to eat the egg.

They knew that they had to get this egg to the Dragon King. The only problem?

They looked like a human, and if they revealed their true form?

They weren’t sure if it would be better, or worse for them.