Tribute

Author's note: Hello dear reader, this is my first upload to this page so bear with me during my initial time of formatting woes. I have 10k words written already, so it's just a matter of me getting the spacing and all that nonsense in shape. Have a nice read and feel free to leave a review. 

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Prologue

In the world of Reling humanity isn’t at the top of the food chain, not the dominant species. For a long time they were hunted. Slaughtered to the brink of extinction. Their cities burned, even as their creations were in full bloom. Crossbows, catapults, bolt throwers they were no match for the beings that would make them their next meal.

But, then one day something happened. One of humanity's predators saw something. A child crying over her dead parents, or maybe it was a parent crying over her dead daughter, or both. The predator saw the full extent of human suffering. Not just the physical kind that any dog or pig can feel, no, the emotional kind that you can only experience if you truly had something to lose.

In some ways dragons are like humans, but don’t you let them hear you say it. Just like we do in our world, they too thought that they were superior and brushed off the merits of any other species, those skills weren’t useful to dragonkind anyways.

But, one dragon saw something – the complexity that is human love, and soon thereafter the attacks stopped. Humanity rejoiced, no more flames raining down from the sky and no more blood spilt. For a brief moment they thought that their old nemesis had disappeared. It was however, a very brief moment.

One fateful night a dragon appeared over every human settlement. They cast their shadows over the houses, small and big, their looming shapes having the humans cover in fear, children crying and seeking comfort from parents who couldn’t offer any. Then something happened.

The village elders or the towns’ healers got a vision. A shadow spoke to them. Told them that humanity had to know its place, and that whenever called upon they would offer up a tribute, then images flashed in their heads showing the tribute they desired, and the elders knew their names. They were male and female, short and tall, but young.

They marched the tributes out towards the looming shapes. Some screamed, some fought, some pleaded, some tried to run, and some knew they were keeping their home safe and went willingly.

No one knows what happens to the tribute, but it’s been going on for generations.