Tales from the DHA city is a series of short stories set in Altinova, the city founded by Dragon-Human Association, designed to be inhabited by both dragons and humans.
Normally they're standalone, but in this one there's too much I introduced to leave it at only one part. If you like it, I'll continue the story of Zenkrich.
Join Dragon-Human Association: https://discord.gg/TeaeZAQdTs

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“Food...food...food…”
Zenkrich dragged his puny, scaly body through the green hill. His wings flapped uncontrollably, begging him to fly, despite being now useless. He hadn’t eaten for too long, and now hunger was winning over him.
Beyond the top, the profile of tall, transparent towers emerged from he horizon, the sun setting down behind them. Zenkrich knew what they were. But he tried to suppress that knowledge. His young mind had tormented him enough reminding him of what they had done.
They…
They…
A clash of multiple steps on the mountain rocks. Unbearably loud bangs. A smell of metal and sulphur, so overwhelming it nearly knocked him out. Dragons roaring in pain…
“NO!” He shook his head violently. That didn’t happen. That didn’t happen. He didn’t remember at all what his life was before, only that his name was Zenkrich, and that was enough. There was more urgent stuff to think about. “Food...food...food…”
He didn’t even know how he had crossed an entire mountain range and a forest. Almost every appetizing prey was bigger than him. He mostly survived on carrion and the occasional rat, until the trees disappeared and he entered a huge landmass of nothing but grass. There, prey virtually disappeared. There was a faint, but ubiquitous smell of a certain creature, a smell that reminded him of-
His wings kept flapping. Zenkrich felt the urge to soar up – more precisely, his wings did. But they were torn and twisted unnaturally. Nothing but a pair of bones wrapped in membrane and scales. Use us, they seemed to tell him, you’ll find food through us.
“Food...food...food…”
He reached the top. The towers could now be seen in their entirety, standing above a vast sea of lower ones, made of something white. From there, the faint smell of that creature was way stronger. Yet it was mixed with the scent of another kind of creature. Something similar to...his parents?
No, it couldn’t be. It had to be an illusion. Those towers were bad. The creatures that made them were bad. A dragon like him would not survive there.
Zenkrich began turning right. The creatures could be close. Yet he knew there was nothing to eat, if he walked the same path again. That direction was his safest bet. As his nose desperately tried to catch some edible scent, it kept sending to his brain memories that, he was sure, had no reason to be inside him. Tall, pink beings on two legs. Broken eggs scattered all around. A hole in the rocks where to hide…
His paws wobbled…
“Food...food...food…”
An undistinguishable flying figure soared among the towers. It looked familiar…it smelled familiar...
“Food...food...f...o...o...d...”
His eyes were closing…

Beep. Beep. Beep.
A loud, weird sound woke Zenkrich up. It kept playing in his ear, and he did not understand what it was. He opened his eyes, and closed them immediately. An absurdly brilliant light hit him, as if the sun had descended on the earth.
There were voices around him, and smells of various living beings. The same kinds of smells he had perceived from that hill, coming from the towers.
“GRAWR!” He reopened his eyes, diverting them from that absurd light, in his mind only one thought: escape. But at the very moment he turned left, his head collided against something solid, but invisible…
“You’re safe here, little one.”
It was one of those voices. Zenkrich turned around. The absurd light had disappeared, but everything looked white. Except for a large, dark-red head, standing above him. The head of a dragon.
A dragon. He hadn’t met one since…
“What’s your name?” The big dragon head pronounced.
“Z...Zenkrich.”
“What’s your wyrm?”
His wyrm. His wyrm. No, he didn’t have a wyrm, he was sure of it. Yet for some reason he felt like knowing what that word meant. For some reason…
“Are you...are you from the North Cascade Wyrm?”
That name pinched something in his mind. It was sweet, and the same time unbearably sour. Comforting, and at the same time atrocious. Too much to handle.
He roared of mental pain. He was remembering. All the memories he had tried to suppress re-emerged with the name. The humans coming in mass to his wyrm’s mountains, shooting every dragon in sight. Him hiding in a hole, witnessing the killing of his best friends, smelling the scent of fresh death from…
And now the voices around him and the dragon head were...
“Humans! Here! I don’t want to!”
“Calm down!” The dragon head nuzzled the little terrorized dragon, trying to calm down his agitated body. “They are good humans. You’re in Altinova hospital.”
“Alti...what?”
“Altinova. You are safe. Humans are good here.”
Zenkrich breathed heavily. That couldn’t be. Humans were evil. They killed his wyrm.
“No…”
“A human saved you. Layla found you on a hill nearby. She’s here. Wanna say hello?”
Next to the dragon’s head appeared a human one, with curly red hair and light-blue eyes. “Hi, Zen-”
“No! No!” He turned his head away, scratching the invisible wall with his little talons, to no avail.
The dragon said something, in a language Zenkrich he couldn’t understand; he heard noises of steps getting less loud in a short amount of time.
“It’s alright Zenkrich. I told the humans to leave the room for now.”
Indeed, their scent was no more so close to him, though the environment kept smelling of them. That was enough to calm him down, at least for now and ask for what he had been looking for the last days.
“Food…?”
“We fed you while we were asleep, little one. Don’t worry.”
Indeed, he now realized his stomach felt full. His mind calmed further. Maybe that was a safe place, after all.
The red dragon spoke again.
“Nobody will try to kill you here. We will keep you here for a while, then when you’ve recovered, we’ll get you a new place. You heard of Altinova, right?”
He tried to remember. The words kept flowing out of his mouth, while the red dragon listened to him. Some of the adult dragons would talk about it, once in a while. Some young ones had flown away to go live there. Zenkrich didn’t really understand though. Why would they go live in a human place? Didn’t their mountains provide everything a dragon would need? Why being hosted by creatures that kept threatening their own home? “The humans in Altinova aren’t like the farmers that live close to us,” one had told him before, a dragon in his teenage years. “Altinova is a place where we live next to them in peace. I’m going to move there soon too.” Likely, that dragon hadn’t survived the massacre the same ‘farmers’, as the humans close to them were often called, did on them.
Now he had done it though. But he was too afraid to accept living next to humans.
“We took the humans who did it,” the red dragon finally said, “the DHES arrested them one day after. You’re safe.”
“What’s the DHES…?”
“Dragon-Human Emegency Services. They were arrested by a group of humans and dragons. Working together.”
It was all so confusing. How could humans both do something like...that and help him?
“They are not all the same, Zenkrich,” the red dragon replied, “some are good. Like Layla. She patrols the parks around Altinova. When she found you unconcious, she called the DHES immediately and brought you here.”
“A human...saved me?”
“I know, it’s all confusing. It was the same for me when I got here.”
“When did you…?”
“One thing at a time, little one. Now you need to rest. We’ll keep you well here. Now, can I tell the humans to get back here?”
“I…” He was too scared. It couldn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible that a human had saved him. But he had remembered when the adults would talk about Altinova. He did.
Then it had to be true.
“F...fine.”

==The Altinova Bulletin==
NORTH CASCADE DRAGONLET FOUND ALIVE CLOSE TO CITY BORDERS
Young survivor of North Cascade Massacre is kept under observation at Altinova Main Hospital
A young dragonlet has been found in a dying state around the hills close to the city. He was found two days ago by Layla Nijima (human), a DHES sub-commander, who contacted a DHES helicopter to bring him to Altinova Main Hospital, where he’s currently receiving treatment. The dragonlet, whose name is currently being kept private by the hospital authorities, has been revealed to be from the North Cascade Wyrm, whose members were nearly all massacred one month and fourteen days ago in one of the worst human attacks on dragons since DHA’s foundation.
“My patient needs rest and is not in the condition of re-living the trauma he’s suffered,” declared Rimgar (dragon), head of the ward the dragonlet is being kept. “For his recovery’s sake, I beg you to be the most discreet possible.”
The North Cascade Massacre was believed to have left no survivors until yesterday. The attack was claimed by the Saint George Group, an anti-dragon organization operating mostly in Canada and the United States. Its perpertrators have been arrested one day after and they’re being processed for crimes against dragonkind.

Twenty days after
Zenkrich exited the hospital’s building with slow, uncertain steps. His wings, now completely regenerated, flapped excited, anxious to be used. However, Zenkrich still didn’t feel confident enough to fly, especially in an environment that was so alien to him.
Rimgar was next to him. He had mentioned something about ‘journalists’ being possibly outside, recommending not to get too close, but as far as he could see, there was no one close to them. “Oh, good. The police has prevented them to enter,” Rimgar commented.
The dragonlet, in the meanwhile, looked around. The towers were all around them. By now, he was used to smelling humans and dragons at the same time. Rimgar had been true: the humans there had turned out to be nice. Layla, the one who rescued him, had brought to him some nice toys to play with, which helped him not to remember too often. All the other humans had repaired his wings and made him practice flying, which he was still learning the day when…
He shook his head. He did not now whether he’d ever feel like thinking about it, but certainly not today.
“Where are we going?” He asked Rimgar.
“My home,” the red dragon answered. “I have made application to take you in adoption. My human partner and I will be glad to take you in custody and make you grow up here. You can refuse if you want, though.”
“Huh…” He scratched the hard terrain. It wasn’t soft like normal ground, and he didn’t like it. And he wasn’t sure about this ‘human partner’. “Who is this…?”
“Well, it’s funny that you ask. It’s Layla.”
“Ah,” he nodded. That reassured him a bit. While he still was fully sure all humans meant no harm there, he was certain about Layla. “I don’t feel like flying.”
“That’s alright. I will grab you for now.”
“F...fine.”
“Are you ready now?”
“Y...yes.”
“Then come.” Rimgar opened his right forepaw. Zenkrich walked towards it, and the talons closed around him. That had to be what prey felt like when chased down, but to him now it felt like a safe place where to be.
“I’m taking flight now.”
Zenkrich didn’t reply. He rubbed his nose in affection against the adult dragon’s paw while he was being lifted up above that weird, hard, grassless surface, toward a new home.