Human media were the thorn in the side of all this, but dragons had worked their way up the ladder over time in nearly every organisation, with newspapers and television being no exception. Top level executives began issuing unusual orders about who should be covering the story, or stories, depending on how you looked at it. Helicopter pilots and the news reporters who travelled with them were selected not because of their reporting experience, but because they too were dragons, and they too were being co-ordinated by the groups underground, making sure not to film or record the dragon squads working at the scene of each blast, instead only filming or snapping pictures of the devastated areas that were unattended. It was a little clumsy, a little chaotic, but most importantly... IT WORKED! Everything the news channels and newspapers featured had been vetted by a dragon at some point. No human on the entire planet had any idea of the actual scale of the unseen dragon aid, and would be surprised at the pockets of infrastructure and vital services that remained untouched over the coming days, having actually been swiftly rebuilt or repaired.
But of course there were still bodies. Tens, hundreds, thousands... more! It was hard going, even for the dragon recovery teams, who it had to be said for the most part were pretty much detached, mainly because most of them regarded humans as far below their equal, equating them more with a beloved pet, than something worthy of sharing the planet with. These were much older and rapidly diminishing views, in an ever changing world, but still they existed, not quite widespread, but common enough. It hardly mattered though. Each and every dragon went about their business, whatever it was, with utter professionalism, dedication and ruthless efficiency. Minutes turned into hours, hours into days, days dragged on until finally, the whole dragon operation was called to a halt.
Once the order had been given, schedules and rotas were changed back, allowing tired and weary dragons to be substituted for their grief stricken charges. Over the course of twenty four hours, deployment was pretty much as it should have been, with the odd dragon here and there, but for the most part, it was mainly humans who inhabited and covered the devastated areas.
3
All Hail Our Saviour In Scale
A patchwork of images faded in and out of his mind almost constantly now. For the most part, he couldn't tell whether he was awake or not. Reaching back into his mind, he tried to recall how it had all started. Remembering being somewhere... somewhere he shouldn't have, then... it all became dark and he'd awoken here, wherever here was. It was one of the many questions 'THEY' wouldn't answer.
Thinking of them mainly as 'THEY' because of their continued evasiveness, he'd asked what had happened, where he was and how he'd got here, all eliciting the same response..."All in good time." What the hell was that supposed to mean? Why were they being so restrictive with the truth? What was going on? And why couldn't he remember exactly what had happened? All these things constantly nagged at him, but nothing like the big question, the one that stood out like Batman in a Marvel production, the elephant in the room: why could he not feel, or move, any part of his body? And why were his neck and head surrounded by some kind of tiny metal scaffolding frame? Had he broken his back and become permanently disabled, or suffered massive trauma to his head? It might explain a few things if he had. Politely he'd asked these questions, only for the nursing staff (if indeed that's what they really were... sometimes he wondered about that, however ridiculous it seemed) to change the subject very quickly and awkwardly, all of them saying that he'd have to be a patient patient and wait to speak to the doctor, who was on his way. That was days, if not weeks ago. It was hard to remember and keep track of time with all the drugs they were feeding him. On waking up, they'd give him a drink, but before he knew it, he felt sleepy again. Trying to fight it, he gave everything he had in an effort to stay awake, but the pleasant, almost joyful feeling of the medication starting somewhere lower down in his body, was just too hard to resist. In the end, sleep won every time.
But he was awake now, and more alert than he could remember being for some time. Hearing the door to his room open with a tiny little squeak, followed by the expansive whooshing rush of air which normally preceded footsteps, he knew instantly this time was different, because there was more than one set, three or four if he wasn't mistaken. This was something... NEW!
"Good evening... Tim, is it?" whispered a soft, soothing, reassuring voice.
Trying to turn his head in the direction of the sound, he failed miserably, just like all his previous attempts.
"Ahhh... of course, you can't move. Let me come over to you."
Right at the bottom of his vision a smiling face swam into view, nothing like he'd expected. Tim was glad that someone was here finally, someone to answer all his questions, though this guy looked nothing like any sort of doctor he could ever remember seeing, apart from the smile of course. They nearly all had that. For a start, there was the hair. Long, straggly, grey hair, down past his shoulders. Unkempt was the most fitting way he could think to describe it, and his clothes weren't much better, looking very much like they'd been slept in for days on end. The matching grey stubble etched across nearly every part of his lower face did nothing to ease Tim's very real concerns.
"It's nice to finally meet you son," uttered the figure hovering over Tim.
"You too," Tim felt compelled to say, feeling completely and utterly helpless and out of control, having hoped the anger at being trapped here for so long without any answers would have fired him up enough to demand to know exactly what was going on. But it wasn't the case. His life was most certainly in their hands, and he felt this now more than ever.
"You've been through a lot son. Can you tell me what you remember?"
"Very little in fact," replied Tim honestly. "I recall being somewhere... somewhere I shouldn't have been. But I can't for the life of me remember where. And then it went dark, and then... NOTHING! Sorry I can't be more help than that."
"That's alright," answered the... KING! For that's who was standing over Tim right at this very moment, here at the earliest available opportunity, given everything that had happened across not only the dragon domain, but planet wide. Knowing he should have got here sooner and not just demand the staff continue to sedate Tim until he got there, of all the options, it just seemed like the easiest thing to do. As well, a part of him was secretly terrified of dealing with anything to do with the prophecy. Having always known it was a possibility, what ruling monarch didn't, he'd never truly believed the fabled white dragon would turn up on his watch, and certainly not under these circumstances, here and now, during all this.
"I'm sure, son, you have plenty of questions about what's been going on and how it is we're going to treat you?"
"Uh huh," he mumbled, trying to nod his head, but of course being unable to.
"What I'm going to do, is get them to remove the restraint stopping your neck from moving. Is that okay?"
"Yes," Tim remarked enthusiastically. "Is it possible to take all of this scaffolding away?"
"That, my young friend, is known as M.U.C.U.S. and is rather important at the moment."
Tim tried to smile, but it turned into more of a grimace than anything else. Hoping desperately that Tim wouldn't ask him what M.U.C.U.S. stood for, the king knew that it would only raise more questions that he didn't want to answer. M.U.C.U.S. actually stands for Mantra Universal Containment Unit Subjugator, and was currently keeping Tim's head in human form, because the rest of him, which he couldn't feel or see, was residing in a perfectly pure white dragon shape.