DragonMech
Prologue
"Dragons stalk the streets, puffing smoke and clattering their mechanical wings..." That was what Hilary Smullet always said. This was twenty years ago, when we found her diary. When dragons were scarce, and only a few were still alive. When she saw the very first mechanical dragon.
Now... Well, now they're all over the place. Nobody knows how the first mechanical dragon appeared - as far as we know, they are living creatures. I mean, they eat and sleep just like the rest of us. They don't drink water, though, because they'd rust.
The thing with mechanical dragons is, their scales seem to be made of metal. They feel and look like metal, and if they get too wet for too long they rust. Their fire is hotter than anything we have, as if there's some sort of mighty furnace inside them. I can imagine the fire blazing inside them, shaping within their cavernous bodies, pressing against the metallic armour of their scales to be released into the air, gracing the world with it's blistering, blazing glory.
I've always loved the Mechanical Dragons. People say that they used to be like eastern dragons - normal scales, no wings, but with good hearts and courageous minds. That they were saddened by the fact they could not fly and asked a human to make them some wings. He did, and he made them of scrap metal, silver and gold and copper and bronze and tin and all sorts of other wonderful materials. But they had nothing to attatch the wings to, so the human made them armour, thick and sturdy, that the wings were attatched to. The dragons were so thrilled with their new wings that they never took their armour off.
Eventually, they stayed in it for so long that it became their real skin, and they became the Mechanical Dragons that we know today.
I don't know if it's true, but it could be. There are many, many Mechanical Dragons that could prove it to you, but no living person has ever heard one speak.
But there's one thing I do know:
My name is Caleb Steampunket, and I'm training to be a dragon mechanic.
Based on a quote by Hilary Mantel.