Once upon a time, people knew more than they know now.
They knew all sorts of things. Like the fact dragons actually existed, and so did magic, for what is a dragon without magic? Of course, some of that magic has been tamed and bound into science, and some has been irretrievably lost.
The rest? That lives with the cats. And sometimes, something happens, and they give some of it to us.
It's happened a few times over the millennia. The first time, unfortunately, was an intervention gone wrong. The meteor was never meant to hit, but it wasn't moved far enough. To be sure, the rest of the planet survived where it wouldn't have, but the dinosaurs died out. Except for those few who were able to evolve quicker, and become hardier to the effect of the nuclear winter that followed. The second time was a case of misreading of a social situation. The ability to breed with the Neanderthals was meant to ensure their survival, and not their destruction and the hands of the new folk. After that, far stricter rules were put in place. No magic of that amount could ever be released again, even if it meant the destruction of all they held dear, because there was just too much chance that it would go wrong again. so vast amounts of magic were kept under control, and even that had an unexpected side effect. As the cats had a bigger reservoir of magic to learn to control and release in a steady stream, so they became smaller, almost in compensation. Their new size brought advantages over the years as the new race became fond of them as they became incapable of eating them, and kept them, and looked after them, freeing up more time for controlling and structuring the magic. sometimes a cat looses a bit of control and more magic than intended is released. It happened around Copernicus and Galileo. Watson and Crick (although strictly speaking it was released as Rosalind Franklin bent down to pet the extremely small tabby that jumped down off a wall on her way to work one morning) and countless others over the years. Every time something was hailed as a paradigm shift in music, arts, science and engineering. Electricity is one of the purer forms of magic.
Of course, in other worlds in other universes in the sheaf, things went differently, as was meant to do. Because of the sheer amount of power released there, some of the magic leaked and seeped into our sheaf, bring with it the legends and the myths that so delight us as children, and to those sensitive to the pervasive power as adults, too. From these myriad worlds came King Arthur and his brave knights, Pandora weeping over her mostly empty box, Andromeda and Hercules, saints and miracles. And like Pandora trapping Hope and keeping her possibility safe (in one world, Hope is actually a woman. Whole different story there.) these myths and legends keep those sensitive enough to need more magic than is prevalent in our lands going. To give them the courage to continue and the deep-down knowledge that somewhere, even of we can't quite reach there yet, dragons do exist, and therefore so does magic.
For what is a dragon without magic?
