Pet

My ancestors probably rolled over in their graves when I took the little thing in, but what can I say? They were stuffy old reptiles—too preoccupied with hoarding treasures and chomping princesses to understand that their era had passed them by. It’s all about being stylish these days. And chomping a one-year-old princess is NOT stylish, no matter what they tell you.

Don’t get me wrong: the way my villagers fled after dumping the blue-eyed child on the doorstep of my cave put a nice glow in my bowels. The whispers and sidelong looks, the rank smell of sweat, the groveling. Every dragon needs that kind of respect. It’s why I take my morning and evening flights around the village, along with the occasional week’s fire-spewing intensive (it’s critical to be able to hit a haystack from hundreds of feet away or blast a sheep off a cliff side). Like I said, it’s all about style. A fiery blast at the right time, a low fly-by, a fierce roar—theatrics like these keep your villagers under control and guarantee a stress-free life.

Oh, every now and then I’ve stirred the proverbial nest a bit too hard. But real knights are hard to come by and the lovesick yokels they thoughtfully send up are usually quite tasty. There’s nothing like country raised meat (you just have to spit out the pitchforks and scythes).

Any way, last week I was afflicted by a miserable cold (it had been raining cats and dogs for weeks, and we dragons can’t stand getting wet). My poor nose swelled three times its usual slender size and whistled like a tea kettle. I didn’t dare look in the mirror. My throat was raw from sneezing flames every two seconds, and my eyes were watering like a leaky hose. I let the whole village know about my misery: apparently my howls echoed through the entire kingdom, even reaching the king’s deaf old ears. Bandy Legs (the one wandering minstrel I allow to compose and sing me songs about my wonderful deeds) said the whole village shook with the force of my sickbed tossing and turning, and apparently steam and smoke hid my mountain from view for days on end. It was no joke, and I have yet to find any apothecaries who carry things suitable for dragon colds.

I was only just recovering when my villagers brought their get-well present. Bandy Legs had told me it was coming and I was thrilled. Not every village brings their dragons real princesses (even fake ones are rare these days). But come on, a princess still in diapers? Just about as classy as eating a kitten.

So I curled my lips and bared my teeth and snorted some smoke and flames while my villagers fled, and scooped my princess up in my wickedly sharp claws, and thumped into my cave chortling like I was going to eat her then and there. The thing cooed at me the whole time.

I put her on a Persian rug and tossed her an apple or two (please, we do know the importance of fruits and vegetables. Not even my grandfather just ate meat). I’d eat her later, I decided. In a year or two, once she’d grown up and looked like a proper princess, rather than a little cherub with bright blue eyes and fluffy hair.

I named her Pet.

I should have realized my mistake. You don’t name a creature you’re planning on eating.

By the time it was Spring and she was toddling around on her fat little legs, I’d upgraded her rug to a cushy bed made out of a treasure chest and satin pillows, and given her gems and crowns to play with. I had to throw a few heavy chests along the entrance to my cave, so she wouldn’t wander out and get snatched up by a scavenger eagle (the birds insist on looking for rotting bones or corpses to feed off of, even though I’ve told them many times that I cremate the scraps. Much tidier, that way).

The first time Pet said my name, it sent a warm glow through my body—it felt as good as watching a villager run away in fear, really. But don’t tell anyone that. By the end of that week, she was babbling my name constantly, begging for dragon rides and stretching out her pudgy little white hands to play with my teeth. Adorable, right? It almost made up for the amount of diapers I had to change.

I kept up my village terrorizing ways, of course. I had to add human food to the weekly tax demands, because I didn’t want Pet chowing down on her own kind. Ever see a chicken eating chicken meat? It’s revolting. Anyway, Pet loved human food, especially the ruby colored berries shaped like teardrops. I got her loads of those during the summer, and even decreed that my villagers needed to plant thousands of them for next summer.

I shortened my evening flights just a bit, because Pet cried whenever I went out. And my villagers wouldn’t notice if I flew around for half an hour instead of a full hour. Besides, it took time to think up really good bedtime stories, and the simple rhyming ones I’d been telling her since last Fall were beginning to drive me bonkers. You can only recite “Goodnight Dragons Everywhere” so many times.

At that point, I remembered that I had quite a few books somewhere in my treasure hoard. (I couldn’t simply call upon Bandy Legs and his wealth of stories, because no one could know that the fearsome dragon had not eaten his princess snack). I forewent my evening flight entirely one day and went digging, finding two chests of boring books in molding vellum, along with a few glorious ones set in gold and silver and sparkling with gems. I stayed home another evening to teach Pet how to turn pages without ripping and by the time I tucked her into bed—blissfully snuggling the sparkliest book—she could turn them better than I could. I did end up hiding the one with pictures of knights pricking dragons with their annoying sticks.

Realistically, my evening flights were a waste of time. One flight a day was plenty to keep my villagers in check, and I didn’t need the exercise, so I dropped the evening flight altogether and taught Pet to read the books herself (that way she’d entertain herself during the evenings and I could go out again at night. Clever, right?). The way her blue eyes glowed when she spelled CAT! Teaching her to spell dragon took longer, especially since I kept mixing gs up with qs, (the fancy calligraphy didn’t help, particularly since no two books had the same style of writing). I had similar problems with m and w, but Pet took it all in stride, and after a summer or two, she read to me in the evenings in her prim, chirping little voice. I dropped a hot tear or two over the quaint little tricks my Pet was learning.

Week intensives were out of the question now, because Pet could easily clamber over my chest blockades, and I didn’t want her wandering too far, for fear she’d fall off a cliff or hurt herself on the mountain. So I’d take potshots at the scavenger eagles from the entrance to my cave while she sang and played outside, and we’d have roasted bird for dinner. Eventually, I helped her start a garden out below our cave entrance so I could stop demanding as many fruits and vegetables and flowers from my villagers. Flower taxes weren’t doing anything for my public image. And after Pet got her garden going, all I had to do was find a few garden hoses and help her water and pick and store everything.

She got into baking after that and I added a few years worth of flour to one month’s taxes and we had toast with every breakfast, and fresh bread with our dinners, and pastries galore. My villagers fought over crumbs for a year and most had to make do with oatmeal patties instead of bread, but what else can peasants expect? Princesses need decent baking supplies.

I had to drop my morning flights a few years later, because Pet had read about the dresses real princesses had, and suddenly whatever she’d been wearing since I’d had her just wouldn’t do. She insisted that I pull out all the silks and brocades and any other fabric stuffs, and made me unravel something for thread while she drew patterns with charcoal and fussed over designs. I told her it was no use—she’d just keep growing (she was already half the size of a normal human)—but she threw a tantrum and wailed that I didn’t love her. So I dropped my morning flights, relying on the occasional afternoon dash to impress lasting fear on my villagers.

I thought Pet’s dresses were very cute. I pulled the first one out of the fire after she’d stormed off, and stuck it in the chest where I kept her baby things, because the lace and the frills were adorable, even if one sleeve was longer than the other and the fabric on the back panel was inside out. And after a while, I raided my village: setting fire to a few houses and then sneaking into the tailor’s shop and filching all his equipment so I could stop winding thread onto spools all day. Then I burnt the shop down so no one would notice.

Pet’s dresses got better and better and I had to empty several chests of coins so she could store them all. We turned a few of my suits of armor into mannequins, so she could display the best ones and “keep the wrinkles out.” I helped her with laundry once a week and steamed the wrinkles out of her everyday clothes and aprons and little handkerchiefs. Then we went to war on the moths, filling the place with cedar sprigs, a remedy Pet had read about in her books.

Months passed before I remembered to fly by my village again, and I swore some of my villagers looked surprised to see me. Frying a few livestock or chowing down a maiden or two would probably fix that problem. But the flight winded me more than I expected and my joints were a little stiff when I landed on my doorsill, so I decided I’d postpone a follow-up flight for a while. Besides, I couldn’t eat maidens at home anymore: Pet was starting to look like one herself and she’d probably throw things at me if I tried.

My sides scraped against the walls of the cave as I ducked inside—not something I’d noticed before. Maybe I should start taking Pet out for more walks.

Pet didn’t run to meet me like usual, and I thought I heard harp strings jangle and stutter when I stuck my head into the room she’d curtained off with gorgeous tapestries. Pet jumped up beaming and hugged me, babbling about music and minstrels and other such nonsense, and that’s when I saw Bandy Legs cowering behind her, his pasty face whiter than usual.

I got him out of there fast enough. I’d have eaten him, except Pet came storming after us and threw pots and pans and books at me and shouted in a most unnerving way. Bandy Legs got away and I spent the rest of the day calming Pet down.

That evening I caught her reading the book about knights and their nasty quests. She clutched it to her chest and hid under the blankets with it, and I had to let her keep it. Even dragon ears can only take so much, and Pet has a particular way of screaming that would deafen the very stones.

I should have known better than to accept her ‘peace’ offering the next morning. But she made cream puffs—mountains of them—just for me, and smiled her pretty smile, and how could I refuse? She watched me eat them, hands folded in her lap. Then she asked nicely if she could go down into the village.

I nearly choked on my last bite. Pet explained that Bandy Legs had said that there were others like her, and even babies, and that the villagers did dances and feasts, and maybe there would be knights, and a whole lot of other nonsense. But I was having none of it. I wasn’t going to lose my Pet or my public image.

And that’s when I remembered that Bandy Legs knew my secret. The fires almost died within me. I felt cold, sick. He could be down in my village even now, tarnishing my name, making me a laughing stock among dragons. But I couldn’t let Pet out of my sight, not with these mad fancies running wild through her head.

So I gnawed on my worry and followed her every move—watched her bake and sew and garden and bake and sew some more. We didn’t speak to each other, and Pet’s nose tilted higher and her silence got deeper as the evening progressed. Around sunset, she marched outdoors to water her flowers and when I came out to watch her, I saw my worst fears realized.

My villagers waited on my doorstep, armed with pitchforks and scythes and torches. Bandy Legs stood at their head, along with some young yokel with a bucket on his head and a sheet of metal strapped to his chest. He raised a rusty sword as he assumed a heroic stance and swore undying love to my Pet.

Ridiculous, right? I stoked the fires within and prepared to sweep the pests off my doorstep. Pet sprayed me with her garden hose. She threatened to stop baking cream puffs and soufflés. She shouted and she yelled until even her heroic yokel backed away, and what could I do?

Pet promised to visit every week, and my villagers agreed to keep paying taxes, and Bandy Legs swore he’d write more amazing songs about my fierce exploits and terrible deeds and publish them for the world to see. And Pet hugged me and kissed me and called me her ‘dear old dragon.’ Only a heartless, narrow-minded wrym would have ignored her pleas. It’s all about style, these days. And chomping on your Pet’s hopes and dreams simply isn’t stylish.