Vanquishing Dragons

“You look too dumb to be a hero,” commented the iridescent green dragon sunning himself in front of the rock wall opening, “Are the villagers running out of them and sent you instead?” 

Two other dragons sunning next to him gave the human long lazy looks. “He looks like a study in brown. Not good brown, more like a boring brown? The brown of burlap, potatoes, dirt that gets under my scales…” said the dragon wearing a large sapphire around their neck.

“Is he wearing a bathrobe? Can heroes slay dragons while they are in their bathrobes?” said another dragon while toying with their large amethyst pendant.

“I’m a magician! Er. I mean, I’m a hero!” The adolescent boy let the tip of his rusty sword droop to the ground, stared down at his mud and dung covered shoes and sighed. “Who am I kidding? You are correct Sir Dragon; the villagers have run out of heroes and so they sent me instead.” The boy adopted what he thought was a fierce some stance and lowered his voice to say with command “My name is Tim, and I am a wizard!” His voice squeaked high on the words ‘Tim’ and ‘wizard’.

The three dragons barked out hearty guffaws, then collapsed into giggles, holding their bellies, gemstones bouncing on their chests.

“Oh fine. I’m really a wizard’s apprentice, not an actual wizard,” sighed Tim the Not Yet a Wizard.

“He IS wearing a bathrobe!” the amethyst dragon bugled with glee.

“Does the village think they will kill us with brown?” quizzed the sapphire wearing dragon while stroking their pendant.

“We shall call you Bathrobe Brownie, Brownie for short,” said the first dragon. Gesturing at the large gem adorning his chest “We are named after our favorite jewels, I am Ruby.”

“Brownie, young not wizard yet, did they really send you to kill us with your brown? I can never figure out the villager logic,” said Amethyst.

“Well, you ate some sheep from the village flock… “started the want to be wizard boy.

All three dragons shot to their feet indignantly. Ruby ranted “Oh yes! We ate some sheep. We ate some sheep and the villagers send their heroes to slay us… or worse! They tie up their crying virgins to a post in front of our home and how does that make any sense? They are sacrificing their daughters and sons because of losing some sheep? Why not just breed more and plan for dragons eating sheep? There is only three of us. And what are we supposed to do with pretty virgins?”

“Eat them?” asked Tim.

All three dragons made a very loud ‘blech’ noise, moving their mouths like they tasted something bad. “Humans taste terrible. If we wanted to eat humans, we would take humans, not sheep.” Sapphire explained with disdain.

“Since we don’t know what to do with them, we send the virgins to our sugar cookie castle,” said Amethyst.

“Sugar cookie… castle?”

Continuing with his rant, Ruby said, “We tried to send the virgins back to the village, but the villagers wouldn’t let them back, like they are expected to be dead and so not welcome home. The virgins would come back to us crying even harder! We tried to use the virgins as servants, you know, keeping our home clean and that sort of thing? But they are terrible cleaners! All they were really good at was crying and being pretty. It’s really depressing being in a cave with lots of crying pretty girls. So, we thought, well, we do love sugar! We could find an old castle, turn it into a sugar cookie factory and send them there to make cookies for us.”

“The cookies weren’t that great until the villagers ran out of pretty virgins and sent the baker’s virgin daughter instead. She looked like a loaf of bread. Very practical. She was the best virgin ever! She created a special sugar cookie just for dragons,” said Ruby, waving a large dragon sized sugar cookie, decorated with colorful icing flower and bee scenes. “She runs the factory now. Best virgin ever!”

“Ask us about the heroes now, Brownie Bathrobe,” Sapphire suggested in a low purr.

“Er… do you just kill them?” whispered Brownie, lowering his head eyes widened like a little boy hearing a ghost story.

Sapphire smiled a slow dragon’s grin, “Noooo…  Instead, we send them to the land of the sugar cookie castle, as well. We also tried to make them servants, but they were useless at that. Too proud. They would just boast about their exploits and pretend the brooms were swords. Braggy boys with brooms are quite tiresome, really. The surrounding lands of the sugar cookie castle has a problem with ogres, goblins and trolls; that’s why no humans live there. The heroes go fight the ogres, goblins and trolls. This way, the heroes get to be heroes, just not here where they keep trying to kill us.”

“It used to work out quite well,” commented Amethyst.

“There is getting to be a rather large population there, as we have villages from all over that send their children here to save their sheep. And probably quite messy since it is just heroes and virgins and they are terrible at cleaning.” Ruby explained.

“We’d really just like to live off sugar cookies peacefully, collecting our gems, but the villagers seem to be attached to those sheep more than their children and keep sending them here to either kill us or cry on us,” said Amethyst.

“Dragons can’t live off sugar alone!” all three dragons wailed.

“What if you could live off sugar alone? Maybe if you were smaller, you could?” asked Tim.

“How are we supposed to be smaller?” Ruby snorted.

“You can’t shrink a dragon!” Amethyst said with force.

“Well, I am a wizard…,” said Tim.

“You mean a brown apprentice,” purred Sapphire.

“But I have done spells to make things smaller. It’s one of the first ones that we learn.” Tim explained.

“You haven’t gotten to the spells to make you less brown then?” asked Sapphire.

Ignoring this comment, Tim pressed forward. “I could make you smaller, keep everything else the same, just make you smaller. Small enough that you don’t need to eat sheep.”

The dragons collectively considered, each rumbling a deep and ponderous “Hmm…”

“The villagers would stop hating us,” said Ruby.

“The heroes and virgins could come back,” said Amethyst.

Tim the Not Yet Wizard said, “I could explain everything to the villagers, and they would be so happy!  They would make you sugar cookies forever!”

Ruby sighed and said to the others, “I think we have no choice; soon the Sugar Cookie Castle will be unmanageable and it’s inevitable that a hero will come and kill us. Being smaller will allow us to cohabit with the villagers. Tim, please prepare the spell.”

Tim gathered materials to create his spell while the dragons watched. Once he had all of the spell contents gathered, he drew a circle on the ground and asked the dragons to step inside, explaining “The circle will contain what is inside to protect the spell maker, you know, so he can finish making his spell.” The dragons were skeptical, but they allowed themselves to be led into the circle.

Tim chanted the spell, which normally was quite dull to watch, like a monk doing a chant but without the music. Or the church. Tim added colorful billows of smoke and crackles of electricity for the dragons’ sake, he felt they would better appreciate a large magical fanfare rather than him doing what he was sure they would call ‘brown chanting’.

As the clouds of magic cleared, Tim was astonished to see three loudly squeaking birds flying in circles instead of the dragons! The dragons had become the smallest birds Tim had ever seen. Their beaks were like needles and their wings flapped so fast they made a constant humming noise. Tim couldn’t even see their wings move; they were just a blur. All three were the iridescent green of the dragons, but they each had a different colored chest, one red, one purple and one blue.

In a hushed questioning tone, Tim muttered “I don’t understand why you are so small… “He thought of the spell, shrink them so they are small enough to not have to steal sheep, have a beauty that the villagers would admire, still be adorned with their gems and basically be like they were, only smaller.

Tim listened closer and could hear the tiny dragons squeaking “Brownie bathrobe!” over and over. With a loud gust of determined breath, Tim blew away the circle and said to the dragons “Ok. I know you are upset. You are smaller than we thought you would be however, all aspects of the spell appear to be fulfilled, except for the sugar… I guess sugar cookies are out of the question, but maybe sugar in some other form?” The tiny dragons squeaked “Sugar!” repeatedly and flew around Tim’s head.

Tim looked at the “made for a dragon” sugar cookies and realized they really were out of the question. Too hard. Too big.

Tim realized that all around the dragon’s cave were beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers.

“What about nectar? It’s sugar from flowers. Try drinking from a flower.” Tim told the tiny dragons.

Ruby, Sapphire and Amethyst drank nectar until their little bellies were quite round. They perched on Tim’s shoulders, squeaked “Happy!” at him and fell asleep, content.

Tim went back to the village and told everyone that the sleeping creatures on his shoulders were the dragons. “Those little birds? Those are not dragons.” They did not believe him, but they couldn’t prove him wrong. There were no more dragons, just the tiniest most beautiful birds the villagers had ever seen. They called them “humming birds” due to the noise their wings made.

After the heroes and virgins returned, the virgins would coo and gush over the tiny dragons. Tim explained that they loved sugar and so the girls would make flagons of sugar water for them and leave them in various places around the village.

Tim went on to become a great and famous wizard. The tiny dragons were always with him, singing “Brownie Bathrobe!” as they hummed happily around his head.