The Button Dragon

“There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile, he found a crooked six pence, against a crooked style, he bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, and they all lived together, in a crooked little house.“

What this incomplete rhyme fails mention, is the little dragon with a crooked nose, who loved to carry buttons with his little toes.

The little dragon rested inside of his button filled shoe box, when he moved he could feel the comforting motion of them settling beneath him. It was dark in the storage unit, but he could see all the boxes and buckets surrounding him. He closed his eyes. Imagining the crooked man, and his thimble. 

The Crooked Man

While most people believe the rhyme is about a Scottish general, most people are wrong. The crooked man was in fact, a wizard that lived long ago in the age of fables. 

Unlike most villains, Alore was always bad. Although, mild and unassuming in his appearance, his villainess intentions saturated his very existence. There was no origin story of his awfulness, no turn of events that embittered his soul, he was pure wickedness. Born from the blackest stone, his heart was the same. Filled with hatred, he found the world full of so many things to despise, it was hard to focus and pick just one.

The day he set his sight to the dragons changed the days of old forever. Alore knew that treasures were kept in their nests alongside their eggs. Dragons were superstitious by nature, and had a rich culture, unbeknownst to most humans. 

Alore had been long in search for an enchanted thimble. This thimble could transform any creature into an inanimate object for all of time. His search for an answer to the destruction of all dragons consumed him. He loathed any other creature that contained magic, or potentially could be more powerful than he.

Even with magical abilities, Alore lived the life of an outsider. Villagers looked upon him with suspicion, and he had to frequently travel to avoid dangerous mobs. He would often end up in a dark tavern, performing what he considered, disgraceful magic tricks for money. It was a particularly isolating evening, Alore had just finished impressing a handful of inebriated locals with an easy illusion, involving playing stones and pigeons. He couldn’t stand that he was a wizard, and yet limited in so many ways. He needed something. What he needed was help. 

The Crooked Cat

He wandered the road through the village. It had become a muddy, wet mess in the weeks of unrelenting rain. In fact, it seemed any memory of being dry was reduced to a passing feeling. Blinking in the rain, he saw a shop he hadn’t noticed before. It had a sagging roof over it’s chipped stone walls. There wasn’t much chance that the contents inside of the store was dry, let alone in good enough condition to purchase. Suddenly, he felt the familiar tingle of “ the sense”, it was a magical intuition he possessed. Knowing that even if it seemed a dubious situation, he must follow it This feeling always led to opportunity. 

His mud covered boots took him to the door. It swung open with just a light touch of his palm. As he suspected, the shop was dank and musty inside. There were tables and chairs covered in old burlap, shelves with oddities, and trinkets upon them. Overflowing pots were scattered throughout the place to catch the unyielding rain. Hanging above the far corner, was a birdcage. Not containing a bird, but a very wet, grey tabby inside. Thin and hissing, the cat cowered inside its prison. An old women sat underneath the hanging cage. A rage grew inside of him, Alore had never felt such a feeling before. He had felt hatred, but never a hatred filled justice for another. He plunged his hand into his pocket, and all he felt was the sixpence he had gotten for his earlier “work” at the tavern. Knowing he could not just take the cat, he would be promptly escorted to the village square, and hung for thievery. If he managed to escape capture, the rain would keep him from traveling as quick as he would have to if he decided on that route. Squaring his shoulders, and stiffening his jaw, he gripped the coins tightly, walked briskly to the women, and tossed them in her lap. He could easily reach the cat with his long arms. She stared at him, put the money in her apron and didn’t say a word. He took this to mean the deal was done, turning he walked out with the hissing beast in the bird cage. 

This revelation of Alore's, at first may seem like a transformation story, from villain to hero. However, it was more of a meeting of two evils. The cat was indeed, a crooked cat, to complement the crooked man. 

The Crooked House

Alore took his hood, and placed it over the cage to cover the cat from the downpour. He trudged through the village and then a little beyond, to his crooked little house. He came upon the abandoned house when he first arrived into town. In fact, calling it a house was a bit of a stretch. It had a roof, no windows, and consisted of a single room. Inside however, he had used his magical talents to turn it into more of a home than the outside appeared to be. When he opened the door to the shack, an enchanted fire was burning in his illusion of a hearth. There was a soft rug in front of a chair near the fireplace. He took off his boots, and uncovered the bird cage. The warmth from the room, sinking into his cold bones. He opened the door to the cage, and placed a bowl of stew in front of the cat, who’s eyes widened at the gesture. The grey tabby stretched and stepped out gingerly, Alore could see wounds on her paws from the bars of her enclosure. He walked to his cabinet, and withdrew a few flasks, filled with various rarities he had collected over the years. He took the lid off of one, and sprinkled a shimmering essence onto the stew. The cat hesitated, and then ate. Hunger always overcomes suspicion. Almost immediately, her wounds began to heal. The dullness of her fur coat gone, she was now gleaming like the substance she had consumed from the vial. The cat looked at him, and they both had an understanding in that moment. Not love per say, but an equal motivation to inflict hatred upon the world they both despised.

As the days passed, the magician and the cat travelled into town to perform for money, and food. Coming back home to their little shack. It became comfortable, safe, and both the cat and the magician, lost their focus on evil, for a little while. Until the mouse. 

The Crooked Mouse

One morning Alore arose from his chair, missing the furry presence on his lap. Looking around for the tabby (he wasn’t much for names) he finally spotted her in a corner of the room. She sat hunched over, and a tuft of fur was hanging from her mouth. Alore watched her, as she spit it out, and then trapped it under her paw. Kneeling to the floor to get a closer look, Alore realized it was a mouse, and he began to feel the “sense”. This small creature, had bristles of black fur coming up from behind its ears, large pale pink paws, and two tails. Possibly one of the reasons this little mouse was not eaten by the crooked cat, was that it was so strange. Quickly rising to his feet, and opening his cabinet, he pulled one very tiny vial containing a green liquid from one of the shelves. He then poured it directly onto the floor in front of the mouse. The cat lifted her paw, knowing the mouse was not hers to keep, the creature ran forward. Gently using both of its paws, it scooped the liquid, sniffed, and finally drank it. When consumed, the elixir causes a magical allegiance to the wizard who has possession of it. Alore knew that this mouse was imperative to his quest against the dragons. The covenant between the three had begun.

And so the Crooked man, his crooked cat, and crooked mouse, plotted together in their crooked little house. Over the course of a fortnight, Alore and his two companions, devised a plan, to steal the dragons’ powers, and the treasures from it’s nest. Alore was convinced, that he knew which dragon was the keeper of the thimble. 

The thimble’s origin, was still a mystery, and many people questioned its existence at all. Alore had travelled from village to village, listening carefully to the fireside tales of the lands. He knew each folktale held a drop of truth, and the drops together would tell him what he needed to know.

The story of the first wizard was a common lore. The thimble was given as a gift from the wizard as an act of peace between dragons and humans. The wizard appeared, during a time of war, death and destruction. It began as a human war, and then evolved to include the dragons. Dragons were being killed for their powers. They fought back, burning villages, cursing townships, and the chaos was endless throughout the land. No peace in sight. In fact, people say if it had continued, it most likely would have been the end for both species. The wizard was powerful, and offered the dragons the magical thimble, as security. They could use it against the humans if needed for their protection. To maintain peace between the people, he made the lands prosperous again. He promised the prosperity would continue as long as the peace did. The peace did not last forever, as one can imagine, but it did last for generations. So many in fact, that the history of it became a whisper of a legend that filled children's’ ears while they closed their eyes for sleep.

 The dragon who guarded the thimble was rumored to live in the far west, up in the cliffs, where no human had travelled or lived to tell of it. Alore planned to steal the thimble and destroy all the dragons at once.

The three companions began their journey west. With certainty his purpose, and quest would finally be fulfilled. He would forever be rid of the dragons power over him, and all of humanity. They trudged, through the wet season, the heat of the mid months, and the leaves had begun to change when they finally reached the edge of the western cliffs. 

Snow had begun to arrive on the tips of the jagged crest of the mountain. Alore’s hands were bleeding with the cold, and the trials they had overcome. He awoke on the ledge where they set camp earlier in the day. The sun was peaking the east corner of the crag, and in the light he saw it, at last. The shape of the nest was a perfect oval against the new morning glow. The “sense” was so strong he started to shiver, he knew this was the day. He quickly gathered the cat and the mouse, and left his pack. They made their way along the bluff. He knew he couldn’t get too close, the dragon might smell him. He reached a small, flat, edge closer to the nest. He took the cat and the mouse down from his shoulders. It was their time. The little creatures ran along the edge, delicately, and made their way to the roost. The dragon would be hunting now, the cat and the mouse would be able to easily climb the inside of the nest. 

Alore could see the two small shapes ascending into the nest from his position. Holding his breath, he clenched his cracked, tired hands together with anticipation. 

The cat stood guard while the mouse, scurried its way around the single egg and the treasures beneath it. The mouse abruptly poked its head through a very large diamond ring, and held up the thimble. It was plain looking, nothing compared to the other shiny trinkets, and regalia in the nest. As with most magical objects however, it is usually the most boring that contain the most power. He leaped upon the cats’ back, and they fled as fast as they could back to the wizard. 

Taking the tiny thimble from the mouse, Alore gripped it tightly. He muttered magical enchantments, and commands. Everything he knew how to do. What he was unaware of however, was that the guardian dragon, in her wisdom, had contributed her own magical powers to the thimble. She had conjured a reversal, protection spell. Alore muttered his enchantments, ripped a button from his cloak, and held the thimble and button together in his palms. In that instant, every dragon, even the mighty guardian, was transformed into a button. Every dragon, that is, except one. The tiny egg had begun to hatch, and unlike human or animal offspring, every dragon is hatched with the knowledge of their elders. This tiny dragon, all alone would begin his search for buttons. Spending his life, gathering them, as a collector of his kind. Not much is known about this story afterwards, in fact it could all be myth. Much like the story of the thimble and the first wizard, the history of dragons has diminished itself to fantastical corners of libraries, and Alore to a simple childhood rhyme.

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Yet still, there in the storage unit, the little dragon, rests in the shoebox. Surrounded by his hoard. The precious trove of buttons, the only family he’s ever known. He is the final hope of his kind. Remaining a living promise, to the button dragons, and to destroy the thimble so they might live again.