Last of Dragonkind

Flying to the Great Volcano, where all the fire-breathing dragons tended to congregate, Caravias approached Meridor. Yes, that Meridor: Meridor the Wise, who was one of those proper Scottish dragons, and tended to be very knowledgeable about such things as Caravias’s problem. At least, that’s what others said.

But Caravias had such a hard time understanding Meridor! He’d only tried the one time, though. So, maybe this time he’d succeed in being able to comprehend the old guy. And wishes would magically turn into sheep, too. Uh-huh … right.

“Meridor,” he said. “I have a bit of a problem. I was informed you may be able to help.”

“Och!” Meridor replied in his Scottish accent. “It’s the noncy gelt aboot haeyin a great fiery boak and weipen oot the sheep farm, ennet?”

“What?” Caravias asked. “Oh, the-the … sheep farm? That old thing? No! No, I let that go decades ago. Setting a whole sheep farm on fire, wasting all those sheep, that was really nobody’s fault. Nobody can really help it if they belch fire, right?”

“Aye,” Meridor replied. “That thar’s the ruit truth of it, lad. Ah’ll sae it: Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye! Sae, allae me ta ken the natcher o’ yer akchell problem.”

Something about a problem—maybe an ‘actual’ problem? Caravias tried that as an interpretation.

“My problem, dear friend, is that I have eaten a knight who may have an answer to a question that I can’t answer on my own. About what the purpose of a dragon’s hoard is.”

“Och, tha’s right mad-nin, that is,” he said. “Who’s the totie stoter meid yer heid all mincer’d?” Meridor asked. “Dedje hap’n’a catch a moniker?”

“Who’s the-the … what?” Caravias asked, trying hard to follow. “M-my … huh?”

“Et’s a perfeckly streetfarard kaestion!” the old dragon declared.

Which Caravias really didn’t understand.

“Well, I just ate the guy before I got an answer,” Caravias said, hoping that was somehow close to something the old guy was saying. “That’s what I’m trying to get help with.”

“Ye canna tell mei, lad,” Meridor scolded, “thetcha geev nae meind na heed ta enny proper prootacol? Dedje not exhaus’ the battle and banter before ye hie and nashed the wee bampot?”

“I … have no idea what you just said,” Caravias informed him. “Some kind of thing about a proper … Wait. The knight protocol? Is that what you mean?”

“Aye,” Meridor replied. “Battle first. Then banter. Then nash the eejit by the type o’ weedl’s ‘e gebs ye. An’ ye ded that, dedje?”

Battle first. Then banter. Then … garbled nonsense. That’s what it sounded like to Caravias. The knight protocol’s third part was just chomping down on the guy and going for the clean-and-whole swallow. The CAWS technique, they’d called it. But none of that sounded even close to anything Caravias could think about. So, to the banter part.

“Well, the banter was starting to get … frustrating?” Caravias winced. “So I kinda … ate the guy early. Which leads me to my current issue.”

“Nei exkeese!” Meridor bellowed. “Och! What dee thei instroc’ ye bairnies wi’ atoll? All o’ ye ken naught a bam’s knuckle! Mei meis’ wee talon ken greater’n’a lotta ye! Yer dilemma’s sure ta slap it intae ye! Gae noo! Ahm done wi’ye.”

A whole lot of something angry, maybe? Caravias had a hard time following.

“Could you maybe speak English?” Caravias asked. “Because I really just don’t get what you just said.”

“Noo jist haud on!” the old dragon replied indignantly. “Whatta ye thenk ah bean talkin’? Frisian?”

“I have … no idea,” Caravias said. Mostly about whatever the old dragon just said.

“Eim te mei leisure noo, ye wee cheeky stoter.”

“Something about … leisure?” Caravias guessed. “Are you saying I should relax? Also, I don’t have have a daughter.”

“Yer aff yer heid, ye dunt-noggin galoot! Dinna talk yer pesh ageen! Eim tei auld fur the ignorance o’ ye. Haud yer wheesht, an’ away wi’ ye, ye great numpty sassenach bam!” the old dragon trumpeted angrily, pointing to the top of the smoking volcano they were in. “Afoor ah pap ye oot the lum, higher’n that reek reit thaer.”

“I am … just … so lost,” Caravias said as the elder moved away from him. “Does that mean you’re not helping me?”

Without another word (if you don’t count the irritated snort) the elder moved off toward a bunch of dragons playing something like D&D (Damsels & Defenders, that role-playing game where players pretended to kidnap princesses and fight knights). And as they were all speaking the same mysterious language as Meridor, Caravias guessed they were all Scottish dragons, too. They made no secret of talking about Caravias, pointing and sounding angry but then laughing raucously.

“Excuse me,” another of the dragons said (and this one sounded normal, not unlike Caravias himself). “I couldn’t help but overhearing. Did you not know about the protocol?”

“Is that the battle-banter thing?” Caravias asked. “I can’t understand a thing he said, and everyone says he’s the wisest.”

“Yeah,” the other dragon said. “And clearly, he thinks you’re a lot younger than you are.”

“I barely understood what he was saying about the knight protocol,” Caravias said.

“Battle first, then banter,” the other dragon said. “And then you eat them. There’s lots of technique to that last part. I keep messing up my final exam.”

“There’s a technique to eating humans?” Caravias asked, a little shocked.

“Oh, yeah!” the other dragon replied, and then sung the song: “Little knight-y, jaunty little knight-y, little knight-y, twist and pluck the head.”

“I think that’s the tune to Alouette,” Caravias said.

“Yeah, it’s close. But this is about knights,” said the other dragon. “Plus, it gives a lot of good advice. Ever since I started following it, my dining experience has been totally better. It even talks about how to get knights to admit to their wrongdoing. Driving dragons out of their lairs, building castles and keeps alike right on top of traditional hunting grounds, that kind of thing.”

“Really?” Caravias said, impressed.

“Oh, absolutely!” the other dragon said.

“I might need to go take a refresher course,” Caravias observed.

“So, what was the original problem you were trying to talk to the old guy about?”

“I didn’t catch your name,” Caravias said. “I’m Caravias.”

“Mogdern,” the other dragon introduced.

“Glad to meet you,” Caravias said. “So, I didn’t know the new parts of the protocol. And this knight was just going on and on, and it was really spoiling the dining atmosphere. I chomped the guy in one piece—”

“Ooh, brutal!” Mogdern winced. “You do know they suffer a lot more that way, right?”

“Well, the problem is, now I have a question that I can’t answer.”

“What is it?”

“He said: ‘Why do dragons even have hoards anyway, if all they do is gather them and never spend them?’”

“Oof!” winced Mogdern. “That’s a real brain-twister! Oh, you poor guy.”

“Well, it’s been a month,” Caravias continued. “I can’t eat. I can’t rest very well. I can’t even bring myself to chase the flock that’s all but jumping into my mouth. All the joy in my life is just gone.”

“Then we need more help than Meridor can offer!”Mogdern said. “We need the Grand Flamer.”

“Well, he’s probably really busy—”

“Busy, schmizzy!” interrupted Mogdern. “This could shake all of dragonkind to its core! Come on, let’s save the world!”

And with that, Mogdern launched into the air.

“I really need to stop just blindly trusting everyone,” Caravias muttered as he launched into the air after his new acquaintance.

They flew to the Five Elements Retreat, an elders-only community for retired dragons. And true to its name, it was near a smoking volcano, a forest, a lagoon, and the largest dragon hoard Caravias had ever seen. Air, fire, wood, water, and metal. It was as if tailor-made to every dragon’s liking (well, except those arrogant polar dragons, who thought all water should be frozen—clearly, they weren’t going to be here).

They landed near the guardian dragon, who Mogdern seemed to know.

“Hey, Daviria,” Mogdern greeted the guardian, a matronly dragon with a fierce look to her—still attractive in spite of her youth. She couldn’t have been much older than Caravias himself.

“Mogdern,” she greeted stoically. She didn’t move. She could have been some statue. And Caravias had to admit he was really attracted to her already. “Your uncle’s not here right now.”

“Daviria, my new acquaintance, here, has a question for the Grand Flamer.”

“Ask it, and I shall consider whether or not to grant you entry,” she said.

Mogdern looked at Caravius, who stepped forward and spoke right up.

“Most beautiful of guardians,” he said. “I was not following the knight protocol correctly, and so I’ve been beset by an unanswerable question.”

“Ooh,” she said, moving at last to look at him. “A charmer! Tell me, sweet charmer, what makes the question unanswerable?”

“I think the only person who could clarify the meaning of the question is already digested,” he admitted. “I feel pretty silly. But the question itself is proving to be so upsetting that I can’t eat. And so, with regret, I have to refrain from asking anyone but the Grand Flamer personally.”

“You will ask it,” she insisted. “Or I will not allow you entry. That is simply—”

“What’s all this?” said another voice as a gargantuan dragon appeared, almost as if from nowhere. And by the rainbow coloration of his scales, and the slight lisp of his aged tongue, Caravias assumed this was the Great Flamer himself!

All the stories, all the descriptive news of the dragon’s last battles just 4 decades ago, were all suddenly true in Caravias’s mind—that is, they were no longer just stories to be believed, but now concrete and real revelations about the greatest dragon who ever lived. And elected King of All Dragons these past 35 years.

“Sire,” Daviria said. “I was attempting to ascertain whether or not to grant audience with Your Majesty.”

“What is the question?” the Grand Flamer asked Caravias directly. And Caravias was really intimidated by the fact that he was getting spoken to by the King of All Dragons. Nervously, his mind raced to try to speak.

“W-well, Your Highness—”

“Majesty,” Daviria corrected him.

“Sorry,” Caravias said. “Majesty. I really, ah… well, I—”

“We’re aware of all you have just told Our guardian,” the king said. “Please be direct. We have other matters to attend to.”

“S-sorry,” stammered the most nervous of those present. “The question was this: ‘Why do dragons even have hoards anyway, if all they do is gather them and never spend them?’ And it was very close to that, if that’s not exact.”

“Hmm,” said the king ponderously. “Yes, We see the dilemma that creates. Well done, young male. A most worthy question to bring before Us. But dragons have always had hoards. It is proper, and it is expected.”

“But the question isn’t one of expectation,” Caravias said. “Rather, it’s one of results. Why gather if we never try to gain from it?”

“The answer is simple, young one,” said the king gently. “But you may never tell any knight. Never, any human. Never, any non-dragon.”

“I triple-swear it, Sire,” Caravias said, bowing.

“Very well,” the king said. “We hoard, to prevent the means to do even more and greater damage against dragonkind than has been happening this past century. We are dying, young flame. For our years are numbered, and even now our numbers dwindle. Very soon we shall be no more, if things continue thus. And so our hoarding is our very survival.”

Caravias took all of that in. It took a while. But it just kept growing worse and worse in his mind, the implications growing in horrific proportion.

“How many of us are left?” Caravias asked.

“Us four,” began the king. “Plus five others who live here. Two dozen at the Great Volcano. Eight at the Southern Polar Region. Two at the Northern Polar Region. Six in Scotland. One in England. Eighteen in all of Europe. Three in China. Four scattered in the rest of the world. Seventy-five dragons remain. Of the tens of thousands who came before that we can collectively name. Never mind the millions we cannot. Seventy-five of our number in the entirety of the wide world. And twelve of us at death’s door. Less than a decade left, and we will number too few to survive in the open.”

“Oh,” said Caravias, the shock of that overwhelming. A tear fell—a tear thick with salt and clear as crystal. A tear that everyone stared at, as it fell to the Earth.

“A human’s tear!” roared the King of All Dragons, rearing back. He bellowed with his utter betrayal: “You are no dragon!”

Caravias transformed, becoming the wizard Merkle.

“Very perceptive, O King of All Dragons,” Merkle replied somberly, as the dragons reviled and recoiled away from this tiniest member of the conversation. He placed the end of his staff on the ground, stabilizing him and shielding him from all dragon fire. “My compliments to you for your wisdom, though not near timely enough, were I actually against you.”

“Do you mean to say your purpose is not to do us all harm?” asked the Grand Flamer.

“The tear was quite genuine,” Merkle assured. “I find the prospect of the last of your kind terrifying and grievous. And alas, I regret to inform you that you must remove Caravias from your surviving dragons. I am his witness, that he died from his injuries at the hands of Sir George of England on the eve of the last New Moon.”

“Tell Us at least,” said the rainbow scales, “that he fought valiantly.”

“O Beautiful and Mighty King,” Merkle said sadly. “I would never say anything less than that. But it would be a disservice. For Caravias did what none of your kind has ever done. He penetrated Sir George’s magic armor.”

“He shall be recorded,” the old king said, “as Caravias the Armor-Piercer.”

“As you will it, Sire of Dragons,” Merkle said with a bow. “Yet I came here not merely to bear ill tidings. Rather, I came to offer an idea which may yet serve to slow the dwindling of dragons. And to deceive humans into believing you are lost to time, in the same act.”

“You believe dragons are to gain from lies and trickery?” asked the Grand Flamer. “It is against our very nature!”

“I believe you must do as you must, in order that you may survive,” Merkle said. “Though there will be a means to reveal you, which all dragons should know.”

“Which is?” Rainbow Shimmerer asked.

“Mogdern,” called Merkle. “Do you know how to polymorph?”

“It is distasteful to hide our true form,” Mogdern replied.

“That is not a denial,” Merkle observed.

Mogdern transformed, becoming a human who wore clothing that still had the character of the dragon within him. He strode over to Merkle.

“Well?” demanded Mogdern, presenting himself with a vague gesture.

“To reveal one another, you simply do this,” Merkle said, stepping close as the other dragons inspected the tiny humans. “You must recite the magic word as you gently-yet-firmly touch the concealed dragon on the nose.”

“And the magic word is?” asked Daviria.

Demonstrating, he touched Mogdern on the nose.

“Boop!” he said.

And Mogdern flickered, his eyes shaking and momentarily becoming very dragon-like.

And to this day, a dragon may be revealed by booping them on the nose.

Boop!