The Heart Within The Hoard

Another day, another successful loot — at least, for Dewi the Dragon, not so much for the village. As Dewi soared the skies, clutching a bag of gold in his talons, he reflected on the last village he invaded. By invaded, he mostly stole from them, as he hadn’t the heart to pillage and burn, unlike many other dragons of his kind.

He hoped he put on a convincing enough performance of a terrifying, fire-breathing dragon – his heart thundered the whole way through. Whatever he did scared the village chief into handing over the hamlet’s riches, so he must’ve made for a proud dragon there.

After a peaceful journey, Dewi landed outside his cave. On the surrounding field, there was a blank plot of farmland. Dewi had eaten all the veggies there, and he didn’t know how to take care of the farm, so it just wasted away in the sun. But never mind that. His hoard awaited him deep within the caves. Dewi shimmied through the dank caverns, carrying the sack of goods with his teeth as he wormed through those tight crevices.

On the way there, he stopped to take a look at the mushrooms that grew in the cracks of the caves. Their bio-luminescence cast the tunnels in a blue light, which never got boring even with the repetition of coming in and out of his home. Pops always called them Fairy Pillows. He would gather up clawfuls, and he and Dewi would snack on them — it would sizzle in their mouths as they watched the night sky.

Pops... Oh, dear. No, no, no, mustn’t think about that.

Dewi hurried, trying to get to his hoard as quickly as possible. His shuffling footsteps drowned out the silence of the caves and the unquiet of his thoughts.

When Dewi reached his hoard, the blue glow turned bright yellow. Gold lined the floors as far as the eye could see. Gold, gold, and more gold, with speckles of red and green here and there for the odd gem in the collection. Dewi ripped his gold sack open, drizzling the pile with even more moolah. This seemed exciting at first, as all of the spoils of his hunt erupted before him. But once the sack was emptied, those riches disappeared into the mound of coins with the others.

It was an odd feeling, something Dewi couldn’t quite parse in his heart. Not a feeling that added or took away from something, but rather, the absence of feeling anything.

No, he was being silly. It was in his nature. As Pops used to say: ‘A dragon’s worth is his weight in gold.’ Plus, Dewi was continuing on Pops’ legacy, so he had to take pride in that. But what could he use the gold for anyway? It was his bed and something for him to gnaw on whenever he got bored and fulfilled his daily sheep allowance. But the coins would dig into his scales and he’d chip his teeth trying to chew on solid metal.

Once, Dewi tried making gold angels, but it turned out like more of a gold demon than anything else. Angels didn’t have long, swishy tails.

Dewi stepped back, deep in thought. The gold pile just sat around, not doing much at all. What did the humans use them for anyway? Surely, they didn’t just lock it away in a vault forever. What would the cave look like if all the gold was gone? Out of curiosity, he took one coin from the pile and aimed it at the exit, ready to throw. But Pops’ voice echoed in his head, telling him not to. Who else would take over the hoard after he was gone?

He couldn’t do it. Dewi tossed the coin back to the pile. The empty feeling in his heart trebled.

“Hark, Sir Dewi,” a human voice called. “Is this your hoard?”

He turned to face the noise’s source, then THWACK! His tail swept the interloper off of his feet, knocking him against the cave walls. This was a surprise: a human. And not just any human, but one with a suit of chain mail. He would’ve made a convincing knight if it wasn’t for lacking any weapons. And this human sat slumped on the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Oh crap! Dewi just killed a human! The one bit of his code he wouldn’t break, and he not only broke it, but shattered it to pieces like the man’s back. He brought his talons to his face, chewing his claws as he tried to decide what to do next. He could eat the body and dispose of the evidence, though he’d just be breaking even more of his code. But…

“Damnation…”

The human rose, nursing his back. Oh, good, he was still alive.

“Oh, um, um um,” Dewi stuttered, still gnawing on his cuticles. “Sorry.”

“I should think so!” The human crossed his arms. “The bonesetter fixed my back just a day ago and now it’s sore again!”

The dragon looked on, stunned. “Who are you?”

“Do you not have ears, dragon? I’m Otto, the tax collector. I’m here to do an audit on your hoard. We told you we’d be coming back here after a year.”

“Audit? Taxes?” Dewi tilted his head. “Is that something you can eat?”

Otto tut-tutted, shaking his head. “You don’t know what taxes are? Then what are you doing collecting a hoard?”

“Wait, what?” Dewi sputtered. “Pops never told me about any of this! I’m so confused!”

“Alright, before you waste any of your fiery breath…” Otto trailed off, retrieving a quill and parchment from his knapsack. “Pillaging villages are legal for dragons, as we can’t deter them from stealing gold without being made into a crème brulee, so it’s all well and good for you to pilfer and hoard as you wish. However, you must pay the king back as part of your agreement. Didn’t you hear of this after going on your first plunder?”

“So, you’re…”

Otto continued scribbling on the page. “We shall be doing an assessment of all of your gold, then taking a 10% cut. Seems like a fair deal to me.”

Dewi stepped back, digging his claws firmly into the pile.

“It’s mine!” he screamed. “My father’s savings!”

Otto stopped writing, his eyes flashing in recognition.

“Oh, so are you not named Urien?”

“No, I’m Dewi! Pops is Urien!”

“I see. And where is your father?”

A lump of boiling coal formed in Dewi’s throat. It was too painful to say out loud. And now this human was trying to take what Pops left him.

Otto shrugged, fiddling with a gold noble betwixt his fingers.

“Well, he must be out. In any case, dragon, do you mind if I start counting? I need to get home in time to watch the jousting match with the missus!”

Hot breath snaked out of his maw. Dewi tried to control himself — he would not kill a human. But who did this Otto person think he was?

“My name’s Dewi.”

“Dewi, can you move your tail off the hoard, please?”

“Make me.”

Smoke billowed from his nostrils. Dewi roared and sneezed ash all over Otto, hoping it would scare him away. All it resulted in was a very cross Otto wiping a face full of soot with a handkerchief.

“Enough with the theatrics, Dewi.”

“Shut up! Just shut up!”

With nothing else to do without breaking his code, Dewi unleashed a torrent of flames above. It burned bright, turning the whole room red and hot, then stopped as the fire dwindled out. Dewi stopped to catch his breath after that, then slumped onto the gold pile with tears and snot streaming down his face.

“It’s Pops’ stash…”

“That’s not my problem – without tax collectors like me, the economy would destabilise under the weight of dragons like you—”

“No, you don’t understand!” Dewi sniffled. “I— he— my dad— it’s in my nature, and he died—”

The dragon burst into tears, burying his face into the golden mountain. They were cold and of no comfort. He had too many buried feelings in his system and was too confused to come to reason. This hoard of gold. The dragon’s reason for being. His father’s legacy. It was all crumbling before him.

Something prodded at his side. Otto offered his dirty handkerchief. It was better than nothing. Dewi snatched it up and blew into it, then used the other side to dry his tears.

“Urien passed away? Well, I’m terribly sorry to hear that, Dewi.”

Dewi didn’t understand his change in tone. Why was Otto being nice all of a sudden?

“Listen, would you like me to lend a sympathetic ear?” Otto patted Dewi’s scaly rump. “You sound like you need it.”

Dewi wrung the wet handkerchief over the floor. “You’re still gonna take the gold away, right?”

“Never mind that. I also happen to do grief counselling as a side gig — people needed a lot of that after the last plague — but I’ll do it pro bono just for you.”

“Pro what now?”

“For free.”

“Oh.” Dewi didn’t want Otto to take away his gold, but all Dewi wanted was to fill that hole in his heart. “Alright, I’ll talk. How do I do this?”

“Just lie down and face me. Make yourself comfortable, however you can. I still don’t understand how dragons can sleep on a lump of solid metal.”

Dewi ignored him and made a well in the mound of currency, nestling in it with his tail wrapped around him. He grabbed it for comfort, giving him another reminder of Pops and how Dewi would play with his tail.

Otto sat opposite him, moving his bottom a few times before he settled down with his legs crossed.

“May I ask,” Otto started, thumbing through a few sheets of parchment, “what did Urien pass away from? I saw none of it in his file. I don’t suppose it was some poor farm boy trying to avenge his parents?”

“No, he’d never—” Flames spewed from his nostrils. He had to keep it together; he wanted to get better. Dewi sighed. “Pops only killed sheep to feed himself. Killing a human would just be more trouble than it was worth for that reason.”

“May I ask why he acquired the gold, then? He declined to state his reasons in any of the audits. According to the king, he’d steal from hundreds of villages to add to his hoard. Even a few cities if he was feeling pretty lucky.”

“Yeah, Pops had a good career. Taught me everything he knew.” He thought about the disused farm. “Mostly everything.”

“But why gold in the first place? Why not steal books or bread or anything else? Not all dragons are materialistic, after all.”

“Um…” Dewi tried to think of a reason, but drew a blank there. “He didn’t tell me. I guess he liked feeling rich?”

“But he didn’t spend it on anything.” Otto inspected another coin, squinting his eyes. “All the dragons I spoke to hoarded it for some purpose — some tried to save up to buy islands, others wanted to start a bank, others just wanted to start a collection for a museum. Otherwise, is it a status symbol for dragons, or perhaps a sort of mating ritual?”

Dewi’s red, scaly face turned even redder.

“I, erm, I don’t even know how him and Ma got together, though she left after I was born. He never taught me about the beast with two backs.”

“Well, when a boy dragon and a girl dragon love each other very much—”

“I know what that is, another dragon taught me, and it’s gross.” Dewi huffed. “Why are you asking this?”

“Sorry, I digress. How did you father die again?”

“Stomach problems.” Dewi grabbed the handkerchief again, waiting for the floodgates to re-open. “He ate a diseased cow once. I… He wanted to teach me how to run the garden, but, but, he…”

“There, there.”

Otto rubbed Dewi’s sidebelly, which soothed him as he got it out of his system. His sobs echoed loudly in the caves.

“So,” Otto continued, “if I were to guess, you view the pile of gold as a piece of your father, correct?”

“Uh huh,” Dewi moaned.

“And you’re scared of parting with them because you don’t want to be separated from him, correct?”

The dragon stopped crying, propping himself up on a gigantic diamond. “How did you notice?”

“I didn’t get my certificate for nothing.” Otto’s armour jingled as he patted his chest. “Well, I wrote the certificate myself, but it’s very fancily written.”

Dewi didn’t understand what Otto prattled on about, but it sounded official enough.

“So, my conclusion is that you don’t want to lose your stash since that means diving into the unknown. Without being able to follow in your father’s footsteps, the only thing that gives you a purpose at the moment is continuing his work. But is that the sort of work you would like to do yourself?”

Dewi nodded and looked down at his hoard. To him, it was only metal. Cold, hard, shiny metal. All of this must’ve taken Dewi, Pops, and dozens of generations before them aeons to collect. But what was it all for, when all was said and done? He got the impression that not even Pops knew, just that he felt he had to do it out of obligation.

Dewi gazed at his reflection in a piece of silver. His amber eyes stared back at him, and he saw Pops in there. His heart twisted as he tossed a coin at the wall, clattering and spinning against the hard stone floor. That was one coin less, out of hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions. How would he get rid of it all? And would he have to put himself through this emotional torture again and again in order to do it?

“I get it.” Dewi stood on his hindquarters, facing the ceiling. “I have a better idea of how I’m feeling.” He craned his head down to Otto. “But my heart still hurts.”

“It will for a while, little dragon.” Otto scratched his neck. Dewi purred like a feline, though the sensation didn’t last long before Otto let go. “Now then, I best get back, otherwise the missus will be furious. I won’t take any of your gold, for now.”

“For now?” Dewi frowned.

“If you keep adding to your hoard without recompense, the currency would eventually become obsolete to everyone. You’d just be sitting on useless metal. Is that something you want?”

“I don’t get how it works, but I guess not.”

“Exactly.” Otto gracefully surfed down the slope of sponduli but didn’t stick the landing, falling to his knees. He groaned as he rose, rubbing his back. “Sorry, Dewi, would you mind thwacking me again with your tail?”

Dewi didn’t want to risk killing Otto again, so he gently swatted him. This seemed to work as Otto jumped to his feet with a new spring in his step.

“I should pay you instead of my bonesettler next time.” Otto smiled, collecting his papers. “Next come I come back, I will count all of it, but I will only take a little sum of your hoard at a time. Would that help?”

“Maybe, but…” Dewi trailed off, running his claw along the rim of a jewelled crown. “I dunno what to do without this.”

“I don’t know you that well, Dewi, but I would think deeply about what you want in life and if there’s anything else you look forward to aside from terrorising villages.”

“Okay. Well, thanks.”

“Farewell, little dragon.”

Otto hurried outside, leaving Dewi alone with his thoughts. That was… strange. There was no other way to describe it, and Dewi himself was strange by virtue of being a dragon. But by the end of it, he was drained. Such an intense day and he wasn’t even chased out by swords or arrows or… sword arrows! He needed to sleep. So, the dragon slumped back on his coin pile and was about to count sheep prey to drive himself to slumber.

From the corner of his eye, a lone mushroom sat in the crevice of his cave, shining with a faint blue glow. No, back to sleep. One sheep, two sheep, three mushroom, four mush—

Why was he thinking of mushrooms? People didn’t count fungi to sleep, after all. Right, the mushroom path. Pops was really fascinated by that when he was still around.

Then again, other than stashing his hoard, Pops liked to cultivate the farm outside as a hobby. Pops told many stories about the farmers on the mainland tilling the soil and ploughing their fields. He gathered seeds from various places and planted them, telling Dewi about how dragon ash made good fertiliser, and how delicious cooked veggies and fruit were.

Maybe taking over the farm was Dewi’s way of carrying on Pops’ legacy without needing any extra gold.

Wearily, Dewi slunk out through the caves until he found his way back to the mushroom patch. He settled himself down into one niche in the rock formations and closed his eyes, bathed in blue light.

He dreamt of planting pumpkin seeds into the earth with Pops.