by Lyn Worthen
Undaunted, Mordived said, “I want to be a comedian. Not a fighter.” Nor an eater of virgins. Mordived would much rather make the virgins laugh.
Mordived’s father reared back his head, drew in a great breath, and let loose with a stream of fire that toasted what few tree roots dared to grow through the ceiling of their cave.
“Enough!” Mordived’s father roared when the fire burned itself out. “No son of mine will ever be anything but a serious dragon!”
Mordived slunk away, not wanting to be mistaken for a tree root.
His older brother was a most serious dragon. Gilgamule had slain numerous lesser knights, although he had not yet eaten his first virgin. Gilgamule was nearly half the size of their father, with a fine crest of spikes down the ridge of his back and a nice purple hue to his streams of fire. He would be leaving soon to go rule his own kingdom far from the land ruled by their father, for such was the way of serious dragons.
Mordived didn’t want his older brother to leave. While Gilgamule might be a serious dragon, he was also someone Mordived could talk to.
“What’s wrong with not wanting to slay people?” Mordived asked his older brother. “But rather, wanting to make them laugh?”
“Why not make them laugh while you slay them?” Gilgamule replied. “It would certainly make their deaths more enjoyable.”
Mordived wondered sometimes if his older brother truly understood the concept of comedy.
“Look, what will you eat if you don’t eat people?” Gilgamule asked. “One can only eat so many goats and pigs and sheep before the things just get stuck in your teeth. Even cattle get boring after a while.” He sighed. “They don’t fight back. Eating is all about winning the fight with your food.”
Mordived happened to like pigs. He wasn’t as fond of sheep, something to do with the wool and how it scratched his throat going down.
“I don’t like to fight with my food,” Mordived said.
Gilgamule shook his scaly head. “You will never get your own land to rule if you keep talking like that.”
Mordived didn’t tell his older brother that the thought of ruling gave him heartburn.
Their mother was much more sympathetic to Mordived’s plight, but as with all dragons, her only purpose was to care for and protect her smallest children. Mordived was nearly at an age where he would need to make his own way in the world, and therefore much too old for his mother to intercede with Mordived’s father on his behalf.
“You are my strangest child,” she said to Mordived on the morning when the entire family gathered on the top of the tallest mountain in the land to bid his eldest brother goodbye.
The littlest dragon, a hatchling barely the size of Mordived’s foot, snorted and said, “Strange child! Strange child!”
“Hush,” said Mordived’s mother. “That’s not polite. And stop trying to shoot fire out your nose. That’s not how it works.”
Mordived sighed. And to think, his mother believed he was strange.
“Now that your eldest brother has left,” Mordived’s mother said, “your father will expect you to kill your first lesser knight.”
“The sun shining on their armor gives me headaches,” Mordived said.
“The lesser knights don’t polish their armor.”
“I’ll get indigestion.”
“Not if you roast them sufficiently first. Really, Mordived. Haven’t you learned anything we’ve tried to teach you?”
I’d rather have pig, Mordived thought to himself.
The days after his brother left were gray days indeed for Mordived. He had no one to talk to, even though he tried talking to the younger hatchlings, but they all called him Strange Child. He flew in desultory circles around the mountain peaks and across the low valleys, trying to amuse himself, but even chasing pigs through the underbrush had lost its appeal.
The worst were the nights. Mordived curled into a ball on the cold, damp cave floor, attempting to get comfortable all alone in a little alcove he used to share with his brother. Mordived wasn’t used to sleeping alone. He curled his tail forward so that it was right next to him on the ground and tried to pretend it was his brother’s back, but it was no use.
In a cave full of his family, Mordived felt alone.
Worse yet, he had no one he could practice his jokes on.
Mordived’s humor ran toward slapstick. He was good for a pratfall or an awkward landing or accidentally on purpose setting his mother’s favorite skull on fire, although he had only done that last bit once. Mordived’s mother had quite the set of shiny knight’s helmets, complete with the skulls of the unfortunate knights still inside who’d come to the family’s cave to slay the dragon, that dragon being Mordived’s very serious father. Mordived’s father always won, and he always presented Mordived’s mother with the helmet and skull as a token of his victory.
As Mordived discovered, his mother was quite fond of those skulls. She had roasted his backside to a nice crisp over his little joke. Mordived hadn’t been able to sit down for a week.
“No one here understands me,” Mordived muttered to himself. They probably wouldn’t even care if he left.
In fact, they might even be happy if he left. Wasn’t that what dragons did? At least the boy dragons. Get big enough, and you had to leave?
Well, what was he waiting for? He’d never be able to slay even a lesser knight, much less eat a virgin. Eventually, Mordived’s father would kick him out of the cave and call him a failure.
Mordived’s eyes flew open as a new thought occurred him.
What if his father didn’t kick him out, but…
…but…
…but… killed him instead?
Mordived certainly had enough younger brothers for his father to shape into serious dragons. What was one less mouth to feed? Especially one less unserious mouth?
Mordived crept to the edge of his sleeping alcove and looked at where his parents slept. Little tufts of smoke drifted up from his father’s nostrils, reminders of the fire always kept at the ready in his father’s throat. Mordived swallowed hard. He didn’t want to believe that his father would actually kill him, but his father was a very, very serious dragon, and Mordived was a blotch on the family’s honor.
All right, then, Mordived thought to himself. No one here wants me, no one here understands, and I’d rather not end up roasted by my own father. I might as well go make my own way in the world. I should just leave tonight, right now, while everyone’s sleeping. I might even find someone who’ll laugh at my jokes.
Which is exactly what he did.
# # #
Not that she laughed at first.
The first thing the girl did was shoot him with an arrow.
“Ouch!” Mordived cried.
Never having fought with his food before he ate it, pigs not being particularly talented at using bows, arrows, or swords, Mordived had never been shot with an arrow. It struck him in the soft, scaleless skin under his chin, and it rather hurt.
Mordived reared his head back, trying to shake the arrow out. The girl, for that’s what she was even though her hair was cut short as a boy’s and she wore trousers and a rough spun tunic instead of a gown, shouted at him and fitted another arrow in her bow.
“You’ll not take me, you beast!” she yelled. “I’m no virgin sacrifice, do you hear?”
“I don’t want to eat you!” Mordived said. “This has all been a grave misunderstanding.”
Mordived had merely been tracking a rather nice looking sow through the thick brush at the edge of the forest. His surreptitious escape from his father’s cave, complete with nighttime flight while looking over his shoulder to make sure none of his family had followed, had taken Mordived far beyond the land ruled by his father into unknown territory. Still, a pig was a pig no matter where she tried to hide, and Mordived was hungry.
Not, however, hungry enough to eat a virgin.
“Dragons always want to eat virgins,” the girl said.
“Not me.
”
The tip of her arrow wobbled, as did her bow. Mordived knew that he frightened her. All virgins were frightened of dragons, and for good reason, all things considered. But Mordived wasn’t your normal, serious, eater-of-virgins kind of dragon.
He had an idea. He’d tell her a joke.
“Have you heard about the cow who fell asleep on a dragon’s head and woke up to find herself flying through the air?”
The tip of the girl’s arrow wobbled a bit more. “What?” she asked.
“It was a very mooving experience,” Mordived said.
The girl blinked at him. “That really was a very bad joke,” she said.
Mordived sighed. A little fire escaped his open mouth, and the girl made a frightened sound and backed away, then raised her bow higher. The tip of the arrow didn’t wobble.
This wasn’t going very well.
“I’m better at physical humor,” Mordived said.
To prove it, he took a step and deliberately rolled his front leg underneath himself. Normally he would have come down on his chin, but the arrow poking out of it made that out of the question. Instead, Mordived tucked his head underneath himself and did a full forward roll.
Luckily, the girl was standing off to the side. Mordived wanted to make her laugh, not smack her with an errant wing.
When he came out of the roll, he glanced in her direction. She stood with her mouth hanging open and the bow held rather loosely in her hands, the arrow pointed at the ground.
This was going ever so much better than telling jokes. Stick with his strong suit, that was what he needed to do.
So Mordived proceeded to work though his entire repertoire of falls, rolls, and tricks. He went to swat a bee and instead thwacked himself with his tail. He even did the trick with his wing, pretending that it had a mind of its own when he went to fold it back against his body. That trick always made the youngest hatchlings giggle.
Mordived was nearly panting with the effort to be funny by the time he was done.
The girl shook her head at him. “You are a very strange dragon,” she said.
“I’m an unserious dragon,” Mordived said proudly.
“Huh,” the girl said. “And you promise you’re not going to eat me?”
Mordived shook his head. “I only eat pigs. And goats, in a pinch.”
“Not cattle?”
“No. They give me indigestion.”
“Nor virgins.”
“No,” Mordived said. “Although you don’t look very much like a virgin.” Not that he’d seen all that many, but in his experience they all wore white dresses and had long, flowing hair, and none of them had shot at his father with arrows.
The girl flopped down on the grassy ground. “I used to,” she said. “Before I cut my hair and started to wear boys’ clothes.”
Mordived dropped to the ground, too. All that comedy had worn him out, and he still hadn’t eaten. It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen any other people nearby. “What are you doing out here all alone?” he asked.
“I ran away,” the girl said.
“Me, too,” Mordived said. “Why did you run?”
The girl made a face. “My father wanted to save me from being offered up to the new dragon, so he gave me to the smithy for a wife. I don’t want to be married to a big, ugly brute who smells of horse and sweat and hot iron.”
The new dragon. Could this be his brother’s new land? “Have you seen this new dragon?” Mordived asked.
“No, but the townsfolk talk of him and say he’s the most ferocious dragon in the land. He’s killed far too many cattle, and the people are demanding that the lord either slay him or give him a sacrifice so that he leaves the people alone.”
Mordived knew the dragon had to be his brother. His father taught that all serious dragons, when given new lands to rule, must instill fear in the hearts of the people by first killing their livestock, then slaying the knights the lord sends to kill the dragon.
“The lord has sent for a master dragon slayer,” the girl said. “A knight who has killed more dragons that any left alive.”
A serious knight, Mordived thought.
“They say the dragon is a young one and would be far easier to kill.” The girl narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re not this dragon, and you’re just trying to trick me?”
“No,” Mordived said. “Even though I’m young, I’m not the new dragon.”
Mordived caught the shaft of the arrow between his front feet, and with a shake of his head, yanked the arrow from his chin. It still rather hurt, but Mordived had other things on his mind.
He might not be a serious dragon, but he was a loyal dragon. He couldn’t let his elder brother go against a serious knight when all Gilgamule had fought before were lesser knights. Mordived had seen the scars on his father’s hide from all the fights he’d had with knights and dragon slayers. Arrows might hurt, but spears and swords were far more deadly.
Mordived lowered his head and thought. He had even less experience fighting than his brother. He couldn’t go against a serious knight in battle, but he did have one thing going for him.
“I have an idea,” he told the girl. “But I might need your help.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Why should I help you?”
“Do you want to have to marry the smithy?” Mordived asked.
The girl shuddered. “Never. That’s why I ran away.”
“So you can hide out here, all by yourself.”
Her chin lifted a little higher. “I can take care of myself. I stood up to you, didn’t I?”
“I’m not a serious dragon, and I never wanted to eat you.”
She deflated a little. “Point taken.”
Mordived didn’t really want to live all alone without the company of other dragons. It was his brother he missed the most. “Then help me,” he said, “and we can both go back home.”
# # #
The girl hadn’t wanted to shed her boyish disguise, but when Mordived explained that his plan wouldn’t work if she looked like anything less than what she was, which was a very pretty girl with extraordinarily short hair, she’d agreed to put on a dress. She also agreed, rather reluctantly, that the fastest way to travel would be to fly.
Having a girl sitting astride his neck was a decidedly odd feeling. Having her scream right in his ear when he took to the air nearly brought on the kind of headache Mordived only got from staring at shiny armor.
However, once Mordived reached a pleasant altitude and started to merely glide on his wings, the girl began to enjoy herself. She still clung tightly to his neck, but she gave him directions on which way to fly.
“There,” she said loudly. “That’s the road to the next kingdom over. The knight will have to come this way.”
And sure enough, there in the distance, Mordived could just make out the glint of shiny armor along the narrow road. “Hang on,” he said, and he dove close to the earth, hoping that the knight hadn’t yet spotted him.
“Are you sure you can find what we need?” he asked the girl after they’d landed and she got off his neck.
Her legs looked rather shaky, but she held her chin up high. In the dress she now wore, she did look somewhat like the few virgins Mordived had seen, although the hair was still all wrong.
“I won’t need it,” she said. “All I have to do is convince him to use what he already has.”
Mordived wasn’t quite sure why fermented liquid was such a large part of their plan, or why the girl seemed to think the knight would already have some, but he was willing to trust that she knew people far better than he did. He supposed that he also trusted that she wasn’t leading him into a trap. After all, when she was on his neck, she could have stabbed him in between his scales with one of her arrows, but she hadn’t.
Mordived considered that fact. How curious, to be the first dragon who actually worked with a virgin instead of eating her. His father would be scandalized. He hoped his brother would be a little more understandi
ng. Gilgamule wasn’t quite as serious a dragon as their father.
It was difficult for a dragon to hide, even a dragon like Mordived who was not yet fully grown. He crouched as best he could behind a clump of very tall pines at the bend in the trail and watched the girl approach the knight, who appeared to be sleeping, propped up against a rock near the side of the road.
“Sir Knight?” the girl said. “Am I disturbing you?”
The knight roused himself with a clanking of metal and a muffled curse.
“What are you doing out here, girl?”
The knight’s voice was more than muffled. It was slurred. Perhaps the knight had already consumed his fermented water. The girl had explained that the water had a rather unique effect on men, making them far more susceptible to seeing what they wanted to see and far less able to wield a sword or throw a spear with any great alacrity.
The knight lurched to his feet. Mordived squinted against the glint of his armor. While it was very shiny armor indeed, it looked far too heavy for the knight, who swayed slightly under the weight of it.
The road was a far from ideal place for Mordived to do what he intended, but he’d have to make the most of it.
The girl tugged on the knight’s arm. “I need your help,” she said. “I’m being followed by a dragon, and I do believe he intends to eat me! I’m a virgin, you see.”
Apparently the girl realized, too, that the knight had already imbibed his fermented water, because she’d uttered the phrase that was Mordived’s signal to begin his routine.
“Dragon, you say?” The knight stood up straighter. When he started to stride toward where his sword stood propped against a tree, the part of his helmet that covered his eyes came clanging down of its own accord. The knight pushed it up, bent over to retrieve his sword, and the part came clanging down again.
Mordived found himself wondering what all the fuss was about if this was the fiercest knight in all the land. He sighed. No time to think about that now. He had a knight to amuse.
And amuse him he did. Mordived did all the pratfalls, tumbles, and wing-that-won’t-work tricks that he’d done earlier for the girl. He slammed into trees and made their trunks shudder. He rolled over rocks, and even smacked his chin on a boulder. This time the girl laughed, although she tried to hide it, covering her mouth with a hand, and after a while, even the knight laughed.