so dragons you would fight?

It was cool resting against the rock. A good vantage point from which to oversee the unsurfaced road along which trouble was bound to come.

            Snarkleibe turned to Friedlebrund, “So forty years old they are and dragons they want to fight. Why they are not content with their sciatica, their rheumatism, but dragons, dragons, they must have dragons.”

            “Oy, oy,” hissed his companion, “heroes they would be. It is their way.”

            “Their way? OK, it is their way. But then why does that have to be our way? I have many better things to do than breathe fire over men who should be in their offices. Pushing pens they are good for. With those swords they might hurt somebody. And swords, my life”

            Friedlebrund let a small puff of smoke escape her green reptilian snout. “That is how it is.” she said. “A lizard of your considerable years should know this.”

            “But I do. I know it,” he complained. “That means I should like it? I, Snarkleibe, I am too venerable a dragon to pander to the whim of some retired clerk. He wants a challenge? He should go climb a mountain.”

            “Ach, it was always thus, oh, scaly one.” his friend replied.

            Snarkleibe was silent for a moment and then, from deep within his belly, came a rumble which slowly grew into a deafening roar. “It was always thus, oh scaly one,” he bellowed in mockery. “It was always thus. I, chief dragon, know it was always thus.”

            Smoke began to billow from his nostrils.

            
“What I am saying is Why? Why was it always thus? For what reason? Who decreed it? It certainly wasn’t a dragon. Was it!”

            Freidlebrund was silent. She had known her companion for many centuries. She understood his moods and his temper and she understood when danger loomed. So now it loomed.

            Quick tongues of flame could be seen in the smoke coming from Snarkleibe’s nose. “Do they know how hard it is to keep this up? Can they do this ......... and fly?”

            The flames had now turned into a roaring furnace as the old dragon rose to his feet and began to beat the surrounding land with his tail. Bushes and boulders changed position.

            “And then roll over we must, and let them stab us with their spears. For thousands of years we have had to put up with this crap. Time for a change it is.”

            “Friend, steady yourself. Men have moved on, maybe, since the days of St George. This is the twenty first century. We have seen the Rio summit. To protect their environment, they now know, their heritage also. And what are we if not part of that heritage?”

            “Do not speak to me of heritage and environment.” roared Snarkleibe, his snout now white hot. “Those conservationists are the worst. All their lives the right thing they do. And preach to others. Never a foot wrong they put. All that repression. It builds up. Social workers also. Ay ay, pity the poor dragon who has to deal with that when it gets let loose.”

            He sank back to the ground. Friedlebrund eyed him with some concern. They were both old now. They had remained while the rest of their kind had gone many long years ago.

            “You must not overstress yourself, beloved,” said Freidlebrund. “At our age we must husband our resources. How else are we to put on a good show so they can swagger back to their secretaries bragging about their great victory. All those male menopauseurs who want dragons to fight.”

            “No,” said Snarkleibe, “It will be that way no more. I am of a proud and noble line of royal lizards. My forebears flew these skies before the land cooled and humans crawled out of the sea. I will no longer be a circus act to roll tamely with the feeble pricks of some overweight drone.”

            He slowly flexed his wings. “I, Snarkleibe, vow that the next man who comes looking for a fight,” and here the heat once more could be seen emanating from his nose, “is going to find he has bitten off considerably more than he can chew.”

            Silently both reptiles settled back against their rock to watch the road. They were quiet but certainly not resting.

            Freidlebrund, peering into the distance, thought she could see that small cloud of dust which nearly always foretold the arrival of some new adversary. An accountant in his four-wheel-drive mega-jeep perhaps?

            She looked uneasily at her companion. A flame she had not seen before burned savagely in Snarkleibe’s eyes, far more fierce than anything that had ever come out of his snout.

© Patrick Ellis