'Philosophizing With a Knight' by Alon Rand

I had run out of ideas. This damned hunter just would not quit! What is it about a dragon that attracts these people? We don't attack them, we most certianly do NOT steal away their precious females and eat them. Yes, we'll take a sheep or horse on occasion, but we are no worse than your average fox or wolf. You don't see a whole lot of human males with too many hormones and time on their hands chasing after wolves do you? They kill them on occasion, but they don't go out hunting them all the time. They do go after foxes from time to time, but never more than once or twice a year or so. And even then, that's largely only here in the Isles, the land they call England. But no, not so with dragons. They have to go out and get drunk with all their fellows, make extravagant oaths to eachother about how many dragons they can kill, then they sober up and actually go out and try! They get all fancied up in those metal jackets and their swords, climb on their horses (I wonder what the horse thinks of all this? He's probably not to keen on the whole concept. I certianly wouldn't be if some big galoot decided to climb on my back with all that weight) and then they come after some un-preposessing dragon and try to kill them. Like now. I hadn't even killed any sheep recently! It had been months! And then it was only one, and it was old and sickly. I figured they'd leave me alone. Usually I stick to wild things, its not like I need to eat often, a dragon only needs to have a decent meal about 3 times a month.

So anyway, there I was sitting on my favorite sunning ledge, minding my own business, when Mr. Self-important arrives, pride all puffed up to hide his fear (you could just tell from the way he was sitting in the saddle) and hasn't even the courtesy to challenge me or anything, just catches sight of me and charges. Lucky for me I saw him coming or he might have actually hurt me then. But I stood up and roared at the rude monkey and his horse, so they both jumped a bit and the horse shied. I took this opportunity to take off and get up to slightly less flat ground. He'd have to leave the poor horse behind to follow me up here. Of course, he did just that, clanging and clanking all the way, his sword and shield obviously getting in the way.

"You might want to put the sword away while you climb, you know,"I called to him from the heights. Strike me dead if he didn't nearly fall right off! I think he didn't know dragons could talk man-tongue.

"Sweet Lord, the foul beast speaks!"

"But of course I can speak, foolish monkey! Who do you think taught humans how to go about it?" I retorted.

"You?!" he was so obviously in shock I nearly fell over laughing.

"Me? No. I'm not that old. It was a dragon though. Of course, we learned it from the elves. I must say it has become less pretty in the transfer. The High Ones always did know how to say things wonderfully. It lost something when it got around to you. Though that Latin you all still speak in those tall buildings is closer than this horrid grunting noise."

"What know you of Holy Churches?!"

"Only that you spend an aweful lot of time in them for some reason in positions that seem very uncomfortable."

"We worship our Maker and Savior, Jesus Christ!" He seemed awefully proud of this for some reason.

"Who? Never heard of him."

"He is the Son of the Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and he died that the sins of our forefather's might be forgiven!" of course, as he said all of this prattle, he hadn't moved an inch at all. Perhaps if I got him to talk for long enough he'd leave me alone. Besides, this was amusing.

"If he is the son of this creator, then how can he have been the creator too? And what is all this about dying for sins?"

"He is a part of the Holy Trinity of Father Son and Holy Spirit. They are the Three that are One. And He died upon the cross to right the great wrong commited by the first man and the first woman within the Garden when they ate of the Tree of Knowledge against the Words of God."

"Wait a minute, you mean that he died on a cross because a couple of people a long time ago ate from a tree that they were told not to? Sounds kinda odd to me."

"It was the Tree that gave men knowledge of Good and Evil. God wished man to be spared of that."

"He punished you because they were curious? Seems like a mean guy."

"The Lord loves us even in our imperfection!" I must have struck a nerve here, cause he started climbing again.

"Then why did this son of his have to die, again?"he kept climbing but answered anyway.

"That the sin our father and mother had committed might be forgiven!"

"You mean that curiousity thing again? I'm afraid I simply do not understand."

"I do not expect a servant of Satan to understand the ways of the Lord God in Heaven." He said with a stiff air.

"Woa! Who's that?"

"You know the name of your maker, foul demon!"

"Demon? I'm a dragon! What on earth has that got to do with demons?"

"Thou knowest what thou are, hellspawn!" He had reached the top finally, despite the clanking armor and the cumbersome weapons, and was a bit out of breath.

"Of course I do! I am a dragon. Teacher of language to man and friend to the Fair Folk. I am no demon."

"I shall listen no more to thy falsities, wretched snake! Prepare to meet thy death!" oh, well. It was worth a try. He charged me head on, sword leveled at my belly.

Now contrary to all the stories that such men as this tell about their tables, dragons are only about twice the size of the average horse most times. We can do a certian amount of shape changing and shift in size a bit, but I can't get to be any smaller than a horse, and no larger than twice my normal size. I had been at my favorite size just then, which is a bit larger than twice that of a horse. Much larger and I move too slowly, and much smaller and I can't compete too well with such as this rabble.

So in any case, I was not of a mind to be skewered today, so I leapt over him as he charged. It was not a large ledge, so I opened my wings as I did so and caught the air. As he tried to figure out what to do next, I wheeled about and came at him with claws bared. He dodged himself and tried to take a swipe at me as I went by. He missed, but so did I. It went on thusly for some time. Eventually, after he had been nearly removed of all that silly armor, his own hide far from pristine, and my hide was remembering fonder days when it was unscathed, there was still no clear advantage. I was larger and could fly, but he was far smaller and I found it difficult to hit him at times. His shield had done him little good, being too thin to do much at all. He had quickly discarded it. We were both tiring though, and I was getting very sick of this. I had about decided that as much as I liked this particular mountain cave, it was not worth all this. If I won this silly fight, the humans would simply keep sending more after me until one of them got lucky and managed to succeed where this and many others had failed. It looked like it was time to go elsewhere. The empty headed buffon was showing no signs of giving up, either. I dodged yet another of his attacks and took wing a bit up the mountain. I landed on a small outcrop a few lengths above the ledge we'd been fighting on. "Why are you doing this anyway?"

"It is my holy vow to rid the countryside of your fowl presence!"

"I realize that, but why are you so dead set on 'ridding the world of my foul presence'?"

"For you are a servant of mine enemy Satan, cast down by God and reviled by all God-fearing folk!"

"I see. In other words, you thought it would be impressive to kill a dragon."

"Nay! It is my duty to my land, my king, and my God!"

"Right. Well, I am rather fond of my hide thank-you very much, and would like to keep it awhile longer. I shall be taking my leave of you, sir knight, and finding another location to call home. It seems I am unwelcome in this area."

"Flee not cowardly creature! I would win against thee! That is why you run!"

"It is for precisely that reason that I depart. You may well win against me. And if not you, then eventually one of your fellows, offended that I dared to defend myself and win against you, would inevitably succeed where you fail. I enjoy my life far too much to run the risk, so I shall be taking my leave of you. Good day, sir." And with that I took flight in an easterly direction.

"Coward!"

"Go chase a wolf!"