Dreams Can Come True - 1. Chapter 1

As a dragon, he was a pitiful creature. His fire had been reduced to not much more than a glow ages ago leaving his cavern cold and damp even on the hottest summer day. He coughed, belched, and all he got was warm putrid air. His claws were worn down to practically nothing from scraping down a passageway full of crusty rocks. He still remembered how to fly, but had always been afraid of the dark, which was pretty pitiful for a dragon, so only flew with a full moon on cloudless nights. Living where the mountains were covered with clouds most nights of the year kept him in the cavern shivering from cold and fear of darkness.

Yet, on the first full moon of spring the village in the valley still chained a young maiden to the rock slab at the bottom of the cliff, supposedly to keep him from stealing sheep, which he didn’t like as they were too gamey; cattle, which were big enough to last a week, but gave him horrible gas; or burning their fields of grain or the thatch on their roofs, just for the sport of it, but he hadn’t done that in ages because he couldn’t remember how to get his fire restarted.

He wanted to pity the poor girls, but he knew his duty. After all, he was their dragon and was supposed to be appeased by a young maiden. He wished he could tell them a young lad would do just as well, but he wasn’t certain he could speak anything other than dragon, whatever that sounded like. Plus, he didn’t really like eating people because they gave him gas worse than cattle. Now a pig was a different story. He took pigs now and then, but not from the local village, feeling that the young maiden protected their pigs, too.

All in all, when you got right down it the nub of it, he was a complete failure as a dragon. Though, he did eat the young maidens while the villagers were still close enough to hear her screams as he sliced her open from neck to crotch with his one good claw. He was fairly certain they didn’t know he left the offal for the carrion birds.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Do you think we should have children?” the sorcerer asked.

“Where’d that come from?” his bed partner answered.

“Just asking, you know, just thinking it’d be nice to have a few little cuties running around the place.”

“And getting into the magic, making a mess of my herbs and concoctions, and pestering Harold. Not to mention, and you’re obviously not thinking of this, growing up and wondering what this is all about.”

“Well, there is that, but I was just wondering.”

“That’s because you’re a man and men think women want kids. Well, some of us don’t.”

She turned away from him, pulling most of the quilts with her. He snuggled up to her, trying to get his butt away from the cold winter air that filled their darkened cottage at night. It wasn’t freezing as the stonework of the fireplace radiated heat nearly all night, but the air in the bedroom was colder than being under covers with the woman you loved.

“Don’t get any ideas.”

“Give me a few covers and I’ll turn back,” the sorcerer said.

“Here,” she said, “but you can stay, as long as you’re civil. Oh, shit!”

“What?”

“The magic did its thing again. Look!”

The sorcerer didn’t actually look with his eyes, but felt down her body and wasn’t all that surprised at what he encountered. The erection was at least two fingers longer than his and thicker, too. He stroked it, marveling at the way the magic always seemed to step in at the right moment, or not.

“Don’t do that! It’s too cold to be fooling around.”

“The magic wants us to be happy. It’s only trying to be helpful.”

“I’m not in the mood, whether I’m a man or a woman. I’m just not in the mood.”

“Okay, okay, there, you’re back to being a woman. And, no, I didn’t do it. I told you before the magic does it on its own.”

She turned to him and they kissed until their bodies flowed into one. He held her warmth tight to his yearning body, but she had another idea as she slipped away from his lips and buried herself under the quilts. He felt the heat of her mouth envelope him; and later when she did permit him to enter her, he dreamt of children running in and out of their cottage.

- - - - - - - - - -

In days of yore, back when dragons, sorcerers, demons, and brave knights on mighty steeds walked the earth, a small, sickly babe came into the castle of Baron Aloysius Daisy on a dreary, drizzly night in the middle of winter. The boy child was to be his last, at least by his first wife though he didn’t consider having a second as his first wife’s family was closer to the King and that always spelled trouble with bloody letters.

The child screamed horribly every time the wet nurse brought him up from the village making the Baron wonder if it might be better to have one of his knights, after murdering the wet nurse in the middle of the night, steal the babe and throw it into the river at the edge of the kingdom. Or, after murdering the wet nurse on her walk up from the village, have a knight steal the babe and take it to the high peak in the mountains and leave it for the carrion birds to devour. Or, after murdering the wet nurse as she walked the wailing child back to the village, murder both the nurse and the babe while they were out of sight of the castle and village. Those murderous thoughts took up much of the Baron’s mind every time he heard the child cry.

Yet, the child grew less sickly and added a little chubbiness to his wan cheeks, which seemed to add depth to his bellowing whenever in the presence of his father. The Baron finally decided that, other than for official events, the boy would never be in close proximity.

“Get that pink bag of screaming bones away from me!” he bellowed on more than one occasion when his wife brought the child and his nurse to see the Baron. He knew some old hag must have put a curse on him, but he had a plan, a devious, mean plan that could only be thought up by someone named Aloysius.

At his second birthday, much older than most children, the youngest child of Baron and Lady Daisy was presented to the Lord for baptism and naming. It was a cold, dreary day in January and everyone was in attendance, including Lady Daisy’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Tslakia, and the King and Queen with all their usual retinue. It was a very auspicious day, one that the Baron hated because his youngest kept wailing and wailing no matter what his nurse tried. Anger boiled in the Baron’s gut as he thought of his wife’s instance they name their child Peter Arthur Nathan Daniel Augustus in honor of his five uncles. The Baron had a better, far worse idea.

The priest began his litany of Latin as the boy’s parents and godparents, his uncle and aunt, the Viscount and Lady Voravia, stood at the fount. The Baron thought and thought about what to call the wretched, pink, screaming thing before him. He’d have to do it. He’d have to tag it with something worse than Aloysius; and, then, in a moment of pure wickedness he remembered a scholarship boy at school. He was from some dinky little fief in the middle of the mountains to the north. His name was Pink. Supposedly, it was a variant of Patrick, a silly, laughing, childish joke variant of Patrick. The Baron remembered Pink as being the only boy he could pick on because only Pink was worse than Aloysius.

What of the other names? There was Edgar from his father and grandfather and Ethelbert from his dead uncle. P. E. E. were good for initials, but something else. What though? What could he tag onto the screamer? Why not Daniel, his wife’s limp-wristed brother who had gone off on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and hadn’t been heard of since? Yes! That was perfect. P. E. E. D. were very nasty initials, but Pink was even worse.

And, at the appropriate point in the liturgy, the Baron Aloysius Sylvester Stephen Howard Oliver Daisy caused quite a few “ohs,” “ums,” and “ers” among the assembled guests. Later, much later, after all of the guests had departed on their homeward journeys the Baron found out his life was going to change for the worse, again.

“You son of a bitch!” his wife exclaimed as he walked into their bedroom, fully expecting a romp on the feather mattress. “Out of here! Out! Never again will I allow your presence in this room. Go sleep with your knights and their horses. You’re no more than a heap of horse dung anyway.”

“But dear, sweetness, he screams so much,” the Baron pleaded. “He angers me so much.”

“He is your last child. Do you hear me? The last! Now get out of here!”

The Baron stormed out, slamming the door in the process. One of his wife’s handmaids stood there before him.

“Is there something you need my lord?” the maid asked.

“Yes, and you’re just the one who can do it,” he said taking her by the arm and leading her down to one of the guest rooms which became his bedroom in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

- - - - - - - - - -

By the time Pink Daisy reached his twentieth birthday he was the most unlikely knight in his father’s castle. For one thing, he was too short and too small, not much more than an extremely slender, delicate boy. He had trouble finding a steed to carry him and his knightly accoutrements, including his armor, shield, staff, sword, and saddle. His legs were simply too short to spread across the broad backs of the huge beasts regularly used by knights and so he had to settle for a horse a maiden might ride on an afternoon jaunt to pick wildflowers. All this added up to needing to have a couple of asses to carry his equipment and laughs and jeers from the Baron’s other knights.

Then there was his shield with its pink daisy. That was his father’s idea. It’s somewhat hard being seen in your father’s eyes as not much more than a joke that didn’t grow into a man. He looked as if he was as a boy in the throes of adolescence. Yet, as he grew up Pink still had to laugh every time the King came to their castle with his retinue. He always heard the King chuckle that visiting the Baron’s castle was like wandering through a garden full of Daisies.

Pink decided he needed to go on a quest to prove his worthiness to his father, or at least the King, who might grant him his own castle and estates separate from those of his father.

But where could he go? Practically all good quests had been accomplished. There was still the Chalice, but its location was beyond understanding, beyond all the scrolls in the entire world, though it was rumored to be protected by some horrible man-eating creature. He’d heard of a couple virgins still locked away in crumbling towers and guarded by hideous creatures and blood-curdling, screaming banshees. He wasn’t certain he had the nerve to go up against that kind of defense. Besides, what was he supposed to do with a virgin? They were probably so old no amount of magic could make them attractive to anyone except a gray hair. He could go to the King and ask for a quest, but he might be sent north to capture a unicorn or worse, a troll or goblin. Just his luck the King would ask for a troll or goblin just to see if a Daisy could do something other than look like a dandy going to a faire. No, going to the King was a bad idea.

What about a dragon? There weren’t very many of those left in the world, most were probably only legends. Pink decided to go to the King’s library and search for the location of a dragon he might be able to kill. He would then bring back its head and achieve all the rewards about which he’d ever dreamt.

“Father, may I leave your presence?” Pink asked as he approached the table where his father was sharing a meal with his other knights.

“Ah, my good gentlemen, look, it is my little Pinky,” the Baron sneered staring straight into Pink’s eyes. There was a thunderous guffaw as all the knights knew when they had permission to laugh at the Baron’s personal walking joke. Once they finished with their bemusement at the unlikeliest knight, the Baron asked, “Where does my little Pinky wish to go?”

“To the King’s library to search the records for a dragon I might slay to bring honor on your great house,” Pink answered purposefully leaving out the sirs, m’lords, and any other indication of his subservience to the one man in the entire world he had no respect for.

“A dragon! My little Pinky wants to slay a dragon,” the Baron guffawed. “Leave me child, your presence is no longer welcome and do me one favor, don’t come back. And I’ll give you your pony and asses, too!”

Unfortunately the King’s library gave little definite help other than dragons usually lived in caverns whose entrance was on high, steep mountain slopes, usually above a tall, difficult to climb cliff, usually close to a village in a nearby valley to supply virgins for the Rites of Spring. None of the scrolls or books clearly identified exactly where one might find a dragon. They simply said go into the highest mountains where dwarves commonly mined precious gems, gold, and silver and look for a village that seemed lacking in the number of young maidens. Then it was simply a matter of quietly asking around until someone pointed toward the mountain where the dragon lived.

As his little train of asses followed him out of the capital, Pink realized this wasn’t going to be an easy quest, if there was such a thing as an easy quest. Maybe that’s what quests were all about, getting extra knights out of the castle and away from their benefactor, probably forever. At the fork in the road, Pink turned west toward the first range of snowcapped peaks far beyond the great river that marked the end of the kingdom. Silently Pink hoped luck was on his side and he’d find a dragon sooner rather than later.