Diary of a Dragon (2 page)
Dear Diary
Here is a picture she has painted of me. While she makes me appear far older than I actually am (instead of flattering her host, she has done rather the reverse), I suppose it is a tolerable likeness. If she were not a human and a horrible singing princess-thing, I would perhaps even compliment her on it. As it is, I shall place the picture here between your pages, dear Diary, and perhaps I will let her live a bit longer, just to see if she can produce a portrait that better displays the noble lines of my face.
(I swear that I do not squint in that ridiculous fashion!)
Dear Diary
It is hard to believe, but apparently the princess-thing has a suitor. A large (by the standards of the species) and very stupid (by
any
standard) human appeared at the cave door today, called me the “Foul Kidnapper of the Demure and Beauteous Lillian”—which is, I suppose, the princess-thing’s name—and challenged me to a fight.
What was odd was that the princess appeared as irritated by the whole thing as I was. She kept yelling at us both to stop—the armored person seems to be named “Sir Greg”—and when we had been fighting a while, a mere hour or so, and were taking a little break, she called out that I was holding her captive with a magic spell, and that if this Greg person slew me, she too would perish.
Although I admit I was wheezing a bit, I am certain that when I had caught my breath again I would have finished him off, so I was not the least happy or relieved when he took her at her word and retreated back toward the castle. I asked her what she thought she was doing, since a lordly dragon would never trifle with cowardly, humanish things like spells.
“Trying to keep two idiots from killing each other,” was her reply. Smug, infuriating creature.
Dear Diary
She is painting and drawing almost all the time. Some of the pictures are nice, in their own way, and from time to time I shall use a bit of your sacred pages, O dearest Diary, to display them.
I have discovered to my horror that she has already drawn pictures of herself and other things in your margins, my poor abused Diary—I must have left you too near her bolt-hole when that ill-mannered, loose-stomached swine of a pig was causing trouble—so these pages have already been witness to her essentially criminal features.
No, I am unfair. It is only her musical inclinations that could truly be termed criminal. The rest of her behavior is merely unpleasant. In fact, she draws rather well, and although her high-handedness and self-absorption are appalling—just today she said that if she had her way, I would
never
get to eat her—she is by no means the worst of her noisy, soft-skinned species.
Dear Diary
I have discovered that it is occasionally almost pleasant to have another voice around the cave—as long as that voice is not raised in song, I hasten to say. But when the caterwauling stops, we from time to time have conversations, and I find myself enjoying the give and take.
Princess Lillian does not seem to miss the castle all that much. “They never let me do anything there,” was her explanation. “No one lets me draw—they insist it is not ladlylike. All they want me to do is stand around and swoon at how handsome the knights are. Piffle to that, I say.”
That made a kind of sense, but then she asked me why I live alone, which made no sense at all. How else should I live, I could not help asking. Dragons do not clump together in herds, like sheep and humans.
“But haven’t you ever been married? Aren’t there any female dragons?”
If I have chosen a lonely, even monastic life, that is to my credit, I pointed out. It has kept my purpose high and noble.
“And what purpose might that be?” she asked.
Humans are for eating, and
only
for eating. Talking with them is pointless. I shall remember that in the future.
Dear Diary
Princess Lillian has been very busy with something, although she will not show me what it is. In the meantime, either her singing has improved, or my ear for music has been deranged by her constant tone-deaf warbling, because in the middle of a quiet afternoon today (I was finishing up yesterday’s entry and she was working on her current mysterious project) I caught myself tapping my foot to one of her melodies.
I thought I had centuries to go until senility might be a concern, but I cannot help being worried.
Dear Diary
Sir Greg (who says is the least objectionable of all the knights, although “not exactly,” as she put it, “the most tightly-wound ribbon on the Maypole”) appeared in front of the cave again. But before I could go out and contest him with fire and talon, the princess asked me to take him something. Two things, actually: a large envelope and one of tiny, human size.
After Sir Greg had read the contents of the small one, he turned and went galumphing off on his horse without a word. I was quite ready for a fierce battle, so of course I was very disappointed, but it will leave a bit more time this afternoon for dusting my collection of Crusader helmets.
When I asked Lillian what all that had been about, she only smiled. She does it on purpose, I am certain—perhaps even practices when I am sleeping. No one can be so annoying by accident.