An Unlikely Hero in Snippets and Shorter Stories 2.0

2.1 May has arrived and so has the sunshine! Six months have passed since my first Snippets and Shorter Stories and the stories are back! Here is the starting story that is sure to challenge your ideas of a fairy tale. The picture's origin is unknown.

Dragon for Hire

Grinter shuffled through the forest on four legs, smelling the air for prey. If he was really lucky, he might come across a wolf, or, better yet, a bear. Grinter’s stomach growled at the thought of his first meal since waking up from his hundred year nap. He took a moment to stretch now that he was warmed up from moving and the golden sun glinting off his scales. Many mistook him for a gold dragon, but that wasn’t the case. After all, Grinter’s granddragon used to say, All that glitters is not gold. And it was a good thing his scales weren’t gold too. Gold is weak; such a soft metal, it would make terrible armor. He was actually made of Rilcon, the strongest material known.

    That didn’t stop people from trying to make gold armor. He had heard tales of some Knight proudly displaying a single scale he claimed he had knocked loose with a single arrow while Grinter had flown above his castle. The Knight had created gold armor and placed said scale in the middle of the helmet. Grinter shook his head and laughed at the memory, sending a small plume of black smoke curling from his nostrils. What a fool! The scale had been shed by Grinter and the Knight had found it while on a boar hunt. Besides that, the next year, the same Knight had been challenged to a duel and lost because a single blow from his challenger had struck him clean through the heart, the front, and the back of his gold armor. Serves him right! Grinter though as he sniffed the air again. Gold was useless in the way of protection, but exquisite in the way of beauty, decor, and in the case of Grinter, camouflage. Grinter laughed again, then resumed looking for food, suddenly eager to return to his hoard of treasure.

Suddenly, Grinter spotted something flapping in the breeze of a dead tree some thirty yards away. Crossing the distance in twenty-six leaps, Grinter approached the mysterious object in a burst of speed and opened his mouth to bite his unfortunate prey. However, it was not a tasty cougar as he had hoped but a piece of paper nailed to the tree trunk. Grinter stamped in disappointment and was about to belch out his liquid flame to incinerate the tree when he noticed the piece of paper had writing on it. Stilling his inner inferno, Grinter moved closer to read it.

blah. 1000 g blah blah rescue blah Princess

Grinter snorted. Some pathetic princess had gotten herself kidnapped by a Knight and was a captive in his dungeon again. If she wasn’t rescued by her own kingdom within a year of the initial kidnap, she would be forced to wed him. Personally, Grinter didn’t understand the politics of the whole Knight-capture-Princess deal, nor did he care much. Grinter didn’t know what most of the words were, he had never seen them before and didn’t know much of the human written language, nor did he care much to learn it. And what about that whole ‘1000 g’ part? What did that mean? Bah, let them squabble over such petty things. It is not for me to interfere. And with that he continued walking through the forest until he finally caught a whiff of a big, brown bear, fishing near a river. Keeping to the shadows, Grinter was about to pounce on his prey when he noticed that several fishermen were about twenty leaps upstream. He paused. Well, let them see him. It would do the world good to know he had awakened. His teeth ached to rip and tear; he would take his time eating. Grinter coiled his body but stopped short when he caught a brief snippet of their conversation.

“...thousand pieces of gold for her safe return...”

“...strongest Knight in the realm. Over 20,000 strong men in his army...”

“They say it can’t be done.”

“A thousand pieces of gold!”

Grinter felt the Desire for treasure grow within him. The inferno bubbled below his belly and roaring, Grinter raced forward and ate the entire bear (and several unlucky fish) in seven bites before splashing away, leaving behind five stupefied fishermen. Running at full speed, Grinter found the dead tree with the notice nailed on it and read it again.

This time it made more sense. The Princess’ kingdom was offering a thousand gold pieces to whoever rescued its’ princess. The Desire was quite strong now, overwhelming his previous qualms about the absurdity of the whole affair. Grinter reached his left paw up and rubbed his lower jaw, which ached from unhinging so quickly. I wonder...Grinter mused. I am strong, humans are weak. 1000 pieces of gold is a considerable sum. Perhaps...I should rescue this princess and claim it. They can hardly deny me, there is no rule stated that it must be a human. But is it beneath me to meddle with the affairs of humans? Grinter continued to think it over then decided he would try to rescue the princess. After all, he laughed to himself, how hard could it be to rescue a single princess?