Dragon Business

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Once upon a time and not so long ago, Tranquil Valley was filled with lush trailing vines, laden with delicately scented blooms. Graceful towering trees gave shade to the tiny, brightly plumed songbirds. Iridescent butterflies shimmered in the air, and when the twin suns rose over the mountains, the sparkling waterfalls were nothing short of breathtaking. Travelers came from all corners of the Three Kingdoms to behold the beauty of Tranquil Valley, and the money they spent on food and ale, lodging and cunningly carved souvenirs kept all nine picturesque Villages of the Valley prosperous and content. Then one day Lars the Mariner came riding home over the pass, with a gift for his five year old daughter.

His most recent trading voyage had been extremely successful, and he had spent the night before sailing for home carousing with his associates in a succession of taverns. In the morning, hungover and laden with coin, he remembered his promise to bring Jacinta a special gift and hurriedly perused the merchants of the dockside marketplace. The tiny creatures were about the size of his fist, soft and fluffy with big eyes and twitching noses. They made adorable chirruping noises and Jacinta, he knew, would be enchanted. The perfect pet for a little girl, the merchant assured him, and sturdier than they look. Lars bought three anyway, to increase the odds of one surviving the voyage, and because they were so cheap.

He did not think to ask why they were so cheap.

So home he sailed and home he rode with three fluff-balls who had all survived the journey. His wife Clara pursed her lips and pulled him aside to mutter tersely about who was really going to take care of these things, but Lars swanned past her with his roguish smile, soothed her tutting with a heavy bag of gold, and presented Jacinta with her gift. She squealed with delight.

She was also delighted with the ten tiny baby fluff-balls who appeared in their cage a week later. The fluff-balls it seemed, were breeding. Copiously and rapidly. A new litter of ten to twelve arrived like clockwork every four weeks, and all efforts to isolate them to avoid additional babies failed. They could climb and jump and being mostly fur, squeeze through the narrowest of cage bars. Lars was a salesman and an opportunist, and swiftly began marketing them to other families in the Nine Villages. He officially (if unimaginatively) named them “Fluff-Balls”, and soon almost every child under twelve had one. More than one, actually, since they continued to breed at staggering rates and within a few months Lars couldn’t give them away. Inevitably, eventually, some of them escaped into the valley.

Lars and other local optimists briefly speculated that the additional of adorable fluffy critters to the other local wildlife would only add to the Valley’s charm. These hopes were quickly dashed. The Fluff-Ball population soon overran the valley, gobbling up the lush vines and wildflowers, and then scampering up the trees to strip the foliage. After the plant life was decimated, the Fluff-Balls (not picky eaters, ironically used as a selling point by Lars) began hunting and eating the butterflies and songbirds. Finally the little creatures, having exhausted all other food supplies, turned to cannibalism, but still managed to breed faster than they consumed each other. The valley had turned from a lush paradise to a dusty wasteland pulsating with grubby, furry, vicious little killing machines. No longer could courting couples take romantic strolls by the shimmering falls, no longer could laughing children scamper among the flowers, chasing butterflies. And worst of all, the lucrative tourist gold dried up.

The villagers wanted to place blame and Lars, with his knack of getting out ahead of a scandal, deftly turned public attention from who brought Fluff-Balls to the area in the first place and then sold them in vast quantities to who might have been negligent enough to let their pets escape into the valley. Geroff the Cobbler was an easy target, meek and absentminded, with ten children and a house close to a trail leading right to the valley. Lars covertly pointed in his direction, Geroff panicked, and Lars magnanimously reframed the whole mess as a Regrettable Incident that he and the rest of the Inter-Village Council were perfectly capable of rectifying. Geroff was grateful to have the crushing tide of public opinion minimized, and to get away with some dirty looks in the marketplace and a few eggs thrown at his house.

It was not clear after the Council meeting just who had come up with the idea of introducing wolves to the valley to take care of the Fluff-Ball problem. Several members made strenuous objections but the overall consensus was that wolves would wipe out the fluffy infestation in an estimated six months and then retreat to their natural habitat, leaving the valley to gradually rebuild its ecosystem. Delm the Hunter and his two strapping sons were dispatched to the mountains, and returned with four wolves in a cage on a cart, which were released into the valley.

Things did not go as planned. The wolves ate the Fluff-Balls, and then settled down to breed themselves in the valley, which they decided they quite liked. Unfortunately the growing wolf population, after it had wiped out the Fluff-Balls, began to venture into the towns. Chickens regularly went missing, sometimes dogs and cats. Fearful parents no longer allowed their children to play outside - at least not without an older sibling with a crossbow standing guard. Then when one night Old Mother Betel was ambushed on her way to the outdoor privy, the villagers had had enough.

The blame this time was directed squarely at the council, and more than one member lost his position (whether or not they had been pro-wolf). Lars the Mariner retained his standing, employing his charm and silver tongued persuasion to its fullest effect. Always the opportunist, he toyed briefly with starting a wolf pelt business, but Delm the Hunter with his strapping sons and hunting prowess, had the advantage of him and got there first. It was not enough to notably curb the wolf numbers, or their encroachment on civilization. The Council convened again, with fresh faces and ideas in attendance.

It was once again unclear just who floated the idea of importing dragons to cull the wolves. The argument went that the dragons would rid the valley of the wolves and then return to their preferred habitat of caves, in which the valley was significantly lacking.

The idea certainly had it’s share of objectors, similarities to the ill-fated wolf plan being emphasized by some and dismissed by others. Delm, as head of the League of Huntsmen, and making a tidy profit, was among the most vocal of opponents. He was persuaded to another opinion though, when it was proposed that he and his sons have the lucrative contract to transport the dragons to the valley - from wherever they could be procured.

So it came to be that Lars the Mariner, with the majority vote of the council and the kind of funding only government can throw about, traveled two days later to the closest seaport of Glimmershore. There he put out the word that the Nine Villages were looking to acquire some dragons. In a dim tavern, over a pint of ale, he learned that a traveling carnival, only three days ride away, was looking to part with its dragons. The proprietors, it seemed, had grown tired of being harassed by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Dragons and was retiring it’s fire-breathing lizard act. Lars purchased provisions, hired a messenger to take word to Delm to meet him at the carnival with a pair of reinforced oversized cages on heavy duty carts, saddled up his horse, and went to broker the deal of a lifetime.

The deal went well. Lars got a bargain and pocketed the rest of the Council’s dragon buying budget as a finders fee. The carnival was happy to have the dragons off their hands and dragon rights activists off their backs. Delm, with his typical taciturn competence, appeared with all the equipment and manpower required and an extra cart of chickens to feed the dragons on the trip home.

Once in the valley, the dragons did indeed dispatch the wolves swiftly. Those not eaten had the sense to leave. And then, to very few people’s surprise (most of those people being on the Council), the dragons settled down to live and breed in the valley.

To be fair, it was better than wolves. The dragons bred slowly, and preferred to fly off to distant plains to bring back cattle as a food source. They largely left the humans alone. Nevertheless, this was not the plan and the people were at the end of their patience waiting to get their valley and business revenue back. With the collapse of the tourist industry, local commerce was in sharp decline. The young people were leaving in droves. Something had to be done.

The Council convened again and this time, Vali the Scribe, one of the newest members and sharper than most, kept running notes of who said what and so everyone knew that it was Lars the Mariner who proposed rebranding the area as a Dragon Tourist Spot and rebuilding the industry with a whole new marketing campaign.

Thus it was that on a bright summer morning, Lars (accompanied by Delm and his crossbow) ventured into the valley to get a look at exactly what they were dealing with.

He expected dragons.

He expected a certain amount of the plant life to be returning.

He expected to be struck by at least one brilliant idea to lure tourists and their coin back to the area.

What he didn’t expect was for the oldest dragon to sidle up to him and open negotiations for a cut of the profits.